Welcome to the blog of AF-Translations!
In this section of our website, we will try to post articles related to our line of business on a regular basis. Their aim is to keep our (current or prospective) custo- mers posted on questions they might have with respect to translation, writing, proofreading and the many other services we provide.
Since the pages of this blog do not intend to be exhaustive, we encou- rage you to contact us for any question to which you did not find an answer here.
Enjoy!
When the error lies at the source...
Whereas
translating a nicely written document may be a genuine pleasure, translating
a text that is riddled with errors and/or incongruities can be rather
challenging. Unfortunately, one often comes across (source) texts of poor
quality in the world of translation. Indeed, which translation agency
has never had the mission to translate a user manual for one or other
appliance that, in keeping with the ever increasing tendency for thrift,
had originally been translated from Chinese to a target language that
was clearly not the translators’ mother tongue?
Probably none... Besides that, we also regularly get “simple”
texts written by the clients themselves who, not aware that writing is
an art that can only be mastered if practiced rigorously on a daily basis,
did not make the effort to proofread their texts (or better yet: to have
them proofread) before submitting them for translation.
As a rule, serious translators (such as the ones you will find at AF-Translations) will always inform the customer if they are confronted with a source text that could obviously do with a proofreading/correction phase, or even partial or total rewriting. In a situation such as this, most customers will go for quality and have their text perfected, but there will always be a percentage of customers who stubbornly publish their texts unaltered. Thinking that they are saving money by bypassing the intervention of a language professional, those customers are, however, at risk of being thought of as negligent or even frivolous by their more detail-conscious clientele. It is thus quite probable that, in the end, this could cost them more than it would have if they had done what needed to be done right from the start.
To convince the more reticent among you, AF-Translations offers preferential rates for customers who would like to have their texts translated and proofread at the same time. Do not hesitate to contact us in case you should wish to obtain more information on this subject!
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