Translation Company Trends: Recent Translation Projects
Our translation company is enjoying its best ever sales year in 2021, with June being our best ever sales month on record. In this blog, we look at some of the interesting translation projects we have helped our clients with over the last few months, including many in the field of transcreation, interpreting and software localisation.
Transcreation continues to be a growing trend, with several transcreation projects being handled by our teams across our UK and European offices. These have included transcreation for a TV production company for whom we translated a script for a new comedy they were launching. As with all things comedy, a direct translation will not hit the spot, so a much more creative approach is required.
Likewise, we transcreated marketing content into 11 languages for a longstanding client of ours in the global cosmetics industry. One of the challenges of transcreation into so many languages is retaining the company’s brand identity whilst at the same time adapting the content for local markets. Close communication between linguists and stakeholders is key to ensuring this process is successful.
Lastly, on the theme of transcreation, we translated a set of children’s short stories for a children’s cancer charity. With content aimed at children in very difficult circumstances, it’s key to provide translations that are sensitive and adapted to individual needs, in order to ensure they provide the same levels of comfort and pleasure as the original English.
Interpreting – both simultaneous and consecutive interpreting – is another service whose demand shows no sign of abating. We have provided interpreters in a wide range of diverse settings: from conferences for global charities and climate change organisations through to interpreters for marketing meetings in the consumer goods sector. Virtual interpreting is usually still the norm at the moment, however we have also provided face-to-face interpreters at court hearings and other legal settings. As we work with a number of platforms, including our own remote interpreter platform, as well as interpreting on Zoom and Teams, we are able to meet the requirements of all our clients.
One of our most regular types of projects requested is that of software translation (or software localisation). Recent projects have included the translation of a set of software strings from a client in the financial sector. Our translation company boasts a fantastic software localisation team, which ensures that projects are prepared in such a way that only translatable copy is edited and any tags or coding remain intact for subsequent re-integration into the final format. Of course, it’s also key to have a great team of translators experienced in the subject matter, who can understand the context of sometimes brief phrases and translate them in the most appropriate manner. A similar type of project to software localisation is that of e-learning localisation, and with new remote ways of working as a result of the pandemic, we are regularly working on this type of translation project. Last month, we worked on a few very interesting translation projects in this field: one related to an internal e-learning course (software training) for a global engineering company whilst another was a set of courses designed to train clinicians on a set of new products. Both projects involved the use of our excellent subtitling and voiceover services, as well as the technical resources to edit on-screen text and rebuild the courses once translated. Video translation has surged during the pandemic: one of our clients usually delivers an annual presentation to staff at a plant in another country but this year decided to record a video to deliver the presentation, which we duly translated and embedded the translated subtitles onto the video for the employees.
As a translation company that manages in the region of 500 translation projects per month, it’s difficult to highlight individual projects of interest, but there were a couple of projects that stood out for us this month – the first was the translation of a set of lesson plans for an international school: the challenge here was the volume and the deadline. We organised a team of translators to work on the project within our Translation Management System, using shared resources and feedback to ensure consistency across the translations. With projects like this that are shared, it’s key to plan the translation projects carefully to ensure that the final translations are as consistent in style and terminology as they can be. Another project that caught the eye recently was the translation of a set of resources and quizzes for a cyber criminality consultancy. Aside from being interesting in terms of presentation (the resources took the form of a well-designed comic strip to present a variety of data protection scenarios), this project touches on something very close to our hearts here at the Translation People. Over the last few years, we’ve worked tirelessly to ensure our own systems are robust and offer excellent data protection, so it was very interesting to translate for a company that specifically advises others on how to ensure this within businesses.
We hope you’ve enjoyed this little insight into life within our translation company. If you would like more information in what we do, please get in touch!