With every product comes an instructional manual. There’s an instructional manual, whether you’re selling a computer tower, an air frying oven, or a multi-million-dollar piece of construction equipment. And in order to assist as many people as possible, translation services are required in the these technical documents to reach customers in their native languages. Today more than ever, technical translation services are a must since products are shipped around the globe with their manuals, with the accuracy and quality of the translated technical manuals being critical factors.

Why are technical translations of great importance?

Technical translations usually involve translating documents and files with descriptive and instructional content. Some technical writers are proficient in producing those documents, and on the same line, other professional technical translators are trained and experienced in technical content aside from their linguistics skills of the language pair of the project. These technical translation projects have important instructions that customers or employees must follow in the same order, wherever they are .

It is owing to the clarity of the instructions and the proper terminology that technical translation services have become an important and specialized area continuously growing in the translation industry.

Technical translation services are necessary across many industries, and technical document translation adds the usability of your instruction manuals worldwide and the reach of your products.

Instruction manuals aren’t the only technical documentation demanding translation; any operational documents or process documents including technical terminology in them also require high-quality technical translations.

Several tips for technical translation services

What do you need to do to obtain a high-quality translation of complex technical documents? The text below will discuss these matters.

Professional translators with subject matter expertise

Cooperating with a technical translation agency, you can find  the entire technical document translation process simplified. A translation company will enjoy a team of technical translators classified in accordance with subject matter expertise and language pair in their businesses.

Your technical translator should be native speakers of your target language, but they should also have expertise in your field of practice. It is owning subject matter expertise that makes expert translators different one without years of experience in technical translation.

It’s not adequate for a translator to understand your source and target language if he or she doesn’t have an understanding of the language of your business and some concrete things of your content. Manuals and other technical documents frequently include jargon that can be unclear to someone unfamiliar with your industry and vocabulary. A technical translator must understand each specific term to generate the equivalent for the new target audience in the new language.

Some severe problems usually originate from poor technical translation services. You wouldn’t want a backhoe instruction manual that is written by someone never working with big machines. Something important could be left out; at worst, someone could get hurt. Technical translations are just that – technical. And in technical documents, details are everything. This knowledge guarantees accurate technical translation services.

Create a glossary of terms

A glossary is a living document including any industry or company-specific terms or grammar rules. Having this created or reviewed in advance ensures the technical translators can start smoothly to produce accurate technical translations. It also reduces the length of the editing process and makes the technical translation service run at a higher speed.

The terms that will not be translated must also be included in the glossary of terms.

Know and understand your Audience

How is the translated document going to be used? What is the skill level of the person this document is intended for? Where is the translation of the technical content going to be utilized? The translation company is supposed to gather all the possible answers to these questions to set up the framework for the translation project.

If you’re writing for a new consumer or a layperson, your technical translation needs to speak in their terms. Skip high-level jargon and confusing acronyms, and take the time to spell out instructions. A confusing or sophisticated instruction manual can result in annoyed customers and calls to customer service – something that can be avoided with a well-thought-out manual.

On the other hand, if this document is intended for an expert in a field, writing it for a layperson can be simple. The tone is still important in spite of the fact that there isn’t too much storytelling or world-building in technical translations.

Use technology for supporting the translation process

Select a translation company employing technology to give support to its projects and processes. Technology can help with translation and leave the mental work for linguists and project managers. Some tools , term bases, and machine translation services are all options and solutions to benefit your goals. It will take a long time to collaborate with a translation company that gives you options and works with you to tailor their offering to your needs.

Utilizing tools is one way to streamline and simplify the technical translation process. These tools can also host your glossary of terms and provide one cohesive space for communication with your technical translation agency. These tools can make more smooth the process of translating technical documents, thus helping professional translators work with more efficiency, maintaining consistency, and reducing costs.

Less Text, more Images, and video support

Technical manuals can be very wordy and packed with specific technical terms. Think of the last refrigerator manual opened by you – it was likely to be a wall of small text broken into paragraphs, separated on pages by different languages. You may have skimmed it if you didn’t immediately toss it away.

Pictures, graphics, and other visual aids like videos can greatly impact the clarity of technical translations. Using instructional diagrams, step-by-step illustrations, and other images can help the end user understand the required steps faster. But they also complicated the process since those elements must be translated too. The translation of videos and images can add steps to technical translation projects.

It is due to the fact that people have a variety of learning styles that less text and more images are also important. Despite the fact that some people learn best by reading, many others need visual cues. Professional technical translation services should bear in mind this difference in learning styles.

But these images are supposed to be in the right places – and that place is never embedded with text. This presents a big challenge with translation, both from a user standpoint and with text expansion.

Our translation company increasingly sees more videos used in technical translation projects to facilitate comprehension. The time needed for the time code of the translation of the video scripts, plus the voiceover recording, impacts the time for delivery. Some tasks can be done in parallel, but others are sequential. So plan to send all your final content and files for translation together as soon as possible.