Is Internal Translation Worth It?

By Sarah-Claire Jordan

First of all, what exactly is “internal translation”? Simply put, it is using someone who is already a part of a company to use their language skills to handle translations for the company. This is pretty common practice, especially for start-up companies that can’t afford to work with a professional translation company. It is much easier, as well, to have your “translator” be someone who you work with every day and can easily get in touch with.

This may sound like the perfect solution for handling translations, but there are so many issues that can come up, some of which might not be apparent until an outsider points them out. Relying on someone who is bilingual or has some level of competence in another language to handle translations is equivalent to relying on someone who read a book about auto repair to fix your car. Having some knowledge in a field does not mean they will do a good job, and translation especially can be very tricky given the nuances that come with language in general.

Let’s use an example of putting your bilingual team member, who was raised in a household in the U.S. where Spanish was primarily spoken, in charge of internal translations (as in translating your company’s website into Spanish). This person has no experience translating, besides maybe interpreting for family members. They probably speak a specific dialect of Spanish, which means they wouldn’t necessarily know if the language they used was universally understood by all Spanish speakers. Given that they learned Spanish at home instead of in the classroom, they might have issues writing in Spanish as well, in terms of spelling and even grammar. All of these things add up to a Spanish translation that is far from adequate.

Bigger companies who have content already translated should revise these translations as soon as possible, because they could have been done by an amateur and unqualified “translator”. Many times, upper management doesn’t even know for sure how translations are handled, and just compensates whoever is in charge of it without checking on quality. Basically, a company might be paying someone within their company to provide them with bad translations. This is not a good business practice at all and could result in losing, or at least not attracting, international clients and customers.

So what is the best way to handle the sort of situation where money is tight but translations are a must? Translation companies are generally flexible and will work with you to figure out the best way to get you want you need as a client and save you money as well. This could mean setting up an automated translation system or creating an interface that connects the translation agency with the company for ease of communication. Translators would not be on staff, wouldn’t need office space, and would provide high quality translations because, well, they are professionals. It may seem like a simple solution, but you would be surprised how many businesses haven’t caught on yet.

Tags: staff management

Category: Business Translation