Translation Agencies: More Than Translators

What exactly does a translation agency do? At TSI, we are asked this question quite frequently.  We’ve put together a one minute video that outlines the services we provide and how they can benefit you and your company. Here’s a link:

More Than Translators

A classic scenario: you have documents you need translated into Spanish. It turns out you have a cousin who lived in Spain for 5 years.  Why not just use them to do the work? No knock to your cousin, but a lot more goes into translating a document than converting words on a page. If the process was that simple, TSI along with the hundreds of other translation agencies would not exist.  In addition to having a team of extremely talented translators, we do more than translate.

Translation Project Management

From sourcing documents to delivery, translation project management is an essential portion of each and every job we take on.  Our group of talented project managers understand each integral step of the process, like preparing accurate quotes for clients, determining which translator is the right people for the job, overseeing the integration of your translated text into your original file with our graphic design team, and helping you understand the billing process - our project managers handle it all. Our project managers are not translators. Getting your job done properly requires a team of uniquely skilled individuals.

The Document Translation Process

Once we receive documents for a quote, we enlist a handful of translators to process each job.  Why? This is because each job requires numerous steps during translation to ensure it’s done properly and without errors.  Step like proofreading, translating, reviewing and editing all add up to complete the actual translating portion of the job. By bringing on different translators to complete each of these steps, it affords us the brain capacity of 3 talented foreign language speakers as opposed to just one.  Naturally, this helps catch any mistakes or overlooked aspects of the document translation.

Graphic Design Formatting

Once our language experts and project managers approve the new text, it is sent off to our graphic design team.  Their job is to integrate the new language text into the original document formatting. This means adhering to your margins, spacing, typeface, colors, etc.  It’s a job that doesn’t get enough credit, as many languages require extra words and have longer sentences, which forces graphic designers to think creatively in order to fit the new text and still have it look professional and on your brand guidelines.

Translation Document Delivery

Arguably the most important part of the translation process is getting the final document back into the customer’s hands -- and of course, doing it on time and on budget. This means coordinating with the client about the formats in which they need their files, be it PDF, DOC, PSD, TXT, etc. There’s no format we can’t do! 

These steps in the process are all essential to ensuring that your final translated document is up to the standard we at TSI consistently deliver to our clients.  For assistance with document translation, consultation or a free quote, we would be more than happy to enter a dialogue with you. Feel free to contact us via phone, email, or our contact form on our company website.