In the past couple of weeks, we’ve covered several essential localization subjects, such as the potential target languages for your website and stylistic issues you should tackle when entering a foreign market.
However, there is still the question of who should translate your content. Who will localize your website, marketing materials, software, or email communications and which approach is the best for your brand? Today we will look at the various techniques you have at hand and help you choose the best translation option for your business.
Translation option #1: Machine translation
The good:
Machine translation is the simplest way to translate your content using machine translation engines like Google Translate. You can translate your material into several languages in seconds without breaking the bank.
Machine translation has a bad reputation due to old versions of machine translation engines, which use a statistical approach to translating. This often provided hilarious results. In the past couple of years, however, machine translation has moved on to the neural approach, meaning that it now attempts to understand what you want to say and tries to learn from its mistakes.
The bad:
Of course, machine translation cannot still translate highly sophisticated content, marketing messages, or legal documents. It can only provide equally good results for some language combinations you throw at it. However, machine translation offers very good results for the most popular languages and for various types of general content.
How to use it with Text United:
Machine translation can be used in two very distinct ways within our system.
- The first one is the complete machine translation of files.
It means you upload a file to our system, run machine translation on the whole file, and download the translated version. No human translators or reviewers are involved in the process, and you get results almost instantly. Our clients usually use this method for internal files or documents.
- The second is the machine translation and human review approach.
It is an often-used approach, as it provides you with a translated version instantly. You can then have a human reviewer (usually a native speaker of the target language) check the translation, comparing it to the source and making necessary corrections.
It’s worth mentioning that with this approach, anyone can be a human reviewer:
- it can be you
- it can be your colleague from your office or another subsidiary
- it can be a freelance translator you work with
- it can be one of Text United‘s reviewers if you don’t have anyone for the specific target language
- it can be all of the above
Our clients often use this translation option for website localization projects and for translating files like product catalogues, user manuals, etc. Another significant benefit is that this approach is cost-saving. The review costs only a fraction of the complete human translation, so you can get higher-quality translations at low costs.
Translation option #2. Colleagues
The good:
As you saw above, our clients often use machine translation in combination with their colleagues from other subsidiaries, who then check and improve the machine-translated content where necessary.
When you think about it, your colleagues can be a free source of translation, and with the right Translation Management System, such as the one we provide, you can set up a very efficient internal localization workflow.
The bad:
Although you don’t pay your colleagues to review or translate your content, the downside to this approach is that your colleagues usually also have other things to do, so they might not be able to help you finish the translation on time.
How to use it with Text United:
You can set up the whole workflow within our system and invite your colleagues to translate the files you want to handle internally. On the other hand, they can also start working immediately in our online portal, so installing additional software is unnecessary.
Our clients use this approach to translate any content, as your colleagues can help you with anything, from an important email you want to send out to highly complex marketing messages.
Translation option #3. Freelance translators
The good:
Human translators bring the highest level of quality to the table. You can use freelance translators to translate anything you need if you can access excellent and experienced translators.
The bad:
The downsides are also evident, with this being the most expensive option, which you will likely primarily wish to use for highly-specific content. The turnaround time can be slower than for machine-translated content reviewed by a human, and you should pre-define the terminology and the style guide.
How to use it with Text United:
As with all the other approaches, our Translation Management System allows you to set up the workflow in any way which suits you best.
You can upload translation files and choose your freelancer, send it to us and our freelancers, or use a combination of both. Then, you can define the terminology within the system and work with our project managers on the style of the translation.
All the translation options above have their upsides and downsides and remember that it’s up to you to decide which approach you want to use. With our system, you can set up any of the abovementioned workflows and combine them.
Our project managers are there to help with advice so that you get the right approach and the network of over 4.500 freelance translators lets you cut out the traditional translation agencies and save costs.
