How to get the most out of your remaining localisation budget in Q4

 

As the government’s Financial Statement date looms (set to be held on 30 October 2024), you may have budgets on your mind. But rather than holding fire on essential localisation projects when budgets are tight, why not rethink your strategy instead? Read on to find out how to get the most out of your remaining localisation budget, without compromising on quality.

 

Hire a professional

The quality of your translations will reflect the quality of your product or services. Paying a higher rate for a professional translation is always worth the investment – particularly when you’re dealing with high-visibility content. You get what you pay for: a carefully-crafted translation will take you far, but a linguistic blunder could land you in hot water and cost far more to fix in the long run.

 

Start with the source text

If the amount of content you can send out for translation is limited, try condensing it first – making sure the most important points get covered. If you know your content will be translated, bear that in mind when writing. If at all possible, avoid filling the text with idioms and cultural references that take longer and more expertise to transfer to the target audience.

 

Finalise your copy

To save time, clients often send a draft version of a text for translation, so the translators can make a start. This is perfectly manageable but will end up costing you more (both time and money-wise), as translators will have to go back and update your changes in the target text. To avoid overspending, ensure you send out the final, signed-off version for translation, in plenty of time (to avoid any added urgency fees).

 

Check out what you’ve already got

Before sending your document for translation, look at the content and reference material that you already have. You never know – part of it may have been translated before. And if you have any sentences for translation that have already been reworked in the past, they can probably be reused – thus shaving off a proportion of the word count for translation. Even if you don’t find any duplicates, reference material will help your translation team find your preferred terminology faster.

 

Think about what kind of service level you need

The service level you need can be dictated by your content requirements. We absolutely don’t recommend skimping on high-visibility content, but maybe internal documents won’t need an additional proofreading step if you have the capacity to work on them in-house?

 

Let AI tech support you

AI technology can help you save money translating large amounts of low-visibility, non-specialist content when paired with teams of specialist Machine Translation Post-Editors. These specialists are trained to understand the process and its potential pitfalls. Opting for Machine Translation should be a carefully-considered decision aided by your language service provider. If it’s something you’re interested in, have a look at our Buyer’s Guide to Machine Translation Engines.

It can be difficult to navigate important decisions that affect your translation quality and spend. We’re here to help you get the most out of your remaining budget. If you would like some advice, get in touch with our team and we can discuss your requirements.

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