Translation services

The art of translation.

What makes a good translation?

You’d think that all that would be necessary for a budding translator would be the ability to speak more than one language fluently.  But being bilingual is simply not enough.  It is just a very good starting point and obviously necessary at a very basic level, but producing great translations calls for so much more.

If you ask the question to professional translators, you will get much the same answers from each – “mastery of source and target languages”, “respecting the integrity of the original text while making the translated version equally informative and contextual”, “capturing and mimicking the same tone and register of the original,” and so on.  The most common response from our team is that a translated version of a text should never read as if it is a translation.  A good translation will read as if it had been created from scratch in that language.

This is what we try and achieve with every translation we take on.

Working in over 200 languages, unless holding rare-language status, our translators only translate into their native language.  We have a rigorous vetting procedure before any linguist is able to join our team.  We look for a combination of:

• Membership of approved industry bodies
• Postgraduate language and translation-specific qualifications
• Demonstrable translation experience

Our multilingual teams of translators can handle as diverse material as advertising copy, books, financial documents, legal documents and contracts, medical and pharmaceutical material, technical datasheets and manuals, localisation of websites and everyday certificates and business correspondence.

We can do this not because our linguists will try and turn their hand to any subject matter that comes their way, but because each has his or her own areas of specialisation and our trained project managers take care to match the source material with the expertise of a particular translator.

Our competitive rates are calculated per source word or character of the text and depend on language, volume, schedule and subject matter.

Book & literary translation in over 200 languages.

For understandable reasons most writers and publishers tend to translate their books into the most spoken languages.

Based on the number of native speakers of each language, the top 10 most spoken languages are:

• Mandarin
• Spanish
• English
• Hindi
• Portuguese
• Bengali
• Russian
• Japanese
• Cantonese
• Vietnamese

The Bible, The Little Prince and The Adventures of Pinocchio are the most translated books in the world, with the Bible being translated into an astonishing 3350 languages.

If you have plans to make your book more accessible by having it translated into over 3000 languages (or even one!), you’ve come to the right place.

Literary translation is an art form in its own right.  The linguist not only has to have a deep understanding of the intentions and nuances of the original text in a language which won’t be their native tongue, but they must be able to reconstruct the tone and style in their translation in a way that remains faithful to the author’s voice.  It is a tall order.  How far a literary translator’s version of a book or poem is a new piece of art in its own right, is a matter of debate.

All our literary translators are well read, they will translate a culture as part of the process, not just the language.

Our rates are calculated by the number of source words and will depend on volume, schedule, language(s) and subject matter.

Financial translation service in over 200 languages.

It is when you start seeing phrases and words in the document like, “Alternative Credit”, “Retail Price Index”, “Accrued Income Security” and “Teeming and Lading” you realise that you need a linguist specialising in financial translations.

Financial institutions and systems differ across the world and so there are also occasions when linguists will need to provide footnote explanations of a particular term.  They also need to know when not to attempt to translate a term as the term is internationally recognised and to translate may cause confusion or misunderstanding. Local currencies, units and variations in formatting and financial terms are all potential challenges facing the translators.

The financial sector is quite broad and so the linguists need to stary abreast of the technical terminology used across different industries such as banking, corporations, insurance companies, financial advisers and trading companies in the stock market.  Because of the very nature of the type of documents our financial translators encounter, the need for precision is paramount.

Data security is of course also key as the linguists will be given access to all kinds of private and confidential financial information.

Medical translation service in over 200 languages.

There is a good reason why we are an approved supplier for so many NHS Trusts and medical departments throughout the UK.

• Berkshire Healthcare NHS Trust
• Hampshire Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
• Maidenhead Community Mental Health
• Medway Community Healthcare CIC
• NHS Lincolnshire
• North Kent Dermatology
• Personalisation & Mental Health
• Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust
• SE Partnership NHS Foundation Trust
• St Richard’s Hospital
• Sussex Community Dermatology
• The Health & Europe Centre
• West Kent Dermatology
• West Sussex Hospitals

Covering over 200 languages, our teams of experienced and qualified translators specialising in medical terminology can provide fast and accurate translations across many industry sectors.  

For peace of mind, we can also arrange for any translations to be translated back into the original language(s) to check for accuracy – particularly important for medical material.  This process can be undertaken for initial translations completed by us or by somebody else.  In either case, the linguists only translate into their native languages.

We work with hospitals, healthcare professionals, pharmaceutical companies, marketing and advertising companies, academic researchers and private individuals. For a full medical language service, we can take care of any medical transcription work, subtitling, medical interpreting work, desktop publishing of any translated medical flyers or brochures and certification or notarisation of any medical certificates.  Just ask us, we’re bound to be able to help.

Localisation & website translation service in over 200 languages.

Companies and organisations constantly find themselves in the middle of a tug of war between globalisation and localisation.  They want their product to go global, but in order to do so, they need to adapt their entire content to match the cultural and linguistic conventions of a target locale.  So counterintuitively, in order to reach international markets, the material for each locale needs to localised in order to achieve regional sales and engagement.

Take these two advertising campaigns from Nike and Ikea. Instead of trying to create material aimed at potential customers based anywhere in the world, Nike decided to create a campaign around ordinary Londoners – “Nothing beats a Londoner”.  No celebrities and well-known athletes.  Their target market?  Young people in big cities.  Using typical British humour and London locations, it was an incredibly successful campaign.

Ikea promoted its new shop in Malaysia by celebrating the local dialect.  Many Hokkien words end with “kia” and so Ikea used various phonetic plays on words to engage the local market.  You can read more about this successful campaign here: https://www.getmarvia.com/blog/12-examples-of-brands-with-great-local-marketing-campaigns

With a company’s website often being the shop window for its products and services, localisation has never been more important.  Many figures are bandied around the internet, but it is reckoned that around 65% of consumers will not stay on a website if it is not in their language or culturally relevant to them.

Our experienced and creative localisation team can handle over 200 languages.  Let us know how we can help you.