Efficient in-country reviews – a question of knowledge

In-country reviews can be challenging to implement in translation processes: Are we talking about changes or corrections? What specifications apply? Who should be involved? And, above all, are they really necessary? Gemino has answers to these questions and this article will demonstrate how insights can be gained even from basic, standardized reviews.

 

For our clients, in-country reviews and approvals are often unavoidable for regulatory reasons. They are mostly annoying, sometimes frustrating, and almost always time-consuming. We know that. We know our clients’ most important question: How can processes for multilingual approvals be made as efficient as possible? The answer: The more we know, the less work you have.

 

Reviews as feedback: Knowing is good

Because we at Gemino are not (and cannot) always be briefed on all background information in advance, we evaluate the reviewed translations you send back to us. We review the changes, categorize them, and finally implement them in the final documents and the CAT tool or translation memories.

So, a review does not just serve to approve of a single document, it can be general feedback. We want to understand what has been changed and, in the best case, draw conclusions so that there may be fewer changes in future translations.

To do so, quite often, we also have to read between the lines: For it is not only a matter of terminology, meaning or assessing a change in its specific context. In every document, intentions, contexts, business goals, objectives and nuances often change.

 

Reviews as part of the workflow: Knowing in advance is better

We recommend defining workflows for in-country reviews in advance according to individual requirements. Specific roles, objectives and processes should be defined to avoid unnecessary workload as well as ambiguities and errors. The content and the people are prepared for each other:

 

Reviewer

Profile

  • Client expert in the target country
  • Knows the specific market
  • Knows the terminology and style of communication commonly used by the client

Challenge

  • Can provide highly relevant and specific technical input, but is usually not a linguist
  • Carries out the reviews only as a secondary task
  • Was probably not involved in the creation of the content (source documents)
  • Has little interest in the translation process
  • May not understand the language of the source documents

Preparation

  • Needs clear, simple guidance on what to review and how to change/comment to review efficiently

 

Translator

Profile

  • Is experienced with the client’s content
  • Limited expertise as they are not working exclusively for a single client

Challenge

  • Provide a correct, linguistically ideal, final translation whose message is identical to that of the source text
  • To draw conclusions for the future, an objective and constructive assessment is necessary.

Preparation

  • If possible, the translator needs the clearly defined general objective as well as concrete instructions for implementation even before the initial translation.

 

Many goals, many interests, many languages

The continuous improvement is rooted in the system: In multilingual approval processes, different goals and interests come together that change constantly:

  • Companies must meet general, regulatory requirements and transform them into workable, efficient, and secure processes.
  • Reviewers for products or target languages would like to keep their effort for approving and documenting as low as possible.
  • Sales managers want fast and smooth approval procedures to ensure timely delivery to target markets.
  • Language service providers must ensure compliant implementation of changes in documents and translation memories and, if applicable, evaluate the changes.
  • Clients should not have to correct translation errors and make up for anything that could have been done in advance.
  • Optimizing & communicating: Improvements must be evaluated, and the relevant information made available to all stakeholders.

As necessary as reviews are, they are often done rather reluctantly, because every change means additional work. However, not every justified change can be seen as a deficiency in the translation. Therefore, it is important for us to evaluate changes qualitatively. Not only for us but also to provide our clients with an evaluation. What matters is that the result of the process is as good a document as possible that serves its purpose with the people who use it. And if we can involve these people in the translation process, there are only advantages.

Our insight from over 25 years as language service provider: The perfect approval process does not exist (yet). But you can always approach the ideal in a new and better way.

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