In addition to preparing files for translation and ensuring strong terminology knowledge, SimulTrans reviews the translated text thoroughly before completion.
Internal Review
After the translation is completed, SimulTrans undertakes several rounds of review to ensure accuracy of translation and a natural style in written text, conveying the meaning without reading like a literal translation. SimulTrans typically undertakes internal quality checks at the following points during a project:
- After the glossary is created, researched, and translated by the lead linguist, all members of the linguistic team review the glossary, in cooperation with appropriate subject matter experts.
- After the translation of each component (software, help, documentation), a subject-matter expert technically reviews the translations to ensure the terminology accurately reflects the contents of the glossary, the industry customs, and the expectations of the target customers. (This step is often called "technical review" or "editing")
- After the subject-matter review of each component (software, help, documentation), a second professional linguistically reviews all translated materials to ensure complete, correct, and consistent translations. (This step is often called "linguistic review" or "proofreading.")
- During all stages of translation, a lead linguist provides sampling of the translations to provide an objective measurement of the quality of the text, counting major and minor errors of various types. If major errors are encountered in the initial translation (even before review), the translation is rejected and redone or passed through another review round. The results of the sampling are entered in SimulTrans' translation management system, allowing us to measure the results of each project and of the quality of the work of each translator over time.
- For software components, linguistic testing is completed after the compilation of the software to check the text in each language as it appears on the screen.
- Localization testing of software is also completed by the engineering staff to ensure issues including shortcut key assignments, dialog box sizing, and language-related operating system interactions have been addressed. Other forms of testing, including functionality testing, are completed at clients' requests.
- For documentation components, a final formatting review is undertaken after the documents are formatted to ensure that they are graphically correct, including adhering to the original template, addressing text expansion appropriately, and displaying graphics correctly.
- After the final formatting review, a final linguistic review is completed where a linguist ensures that the formatting did not disturb any language elements, such as graphic callouts, headers and footers, index entries, etc.
- At the end of a project, a final audit is completed to ensure all quality reviews were undertaken and completed correctly and that the final deliverable contains the appropriate files.
Client Review
SimulTrans provides our clients with an opportunity to be involved in reviewing quality by gathering input from a client-reviewer at various stages of the project, including in the glossary development process and during and after each phase of translation.
Any translation errors are fixed free of charge. One round of preferential or stylistic changes requested by client reviewers will also typically be implemented without a fee.
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