Here are a few pro-active steps you can take that will allow your translator to work more effectively, which will allow that person to complete your work within the deadline required, and taking full account of your needs:
1. Indicate any of your preferred references (glossaries, web sites, etc.) to the translator. Does your company or agency maintain any documentation on the subject of the translation? Have certain terms (names of organisations, departments, job titles, etc.) already been translated?
2. As far as possible, submit only the final version of your text for translation; if substantial changes are required after translation has begun, this may complicate and slow the progress of work on your project.
If changes must be made to the original version, we recommend indicating them in such a way that the translators can rapidly identify them (highlighted text, using the "tracking changes" option, etc.)
3. Indicate the meaning of all acronyms and all abbreviations.
You may know what the acronym CANO means in a given context, but will the translator? If he doesn't, a long time may be spent doing terminological research, that could easily have been time saved. Furthermore, this may even delay the delivery of the text, especially if the deadline was already particularly tight. Aside: do you know what the acronym CANO, above, means? Answer: Coopérative des artistes du Nouvel-Ontario.
4. Where there is any doubt (foreign names, names with unclear gender-associations, etc.), we recommend you provide a note indicating whether the person is male or female.
It can sometimes be hard to determine gender in English texts, unless the name is followed by a personal pronoun (he, or she). This has an effect on the agreement of nouns, participles and adjectives. Consider the instance of job titles: would Pat Smith be a directrice or a directeur and would Jasvir Birdi be an administratrice or an administrateur?
5. In the case of documents that are particularly technical (or descriptive), it would be helpful if an illustration or some additional informative text accompanied the document, to clear the way for complete understanding of the text to be translated. A picture is sometimes worth 1,000 words!
6. Try to reserve sufficient time in your production calendar for the translation portion of your project.
As the proverb goes: More haste, less speed. Translation: if the original version took a week to complete, it is unlikely that the translator will be able to complete his part of the job in just a few hours. Translators often perform miracles, however some miracles remain beyond their grasp.
7. Have faith in your translators.
They may not be infallible, but they are professionals in which one can have faith, in the same sense that one can hand over one's car with complete faith to one's mechanic or one's personal affairs to a lawyer. Furthermore, Mots pour Maux offers three significant benefits to its clients: the president of the bureau is a certified translator, the bureau always handles your documents as a team, and we carry professional liability insurance coverage. These are three clear indices of professionalism.
8. Who is the intended audience?
This affects the "tone" of the translation and the selection of terms. Is this to be a promotional text, exuding dynamism and originality? Who is going to be reading it: the general public, university researchers, or high-school students? You know your text and its readers better than anybody else; we encourage you to share this information with us.
