translation quality

Translation Quality Process

6-Step Quality Process


We utilise a 6-step process to deliver translation quality. Good translation requires native-speaking, industry specialist translators working in country. Our translation process tracks your documents through each step from original source files until they are finally delivered back to you in the target languages.

Translation Quality

6-Step Quality Process:


1. Clean Information at the Core
2. Terminology Management
3. Translation Process
4. Translation Quality Management
5. In-Context Review
6. Final Handoff

1. Clean Information at the Core
STAR believes that having clean information at the start is key to any successful multilingual project. Often a layout issue generated in the original English document may not be picked up until translation has begun. If this happens, the issue then has to be fixed in every language, which is a lot of repeat work. At the very outset of every project, STAR reviews all documents to check for potential translation issues in advance. This makes the entire process cleaner and easier.

2. Terminology Management and Style Guide
Before translation begins, we review the English documentation for key terminology. We would recommend that all our clients their terminology before translation. For some types of documentation, certain words will remain in English, whilst others may be translated in a some special form. Building a terminology base first ensures the quality of your translation as your documents will then be translated in a consistent manner to match it. This also aids the interpretation of the final translated document by your readers. STAR utilises its own commercial terminology tool, Termstar, to allow storage of your terminology for use on all your projects.

3. Translation Process
STAR believes that quality translation begins with good people. Most projects are carried out in house by STAR translators and project managers, thus ensuring a consistent relationship with the client that delivers consistent quality. STAR selects its translators for each particular client on the basis of 3 specific criteria. Each team member is rated on a) their native language skills, b) their industry-specific skills, and c) their technical ability to work on different types of projects.

We strive to always have the same people work on your projects. We constantly work to improve our process and translation quality, building on your translation assets and our translation skills.

STAR works in many industries with many file formats so we focus on delivering the best process and best translation team for each one.

- Translation System and Storage

All your translations are stored in the STAR Transit translation memory system. This is a database that stores every line of translation we ever do for you, so you never have to pay to have the same sentence translated twice. This reduces costs and, combined with Termstar, delivers consistent quality translations.

Transit allows our translators to search for similar terms and paragraphs that you may have had translated before in order to ensure accurate translation every time.

4. Translation Quality Management
Following the translation process, your translations are proofread by a separate translator. This ensures the highest quality as a second pair of eyes will always read your translation in context. Any errors or interpretation issues are relayed back to the translator for fixing. During this phase, our team can find text that requires clarification by the client. After the original source document is read, questions can often arise as to whether the translation or indeed the original text fully and accurately reflects the originally intended meaning. Our proofing teams will require a member of your team to be able to answer such questions. This cycle of knowledge benefits both your internal team communications and the quality of translations we deliver for you. For special translations such as medical translation an extra proofing stage can be applied.

Proofreading costs are included in our translation pricing so no additional charge is made for this. Proofreading is a key part of all document translation to ensure the correct interpretation has been applied in the translation process.

5. Desktop Publishing (DTP) and In-Context Review
STAR provides desktop publishing services for all languages and in all file formats and operating systems (MAC, PC, Unix, etc.).

- Reduced DTP Effort

A key benefit of working with STAR is that we can work with all major file formats. STAR Transit, our translation memory tool, is recognised as having some of the best file filters in the world. This benefits you as we can extract text from virtually any file format for translation. STAR Transit separates the text content from the document layout. We can then translate the text and reintegrate it into the document for final DTP layout. This process greatly reduces the DTP effort required for your translation projects.

Once proofread, we output the final document to its print-ready form and it is reviewed for layout and structure. We take a sample of the text again and read it in published form to ensure it delivers the same high quality user view as the original. We deliver the files to the client for final review in the published form. Some clients opt to proof the final versions themselves internally to ensure that the translated documents that we provide read in the same style as requested.

Storage of the translation with a view to future updating. All STAR projects are translated using the STAR Transit Translation Memory system. STAR Transit is our commercial translation memory system, recognised as one of the world's leading translation memory system. The product has been some 15 years in development and includes file filters for all of the leading file formats.

STAR Transit includes automated quality checks for consistency, terminology usage and file formatting. All STAR translators use this system, thus delivering a consistent quality process.

All projects are automatically stored in Transit's translation memory system at no charge. The translation memory is confidential to you and remains your property at all times. This ensures that your linguistic assets are preserved and at your disposal for all future projects.

6. Final Handoff
STAR then delivers the final files to the client in the required format. We can do this by email, FTP or courier, depending on client's requirements. We ensure that we deliver to the client a) the final files and b) the sources relating to those files to enable the client to recreate them in the future.
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