Have you ever felt that sentences don’t sound natural when reading the translation of a streaming movie, advertisement, foreign news, or brochure of an imported product? It might well be that those have not been proofread by a native-speaking translator!
In recent years, the accuracy of machine translations has increased rapidly. Such translations are now used for a variety of situations. However, it is still difficult for machine translation to consider the cultural context and the overall feel of a text in the same way native speakers can.
If a company issues a translated press release, commercial video, or product brochure that does not read smoothly, the impression end-users have for the company may suffer considerably.
Therefore, to ensure the quality of your translations, always have them checked by a native-speaking translator!
Proofreading by native speakers
Translations checked by native speakers of the target language (native translators) allow local end-users to feel that the translated texts read smoothly.
The importance of having native speakers proofread
There are three reasons why high-quality translations must be proofread by a native speaker of the target language.
– Finding and correcting translation errors
– Adjusting unnatural choice of words and tweaking the overall ‘feel” to present a more natural text.
– Providing localized translations that consider the cultural and social contexts.
Of course, in addition to identifying the translator’s errors, the most important thing is to eliminate the “we don’t say this in this way ……” phenomenon – which refer to subtle incongruities that only native speakers can detect.
For example, when I translated an article on Covid, although it was not wrong to translate it as “Please avoid gatherings of many people”, it would be more natural and simpler to translate it as “Please avoid gatherings”. Checking by a native speaker takes into account such subtle awkward wording, as well as the social context when re-examining a text.
Should machine translations be proofread by a native speaker?
To ensure translation quality, machine translations should be proofread by a native speaker of the target language. Even if different regions share a language, they still have noticeable differences in the choice of words and phrases. When inappropriate words or phrases are used, the translation will be neither smooth nor fluent.
Take “English” as an example: in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Singapore, the vocabulary used are slightly different. For example, Canadian English is a fusion of American and British English, with some words being the same as British English and others being the same as American English, so one must be careful when choosing words and phrases.
Take “Chinese” as another example: the vocabulary used in Mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong are very different. Common translation machines on the market often use Mainland Chinese words when translating into Chinese. Therefore, machine translations should be proofread by a native speaker of the target language.
The process of proofreading by a native speaker
The following section briefly introduces the process of native-speaker proofreading by a professional translation company. It explains the advantages of outsourcing native-speakers to proofreading for a translation company, rather than leaving it to your company’s in-house native speakers.
The process of native-speaker proofreading (e.g. for translations from Japanese to Chinese)
• The client entrusts a translation company to create a Japanese-Chinese translation, and its translators translate the text from Japanese to Chinese.
• Or the client provides the original text and the machine-translated text.
• Native Chinese translators (native-speaker proofreaders) carry out the native-speaker proofreading.
Why can’t the company’s in-house native speakers do the proofreading?
Native-speaking translators are required to compare the original translations line by line, word by word, and check for translation errors. Then without looking at the original text, they check the translation. By intentionally not looking at the original text, it is possible to objectively assess whether or not the translation is smooth and “readable”.
Besides having proficiency in the target language, native-speaking translators also have a deeper knowledge in terms of grammar and writing skills required. They also have the wisdom and experience needed to check sensitive content, including the socio-cultural context of the target region.
In other words, when a native speaker in your own company who is not a trained translator is assigned to proofread a translation, it may result to a poorly written text. The content may also not be in line with the socio-cultural context of the target region.
Therefore, in cases where there are translation errors that are unacceptable, we recommend that you work with a translation company to have your texts proofread by a native speaker of the target language. When selecting a translation company, be sure to check whether or not a native-speaker proofreader is available. Especially when the translation rate is very low, native-speaker proofreaders are likely not available.
In addition, if you only want to commission a translation company to perform native-speaker proofreading for machine-translated texts, we recommend requesting a sample translation or a test translation beforehand. This is in order to confirm if the translator is indeed proficient in the subject matter.
Native-speaker proofreading services at PTSGI.com
Finally, let’s introduce you to PTSGI.com:
• Translation by native speakers.
• With more than 13,600 translators and proofreaders worldwide, we can handle any area of specialization and are capable of handling over 140 languages.
• Translations are checked a second time by native speakers of the target languages (proofreaders).
Headquartered in Taiwan, PTSGI.com provides a wide range of Chinese language-related translation services and prides itself of providing clients with the world’s best quality Chinese translations.
As Asia’s largest global multi-language translation company, we translate not only between Chinese and English, but we also cover other numerous rare languages and provide proofreading services done by native speakers.
With professional translators in various fields, PTSGI.com creates translations from technical documents to games, providing users with easy-to-read, natural-sounding translations very close to the original text. We have been providing translation services for TSMC in Taiwan, Toyota in Japan, and clients around the globe.
In addition, we offer a 300-word free trial translation to give you a peace of mind when submitting your translation requests!
If your company is interested in high-quality translation services from a professional translation company, then click here for the inquiry form to contact us. We’re very excited to offer you our trial translation service and get to know more about you and your company.
