Detailed Translation Process

You phone us or write to us by e-mail or fax, telling us about the document you need to have translated. Please mention: the language from which it is to be translated and the target language or languages, the subject, the size, (number of pages or words), the time frame within which you need the completed work, the purpose of the translation (publication, patents, consultation…).

A manager from our team will then contact you, to understand your request. We give you single-window service, with the same manager seeing your project through to the end.

To give you an accurate quotation we will likely need to see a few pages of the text to be translated. If you wish, we can sign a confidentiality agreement straightaway, by fax. You would then send us a few sample pages or the whole text using our estimate request form, or by fax or e-mail.

We will then give you an accurate quotation for your document: the price in American Dollars or Euros, and the time required for delivery of your translation. The price will depend on language pair, difficulty of the text, tables and figures, and your deadline. For example, a list of medical or technical terms or a translation concerning scientific instruments may be more expensive than a simple discursive text.

If you accept our proposal, from first time customers, we request 25% payment in advance before we start your work. This can be done by credit card or by bank transfer.

The translation can then commence. Be sure to send along glossaries of special in-house terms, already developed terminology, abbreviations or job titles, and other relevant documentation. This ensures that your new translation is in harmony with texts that have gone before. Our translator-specialist will do a first reading. If he feels there are points that he needs to clear with you, we may be back in touch with you. But if there is no problem, the translation goes ahead smoothly.

After it is completed by the main translator, the translation is proofread by a second translator, unknown to the first translator. This is a very strict re-reading and red ink is not spared. Every figure and proper noun is individually checked (see our Guidelines for Translators).

Finally, a third native language speaker does a third reading to ensure that all the proof reader’s changes have been correctly entered and that the document reads smoothly.

We are then ready to e-mail or fax you your translated document. Payment is requested on delivery of the translation project.

After sales service: After delivery we contact you again to ensure that you are satisfied with our work. We guarantee our work against any mistakes.

If you wish us to make any changes to the final document, we will be happy to make them for you, promptly, without discussion and free of charge.

All your original documents are returned to you or destroyed. If you wish we can mail you all photocopies, drafts and notes pertaining to your translation. We undertake not to keep any of your documents or copies.

If you wish to have your translated text typeset, laid out, printed, made into a multimedia presentation CD/DVD, a website, a video presentation, we can undertake these steps for you.

Your translation is done. Now it’s time to present it!

We offer a one-stop solution, taking your translation to the next and final stages, if you are producing a book, a leaflet, a CD-ROM, a web site, video, software…

Graphic design: User’s manuals, catalogues, packaging, in-house publications, magazines, advertisements, books, flyers, brochures, tourism guides, annual reports etc.

Word processing: Scripts, theses, surveys, transcripts and questionnaires.

Internet: An exact copy of your web site, including text converted to graphics, hyperlinks, pop-up windows, Flash, DHTML and other multimedia effects.

Transcription: Press conferences, speeches, meetings, interviews, video.

Business software: Internal communications, spreadsheets, databases, overhead projection slides, PowerPoint presentations, tables, charts, and technical drawings.

Working in concert with our graphic artists, our translators ensure that no errors creep in during the layout stage. This kind of collaboration dramatically reduces errors due to layout staff’s unfamiliarity with a given language, and/or non-local versions of layout software. Punctuation habits vary widely from country to country and, all too often, typesetters change texts to respect their local conventions. Having translation and graphic design done by the same team can save you time and money, allowing reproduction of documents in as many languages as you wish at the final stage of the translation process.

Printed projects: We can work with printers and other service providers and arrange for high-resolution typesetting and offset printing, once again ensuring a faithful translation of a layout in to a printed piece.

Our translators and layout staff, working as a team, respond quickly when last-minute changes need to be integrated into layouts.
We have fast Macintosh and Windows computers and we use the latest versions of: Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, Acrobat, and DreamWeaver, the Microsoft Office suite, as well as many others. High-performance computers and the latest software ensures there won’t be any “conversion” problems when we open and work on your document files.

Press Check: Seeing your translation project through to the final stages, as it leaves the print shop, allows quality control all along the way, avoiding expensive mistakes. We check printing companies’ page proofs against layout staffers’ mockups, and, as always, this against the final, corrected draft of the translated manuscript.