Translation Methodology
Great translation is not solely based on correctly translating word for word. There are important yet invisible factors to take into account such as the context, the tone of voice, consistency of your translation, and whether your translators have enough of those information to help you do a great job. The most important, a well defined process with an experienced account manager will help a lot.
The 3 Phases in Professional Translation Process
Pre-translation
Defining Glossary terms
In every project, there are usually a few key terms that define the product (e.g. “Like” in Facebook) that we need to make sure they are translated accurately and consistently in every use case. This is where a glossary – sometimes called a terminology database or termbase – comes in as it is specially designed for this purpose.
OneSky’s account manager will help to define a set of important terms for the project and confirm with the person in charge in your team.
The account manager will get the translators to translate all terms before kick starting the app translation.
Prepare Context Information
Context information is very important for translators to provide the best-fit translations. Preparing context information takes time as well. The account manager will work with your product team in order to make sure there are sufficient screenshots and phrase descriptions prepared.
Translation
Reporting Problematic Source Phrases
There might be problems in some of the source phrases that they cannot be translated into the target languages properly. The translators will report the problems in the source phrases to the account manager if any. Your production team will be informed afterwards with reasons.
Clarifying Context Information
There might be a few phrases that require extra explanation from your product team even with the context information available. The account manager will serve as the bridge between the translators and the product team in order to clarify all possible confusions.
Post-translation
On-device Quality Assurance
After delivering the translations, we’ll also help test the localized version of the product in order to make sure everything is fine in the final product. The translators will fix the translation directly on OneSky and your team will be informed for the changes if any.
The account manager will also gather the error reports from the translators if they found some problems that cannot be fixed by simply updating the translations. For example, some fonts problems. The reports will be sent to your product team afterwards for fixing.