If you throw a dart at a dartboard and it doesn’t hit the center, that’s okay. You’re having fun and enjoying the sport.
But you can’t afford to miss the mark in technical translation projects. These translations must maintain the intended meaning in any language or dialect. This is difficult, especially considering the complexity of human understanding when different dialects, cultures, and biases influence how others understand technical terminology and messages.
But your translations don’t have to be wrong. Accurately localized translations can deliver the same high-quality, accurate communication in Spanish, German, French, Japanese or Chinese as they do in English. They also ensure increased sales, safer operations, more efficient processes and documentation, and stronger relationships with key stakeholders.
In this article, we’ll find out how to get technical translations right the first time with high-quality translation services . But first, let’s look at why accurate technical document translations seem almost impossible to scale.
Why are technical translations so challenging?
Technical documents require precision and consistency to ensure accuracy, security, and efficiency in day-to-day operations. When a second, third, and fourth target market comes into play, you’ll need to translate your content into new languages. Your global teams need the same accuracy, consistency, and attention as your English-speaking team, whether they speak Chinese, French, Spanish, or German.
For example, in 2006 and 2007, a medical device company provided German medical professionals with English-language labels for knee replacements, leaving the staff to translate them themselves. The European Medical Writers Association’s Medical Writing publication reported on the tragedy in its March 2024 issue :
“The hospital staff then mistranslated the English label’s ‘cemented non-modular’ (porous) information into ‘cemented’ or ‘cementless’ (smooth surface) in German. This translation error contributed to the failure of total knee replacements in 47 patients between 2006 and 2007, showing the importance of accurate translation of medical material content.”.
How localization and transcreation fit together
In the same medical writing issue that discussed the knee replacement error, the editorial team explains that “although English is one of the most widely spoken languages globally, it cannot replace the richness of more than 7,000 spoken and signed languages around the world, each with its own unique cultural complexities and nuances.”
This is why companies need to dedicate more attention and resources to differentiated translations that avoid costly mistakes and setbacks.
Accurate content translations require a holistic approach to transforming content while incorporating audience insights. So what do accurate content translations look like beyond general translation ? Two critical processes address cultural and language barriers in translations.
For example, if you’re translating documents for a team in the Middle East, your audience will read your Arabic and Hebrew translations from right to left. You’ll need to consider the formatting and measurements of these scripts, which may be different from your source language.
Localization ensures that your technical materials remain transparent and accurately convey their original meaning. A misplaced word or phrase can change the way someone perceives instructions, instructional documents, or technical materials, which can be inefficient, costly, and dangerous in technical fields.
Which sectors need technical translation services?
Industries that deal with highly technical information, such as software engineering, mechanical engineering, finance, data, medicine, and research, must translate content into different languages at scale as accurately as possible.
There’s a lot at stake between team albania whatsapp number data 5 million members, industry partners, and customers. For example, a mistranslation or misperceived meaning can lead to costly errors, inefficiencies, and lost business, as well as cost lives.
In a global economy, businesses need a fast and accurate translation service provider to ensure their translations are flawless and communicate effectively, leaving no room for confusion. Not only do all global industries need accurate and consistent translations, they also need to quickly translate hundreds of different types of communications and materials.
Different types of technical translation needs
There are many use cases for translations in interactions with customers and stakeholders. Here are several cases where accurate content translations are essential:
1. User Manuals and Customer Resources
Businesses need accurate production and product quality translations to communicate effectively with their teams and stakeholders, whether through user guides, technical specifications, graphics, or wireframes.
Translations are also essential for customer-facing documentation, such as application programming interface documents for integrations, how-to support materials, operating manuals, and device troubleshooting instructions.
2. Training documents and technical process
As companies grow, they work with more teams from different cultural backgrounds, whether at their headquarters or in other locations fax marketing around the world. To maintain consistent and efficient processes, companies need to ensure that their training documents are the same across all cultures and languages.
3. Corporate and investor documents
Translations are essential for technical services and areas such as legal documentation, liability forms and financial reports. Technical translation services localize this content so that it is clear and understandable to the different government agencies and stakeholders that companies work with around the world.
4. Quality assurance documents and safety data sheets
Maintaining quality can be difficult, especially when small factors make a big difference. Translations ensure that everyone understands expectations and areas for improvement.
Quality control is essential, as is safety. You can document safety data sheets for handling, storing, and disposing of hazardous materials, as well as other types of data, to ensure everyone is safe and your company remains productive.
5. Customer support
Customers and consumers should have positive support experiences, regardless of the language they speak or the culture they come from. This is the best way to maintain a positive reputation and nurture customer relationships.
Whether you use an AI chatbot, communicate via email, or provide articles to answer common questions, you need localized translations to provide effective customer support and connect with buyers.
6. Technical marketing content
Marketing teams often interact with technical audiences when promoting your company’s product or service. They need to go deep and speak on the same level as potential customers.
As technical experts evaluate your offerings and ask tough questions, marketing and sales teams can respond with translated emails and marketing materials. This way, they can connect with all customers, regardless of language, and increase sales.
Another translation needed for marketing is website translation. Your website is often the first impression you have on potential customers. Translation services are essential to personalize website experiences for multilingual audiences.
Maintain technical translation accuracy across all content
Choosing the right translation solution can be difficult. The best way to start is to avoid a manual translation process, which can be slow, expensive, and error-prone. Instead, technical companies can adopt a human-based, AI-driven approach that targets these three translation goals:
Accuracy: Translations must be clear and go beyond word-for-word translation. Stakeholders, regardless of their culture or context, must understand the intended meaning.
Speed: Fast translations avoid communication delays and gaps in rapidly changing technical areas.
Accessibility: Businesses have a lot of content to translate, so the translation process must be scalable for teams and businesses as they grow.
AI translation solutions like Smartling produce fast translations at lower costs with machine translation, a translation management system for a more efficient workflow, and professional human translation services. Translations will always need a human touch, so Smartling incorporates local language experts to partner with AI to provide the three pillars of scalable translations mentioned above.
Choosing a high-quality technical translation service
Translations made easySmartling simplifies technical translations to save costs while increasing speed and improving quality. ( Source )
Not all tools are created equal. Some translate content but don’t offer human expertise for full localization. The best solution provides.