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One project/many languages: A step-by-step guide to a stress free job
Does this sound familiar? Your company has just developed a new idea for a new product. The product has passed the research phase, which required a considerable investment of time, people and money. Your company has calculated the developmental cost and developed a promotion plan. You, the product manager, know that all of your carefully crafted marketing copy, originally written in English, will require translation into all of the languages spoken in your company’s international target markets. Even though you fully understand the importance of this, the process of new product development has consumed all of your time. You’ve started the countdown for the release date of the new product and then you suddenly remember, “ooops, I forgot to translate the marketing and product information!” How many languages were there again...? 10? 12? 21? You are confident that your translation vendor will be able to complete all of the necessary translations in time—after all, there are only a few documents that need to be translated. So, you call your translation vendor’s account representative, and she tells you that it will take at least two weeks to complete the entire translation. “Why!?” you ask. She tells you that those few documents you sent her contain approximately 20K words, and your project will require extensive rewrites due to its heavy use of marketing jargon. You don’t understand—how is it possible? You decide to call a few other translation vendors, and they give you the same answer. You start to panic because it looks like the product will not be released on time, and you are going to be responsible for the delay. Shall we rewind? Let’s rewind this potential nightmare and see if you could have a less stressful time dealing with THOSE translations. Below you will find a step by step guide to a stress free translation project into multiple languages. Let’s say you have a 20K word marketing project. A translator can translate, on average, 1500 words/day. This will require 13 working days for the translation itself. Add an additional 2-3 days for editing. Include at least one business day for project management and QA. For a translation project of this size and type, allow for at least 17 business days. Of course, each project is unique and requires an individual analysis.
Further ways to lower your stress level at translation time include:
Obviously, this is a general list that can be applied to a variety of projects where multilingual content is a necessity. Each individual project, especially a larger, time-consuming one, will have its unique problems, goals and criteria that will allow for modification and customization of this list to meet those specific needs. I hope that this list will help you make your next project less stressful, and help you plan for a successful international product launch. If the best of plans go awry and circumstances beyond your control create a scenario that is less than ideal, at least you have good information to understand the challenges that you and your vendor will face. I am here to answer any further questions you may have and ensure your success with projects of all shapes and sizes. (Send all of your queries to Olga, your “stress free translation project expert”)
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