Translation quality management: 5 steps to improve translation quality

Going global presents a remarkable opportunity for businesses to expand their reach and venture into untapped markets. But without proper translation quality management, your global content can get lost in translation – literally.

Mistakes, inconsistencies, and lack of localization in translated materials can harm your brand. More importantly, bad translations can confuse or offend your international target audiences – like if you try to sell a pair of shoes using cm instead of inches in the UK. This not only wastes resources but can also damage your reputation.

As a Senior Analyst at Common Sense Advisory, Nataly Kelly points out, “Global businesses are spending millions of dollars on translation, and a single error can have many downstream impacts”. So, what exactly does quality management entail for translated content?

This blog post will examine the five steps your company can take to improve translation quality when working with a vendor. 

What is translation quality management?

Translation quality management refers to the processes and procedures in place to ensure high-quality translation output. This practice involves setting quality standards and implementing controls to accurately convey the source text’s meaning and avoid any potential pitfalls related to spelling and grammatical inaccuracies. However, its scope frequently expands to include additional pre-established requirements, such as 

• adapting culture-specific elements 
• using terminology consistently 
• adhering to client specifications 
• ensuring good readability

5 steps to improve translation quality 

1) Professional, specialized translators 

Hiring experienced translators specializing in your particular industry or subject matter is key for accurate translations. Domain expertise ensures translators understand the source text and produce content using the right terminology and style. Ampere Translations require the following qualifications from all candidates:

• An advanced degree in the subject matter or an advanced degree in translation plus extensive work experience within the relevant field. 
• At least 5 years of experience translating documents in the language pair and subject to be translated.

2) Proofreaders and/or editors

Adding an extra pair of eyes to your texts will not only help you correct potential errors in grammar, spelling or punctuation, but it will improve the flow, readability and structure. Proofreaders and editors provide an additional control point to confirm terminology, style, formatting, and overall quality before finalizing translations.

3) Translation project managers 

Translation project managers play an important role in maintaining quality across translation projects. They are the point of contact for each client and supervise each step of the translation process, including: 

• Assigning the project to the right translator
• Maintaining multilingual glossaries and translation memories 
• Facilitating communication between the client and translators 
• Preparing and monitoring quality assurance checklists

4) Translation technology  

CAT tools and machine translation improve translator productivity, leverage content already translated, and ensure consistency across multiple projects for the same client. In addition, CAT tools often come with built-in quality assurance checks to flag errors and inconsistencies. 

Translation technology also facilitates collaboration between multiple translators who can work on the same project simultaneously, while clients can have total visibility on the project and even communicate directly with the linguists through a single platform. 

5) QA (Quality Assurance) tools

QA tools can significantly improve the quality of translations by helping identify potential issues like missing tags, formatting errors, grammar mistakes and more, allowing translators to catch and correct them before finalizing the translation.

You can also set up and perform specific checks based on the project’s requirements – such as establishing the maximum number of characters for specific strings to avoid problems with text expansion. 

Rest assured with Ampere Translations 

Ampere Translations is proud to help companies expand on the global market, all while maintaining a fair and reasonable pricing structure. Through our consultative approach, you will easily understand what services you need and how to make the most of your investment in translation. 

Partnering with a trusted language service provider will be invaluable to communicating effectively with your international customers – Waste no time and seize the moment to reach out to us today!