Translation Agency trends: translation projects from the last few months

The first few months of 2021 in our translation agency have been amongst our busiest ever. A combination of translation projects from long-standing clients combined with translation requests from clients who have only just joined us have really kept the teams across all offices busy providing translation services. In this blog, we will talk about some of the translation projects our translation agency has handled and some trends that we have noticed emerging.

Our translation agency works extensively with medical translations, and it’s no surprise to see that clinical trials translations have seen a high demand this year. As well as traditional clinical trials documents, we have also worked on the translation of an app for managing clinical trials, where patients can record information relevant to the trial for subsequent analysis. This huge project was translated into over 20 languages, including European, Middle Eastern and Asian languages.

Another translation project that our translation agency recently managed involved app translation, but this time in the sphere of financial translation, or – to be more accurate – financial wellbeing. This app helps employees of a company manage their finances more effectively and gives advice in the event they get into difficulties. We recently performed a Chinese translation of the app, but have previously performed translations into French, German, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian and Japanese to name a few. Likewise, we have also been supporting the developer of a wedding app with the translation of their software and other content into German, as they branch out into other markets.

Continuing the software localisation theme, one of the most interesting trends our translation agency has witnessed in the past few years is that of e-learning translation, usually including multi-language voiceovers and/or subtitles. One translation project involved the translation of an e-learning course into multiple languages for a global company in the food and drink sector, including translation into a whole host of European languages and Arabic. Another recent interesting e-learning translation project involved the translation of a set of medical courses for doctors from Brazilian Portuguese into English. As well as translating the on-screen text and navigation from the course, we also translated the voiceover script and recorded an English language voiceover. Before the recording started, the client selected their preferred voices from a variety of samples we provided. The end result is a fully localised course, with both on-screen text and voiceovers in English. Software translation – or software localisation as it is also known – is one of the most rapidly growing services we are asked for. We recently even translated a software product into Maori – which is not one of our most requested languages!

One of the most regular types of project our translation agency works on is website translation. Over the past six months or so, we have managed a whole host of website translation projects, including e-commerce translations for a retail company, multi-language website translations for a garden product manufacturer, Spanish website translations for a whisky manufacturer and the translation of web content for a women’s charity. Website translations can be completed in a variety of different ways: from a simple export of the content right through to connecting our translation management system to the client’s CMS. Clients are increasingly becoming aware of the need to localise keywords for local markets. The web behaviour of the users in different markets is analysed in order to understand which search terms users in their own countries enter into search engines, which can differ from search terms in the source language country. This keyword localisation process then allows the website translation to be populated with sufficient mentions of the relevant keywords.

Over the last 12 months, we have also seen a huge increase in video translation, which usually involves multilanguage subtitling or voiceovers in different languages. A recent project involved subtitling a video for a baby food manufacturer around safe feeding guidelines for children, whilst another subtitling project involved gaming translation: we translated the subtitles for a trailer of a new game and also the subtitles for interviews with a selection of gamers. On the voiceover side of things, we recently translated and provided Spanish voiceovers for an instructional video detailing how to operate a piece of telecommunications equipment and also German voiceovers for a promotional video for a client who manufactures interior structures within buildings.

In terms of translation industry trends, perhaps the most notable over the last 12 months is that of remote interpreting. Whether it is a whole conference requiring simultaneous interpreting in virtual booths or simply a consecutive interpreting session for a business meeting, we have covered most scenarios. Over the last few months, we have provided remote interpreting services for disciplinary hearings for staff and management board meetings through to client-supplier negotiations and European Works Council meetings. Our sessions are usually held on either our own specialist remote interpreter platform, or Teams and Zoom for the more informal sessions. And despite the boom in remote interpreting, we have also provided face-to-face interpreting (with COVID safety measures in place) for global engineering clients who needed interpreters to be physically present.

Of course, not all projects are related to software and video translation or interpreting – some of the other translations we’ve handled recently include the technical translation of an owner’s manual for a yacht, the translation of a Code of Ethics for a global manufacturer, the translation of a set of IT security processes for an engineering company, social media transcreations for a brand of almond milk, technical translation into Spanish of a document about fish breeding, fintech translations for a leading company’s case study portfolio and translation of product copy for a leading beauty product manufacturer!

Since the turn of the year, we have managed over 3000 translation projects and translated in excess of 25 million words for over 700 clients. We hope you have enjoyed this little insight into the translations our translation agency has worked on recently. If you would like to discuss how we can help you or want to learn more about our translation services, please get in touch.