Translation agency – Town of Quebec: Service and Approach

PROFILE

Rapidly changing society

In our ever-changing society, it becomes essential to satisfy growing linguistic needs. To be able to communicate in the two official languages is not just an asset anymore, but truly a need. How would your meetings and conferences run smoothly without the help of language specialists, namely translators, terminologists and interpreters? Thanks to their expertise, you can be sure to obtain accurate audio and text files to understand and to be understood.

APPROACH

The mission of any professional translator is to deliver high-quality content in the target language and to respect the requirements of his/her clients. The foundation of the principles of quality practised at Traductions Cosa rests on one philosophy: respect.

- Respect of the client :
having only one person in charge of communications ensures a personalized service that is respectful of clients’ requirements.

- Respect of the layout and formatting :
faithful reproduction of the client’s page layout. For this purpose, we ask that all the documents be provided in electronic format.

- Respect of the content :
a thorough and accurate translation, with content appearing to have been
originally written in French. It is important that the content is easy to read and does not give off the impression that is has been translated. Reliability and consistency are essential elements in the translation process of quality content.

- Respect of the deadlines :
good calculation of work to be carried out and good time management make it possible to deliver a high quality document to the client while respecting the due date.

- Respect of the quote :
the documents are reviewed so as to gauge their complexity, technical character, urgency as well as the word count.

Word count is always based on the source document, and not on an unknown or approximate number of words in the target document.

This rough estimate can sometimes involve additional fees that could go up to 25 percent. This is why work is always done from a document provided in electronic format.

- Respect of confidentiality :
Having a single owner and only one user on the information processing system ensures that the confidentiality of the information provided by our clients is duly protected.

TOOLS

Have you ever read the advertising brochure of a product without understanding what is written? Have you ever had to consult the original version after having read the instructions manual of a device without understanding anything ?

Facts

Poor translations are not a myth.

The truth is that the bad translations are quite simply not done by professional translators.

Anyone can pretend to be a plumber, painter, cook or even translator. However, to be a translator, being bilingual is simply not enough. Principles, know-how, and methodology are necessary and only acquired through proper translation training. However, a great number of people pretend to be translators and offer ‘professional’ translation work. Some of them do not have the appropriate qualification; others claim to be able to do everything in record time.

Moreover, some companies call upon one of their employees whose “target” language is not his/her native language to carry out translations, and sometimes, people who do not even speak the language, but who directly look up the words in dictionaries, without understanding. But there is an increasing number of poor translations originating from the use of online translation tools.

Online translation tools (machine translations) always do more harm than good when they are relied upon instead of specialists in the language. Who will be the first harmed by bad translation? You and your company.

Nowadays, a great number of companies agree that documents translated in an irreproachable way can have a positive impact on their image. At Traductions Cosa, we acknowledge the great care taken by clients to prepare documents and on our side; we make sure that their translation reflects your work. This is why we made the choice to steer clear of machine translations. Several companies on the Internet already offer this service.

Machine translation tool

According to us, an automatic translation system, no matter how sophisticated it may be, will only be able to carry out the functions for which it was programmed. As mentioned by several professional organizations dedicated to translation, including the CTTIC (Canadian Translators, Terminologists and Interpreters Council), the translation generated using a machine translation tool is not of good enough quality to correctly communicate a message in another language. It must always be reviewed and edited by a professional translator.

At Traductions Cosa, we agree that such a system can prove to be useful when one needs to have a quick look at a document written in a language which one does not know. However, it will only provide a general idea of the content of the document by literally replacing word by word. This is the cause of many language and translation errors. A machine translation tool will not be able to choose the right word according to the context, industry sector, company culture or target audience.

This is where the intervention of a professional translator becomes essential. By translating to my “mother tongue”, i.e. the language spoken by my parents, benefit from an advantage that neither machine nor software will ever be able to replace: the capacity to reflect and understand subtleties.

Translation memory

A translation memory is not an automated machine translation tool.

As its name implies, a machine translation is automatically carried out by a computer or translation system and without any human intervention. This results in translations of rather poor quality since a machine cannot understand linguistic subtleties and context.

Using a translation memory tool, however, makes it possible to preserve terminology preferences for a client in a repertory or linguistic database. The files are recorded by segments for a given language pair and these segments are applied to new translations required by this client.

Unlike an automated machine translation, the intervention of a professional translator is necessary throughout the process to accept or refuse the exact or fuzzy matches found.

All the sections of the source document for which there is no match will be translated by a professional translator and the translations will be saved in the
translation memory for future use. This technology makes it possible to avoid translating or asking to translate the same sentence repetitively, which involves saving time for the professional translator and money for the client.

At Traductions Cosa, we recognize the utility and the importance of using a translation memory tool and we endeavour to acquire the expertise necessary for the use of such memories.

Our services

At Traductions Cosa, the documents submitted for translation may be produced by using Word and PowerPoint, occasionally Excel, and even Corel WordPerfect.

We accept documents provided in PDF format, but they will be translated and sent back in Word or WordPerfect format, according to the client’s preference.

Rates

In the field of translation, to be fair to all clients, the rate used is calculated per word.

However, each request is considered individually, because several factors can influence the pricing, such as inter alia :

the nature and complexity of the text ;

the length of the text;

the format of the document (electronic, paper, etc.);

the deadline or time allocated for translation;

urgency of the request, requiring work during the evening or during public holidays or weekends.

To obtain a cost estimate or if you have any questions, please use the form provided under the Contact tab.

Tools

Handbooks

• Le Petit Robert
• Le français au bureau
• Le guide du rédacteur
• Le Multidictionnaire de la langue française
• Le Lexique analogique
• Le nouveau Bescherelle
• Various specialized dictionaries, like the “Dictionnaire de la comptabilité et des disciplines connexes” (Fernand Sylvain), the “Dictionnaire des termes de médecine” (Garnier Delamare)

 

Electronic tools

• MS Windows 2010
• Termium
• Le grand dictionnaire terminologique
• Linguee
• Government Electronic Directory Services (GEDS)
• Andidote