Pros and cons of splitting large scale project translation requests

“I have a document that’s over 100 pages, but I need it by Monday morning, can you handle this?” This is a common narrative we hear almost every other day. It is true that we have a qualified and extensive translation team. They are able to work fairly quick and accurately after working in the translation field for many years. However, as time goes on, we have grown reluctant to splitting up work in this manner. In cases where we must do this, we have a specific procedure that we follow.

There are some stylistic differences between translators, that may compromise the overall readability and consistency in a document. For example, even basic things such as the spelling of names can be slightly different.

When splitting large translation requests, we only use the translators that are actually qualified in this field. We never consider using, for example, our team of medical translators to suddenly handle an urgent legal request. As a result, our capacity to handle split requests is limited by the actual experts we have on hand.

Even in cases where we do split translations, there is one translator (usually the most senior and qualified) that monitors progress in real time. In all cases this lead translator works to build a glossary of accepted terms and spellings. As a result, each of the translators on the team need to be in close communication and be trained in the course of such projects.

In short, don’t be tempted to go with another vendor, even if they say that “we have one hundred / one thousand / ten thousand translators and can meet your deadline for sure.” While they may actually deliver something to you by the deadline, we doubt that it would be an excellent product. We have had over 140 translators apply to our company as candidates, and only 12 have made the cut. Korean is a relatively rare language pair, and there are simply not that many translators around.

If you search the ATA (American Translators’ Association) website, you will find there are less than 100 Korean-English translators registered in the United States.

It is better to place large and important projects with the correct team from the beginning, rather than wasting days or weeks fixing up a project after the fact.

Contact us today for your large Korean to English translation project and receive an accurate and detailed quote that fully meet our requirements.