[MUSIC] First of all, I'd like to talk about definition of translation quality. And how a good translation differs from a bad one. This is a key question that will determine our further discussion. You could say that there are four approaches to defining translation quality. And the choice between them depends on who is evaluating the translation. And what they are using as a basis for this evaluation. Let's take a look at each approach separately. The first one is popular among project managers and goes back to quality management standards, specifically ISO 9001. The point of this approach is that a good translation needs to meet the requirements and expectations of the client. And this is true. If we can deliver translations that complies with all their conditions set forth by the client. We could say that the translation is excellent. Some clients might provide style guides, and that will give a lot of details on the requirements. Language, terminology and even punctuation that should be used to help translate on the documents. Unfortunately, this is an exception rather than the rule. Most clients can't clearly state what exactly they're looking for in a translation. Which means that the quality assessment based on what the client wants is usually impossible. The second approach is mostly used by the linguists. Thus they often consider translation to be good if it contains no errors. This approach is popular, because it allows you to evaluate translation quality using numerical indicators. In this case you can count the number of errors in a document, multiplied by a specific coefficient. Divide that number by the number of words checked, and voila, we have a translation quality index. Several language quality assessment or LQA methodologies work according to these principles. We will talk about them a bit later. But there's a negative side to this approach as well. Take a look at this sentence. It can be translated without a single mistake, but the translation will be too literal word-for-word. There may be no typos in translation and all the commas may be in their right places. But it will still not be considered a good translation, why? Because a literal translation of an advertisement slogan or call for action will not convey the original message. That they also intended in it to have. And this is just in one example when the absence of errors doesn't mean the translation is of high quality. The third approach can be called process-oriented. This one is mostly liked by sales managers. Because it allows them to show the clients what exactly they are paying for. It takes its roots from the industry standard ISO 17100 which sets the requirements for language service providers. And in this case, translation is considered to be of high quality. If a certain process and sequence of actions were followed by qualified specialists during their work. This approach defines the methodology of how a translation should be completed. But it comes down to a single sequence of actions for writing text. As practice shows, it's impossible to come up with a universal approach. That will be equally suited for translating user assistance and documentation, legal documents and marketing content, for example. So far we've seen how translation quality is approached by project managers, linguists and sales managers. But we have forgotten to consider the most important opinion. It's the opinion of a client who is paying for the translation. If the client remains dissatisfied with the result, no industry standards or methodologies will convince them that the job was done well. So we need to understand the conditions under which the client who were happy with the translation we provide. This isn't as difficult as it may seem. All we need to do is remember two things. The first one, the point of writing any text is to reach specific goals. And these goals are very tangible. Raise sales, lower costs, minimize risks and so on. And the second point is, a good translation has to reach the same goal as the original text. Let's look at two examples to clearly understand how this approach affect the perception of a translation. Let's say you are working on translating a video ad. You found that perfect style to drive their call for action home, but made a couple of spelling errors in the script. Will this effect how the audience sees the ad? Most likely not, as the audience won't even read the script. On the other hand, imagine a huge billboard with a typo right in the middle of the call for action. This for surely spoils the clients reputation. And your spelling error will be critical in how their business is perceived. So you see, similar mistakes can be seen differently, depending on whether their translation reaches the same goals as the original text. Further in our discussion we will reference all four translation quality approaches. But I think that the last one is the most important. After all, no matter how you look at the quality of the translated text, it always has to meet the same goals as the original text. If it does, we can be sure that the client will be happy with the service we provide. [MUSIC]
