Why Translation Management? Going Beyond Language Conversion and Building a Holistic Approach—Risk Analysis

Whether it is creating multilingual websites, corporate documents for multinational enterprises, localized games, software services, or marketing materials, even translating novels, business news, or self-help books, if you ever take charge of managing or executing a translation project for localization/multiple languages, you are bound to come across one of these distressing situations: Hectic project schedules, time-consuming back-and-forth communication, incongruous deliverables from different translators, even a single document that contains different translations for the same proper noun or specialized term—it might be excruciating to deal with this staggering load of problems.
Many people assume that translation is simply converting one language to another. Rather, the complexity of this systematic process far exceeds people’s common conception. Lack of a holistic approach and effective management procedures will jeopardize translation effectiveness, as well as give rise to unexpected risks.

A Bigger Picture of Translation Projects—More Than Just Language Conversion

A successful translation project demands more than converting language A to language B or to multiple languages. The process involves collaboration between different parties, data synchronization, and quality control, which must at least cover the following key dimensions:

1. Cross-department/team communication and collaboration: From source text to target text, translation projects often involve different departments (e.g., marketing, legal, and technical departments), target markets (e.g., regions and specific client groups), or external partners (e.g., translators, editors, and typesetters). An effective communication mechanism can guarantee that data remains identical, questions are clarified properly, and instructions maintain coherence, all of which prove instrumental for preventing any misunderstanding and delays due to miscommunication.
2. Cultural translation and consistency in branding: Not only is accuracy in information expected of translation. After rendition in another language, the end result must also fit the cultural context of the target market in order to preserve congruence in brand tone and brand image. This requires more than just linguistic proficiency; equally indispensable are sensitivity to cultural nuances and insight. Once a project comprises more than two people, certain management procedures have to be in place to ensure cohesion between all parties.
3. Integration of data and information: With our present-day myriad media, the source text and deliverables of translation projects often encompass different file types (e.g., Microsoft Office, Adobe software, and even JSON and PHP files) that involve graph drawing, typesetting, multimedia editing, and more. At times, the team needs to rely on a substantial amount of information to fully fathom a project. Project success hinges on effectively compiling and conveying such information to team members, and ensuring that each of them is equipped with the necessary background knowledge.
4. Challenges of version control: From source text updates, translator’s drafts, editor’s revisions, and customer feedback, to the final draft, a document may undergo multiple rounds of review. Unsound version control can increase proneness to mistakes such as use of an older document version, omission of editing content, and loss of changes. This is exacerbated when there are multiple people working on the project.
5. Language asset management: A large corpus of translated texts and bilingual glossaries and terms carefully picked after extensive discussion will be accumulated over the course of the translation process, what we consider crucial “language assets." Rigorous management of language assets means that the fruits of past efforts can continue to yield value by assuring the consistency and efficiency of future projects, and cut costs in the long run. Neglecting the management of these assets will cause projects to constantly wipe the slate clean, letting cumulative achievement go to waste.

In fact, any misstep in the aforementioned management stages may compromise the quality and timeliness of deliverables.

Neglecting the Management Risk

What risks are we exposed to if we treat translation as mere “language conversion" and disregard the management process? To help our readers get a clear picture, here are some of the lurking threats:

Repeated Translation Results in Waste of Resources and Delays

Say the translation of a website spanning hundreds of pages is split into multiple projects assigned to different people.
Due to lack of a management strategy, different translators, or a single translator on different occasions, may have to repeatedly translate the same page header and footer, or description of some standardized product. Furthermore, part of the content might have already been translated but failed to be properly saved or managed. Consequently, translators have to start from scratch over and again.
Such situation not only squanders invaluable time and human resources, but the project manager must also put in extra energy to proofread and ensure concordance of the translated text. This will undoubtedly hinder work efficiency.

Confusion Caused by “Inconsistent Terms"

Inconsistent terms are a common problem with grave repercussions. It can happen in many translation scenarios.

• [Scenario 1] Translation of games, TV series, and novels: Without a shared glossary for character names, locations, and specialized terms, translators in charge of different chapters, or a single translator at different stages, might use different names for the same item or character (e.g., alternating between the spellings “Alexander" and “Alexandre" for the same person). Whether it is a game, TV series, or novel, this might give rise to confusion and detract from the experience of players, viewers, or readers, even spoiling critical appraisal of the work.
• [Scenario 2] Translation for corporate brands: Companies highly value consistency in their brand name, core values, and product names. For translation of corporate websites, marketing brochures, training materials, and technical documents, without unified management of core term translation, marketing materials might use both “highly effective" and “highly functional" when referring to the same term. Besides puzzling customers, this might damage the professional image and brand consistency of a company. In extreme cases, it might cause equivocation or even legal issues.

Poor User Experience and Higher Service Costs

Take the ordinary ATM as an example. When using the remittance or withdrawal function, a user of the traditional Chinese (zh-TW) interface may see a prompt that says “超過單筆限額{value}萬," meaning the transaction exceeds the single transaction limit of certain number of “萬" (wan)—the Chinese unit for “ten thousand. The {value} might differ depending on individual account status. However, there is no equivalent unit for “wan" in English, where thousands or millions are more commonly used. If a bank needs to provide services in English or multiple languages, the original coding will impact the translation and user experience.
If a translator is unaware of the purpose of translated text or what the ATM interface looks like, they might directly translate as, “The single withdrawal limit of {value}0,000 has been exceeded," or “The single withdrawal limit of {value} ten thousand has been exceeded." If the single transaction limit of the user is NT$25,000, the ATM might present the amount as “2.5 ten thousand" or “2.50,000"—what to make out of this?
This case reveals the following issues: over the course of a translation project, collaboration and data flow of the system and localization/translation teams must be taken into account. [1] Without proper planning, management, and data synchronization, a poor user experience might leave a bad impression on consumers. Customer service costs will increase unnecessarily, even pushing consumers to find other alternatives or services.

Difficulty in Project Tracking

If the aforementioned scenario occurs, the project team might need to go back and sort out the entire procedure, scrutinizing the decision-making process and accountability issues. Without a rigorous version control, it would be hard to resolve the problems arisen and formulate subsequent risk mitigation strategies.
The above situations point to the direct repercussions of the lack of control in a project and content management (e.g., shared translation database and style guides). These issues not only take up resources, but could also deal irreparable damage to reader experience or brand image.

Upon realizing the importance of translation management, which improvements can project managers implement? Please see Why Translation Management? Going Beyond Language Conversion and Building a Holistic Approach—Strategy Assessment.

(1) Suggestion: A project manager can check beforehand whether the files contain similar content. To draw a conclusion for the example above, it is recommended for the traditional Chinese coder to adjust the variable. After all, the presentation of numbers in different languages might differ. Apart from the Chinese usage of “wan" for the unit of 10,000, some language users are accustomed to indicating the thousands separator with a decimal point instead of a comma.

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