In the information age, those who get information faster have bigger winning chances. Clients often want the real time trends of the industry and their competitors, or the public opinion about their own brands within one day or several hours (as fast as possible!). Time is precious and the information needs to be concise and to the point (brief and relevant!). Besides, the information sources and the languages of the target audience often differ, and the source information in Chinese needs to be translated into English (change of language!), so how are we going to provide information to clients in a fast, concise and relevant manner? Based on deep analysis about clients’ need, TalkingChina has developed “Intelligence Editing and Translation” service product.
What is Intelligence Editing and Translation?
First of all, what is editing and translation? It is the combination of editing and translation, a translation activity that needs editing work, in which editing comes before or after translation.
In practice, Intelligence Editing and Translation is done through summarizing the main ideas of the financial, policy, opinion, industry and competitor product information provided by clients, which is in many languages, and translating them into languages used by target audience.
Delivery Standards:
1. With a title and a summary of the Chinese source information;
2. With translated title and summary
Editors and Translator qualifications:
1. Idiomatic, concise, skilled expression in both languages, good at summarizing in source language;
2. Knowing the terminology and with a background of related industries (finance, automobile and pharmaceutics, etc.);
3. Professionals in journalism or news editing and people with a communications /editing background are our first choice;
Based on the above requirements, TalkingChina’s human resource and the production teams cooperate to update the processes of editor/translator selection, training and management.
Service Detailsl:
1. Time frame: Normally, the intelligence is submitted daily, every two days, weekly, biweekly or monthly;
2. Communication needs: Compared to regular translation, intelligence editing and translation projects need to have more communications with clients;
3. Other project management requirements: Make “style guideline” for every end customer, including the specific standards of layout, expression, and summary, as well as a terminology database.
General Workflow:
The project manager will assign projects to editors/translators and provide the source information, style guideline and terminology database according to project requirement—— The editors/translators read through the passage, summarize in Chinese and translation the summary into English—— PM send the translated drafts to proofreader—— QA tool check—— Customer feedbacks—— PM finalize the manuscript and update the style guideline and terminology;
Key Points of Project Management:
1)End customers have different style guidelines (specific requirements, language styles, punctuations, layout, etc.) and term databases; it is necessary for the translator team to be familiar with them;
2)The deadlines are stringent and dispersed, and we should be highly responsive and good at time management;
3)Sometimes we should meet the urgent needs of the end customer, which are very random and requires great flexibility.
Some Cases:
|
Project |
Field |
Timeframe |
Number of information pieces |
|
BMW |
automobile |
Return on the same day |
10 pieces a time |
|
CSR |
automobile |
Return on the same day |
10 pieces a time |
|
Temasek |
finance |
Receive source information at night, return on the next day |
10 pieces a time |
|
LKK |
design |
Return within one and a half hours |
20 pieces a time |
|
Cargill |
food |
Receive source information at night, return on the next day |
20 pieces a time |
|
BAT |
tobacco |
Return within a week |
20 pieces a time |
|
Mei.com |
luxury goods |
Return within a week |
20 pieces a time |
|
Decathlon |
sports equipment |
Return within a week |
20 pieces a time |
|
doTerra |
essential oil; |
Return within a week |
20 pieces a time |
|
Cook Medical |
medicine |
Return within 2 weeks |
20 pieces a time |
|
CDK |
automobile |
Return within 2 weeks |
20 pieces a time |
|
Pernod Ricard |
alcohol |
Return within 1 month |
20 pieces a time |
Conclusions:
In our practice of providing language services, we can see that the language needs are becoming more and more diversified. Translations have had many derivatives; the translator’s role has changed accordingly, and in more and more cases, they are copywriters, marketer and communicators. It’s difficult for us to satisfy the clients’ need by adopting tradition methods and merely translating by word.
For the intelligence editing and translating, which is “translation+” service, it requires great language, editing and writing skills, and translation is only a small part. We, as a language service provider, need to explore and upgrade the processes of editor/translator selection and the editing and writing skills.
By providing the service, we are glad to know that our intelligence editing and translating service is helping clients to make better and fast strategies and moves and to take initiatives in the market competition, which is a great reward to the efforts we have put in.
