Ensuring Prompt Delivery And Quality Are Major Challenges

Nov. 27, 2009 - PRLog -- Ensuring prompt delivery and quality are major challenges

PR Holding Ltd., 21st August 2008

A survey of more than 200 business respondents carried out by the filologi.com translation group regarding translation services showed that punctuality and quality were major challenges faced by British translation agencies.

One quarter of the British enterprises surveyed mentioned poor quality by translators. The respondents reported crucial omissions in original terminology in approximately 28.2% of translations, while grammatical and stylistic mistakes were encountered in 20.8% of cases. Only 42.1% of clients were fully satisfied with the quality of the translation services they received.

Wrong terminology, incorrectly translated original phraseology and slipshod construction of sentences are characteristic features of many translations. In addition, the enterprises involved in the survey complained about translations with poor literary language along with stylistic mistakes. However, the fact that only 5.1% of respondents reported being disappointed with punctuation and grammar is a plus for the translation agencies.

filologi.com believes that the survey shows the true situation in the translation market in Britain, which is essentially based on providing cheap and fast service. This explains why a client choosing a translation agency has to accept that higher quality will mean having to pay more. In turn, translation agencies wishing to provide excellence in translation services must financially motivate their top employees.

For their part, translators must pay more attention to the quality-quantity ratio in the agencies they work for. In their attempts to get a client at all costs, they often take on translations for which they are not qualified. This irresponsibility damages the reputation of both the agency and the client. And failing to meet a deadline for translating important documents can be a deal breaker for the agency’s client.

Agnes Brahmann, director of translation services at filologi.com, believes that one solution to the problem lies in not merely hiring highly skilled staff with the requisite expertise but also in properly organising their work. For example, we offer a tiered system where the same text is checked by a proofreader and a specialist in the given field and/or a person whose native language is the target language. Another approach involves the RTIT system (Redundant Translation by Independent Translators), in which two or more translators perform translation of the same text. This allows for higher quality and faster translation from any language (including complicated texts).

Ms. Brahmann is confident that introducing stricter selection criteria for translators ushers in major improvement in the quality of services rendered. "This will lead to increased costs, of course, but we have to think of clients and meeting their needs as our first priority," she said.


For more information, please contact:
Agnes Brahmann
Director of Translation Services
filologi.com Translation Agency
Phone: +44 (0) 207 193 1203
Fax: +44 (0) 207 193 1586
E-Mail: agnes@filologi.com
Web: http://www.filologi.com/

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Translation services into and out of over 100 languages in the areas of business, law, industry, technology, IT and medicine. Translation Agency based in London, United Kingdom.