Sunny greetings, dear reader!
As a writer of documentation, you might have asked yourself, when is the best time to hand over my documentation for translation? How do I estimate the translation time for my planning? What do I need to consider when dealing with translation project management?
In this mini-post series, you read about the possibilities and some important aspects. Today, we will talk about the translation situation in your company and the estimation of translation time.
Translation process within the company
You may work for a company that already has an established process for requesting translations of the content you write. Or you might work for a company that has recently decided to expand internationally.
If your situation is the latter, as a technical writer, you might be tasked with implementing a translation tool and managing translations. This is a substantial task1, and you should have the courage to advocate for hiring a dedicated person for it. It could also be your opportunity to establish a translation team and take on a people management role!
I strongly recommend not underestimating the translation process. While it’s related to technical writing, it’s not identical. If you, as a writer, begin to manage the translation process, you may find yourself lacking sufficient time to complete high-quality technical documentation … okay, but I’m digressing.
Estimation and planning of translation time
If you are now the dedicated person in your company responsible for documentation planning, you need to factor in time for translation. When planning, involve your trusted localization and translation team to assist with estimations. Be prepared with relevant details, such as the number of new words, the type of content and documentation (support articles, UI, marketing, legal documents, slides, packaging, emails, etc.), level of complexity, and target languages.
You might be thinking, “But I can’t give an exact word count until I’m finished!” In that case, give the translation team an approximate number so they can estimate the time needed for your planning. The more details you can provide, the more accurate their estimate will be. Always leave some flexibility in your planning … but I’m sure you already know that!
For some languages, it may be challenging to secure translators for the desired start date of translation. Additionally, consider the file format; for example, the layout of a presentation may require significant adjustments post-translation due to differences in text length.
Furthermore, don’t overlook quality assurance. Allocate time for UI testing and document review. It’s essential not to cut corners; ensure you budget not only for translation but also for review. This means having the translated content reviewed by someone other than the translator. Investing in both a translator and a reviewer pays off, leading to higher quality outcomes.
In addition, you might face technology limitations or restrictions, such as with DITA. You may not be aware, but translation in DITA is much more complex than in other, more traditional formats2. Work closely with your translation team to determine if they can handle DITA and what specific requirements they will have for translating your content. The CMS you use can also influence how content is sent out for translation. For example, translation can be initiated at the section level or at a higher level. Initiating translation at the section level allows you to keep up more closely with the current writing progress, whereas with higher levels, you wait longer and have more content to send out at once. No matter when you initiate the translation, make sure the content is final or as good as final.
Sometimes, publishing can be a daunting task as well. Does your CMS allow you to publish a translation of an older version if the translation of a newer version has already started? Technology can be quite challenging!
Having your content translated and localized also involves establishing a writing style for the original content that requires minimal or no edits3 once it is handed over for translation and localization. So, you need to do your housekeeping!
As mentioned earlier, some types of documentation are continuously developed. The key is to establish a solid position for the translation and localization process in your documentation lifecycle and work closely with your translation and localization team.
Never forget, it took some time to write the original documentation, and it will certainly take time to complete the translation and localization process. The required time depends on the quality of the original content, the languages into which you want the content translated, and the complexity of the content. It also depends which content quality you aim for – the higher the quality the longer it will take (e.g. machine translation vs. translators; quality assurance and reviews vs. no check at all). In addition, if your documentation is not translation-friendly, it can lead to back-and-forth communication between you and the translators or, worse yet, result in poor-quality translations because you were unavailable to answer questions about the content or there wasn’t enough time to address the translator’s queries.
As already mentioned, the time required for a translation can also depend on its complexity. There are many different types of content, such as marketing, legal, and UI copy. Legal content translation is highly specific; in some cases, a direct translation is okay, such as for patents or court documents. However, in other instances, a direct translation may not be good enough; instead, you may need to rewrite and rephrase the content to adapt it to local markets, such as terms and conditions documentation. Regulations that apply to your market likely do not apply to other international markets, as they may have different, and potentially stricter, rules and regulations.
Planning the budget is a completely different topic, and we won’t discuss it in our mini blog series. Let me just say this: The cost of translation can quickly spiral out of control. Obtain estimates from several translation companies. If you work directly with freelance translators, request estimates from each of them. Translation and quality assurance are demanding tasks; recognize this and compensate them fairly! The cheapest offers may not always be the best, and the same goes for the most expensive ones. Ask for test translations and use some of your content for these tests. If you don’t have native speakers available to evaluate the test translations, ask another translation agency to assess them for you. This can be tricky because the other agency may try to impress you. They might overly criticize the test translation to make it appear worse than it is. Ensure they provide detailed feedback so you can understand their perspective. Hopefully, over time, you will establish relationships with translation vendors and build a pool of translators you can trust.
In our next part, I will talk about the right timing for translation in your documentation life cycle.
Writers lost in translation series
- Translation and time planning
- Documentation life cycle and translation timing
- Preparing content for translation
- Things that can happen after translation kick-off and completing the translation project
- Localization and translation program management involves not only sending and receiving content but creating style guides and glossaries, query management, implementing/initiating source changes, and quality control like UI testing, accuracy and format checks ↩︎
- Some information about the complexity in the Oxygen XML Blog ↩︎
- These posts might be helpful at this point: Writing with a global mindset part one to three ↩︎