The statistics shows that there were about 28,500 translation works published throughout China, with an average of 2192 annually from 1978 to 1990. Then the data from 1995 to 2003 is almost nine times of that from 1978 to 1990, which were 94400 and 10489 respectively. There is no doubt that China is a big translation country. However, it cannot be considered as a powerful translation country due to the current situation.
Firstly, the total translation level is not as high as that in other countries. Many companies emerge in powerful a large number and various levels of translation services.
Secondly, both of the quantity and quality of translators are badly needed to increase. In despite of that the number of professional translators has reached 60 thousand, there are about 500 thousand part-time translators in China, and the quality is still in a low level.
Thirdly, there is no mature regulation to guide and manage the translation industry.
It is obvious that translation service needs to be improved in order to make China a translation power. In fact competitive strength of a company depends on its translation service. Translation service is a rewarding business behavior which offers customers with transforming service of more than two languages. Because of the irregularity in this industry, competitions are becoming fierce increasingly. Only professional service can make a company in an invincible position and outstanding among so many competitors.
Above all, the core to achieve professional translation service lies in the standard. To begin with, it requests the support of translation management. In other words, it is not performed by an individual, but by an excellent team, in which team members cooperate in a well-organized way. The team consists of project manager, translators, quality assurance department (QA department), editor, proofreader, linguistic expert and technical expert. The talent filtering is especially important so that the involved persons are entitled to their work. Take Soven Trans for example, the talent filtering process is rather tough. Only 3 out of 1000 persons would be employed. Besides, cooperation and coordination among team members is a key to obtain professional service. Every person should be responsible for his or her works.
Then a thorough and prompt communication with the clients makes the project in good progress. It is easy to clearly figure out the translation content, quality, style, purpose, composing requirement of target source, confidential term and so on at the beginning of contact. When the translators encounter difficulties and pose questions, the project manager should contact the clients to obtain the solutions as soon as possible. Then project manager should tell all translators concerning with the difficulties and solutions.
Finally, feedback collected from clients and quality tracing can expose the weakness and help to improve service quality next time. The team will make rapid progress in professional translation service continuously by discovering its weaknesses and correcting them without delay.
Based on the standard of professional translation service, some suggestions are given as follows:
1. QA department is strongly recommended to take advantage of translation tools, such as Trados, which can monitor the activities of each translator. Besides, resources can be shared through the tool so that the translators tend to work efficiently. It is encouraged to create a system that is unique to others.
2. Each client can assess the credit and service quality of a translation team. After the team hands in the finished work to the clients, the latter might give the team an evaluation by rating on the website of the company. Pressure puts forward quality.
3. The related institutions should put emphasis on the regulation of translation industry to establish a healthy market.
There is a long way to keep the translation industry in order, but providing professional translation service is an inevitable trend in the near future. It is time to specify professional service right now.
Lucy zhou translator of Transhorsa translation Co.,LTD.,Shanghai http://www.transhorsa.org Native translation&Proofreading
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