Every translation need is different, so we cannot offer a one-size-fits-all approach to all localization needs. However, here are five reasons that an LSP might be best for your project.
2. INTRODUCTION
There are a few ways to get a translation.
Have personnel in your company do the
translation
Look for a freelance translator.
Use a machine translation like Google Translate.
Send the job to an LSP.
3. WHAT IS AN LSP?
An LSP is a company that manages translation projects by:
o Receiving an order
o Calculating the cost
o Finding translators
o Managing the translation process
o Ensuring translation quality
o Delivering the translation to the customer
o And finally, paying the translators
Every situation is different but here are five reasons that an LSP might be best for your
translation project.
4. #1 - A POOL OF DEPENDABLE TRANSLATORS
An LSP has a long-term relationship with dependable freelancers.
If you want to find freelancers for yourself, you have to wade through thousands of
resumes.
You must weed out unqualified candidates while, at the same time, trying to avoid
fake resumes and scammers.
Finding a good freelancer can take hours, which you could be spending doing what
you do best.
An LSP, on the other hand, has already gone through the process of finding
dependable translators.
5. DEPENDABLE
TRANSLATORS
CONTINUED…
A good LSP keeps careful
records of translators’
strengths and weaknesses
in order to match them
with appropriate projects
They rate them on
accuracy, speed, expertise
and other metrics
The LSP can have a high
degree of confidence in
its linguists
6. FIELD EXPERTS
An LSP is better prepared to deal with contingencies than you are on your own.
Imagine this: You need to have a document about telescope mirrors translated into
German by an expert. You find a German translator, who is an expert on telescopes.
In the middle of your project, that translator breaks his or her wrist.Where does
that leave your project?Will you be able to find another dependable German
translator who knows about telescope mirrors?
An LSP has relationships with multiple translators that are experts in their fields and
that can step in to take a project in case of an accident. So if you hire an LSP, instead
of getting just a freelance translator, you are also getting a risk management solution.
7. #2 - NO NEED TO ACQUIRE SPECIALIZED TOOLS
An LSP will have already purchased all of the specialized software necessary for
translation project management.
However, for large projects and for an effective long-term localization strategy,
numerous tools streamline the process and safeguard quality.
One example is a translation project management software, such as Plunet.
After you start to work on a few projects and a few translators, you need a robust
business management suite to effectively and efficiently deal with contact
management, quote generation, invoicing, queries, and reporting.
An LSP already has systems to coordinate the complex business of translation.
8. NO NEED FOR SPECIALIZED TOOLS CONTINUED…
Another necessary tool is a translation environment
called a computer-aided translation (CAT) tool, such
as memoQ, or Memsource.
They lower costs, increase speed and improve accuracy
by remembering all previous translations and offering
suggestions for current translations.
CAT tools have advanced quality assurance functionality
to check for common errors.
Changes made by translators instantly sync with the
server sentence by sentence.
LSPs also maintain tools to help their clients
communicate with the translators, such as Smartsheet.
9. #3 - QUALITY ASSURANCE
LSPs can offer quality assurance and review.
A good LSP can ensure that you receive high-quality translations.
Project managers review all translations before delivery to check for common errors,
such as extra spaces, or mismatching numbers.
The text can be sent to a second translator to review for accuracy.
This review focuses on potential linguistic errors in the text.
After a review by a second translator, you can be confident that your “Ich bin ein
Berliner” doesn’t mean “I am a jelly doughnut.”
10. #4 - IMPROVE CONSISTENCY
LSPs create and maintain term bases and translation memories.
A term base is basically a list of words in the source language with the
appropriate translations of those words in the target language.
This is especially useful for names of products and other company-specific words.
This tool ensures linguistic accuracy and consistency.
Not only can the term base tell the translator what words to use, it can also tell the
translator what words not to use.
For example, languages frequently have two words that have the same meaning–a
transliteration from another language as well as a more formal translation.
11. IMPROVE CONSISTENCY CONTINUED…
Translation memory records how every sentence
has been translated in the past.
If a sentence in the current document is identical to
a sentence in a document already translated, the
previous translation will be automatically inserted.
If the sentence is similar, the translator may need to
change only a few words.
Translation memory leads to a huge increase not
only in speed but also consistency.
In the future, any given source sentence in the
documentation about a particular project will always
be translated the same way.
12. #5 - SAVE $$$
Translation memory especially shows its worth with software documentation.
If a company translates documentation for version 1.1, the LSP will create a new
translation memory and enter all of the translation pairs into it.
Then when the documentation for version 1.2 comes out and is only 15 percent
different from that of version 1.1, the LSP will then use the translation memory to
automatically pre-translate the 85 percent of the documentation that has been
translated before.
As a result, the software company will pay for only the 15 percent that was different
from the previous version.
13. SAVE $$$ CONTINUED…
Further, if out of that 15 percent, 10 percent is similar to text that was in version 1.1,
the software company will get a discount for that text, so it ends up paying full price
for only 5 percent of the documentation of version 1.2.
Imagine how much the company will save by the time it reaches version 20!
Clearly, term bases and translation memories are essential for large scale and long
term translation.
An LSP will maintain these resources for you, leading to more and more savings as the
time goes on while at the same time keeping the language consistent.
14. A SINGLE POINT OF CONTACT = TIME SAVINGS
Finally, an LSP is your single of point of contact
for all of your translation needs.
If you hire 10 different translators to translate a
message into 10 different languages, imagine how
many emails you will have to send and receive?
How many people will you have to contact and
negotiate with?
And how many project milestones will you have
to keep track of?
How many invoices will you have to process?
15. AN LSP SIMPLIFIES SO MUCH…
If you make use of an LSP, all of that legwork is completed by one person—a project
manager—who is accountable to one person—you.
The project manager at the LSP will analyze all of the documents, contact all of the
translators, set up communication between them and the experts at your company,
check up on the progress on all the jobs, perform quality assurance, and the list goes
on.
Those are all things you don’t have to do.
16. FINAL WORDS…
It is best if engineers stick to engineering rather than emailing translators or if
marketing teams stick to marketing instead of searching for freelancers or if
developers stick to development rather than examining thousands of words in a
foreign language for potential errors.
Your company could see significant savings if you hire an LSP instead of managing the
project on your own.
17. IVANNOVATION, LLC is a premier translation and localization provider of user interface,
documentation,
and marketing materials for the IT, software
development, and manufacturing industries.
Get a free quote for your project.
Phone: (864) 735-8425
www.ivannovation.com
This slide deck was adapted from an article on our blog.
