Words4Tech - Consulting Services
Being more than simply translators, we know what software development is, and have
experience in software release management.
We can help you improve your process!
We offer consulting services in Project Management and Localization.
Being more than simply translators, we know what software development is, and have
experience in software release management.
While localization work is often considered marginal, we consider that a good translation
can provide valuable feedback, if ever the process allows for it.
A translator has to understand what he translates, and hence can spot a lot of errors,
inconsistencies or even weaknesses of the source document and/or software!
We also know about the struggle of meeting deadlines, as documentation, and even
more translation, come at the real end of the development effort.
We can define together a clear process which allows for an early start and for successive
updates, instead of wasting energy and money in emergency translations!
If you have already some localized material
We can perform a quality review or, if you already know what the problems are, we
can work with you on solving these issues.
The sooner the better, as the problems will get worse as you add new updates to
your initial contents...
If you have not started internationalization
Although
Words4Tech will not be able to translate your project in all languages,
we can work with you on the early steps of the internationalization process.
First of all, you should concentrate on your source documents. Remember that you
translate into n different languages.
Suppose that you translate into 10 langages, and that the cost per word is $0.15,
then each word will cost you $1.50! It's worth watching a few things:
- Does it really need to be translated? (Maybe some parts don't, or have to be adjusted
to locale anyway.)
- Are there redundant or verbose parts? (You may simplify some source documents.)
- Are there identical portions of text? (If you analyze your documents, you
can avoid been charged more than necessary for these repetitions.)
- Is the source version clear enough? (Some wordings which may be clear to native-speakers
may be misleading to translators... who are native speakers of the target language;
in the best of cases, you will have to answer the same questions n times, and in
the worst you will get misunderstandings in the translation.)
- Will the translator need additional data? (For instance, if he translates a software
documentation, he will need the localized version of the software, or an online
access to it, or at least message files in source and target versions.)
Of course, this work has a cost; but you will get a return on investment in several
ways:
- Every word suppressed before translation is money that you save. (Remember ! $1.50
per word !)
- With a well-prepared job, you can negotiate better rates. (The translator will save
time !)
- Your translation's quality will undoubtedly be improved.
