Translation - Buying a non-commodity

Would you consider translation to be a commodity? If it were a commodity it would be enough to say: “You need a translation? Go out and ask several translation service providers how much they charge per word and choose the lowest figure.” End of story.

However translation is not like that, listing your priorities—drawing up specifications —will help you get what you need. Therefore making translation a non-commodity for example, you will need to specify the language you want your text translated into (e.g. French or German or Japanese), the type of document being translated, the subject-matter expertise needed by the person doing the translation, the intended readers, the purpose of the translation and the regional variation of the target language. Collectively, these and other factors make up the specifications for your translation.

A universal truth?
The sheer variety of translation projects is daunting. So daunting, in fact, that even experts sometimes wonder if there is any single piece of advice that applies to all translation projects. In every translation project, the buyer and the language service provider (translator or translation team) should agree in advance on a set of specifications to be followed while carrying out the project.

If you don’t identify what you want up front—or do identify it but those instructions don’t reach the person doing the work, or aren’t understood by him or her—you are unlikely to get a good translation. Repairing a poor translation costs even more time and money, and may also affect your image and reputation if you have inadvertently offended or left readers grappling with an incomprehensible phrase.

This is where the European translation standard (CEN EN 15038) and the American translation standard (ASTM F 2575) come in. Although they were developed independently, they fit together very well—much like building codes and blueprints when you are building a home.

There are three shared key points in each of these standards:

  • Select your human resources with care (CEN 3.2; ASTM 6)—translators must know both the source and target languages, as the translators are not interchangeable
  • Come to an agreement on your project specifications before translation begins (CEN 3.4 and 4.4; ASTM 4.3 and 8) as your project-specific answers are your specifications.
  • Follow the specifications at every step of the project.
  • Ensure your supplier uses right technology in particular terminology management.

Standards will help you ensure quality and get all stakeholders — buyers, project managers and individual translators — speaking the same language. As we’ve seen, translation is not a commodity, which means that using price as your sole criterion in selecting a supplier is a bad idea (maybe even a very bad idea).Thus standards can help make translation a manageable non-commodity.

Source: Durban & Melby 2008