Technical business documents, whether legal or financial, contain complex terminologies that make them quite challenging to translate. Your business’s technical documents may include financial reports, merger and acquisition agreements, business license documents, legal contracts, etc. One must have expertise in understanding technical terminologies to translate such documents with good accuracy and contextual relevance.
Technical document translations are challenging not just because of their complex linguistics but also because of the specialized field expertise and cultural knowledge required to translate such documents. This article provides some tips and guidelines to effectively manage your technical business translations.
The Right Way to Approach Your Technical Business Translations
Hire translators with subject-matter expertise.
Of course, linguistic proficiency is important when you are looking for a translator to work on your project. However, for your technical translation, you need to look beyond it. If you are translating legal or financial business documents, make sure to hire experienced translators with related field expertise. You must get on board qualified financial or legal translators who are well-versed in complex business terminologies.
Technical translators understand the critical nature of complex terminology translations, so they are more cautious when it comes to translating business-sensitive legal and financial documents.
Work with Natives
When it comes to translating your document for different cultures, your translator will know how businesses function in different markets. Cultural awareness is significant for translators because every market follows a different legal system that may require some tweaks in translation. You can’t afford to make any conceptual mistakes in your legal contracts with international partners. It will not just confuse your business partners but also go against your best business interests. Native translators not only have more in-depth language proficiency, but they also know how to make your business document resonate with the local financial and legal framework. It will also save you from trouble in the future.
Get cross-cultural Business Consultations
If you are targeting a new market and don’t really know much about local business culture and regulatory policies, you need to get professional help. There are many language service providers offering professional consulting to enterprises that want assistance entering a new marketplace. These agencies will give you legal advice on how to craft your legal document linguistically and conceptually. It allows enterprises to avoid any inconvenience while entering a new region and seamlessly communicate with their business partners.
Create Translation Glossaries
To ensure that your documents are accurately translated and all terminologies are well understood by your translation teams, you must create glossaries for each translation project. If you are using a professional translation project management system, you may find built-in features in the platform to create and manage translation glossaries. These glossaries will help your translators fully grasp business terminologies and keep their tone and style consistent throughout your document translationmanagement.
Educate your Team about Business Objectives
In technical translation, translation teams have a hard time fully understanding the intent of business documents and what you want to accomplish from them. It has nothing to do with their experience and overall exposure in the field; it has more to do with their lack of business understanding. So, prior to working on your translation project, you must provide your teams with sufficient business knowledge and an understanding of the goals. It allows your teams to never detract their translation intent from the end goals. Moreover, it helps them with effective document translation management and prioritizes their content better based on its significance.
Beware of Machine Translations
Machine translation software are in high demand these days, and many businesses use them to manage large volumes of translations. But you should not use them carelessly for translating all types of content. For technical translations, it is always recommended to hire human translators and avoid machine translation. AI data translation tools typically provide direct translations, and they don’t really understand the nuances of your technical translations. Moreover, the technical data is critical in nature, so you don’t want to make any mistakes that can put you in a difficult situation.
Use a Translation Project Management System
Working on multiple technical translation documents can mess things up for your teams. It is important to provide your team with a well-organized platform where they can easily manage their content translation tasks without any hassle. Such systems will streamline your translation tasks and make it quite effortless for teams to work on your translation project and navigate through different translation documents. You can customize your TMS tools as per your unique translation needs.
Conclusion
You must handle your technical business document translation with great care. Unlike conventional translations, your team may need advanced subject matter expertise and linguistic proficiency to work on technical documents. You should follow translation best practices while managing your technical content translations; it will also help you maintain accuracy and consistency.
