Client
Higher Education Institute in Hawaii
Background
Direct client is an higher education institute in Hawaii. They were planning to create, translate, print and distribute brochures in different languages, in a hope to help overseas students to better adapt to the school life. They are seeking professional translation service from English to both Chinese and Japanese.
Problem
Our client came in with an urgent request: They need English to Simplified Chinese and Japanese translation and DTP service for a higher education directory, which is still in the process of development. The translated directory must be ready for printing within 25 days. They would notify us whenever new InDesign pages and art works were added to Dropbox folder for translation. In short, they need someone to act quickly to support them.
Solution
- Prepare for translation
- Every morning, we downloaded the most up-to-date batch of work from Dropbox.
- We imported all new InDesign files plus texts on artwork into memoQ, a leading CAT tools for analysis and pre-processing. Thanks to internal repetition, the workload had decreased a lot.
- We also locked down numbers and other entries that do not need translation at all to further reduce the work scope for the client.
- We created glossary for property names such as names of universities, places and addresses to maintain the consistency among translators.
- We broke the batch work further down to several assignable pieces and distribute them to highly experienced and professional translators to translate simultaneously and shorten the time frame.
- Translate, proofread and QA check
- We handpicked the best Chinese and Japanese translators who have extensive knowledge on higher education.
- We require all translators’ deliverables on a daily basis so we can work on the proofreading simultaneously.
- After senior proofreaders made comments and revisions, all translators would be informed and receive the feedback within conversation loop for higher efficiency and optimal results.
- After proofreading, our project manager imported translation back into the CAT tools for quality assurance check against potential inconsistency.
- Desktop publishing and QA
- When the batch of translation was approved after QA check, it was sent to DTP specialists for desktop publishing.
- The team leader of DTP and dedicated project manager will check the DTP work prior to delivering to client.
- When DTP QA is completed, translations were presented in following forms:
- Completed InDesign data
- Cultural-specific font faces for Chinese and Japanese
- Edited images, with texts translated, and
- A small size PDF preview for client feedback
- The client provided the feedback on PDF. Based on the feedback, we updated translation memory, ran translation QA to ensure all translations were correct and up-to-date. Meanwhile, DTP specialists made revisions in the DTP work with PDF annotations from the client. We usually support three rounds of free editing for DTP. But with our high quality translation, the client only made 1 to 2 rounds of comments then we are perfect to deliver.
- Delivery
- Client received translations batch by batch according to their request.
- After approval, we delivered print-ready PDF to facilitate the printing process on their end.
Result
- Work scope has cut from initial estimate of nearly 100,000 words to 89,667 words, thanks to CAT tool adoption.
- It took 2 translators and 1 proofreader for Chinese, 2 translators and 1 proofreader for Japanese, 2 DTP specialists and 1 dedicated PM to complete preparation, translation, proofreading, QA check and desktop publishing for an 84-page directory to be translated into 2 languages with top quality in 20 days.
- Client is very satisfied with our work: fast turnaround, high quality, well organized, proactive communication, frequent status reports, very efficient work and most importantly saved him time and trouble.
