How long does it take to do a translation?

Among the thousand things to do when preparing for an event or when preparing the documents to be delivered for a job abroad, the timeframes for translations are often overlooked. As a consequnce, that trade fair arranged down to the smallest detail or that technical manual are accompanied by translations done in a hurry, without the necessary checks, or provided instantly by some automatic translation tool. Needless to say, the consequences may be regrettable.

In order to achieve a quality result, a reasonable amount of time is needed for translation, time that allows for research into terminology and editing of the text in the target language. And a reasonable amount of time is needed for revision, which is all the more necessary the tighter the time constraints on the translator. The reasonable amount of time depends of course on the length of the text to be translated, but also on its complexity. An advertising campaign may be built on short catch phrases but how much time went into these at source? We always have to think about how much time went into drawing up the source texts: the translation also deserves the right attention and precision.

Foresighted planning of engagements and corporate documents is the best prerequisite for a quality result.