Word Connection’s Safeguards Against Bad Translation
Poorly translated material will impact your business’s progress in Japan. Bad translations cause misunderstandings and even offence. They can impact user experiences, create confusion and lead to legal issues.
At Word Connection we understand just how important the quality of our work can be and how crucial it is to our clients’ success. For this reason, we have established the team, working methods and quality control systems we need to deliver the finest possible outputs, regardless of the nature of the source material.
Whether you require legal translation, medical translation or the translation of subtitles, our approach delivers superior results and protects you from the consequences of bad translation.
ISO Certifications
We are proud to say that Word Connection has achieved ISO 9001 and ISO 17100 certification.
ISO 9001
ISO 9001 is an international standard for quality management systems in business. It is relevant to all businesses, regardless of the industry sector they operate in. To achieve certification, an organisation must demonstrate that it can exceed a client’s requirements and apply an appropriate quality management system. It must also show that it has developed processes to drive continual improvement. The workforce of the business must be provided with measurable objectives and internal processes should lead to enhanced levels of efficiency.
ISO 17100
While ISO 9001 is relevant to all types of businesses, ISO 17100 is specific to the translation industry. To gain certification, a translation provider must offer services that meet prescribed industry standards, demonstrate best practice and adhere to relevant legislation. ISO 17100 requires service providers to undertake prescribed steps when handling a project:
Translation
Revision
Review
Proofreading
Final verification
The standard also identifies how processes must be managed, which resources should be available to translators and the levels of data protection and confidentiality that are required. In addition, the standard identifies the qualifications and professional experience that translators must possess.
Why choose an ISO certified LSP?
Organisations that have sought certification have demonstrated that they truly care about the quality of their work and that they boast the expertise to handle translation projects. Additional benefits include:
Clarity: ISO 17100 lays out standard terminology to be used and includes a glossary.
Effective collaboration: Early and effective collaboration between client and provider is emphasised by the ISO 17100 standard.
Traceable systems: Certified providers must use fully traceable systems regarding clients’ files and data storage.
Robust management systems: Clients can expect efficiency, excellent customer service and a reduction in errors courtesy of ISO 9001 certification.
Project management
Outstanding project management will always be fundamental to achieving the finest translations. Based in both France and Japan, Word Connection’s project managers are highly skilled, experienced professionals. They include specialists with in-depth knowledge of specific industry sectors.
We can assign a project manager to your work that understand the complexities and unique demands of your industry.
A vast majority of the projects we handle feature the translation and localisation of multiple documents. It is crucial that that the vocabulary and terminology used are consistent throughout any project. To this end we utilise CAT tools to guarantee uniformity. Our project managers assign tasks to the most suitable translators, oversee everything they do and ensure that work is handled collectively for consistent outputs.
Our quality management process is clearly defined and demands that project managers:
Check source material to ensure that is of suitable quality for linguists to work with and that it is not of an offensive nature.
Assess whether it is possible to meet the required deadlines.
Prepare projects on the necessary applications.
Assign work to linguists who specialise in the projects’ domains.
Share all relevant information, instructions and reference files with the chosen linguists.
Liaise with clients and drive timely delivery of projects.
Ensure that linguists conduct quality assurance (QA).
Perform final QA using MemoQ or Xbench and supervise the provision of any amendments required.
Conduct report reviews for ongoing projects and translator testing.
Skilled translators
We have worked hard to recruit a team of talented, experienced and dedicated translators. Our recruitment procedures enable us to identify professional translators that offer the required skills, drive and dedication. Native speakers, our translators boast knowledge of diverse industries enabling our project managers to choose the right professionals to work on each project that we undertake.
As Word Connection is ISO 17100 certified our translators must each have:
At least five year’s professional experience or a degree in translation.
Or
Another relevant qualification plus two years of professional experience.
In an ever-changing world, translation is an evolving and dynamic industry. We constantly strive to improve the quality of our services and to discover new solutions. This is why Kaori Myatt founded the Human Powered Academy which enables translators to refine their work through online training sessions.
Quality control
All outputs are double-checked, corrected and finalised by our linguists. Once a translator has completed a translation and/or localisation task, they must undertake quality assurance and then complete a delivery checklist that is forwarded with the completed work to the project manager.
Assuring the quality of certain outputs may involve back translation. This is the practice of re-translating text from the target language back into its original language and can be a legal or regulatory requirement. Back translation helps to identify errors and ambiguities while aiding evaluation of equivalence. It can be particularly useful when handling material that features puns, idioms, slogans and product names. These aspects of source material necessitate creative input which is subjective and so requires careful attention.
The project manager undertakes a final quality assurance check using Xbench or the MemoQ quality assurance tool and this together with its XLIFF is stored in our database. XLIFF is an XML-based bitext format created to standardize the way localizable data are passed between and among tools during a localization process.
Any remaining errors are corrected by the linguists before a final assessment of quality is completed. Only then is the project delivered to the client.
Working to eliminate bad translation
As poor translations can deliver such serious implications, we remain dedicated to recruiting the best linguists and to maintaining the highest levels of quality control. Our skilled translators, experienced project managers and robust quality control systems combine to ensure that Word Connection delivers superior translations to our clients. Through continual reviews of our processes and ongoing training of our translators, we ensure that our services are second to none.
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