You may think that the translation is mainly the translator's personal mental work. If you have translation needs, you can directly seek the translator's personal cooperation. So what is the value of the translation company in the translation service? How can I find an excellent translation service provider that can create value for me?
To answer these questions, let us first analyze what the translation company has done in translation service from the following case.
Project Analysis
Shanghai International Film and Television Festival, held in Shanghai every June, is the only international A-class film festival in China. The world's leading directors, judges, and film and television stars will come together with their finalists. In this event, language service needs are diverse and ubiquitous. Due to the customer's high-end demand for translation services, the annual translation service provider has to be confirmed by tendering.
Among them, the translation needs include: translation, DTP, editing for the Journal; press release and film introduction; multilingual translation of the official website; speeches of the opening and closing ceremonies, etc. Language pairs involved are: Chinese- English, Chinese-Japanese, Chinese-and Korean. Translation services are highly challenging in terms of translator selection, terminology management, process management, quality control, delivery time, and project management.
In the case of the translation of the journal, the customer could not provide terms, TalkingChina collected the journal hard copies of the past years, and manually made a term base, especially for the awards names, titles of films, and the like. At the same time, through three years of continuous translation services, the cumulative corpus is nearly 1.5 million words, and the terminology database is nearly 5,000 pieces.
AS for the translation of the film introduction, such translations have very high requirements for the accuracy and timeliness. We often get the source material at the last minute, and the translation is required in a short time. In extreme cases, we get 3,000 words in the evening, and the next morning we have to submit the translation. The project service team is basically in a 7-day*24-hour response state.
Compared with translation, interpreting needs are even more here. In just ten days, various forums, conferences, ceremonies, film reviewing site event and other activities were carried out almost simultaneously. TalkingChina must ensure that the interpretation work of each activity is smoothly going on, and a project management team of 10 people is supposed to be set up to shuttle around the venues
The demand for interpretation services consists of simultaneous interpretation, SI equipment, simultaneous and consecutive interpretation for press conferences or judging site, liaison interpretation, etc. As for languages, there are English, Japanese, French, Italian, Turkish, Polish, Thai, etc. Each judge has different preferences, habits, requirements, and time schedules. At the same time, the temporary changes of the director and the actor's itinerary are commonplace. So TalkingChina has to have very strong talent reserves and great temporary scheduling and project management capabilities.
TalkigChina has developed a detailed interpreting service plan, which is divided into four phases: the preparation period (three months before the start of the project), the preheating period of the project (one month/two weeks/one week before the start of the project), and the project site period. , the post-project period (one week / one month after the end of the project).
Taking the preparation period as an example, for three months in advance TalkingChina started to recruit talents for the event. We have specially prepared translator training materials for the project, and conducted training on the selected translators. After passing the assessment, we will recommend them to the organizing committee. TalkingChina also needs to arrange political review, purchase insurance, and book airline tickets, hotels and handle other logistics for the translators.
In summary, the difficulties of the translation and interpretation service of the Shanghai International Film Festival project are:
1. Translation needs are diversified and frequently adjusted so the entire translation service team has to respond flexibly;
2. The customer has many contact interfaces, including not only the contacts of the organizer, but also interns and third-party companies such as public relations and equipment companies.
3. On-site management tasks heavy and demanding. As an annual Shanghai-level large-scale international event, translation service providers are required to strive for excellence in every detail and must ensure zero mistakes;
4. Translation service providers need to achieve seamless connection for 7 days*24 hours, and respond to the customer’s needs at any time; there are many emergencies, and they need rich management experience and sufficient emergency solutions for large projects.
TalkingChina’s Solutions
1. Flexible use of various management tools in the project, such as Interpretation Work Plan, Interpretation Project Management Form, Work Schedule, Work Contact Form, Translation Task Confirmation Form, and Confirmation of Translation Production Specifications ", "Translation Service Feedback Form - Interpretation", "Translation Service Feedback Form - Translation", "Project Emergency Plan", etc.;
2. Strict selection and deployment of translators;
3. Communicate the project requirements with the interpreters and translator in advance, and carry out training to ensure the translator's understanding and cooperation;
4. Confirm the start and arrival time of the project with the interpreters 2-3 days in advance; the on-site management personnel will arrive 2-3 hours in advance to confirm that all translators arrive on time;
5. Arrange 1-2 alternate interpreters every day to ensure that translators can perform at their best, and can also respond to unexpected situations (such as health issues);
6. Assign a strong and stable service team for on-site management;
7. Adhere to the quality control measures of translation: WDTP QA principle, do not easily change the production workflow due to shortened project time.
Project effects
1. Has won the bids for three consecutive years. The average annual project service period is 14 days, the interpretation service averages 150 days per year, the document translation and review work averages nearly 500,000 words, and the simultaneous equipment rental averages more than 1,100 sets.
2. Has once translatedd100,000 words of Japanese subtitles for 11 movies in 3 days;
3. On-site management for 5 consecutive days on interpretation projects distributed in 7 venues;
4. Three consecutive years of translation service, 0 errors;
During the project, TalkingChina Translation has been proactive and highly cooperative, and obtained consensus and appreciation from the client.
“Very successful, happy cooperation!”
"This is a very difficult job. Thank you very much for your excellent team's dedication! Very good! Please also extend our thanks to the interpreters!”
“The two simultaneous interpreters have done a very good job. Terms have been interpreted in a very professional way and the speech speed is just right. We are very satisfied!”
“You are the best!”
"Your two interpreters are perfect! Admirable!"
Conclusion
It is hard to imagine how the above mentioned project effects could ever be achieved without a translation service provider's excellent translation service team, not through strong translation project management, but only by an individual translator.
The greatest value of an excellent translation service provider is to be able to clearly analyze the language needs of customers, to propose and implement complete and professional solutions based on customer needs, and to help customers solve problems. Therefore, when customers choose a translation service provider, one of the most important criteria is to see if the supplier is professional and credible, whether to consider the problem from the customers’ perspective, to come up with the appropriate solution proposal, and whether there are reliable resources, teams, workflows, successful experience of similar projects to ensure the implementation of the solutions.
