If you visit a new country and order from a restaurant menu, a less-than-perfect translation will probably still make sense. But there’s high-quality no room for error in an industry like mechanical engineering. One wrong or poorly translated word can put lives at risk, cause costly mistakes, and jeopardize milestones.
The good news is that with the latest technology and translation solutions, you don’t have to worry about inefficiently engineered and error-prone content.
Mechanical engineering translations are technical translations combined with localization for greater accuracy, efficiency, and accessibility, so you can create content at scale. With accurate translations at an affordable cost, you can reach customers and stakeholders around the world.
Let’s look at some of the challenges of technical engineering translations, the best practices you can employ, and how you can use the right technology and team to achieve improved translations.
Common Types of Mechanical Engineering Translations
Every branch of engineering — aerospace, civil, electrical, industrial, mechanical, and others — will require translated materials as it expands across the globe.
Some examples of documents you may need to translate include:
Manuals: Whether it’s a safety manual, a user manual, or a resource that helps engineers and customers build, operate, and maintain machines, providing documents that all stakeholders can clearly understand is vital to a successful product.
Company Reporting: Engineers must be able to communicate their findings, concerns, technological advances, and more to stakeholders in all languages.
Technical drawings: Sharing information is essential for mechanical engineering, especially as technology evolves rapidly. Experts can create blueprints and other drawings to map out designs, functionality, instructions, and more.
Warning labels: Small misunderstandings can have dramatic results, such as how a German translation of a knee replacement label convinced surgeons to skip a step in knee replacement procedures, resulting in 30 patients requiring corrective surgery. Teams should translate labels to clearly and accurately communicate their point of view and ensure safety.
Protocols: Engineers and supervisors must be able to develop protocols for multilingual understanding to scale and scale mechanical operations more efficiently.
Mechanical Engineering Translation Requirements
Engineers who are producing complex machines and robotics must ensure that users know how each component works together. As a result, successful mechanical engineering requires communication and teamwork.
If every team member and engineer knows the technical requirements and safety protocols needed for a successful machine, teams can produce valuable products without easily avoidable errors. The same concept applies to companies and customers who use and maintain the machines.
Communication is always a challenge, so specificity and accuracy are essential in all documentation.
But the challenges don’t stop there. You’ll face the same communication challenges when reaching users who speak another language. This is even more challenging when you’re not a native speaker and don’t know the local engineering or customer environments of your target audience.
The cost of poorly localized translations
Louis Balla, a mechanical engineer and partner at Nuage , a digital transformation consulting firm, recounted how an international supplier once provided poorly translated assembly instructions. He told Smartling that “this led to several croatia whatsapp number data 5 million faulty prototypes and weeks of rework.” Mistakes and delays like these can hinder a company’s growth and dramatically increase avoidable costs.
But Balla has learned from these experiences. “Invest in high-quality translations, especially for technical documentation,” he advises. “Accuracy and clarity are key. Don’t rely on generic translation software or cheap outsourcers. Work with translators who understand mechanical engineering and the terminology of your industry.”
If a company wants to continue growing, it must successfully hone its communication process across dozens of different languages and cultures to avoid problems like the ones Balla faced.
How Innovation Has Changed Mechanical Engineering Translations
It may seem impossible to translate billions of words, maintain resources, and update content daily. And before, it was — or at least it was unproductive and expensive.
But thanks to recent technological making decisions based on data, not emotions: the key to effective management advances, that’s changed. Businesses can now rely on a combination of high-quality machine translations and local human experts to translate content quickly and accurately at larger scales.
If you want to effectively scale your business growth, your translation workflows will need to meet these three requirements:
Speed: Translate content in seconds on demand.
Accuracy: Correctly communicate the intended meaning of your original message in all target languages.
Accessibility: Use cost-effective translation services so you can translate content whenever you need it.
If you meet these requirements, you can translate your technical engineering materials for all your target audiences and languages.
Common mistakes when translating mechanical engineering content
The biggest mistakes we see at Smartling don’t necessarily involve incorrect translations. If you look at the source material and a literal translation side by side, you’ll see that they technically convey the same message. However, word-for-word taiwan data translations don’t use the same tone or voice as the source language message and can even offend other audiences.
Brands shouldn’t measure translations by how they appear to a non-native speaker. Instead, translations need to account for cultural differences and other nuances to communicate the same message across languages.
For example, a phrase like “tighten the screw by hand” could mean to tighten a screw so that it is tight but not overtightened. Depending on the culture, a customer might read a translation and think that this means to tighten the screw with your fingers.
Cultural nuances, idioms, and audience perceptions require more than a literal translation. The number one mistake businesses make is failing to localize their content.
Mechanical engineering localization adapts products and content for a specific target market. When you localize a user manual or safety protocol, you create a translation with your intended culture and audience in mind. Localization helps your target audience accurately understand what you’re communicating and makes your experience feel local, not foreign.
Combining AI technology with local human linguists
If mechanical engineering companies want to expand their technical documentation, operations and growth, they must adopt a localization strategy.
Previously, localizing content into dozens of different languages and cultures was inefficient, inaccurate, and expensive. But now, engineers can use translation technology to create accurately translated materials on a budget.
Today’s AI enables a partnership between AI tools and human linguists . For example, Smartling’s Machine Translation Hub selects the best machine translation engine for each project, so you can accurately translate billions of words in seconds. Our human translators can then check and adjust the content as needed.
Our linguists also proofread and transcreate content so that your audience understands your message as intended. As native speakers, our translators understand the cultural nuances, expectations, and changing trends that affect them, making them the most qualified experts to transform your content.
Over time, you can also build your translation memory and brand glossary so that AI can create translations using the exact engineering phrases and words you prefer for faster, more consistent output.
Mechanical Engineering Translation Best Practices
Accurate localization of mechanical engineering requires these three steps to achieve long-term quality:
1. Implement a localization strategy
First, review all of your materials and do your best to organize them by priority. Then, create a plan to begin translating and localizing your content for one language and culture at a time. Your plan should outline exactly how you will create a fully localized version for each local audience.
But don’t worry, you don’t have to do it all alone. Smartling’s professional services can lead your localization strategy so you don’t have to design it from scratch.
Once you have a general roadmap to get started, you can adopt the tools and services needed to make your strategy possible.
2. Choose a technology stack for speed and accuracy
A lot of technology goes into localized translation. You’ll need a machine translation engine, a CAT tool to add visual context to web pages and images, a translation management system to process and manage content, and more.
The best translation solution gives you everything you need in one place. This makes the translation process easier and increases your team’s efficiency. When all your tools work together, there are fewer gaps that can cause delays.
For example, Smartling provides all the tools and services you need for highly efficient AI translations and management.
3. Find a partner who specializes in management and translation
While AI can help with translation accuracy, accessibility, and consistency over time, it doesn’t eliminate the need for human experts. After all, you’re communicating with humans, not machines. You need to be absolutely certain that what you say is the same across languages and cultures for maximum accuracy and security.
Local expert translators can localize your content based on the target culture to ensure your translations are always correct.
Smartling provides professional native-speaking translators so that every engineering company can confidently sell, communicate and service their products in Italian, Arabic, Spanish, French, Mandarin Chinese or any other target language.
How Smartling handles mechanical engineering translations
Smartling Home PageSmartling provides the best translation tools and services for mechanical engineering content in Russian, Japanese, and any other foreign language. ( Source )
Smartling is an all-in-one mechanical engineering translation solution and service. With us, you get access to the most efficient and accurate.