How to Avoid Costly Translation Reviews

To avoid time-consuming back and forth discussions with your translator and make both of your jobs easier, there’s one simple thing you can do – provide a good translation brief.

So, you’ve chosen to expand your business. You know it will be more lucrative for you to reach customers around the world, and you’ve teamed up with an LSP to make it happen. But how do you make sure the translations remain on-brand, avoiding the need for future manual edits? What is the key to doing localization right? The answer is simple: write a good brief.

Top 5 tips for creating a successful translation brief:

1. Define your target audience

The first step to defining your target audience is to understand what they want. You need to know what their goals are, how they intend to achieve them, and what motivates them to act. Once you have identified these things, you can start to think about who they are.

Who are they? Where are they located? How old are they? Are they male or female? Do they live alone or with others? What kind of people are they? What do they look like? What do they wear? What do they drive? What do they eat? What do they read? What do they watch? What do they listen to? What do they buy? What do they hate? What do they love? What do they fear? What do they dream about? What do they believe in? You get where we're going.

2. Be specific about what you want

It is not enough to say “I need a translation”; you have to be clear about what you want. If you don’t know exactly what you want, you could end up getting something completely different than what you wanted. Provide context and end goals.

Aside from who the content is targeting, it’s important to make clear what purpose the translation ought to serve. Are you translating a marketing email and looking to influence customer purchasing? Or perhaps a product manual with the goal of increasing user understanding and product usage? Are you translating a press release aimed at establishing brand awareness? Answering questions like these will provide your translator with the context needed to best convey your message and achieve your ultimate goal.

3. Set priorities and deadlines

You don't want to end your project without having a clear idea of where you're going. And you certainly don't want to leave your translators hanging.Set deadlines and communicate clearly about what you need. Don't assume that your translator knows what you need unless you've discussed it explicitly.

It's easy to get lost in the weeds when working on a project. But you don't want to lose sight of the big picture.

Know what's coming next, and how each step fits into the bigger picture. That way, you'll know exactly what you need to do next.

Perhaps you have a large website localization project. The H1s and H2s are the most important and should be translated first, as the design team is waiting for them – and once you finalize the translation, the design team will need to adjust formatting and introduce additional iterations. The meta tags and descriptions, however, are far less important, as the SEO team will only input them the last week before the site goes live. These are the types of details that a translator needs to know to work with you efficiently.

4. Specify layout and format requirements

A few days ago I was looking at a website that had a bunch of different languages listed out on their site. There were over 30 different languages listed. I noticed that some of them were written in the wrong direction (like in Hebrew), while others were written in the same direction (like in English). If you're not familiar with these types of languages, here's a quick explanation.

Hebrew is written right-to-left, so if you translate it from English you would write it in the opposite direction. Arabic is written left-to-right, so if you translate from English you would write the translation in the same direction.So what happens if you want to translate something from English to Arabic? You need to flip the text around!

In the process of translating, text length can change significantly depending on the language – as is often the case with English to Spanish translations – or it might even be written in the opposite direction.

5. Provide a glossary or writing guide ​

1. Let's first take a look at both terms and their definitions:

• Glossary: A glossary is a list of words or terms that have specific meanings within a particular context. A glossary may be used to provide definitions of technical terms, to define slang, or simply to clarify the meaning of commonly used words.

• Writing Guide: A writing guide provides information about how to format a document using different styles, including headings, subheadings, lists, tables, etc. In addition, it includes tips on how to organize text and structure ideas. It helps writers create well-structured documents that are easy to read and understand.

This is especially useful if you have a big, multi-part project, or plan to submit multiple projects in the future – but you can still provide a glossary and style/writing guide even for a one-off translation project. If you have specific words that you want to use that are part of your branding, or you like certain ideas expressed with specific terms, a glossary or guide can explain this to the translator. Sometimes, translators get creative in order to make something sound better in their language. While this is generally a good thing, it may or may not be what you want. Providing these guidelines could make sure the translation stays true to the messaging you want to convey.

​This is especially useful if you have a big, multipart project, or plan to submit multiple projects in the future – but you can still provide a glossary and style/writing guide even for a one-off translation project. If you have specific words that you want to use that are part of your branding, or you like certain ideas expressed with specific terms, a glossary or guide can explain this to the translator. Sometimes, translators get creative in order to make something sound better in their language. While this is generally a good thing, it may or may not be what you want. Providing these guidelines could make sure the translation stays true to the messaging you want to convey.

The bottom line about translation briefs

When you get a translation, ask yourself if it meets your expectations. Ask questions about the quality of the translation, how well it matches your tone, and whether it was done correctly. If you find any issues, let the translators know right away.

Get it reviewed: If you think that the translation is bad, then you should tell the translator immediately. You may want to give them some feedback on how they did. However, it is best to get someone else to review the translation before you tell the translator.

Make sure that you understand everything that is being translated. Don’t rely solely on the translator to explain things to you. Take notes while they translate and read over them after they finish. You should keep track of any changes that were made to the document. Let the translator know what you changed, and ask them to change their translation accordingly.

After you receive the translation, meet with the translator (this can also be online) and discuss any changes that you would like to make. If you feel that the translation does not accurately reflect your original intent, then you can request that the translator makes changes to the translation.

Write down everything that you discussed at the meeting. This way, you will always remember what happened, and you won't forget anything.