Sometimes translation costs and the time necessary to make a copy change in the middle of a translation project can be quite a surprise to a customer. Translation companies can help lessen these surprises.
While some changes can be completed with a few simple actions, more complicated or involved revisions will require more attention from a number of people within the translation, editing, formatting, and QA process.
Consider a simple change, such as adding a register mark to a name. This is something that can normally be done with a search and replace operation in Desktop Publishing. Proofreading this change can also be done quickly with a search function in the final formatted document.
However, consider a terminology change, such as changing the word “device” to “instrument”. In this case a search and replace function may not be appropriate to use.Because the existing translation term may appear in various forms, such as a subject and/or object of the sentence, or in singular and/or plural, etc.. Additionally, most foreign languages have different endings and/or different modifiers, depending on the form or gender of the word. These words may also need to be changed to be correct and consistent with the new terminology.
Terminology changes within translated content will entail the work of an editor, a desktop publisher, and proofreaders (both mechanical and linguistic). Naturally, the number of occurrences of the new term determine the cost and additional production time needed to handle the change.
This is another good reason to do your best to assure that your source material is “final and approved” before beginning the translation process. A skilled translation company will be aware of these potential pit falls and help you avoid them, resulting in higher quality translations at a lower cost.