Professional Translation

CTC has a 20 year track record in providing of quality assured professional translation services worldwide. Tying in all the downstream services is the expertise of CTC local in-city project managers. Additional services include: typesetting for print publishing and web media production of product and service documentation. For optimum effect, sales and marketing collateral requires localisation or fitting the service or product to the local market. Web content, marketing material and e-commerce solutions require website localisation, e-marketing collateral and software programs require software localisation. Corporate presentations on the Web, DVD and TV programs may require subtitling and multiple language dubbing and voiceover.

Professional Translation Services

CTC utilises only experienced and tested teams of specialist technical translators, senior editors and independent technical experts with industry experience in:

Professional Translator Quality

CTC uses only experienced qualified translators whose specific skills are matched to each assignment. CTC's translators are highly professional individuals committed to their vocation. We utilise native in-country linguists as part of the overall quality assurance for localisation projects.

Translator Qualifications:

Academic – acquired both locally and overseas, CTC translators have completed academic degrees in translation and a range of other disciplines. Employment – technical translators have work experience in industry, often both locally and overseas. Accreditation – As a minimum translators must hold professional accreditation certificates from local or international organisations:

Project Management:

Accreditation certificates may be a neccesary, but not sufficient reason, for eligibility with the CTC language teams. Further testing, project supervision, and years of experience is required before full membership is granted. CTC project managers have accumulated decades of expertise acting and are the core of the quality control for the entire translation/localisation project cycle. CTC does not outsource to call centres in order to possibly save on costs. CTC ensures that clients are provided dedicated locally based project mangers so that there is continuity and a trust based relationship built from each assignment. With its 20 years of project management CTC can count on at minimum of 30 experienced translators and 4 senior editors, in each in the top 20 commercial languages. The core language translation teams in each language have been forged through long term working relationships that have stood the test of time and the challenges of complex localisation projects.

Quality Translation Outcomes and Authoring

A quality translation aims to reproduce the meaning in a way that is accurate - the meaning must be
conveyed without error or omission so that it is easily understood by the target readership. It is therefore important that the source documentation has been written clearly and without ambiguity. Further source documentation should avoid idioms or colloquialisms will also make your copy more international in flavour. Click here for authoring tips to help you produce texts that are more suitable for translation. Professional translation should also be grammatically correct and follow the style and register of the source documentation. It is the source document author's responsibility to write for the intended reader and the translator's job to maintain the same style and tone of the original.

Translation Methods

There are two professional methods of translation:

• Traditional – manual or in electronic format. Translation 'by hand' can be recommended for literary texts and creative writing. All other translation work is done on soft copy by progressively overwriting the source text with the translation in order to ensure the layout is not affected.

The average individual daily output for a translator using the traditional method is around 2000 words, depending on the subject and degree of technicality of the text.

• Automated – Computer-Aided Translation (CAT). Ideal for software localisation and highly repetitive documents which require fast turnaround times and consistency in terminology. Not to be confused with machine translation, which attempts to translate text automatically and to date does not deliver reliable results for business use. See CAT Technologies for more information about Translation Technologies and CAT tools.

Quality Assurance

To meet the highest standards, CTC has developed extensive quality management systems to ensure that your contents are rendered accurately in a reader-friendly manner, true to the original style and tone.

Our QA procedures cover the following aspects:

Linguistic QA

• Use of correct terminology
• Use of appropriate style and tone
• Grammatical accuracy
• Consistency of terms used within documents and across all elements of a project
• Correct interpretation of context
• Instructions have been followed accurately

Checking of the format and layout

As most translations expand compared to the original, it is often necessary to check the formatting of the final translation and make sure the contents fit properly in the space allowed (for tables and text boxes in particular). The font, font size, bolding and other formatting are also systematically checked.

Efficient Project Management is also part of a rigorous QA system. Our experienced team of Project Managers will organise consistency with any existing glossary of previously translated documentation, and warn you of any potential problem related to cultural issues in the process of translation. Efficient communication between the client and the translators is essential to reach the highest levels of quality in translation.

Localisation: Fitting the product to the market

If your brand and product specifications needs to be used in another country, it may need to go through the process of adaptation for localisation or globalisation.

Sourcing a good translator is only a small component of the overall process. It is not the translator's role to determine the appropriate marketing approach for the target country, particularly if your promotional material has not been prepared for the specific market in question. It is the quality and experience of the CTC project management that will drive your product through the various hurdles: liasing with in-country translators and editors, providing relevant cross-cultural feedback, assistance in re-authoring the source material is all part of the process that is neccessary to drive and maintain your world wide brand.

Our Localization procedure ensures optimum quality standards

• Source documentation review
• Linguistic review: terminology and style
• Visual Review: Culturally acceptable images and color checks and changes
• Translation, editing, and proofing
• Formatting and desktop publishing
• Quality checks
• Client review
• Final output
• Delivery and post-project review

Click here to find out more information on preparing your products for overseas markets.
CTC project managers have accumulated decades of expertise acting and are the core of the quality control for the entire project cycle. CTC does not outsource to call overseas centres in the misguided attempt to save on costs. CTC ensures that clients are provided dedicated locally based project mangers as we beleive continuity and trust is paramount for a long term client vendor relationship.
CTC can assist with all aspects of your brand. Our global network of local offices in Dublin, Galway, London, Melbourne and Sydney ensures that your language localisation projects are produced in the most efficient and timely manner.