When most people hear the word translator, they picture someone translating live on TV or working on foreign-language versions of best-selling novels. But in actual fact, most translators never do either. Most translation is quite technical in nature, that is, it requires specialized knowledge in a scientific or technical field.

Technical translation is everywhere

Patents, health & safety documentation, prospectuses, user manuals, software, product descriptions, assembly instructions—the list goes on and on. Even some things that don’t appear technical on the surface are in fact technical, such as job postings, or fashion descriptions in a magazine. The important thing to remember is that nobody can translate everything. Nobody is an expert in every field.

First things first: Who?

Start by having a close look at what you need to have translated. Is it all the same? Can a single person do it all? Or do different parts bring different knowledge into play? Annual reports are a good example—one part is always marketing related and should be translated by someone known for their writing skill, and the other is financial in nature and requires detailed knowledge of accounting standards and financial terminology.

Even if you have a favourite translator whose work you admire, chances are they won’t be right for every job.

Next things next: How?

There are three ways you can translate something: give it to a human, give it to a machine, or give it to both. Let’s have a look:

Human translation is clearly the best way to go if you’re doing anything creative, such as a slogan, a sales pitch, a novel, or an ad campaign. Despite recent strides, machines struggle with this kind of work—successfully connecting with an audience, eliciting emotion, surprising the reader with a unique turn of phrase. Luckily, most of what you need translated is probably not creative.

Straight machine translation is helpful if it’s for an internal audience at work, you’re looking to get the gist of a text, and you have budget constraints. It will contain mistakes and awkward wording, and some parts may be hard to follow. Use it guardedly.

Machine + human is the smart, go-to option for technical translation. It combines computing power with human understanding. To derive the full benefit, however, you must choose a translator with subject-matter expertise and make sure they have access to top-of-the-line databases and translation memory tools.

Machine + human: a winning strategy for technical translation

All good translators write clearly, grammatically, and idiomatically. They know how to craft a sentence. But that is no guarantee they are familiar with the topic at hand or the specialized terminology you require.

Machines, on the other hand, are very efficient at combing huge databases for technical terms. They can find in seconds what a human translator can take hours looking for. They are, however, less adept at fitting those words properly into a sentence.

Combining the two is a winning strategy. The human translator can focus on doublechecking the text against the original, polishing it for readability, and making sure no inadvertent terminology mistakes have slipped in.

The right partner makes all the difference

Hunting down the right translator with the right subject-matter expertise is time consuming and not always successful. That’s why it’s important to work with a reputable firm like TRSB. We have entire divisions specialized in specific types of translation, such as pharmaceutical, financial, regulatory, marketing, legal, and government. We also have hundreds of carefully validated external resources who can provide ad hoc assistance on uniquely technical jobs.

For added performance, we use customized neural translation engines that are trained on industry-specific and client-specific terminology. We also have a complete team of professional terminologists who provide research backup to our translators.

When you choose TRSB, you get Canada’s biggest translation firm and the world’s biggest provider of Canadian French. You also get access to our multilingual division, which works in all the world’s major languages, and you get specialized advice to identify the right approach for your workflow.

For help matching your technical translations to subject-matter experts, contact us today!