This poem is a great reminder of why we should always, always proofread—and for language service providers, why we should do it even more than the average writer. In today’s blog post, we’ll go over the reasons why.

1. Proofread the source material

Oftentimes, language service providers are given source material documents that the parent company wants to distribute at the same time as their translations. Theoretically, these documents will have been proofread already. After all, the parent company will want their readers to focus on the message of the documents and keep up their reputation and good impressions.

However, before translation, it’s essential that the source material be proofread again to ensure that the translator understands the meaning of it. Grammatical or spelling errors can cause the translated document to lose lots of meaning, and potentially bring about lots of costs to fix these mistakes later down the pipeline.

Let’s look at a common English example of a grammar mistake: “Let’s eat, Grandma!” and “Let’s eat Grandma!” With just a forgotten comma, the entire meaning of the sentence changes into something out of a horror novel. An accurate translation of the second sentence’s meaning could spell disaster, if that sentence is a mistake.

2. Proofread the translation

People are only human—making mistakes is something everyone does, and there’s no shame in it. However, what’s important is how we monitor ourselves to make sure that we catch those mistakes and take responsibility for them.

Translators have the same ability to miss a comma or period, misspell a word, or accidentally misunderstand the meaning of a sentence in the source document. To be safe, it’s crucial to hire a separate translator to act as a proofreader for the translated documents.

3. Assure the quality of the final product before delivery

Even after a translation has been proofread, oftentimes, language service providers are tasked with putting the translation into a certain format—a pamphlet, a PowerPoint, a website, etc. Once the translation is in that format, it’s important to double-check the target document. You want to avoid crashing, missing or hidden text, text overflow, and a slew of other issues.

The need for proofreading all stems back to the need for a proper, professional, trustworthy identity between the parent company and the customer or reader. Glaring issues in the text, or visual problems in the final product, convey to the reader that the document was handled sloppily—and if the document was handled sloppily, why would the parent company treat the reader any differently?

Remember: we should always, always proofread.

Watching the Disney multi-language video reminds us of the exciting times that our professional voice actors have brought to a variety of media. Monterey Language Services had quite a few opportunities to work on projects of this caliber. In one case, we formed a large team of voice-over talents to bring voices to multiple roles in an environmental preservation video. We were overdubbing the video from English to Mandarin Chinese. The dialogue and stories were told by various characters. village elders, youth, village leaders, national corporate executives, and local businessmen spoke about preserving their environment and the movement towards modernization.

The story was rich and compelling, so having the same actor voice multiple parts would not have given the characters as much depth. In light of this, a large team of Mandarin voice-over talents was brought in to a local recording studio to voice more than a dozen roles. The array of voices one after another was similar to the relay of different singers in the Disney multilingual video – very exciting and interesting!

We made sure that the entire production process, which required writing up a transcript, translation, voice selection, recording, and post recording engineering, was of a professional quality and thus the final product was a proud presentation that both our client and the end audience could enjoy!

Monterey Language Services provides subtitles, voiceovers, and audio recordings as well as translation and interpretation services. Please feel free to contact us to request a quote.

Transcription is being able to take your audio, video, images, interactive content, flash, animation, and more; and type it out word for word in a format of your choosing.

Of course, it’s not easy to make your fingers talk as fast as your mouth. For most people the development of this skill comes from years and years of practice and also typing classes; as well as strong fingers and the ability to multitask.

To put this into perspective, let’s look at some numbers:

The average typing speed of adults in the United States is anywhere from 40-50 wpm, or words per minute, and the average professional typist usually types about 50-80 wpm. Now, 80 words per minute is a respectable accomplishment for the average Joe, but that’s nothing compared to people in dispatch positions and time-sensitive typing jobs who usually type at a minimum of 95 wpm. Even more impressive are advanced typists (including transcriptionists) who strive to have AT LEAST a wpm count of 120.

If 120 wpm wasn’t enough to blow your mind, this surely will. According to The Guinness Book of World Records the fastest English language typist in the world was Barbara Blackburn who maintained 150 wpm for 50 minutes, and has been clocked at a whopping peak speed of 212 wpm.

Think you’ve got what it takes to be the next Barbara Blackburn? Or maybe a transcriptionist? Put your skills to the test! And remember, the more words, the harder it is:

http://www.rapidtyping.com/online-typing-test.html

Monterey Language Services provides transcription services for audio and video files in all languages.