In 1999, NASA lost its Mars Climate Orbiter (valued at $125 million).
Why?
Because of a simple document translation error.
NASA failed to properly convert English imperial units to metric, so the navigation team used millimeters, meters, and kilograms in its calculations while the design team that built the spacecraft provided acceleration data in inches, feet, and pounds.
Now imagine that happened to your company; except you mistranslated the likes of legal contracts, financial documents, or document content your customers need like manuals and support documents. While we may not be looking at the ballpark of hundreds of millions like NASA, the consequences could have a real financial impact on your business. To help avoid these costly translation mistakes, we’ve created this handy guide to document translation in a business context.
In this article, you’ll learn the difference between document translation and localization, factors to consider when translating documents, different ways to translate documents, and a step-by-step guide to translate a document.
Document translation vs. localization vs. transcreation
Curious what document translation looks like?
What about localization and transcreation? Here’s the differences between the three:
Document translation
Document translation is the step-by-step process of translating the written text from one language into another on a business document. You should use document translation when you need to reach a different people group nationally within your own borders but they speak a different language.
For example, if you’re in the United States and you’re wanting to reach the Spanish-speaking population (41 million people), you may only need to convert your document from English to Spanish. Since the people group is already within the United States, you won’t need to update your currency or units of measurement.
While localizing your document for the different subcultures within the United States will make it more relevant, you could arguably get away with a simple translation rather than fully localizing it in this case depending on your time and budget constraints.
Document localization
Document localization is taking a document that’s specifically made for one group of people in a particular region and culture and adapting it to a new people group. This could include updating languages, units of measurement, currencies, regional specifications, cultural references, and more.
You would want to localize your document when you’re wanting to reach an audience outside your national borders. Using the example above, let’s say you’re in the United States, but you want to reach a Japanese audience.
In this case, not only will you want to translate your document, but you’ll also want to localize it to ensure you’re updating currencies, units of measurement, and cultural nuances for a Japanese audience.
Document transcreation
Document transcreation is a combination of translation, creation, and copywriting. It’s the process of converting one piece of content that already exists and turning it into something that conveys the same message but the words themselves may not be a direct translation.
Document transcreation is appropriate to use when you’re working with advertising-related documents. For example, if you’re an American company looking to attract Chinese email leads with a downloadable PDF lead magnet, you’ll want to transcreate your PDF document.
Transcreating allows you a bit more flex room than traditional translation so you can tap into consumer psychology and copywriting techniques to help convert your audience into leads.
Factors to consider when translating professional documents
Before you head off to Google Translate and copy-paste your professional documents, let’s take a minute to look at crucial factors that go into translating documents in the context of business.
1. Nature of the content to be translated
Translating documents is more complex than just translating them from one language to another.
Why?
Not all documents require the same level of translation.
Formality of the document
Business documents come with various levels of formalities that need to be considered before you start translating. For example, an email announcing a new CEO will be taking over may require a more formal translation than an email announcing a new ‘casual Friday’ policy.
Sensitivity of the document
Some documents are highly sensitive and may need additional oversight and accuracy of translation before sending them off.
For example, employee or subcontractor contracts and non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) may require more care than an internal communication document like a company newsletter.
Complexity of the document
If you’re sending off a simple document with no technical bearing, then you may not need to spend too much time translating the document. But, if you’re creating a software support document for developers, you’ll likely require a more technical translation than documents for average users.
2. Technical and regulatory requirements
Document translation must also legally protect their company. Some factors to consider are:
Language regulation requirements
Some countries have a legal requirement for the languages used on company assets. For example, Canada is a bilingual country, requiring both English and French on all physical products sold and distributed within the country.
Here are a few more examples:
- Belgium requires employment contracts to be translated in Dutch, French, and the employee’s mother tongue, failure to do so can nullify the contract
- The Supreme Court of France requires every business in France to translate every document related to an employee’s role to be in French.
- In the US, there are laws that require HR policies to be translated if there are 10% or more of employees whose “spoken language” is not English.
Consequences of non-compliance with language laws could lead to fines, nullification of contracts, and more.
Technical numerical and date formatting requirements
It may seem like a trivial thing, but converting technical formatting like dates and times is critical in document translation.
For example, date and time localization allows businesses to properly format different dates and time formats to ensure no mistakes or details are missed within an organization.
Why does this matter?
Imagine an American company has an HR document that states an employee’s start date at their company as 05/06/2023. In the U.S. this would be viewed as “May 6, 2023” but in other countries, that would be seen as June 5, 2023, which is nearly one month later.
In another example, let’s say a payslip shows a monthly salary of $3.500,50.” In many European countries, this would be interpreted as three thousand five hundred dollars and fifty cents.
But, in the U.S., it would be read as three dollars and fifty thousand fifty cents.
Precision and accuracy requirements
Translating financial documents and other high-fidelity documents requires strict quality assurance. It’s crucial to ensure documents have exact translations of legal terms to maintain their intended meaning and force.
It’s also important to incorporate locale-specific legal phrases and references correctly. ensuring that legally required document structures and layouts are maintained in translation.
For example, every company needs to translate privacy policies and disclaimers to comply with laws like GDPR in Europe or CCPA in California.
In another example, “401(k)” in the United States and “Superannuation” in Australia mean the same thing.
3. Cultural nuances and sensitivities of the target audience
Regardless of industry, document translations must consider cultural context to avoid misunderstandings or offense.
For example, when Tips on breaking down the characteristics of their target audience (e.g., background, etc.)
For example, back when Pepsi began promoting its drink in China, they were leveraging the messaging, “Pepsi brings you back to life.”
But, when they translated this to Mandarin, it read “Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave.” And, in a culture where a one third of the population is Buddhist, this was seen as extremely disrespectful and insensitive.
To ensure you don’t upset your global audience, you need to put more thought into the cultural differences and nuances in your target language to ensure you don’t say the wrong message.
4 ways to translate documents
Curious about the different ways to translate documents?
Let’s dive into the four most common ways you can lean into translation in your business:
1. Machine translation
Machine translation is the most common software translation method that the average person typically understands when thinking about translation.
The most common machine translation softwares are Google Translate, DeepL, and Microsoft Translator.
Pros: Speed, cost-effectiveness for large volumes
Cons: Lack of context, high chance for inaccuracies, no nuance, literal translations
Suitable document types: Internal communications, basic informational content, and other low-stakes documents
2. Professional human translation
The other primary kind of translation that businesses think of is human translators.
Pros: High accuracy, cultural adaptation, specialized knowledge
Cons: Higher cost, longer turnaround times, difficulty of getting them on your own, hard to find specialists in high-stakes docs like legal contracts, technical documents, and financial docs
Suitable document types: Marketing materials, document localization (sending documents to translators can help you with cultural context better than tools like Google Translate).
3. Translation Management Systems (TMS)
A translation management system (TMS) is software to help businesses manage translation and localization processes more efficiently. TMS’ typically come with built-in features, like automations and integrations, to help you create continuous workflows and reduce manual localization tasks.
Pros: Scalability, consistency, collaboration features
Cons: Learning curve, initial setup time, may need to hire new employees to handle it, some TMS may not offer localization options
Suitable document types: Ongoing translation projects, large-scale translation efforts
4. Hybrid TMS software
The newest method of document translation is with a hybrid TMS. This is a translation management system combined with machine/AI translation, and potential language service provider connections directly within the platform.
Pros: Scalability, consistency, collaboration features, accuracy
Cons: Initial setup time
Suitable document types: Ongoing translation projects, large-scale translation efforts
How to Choose the Best Method for Translating Your Documents
If you’re needing to translate large volumes of documents fast and you have a small (or non-existent) budget, then you may want to consider machine translation.
If you have a large budget and plenty of time to translate, then you may choose to go with a professional translator.
If you’re wanting a mid-budget option that can help you get an accurate translation done quickly, then a traditional TMS may make sense for you.
If you have a mid-size budget and you want your documents translated and localized fast and accurately, then a Hybrid TMS like Lokalise will be your best option since it combines the best of both worlds between machine and human translation and localization without being too expensive.
How to translate a document (step-by-step)
Ready to translate your business documents?
Follow this simple step-by-step strategy to get started:
1. Assess your translation needs.
First off, you need to identify your target markets, audience, and languages.
Next, evaluate the top documents you need to translate (i.e. technical support docs, user manuals, legal disclaimers, etc.).
Then, establish the purpose of each translation. Once that’s determined, establish who will be in charge of the process and establish a rough timeline to complete the project.
2. Prepare your documents for translation
Step two is to prepare all your chosen documents to be translated.
Inventory your assets
Create a comprehensive list of all your documents, categorizing them by priority and type (i.e. legal, operational, cultural, etc.).
Review and update your documents
Before you start the translation process, ensure all documents are up-to-date.
Identify culturally sensitive content
Flag sections that may require special attention during translation and localization.
Develop a glossary
Create a list of essential terms and their intended meanings to guide translators and ensure consistency.
Establish style guidelines
Define your style guide for translators to follow. Include elements like brand tone, voice, and formatting to maintain brand consistency across languages.
Gather reference materials
Collect any existing translated materials or region-specific information that could aid in the process.
Think about access
How do you want to distribute translated materials to international teams?
3. Establish a clear document translation workflow
Next, you’ll want to work with a provider like Lokalise to create a custom workflow.
You may need several types of workflows based on your different processes (i.e. internal collaboration, use of APIs and third-party integrations, for ongoing translations, etc.).
4. Establish a QA process
Finally, you’ll need to work with your document translation software to establish a quality assurance (QA) process.
Depending on the software you use, you’ll be able to access translation memory to streamline the accuracy of your translations. Plus, you may also have access to version control to restore previous versions of your translations if any errors arise.
Simplify document translation with Lokalise
When you’re looking to reach an international audience, improve the way you serve your current audience, or collaborate with a global team, you’ll need to translate your documents.
To establish effective document translation in your business, it’s important to understand which documents require translation so you can serve all your stakeholders and avoid any unnecessary miscommunication errors in your documents.
Regardless of your industry role, business, and organization size, Lokalise can help you streamline your document translation process.
With Lokalise, you get access to:
- Translation Memory speeds up translations and lower localization costs.
- Custom Multilingual Glossary to establish guidelines for translated words.
- Custom branding and style guides to maintain consistent design and branding.
- Security compliance with GDPR and more to protect all translated company data.
- App integrations to automatically send translated documents to your company’s Slack, email, Jira, and more
- Professional language service providers for sensitive documents like financial paperwork
- And more
Ready to simplify and automate your document translation process?
Get a 14-day trial of Lokalise for free today.
