Section 2: The Translation Process

Use the recommendations in this section to develop the knowledge and organizational infrastructure required to produce quality translations of health care information. In addition to this highly-abbreviated primer on translation, readers will want to refer to other resources, such as those available from the American Translators Association, or quality assurance processes specified by international organizations such as ASTM International or the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).

Another broader class of translation obstacles involves logistical or organizational issues. For example, many health care groups have no established means of prioritizing translation projects or have no established processes for selecting translators and providing instructions on how to review or approve drafts of translated materials, much less on how to perform a system-wide review of translation needs (e.g., assessing language preferences of their non-English speaking patient populations, their health information needs and translated materials available). In many cases, there is no centralized responsibility for translations. Individual departments are responsible for commissioning translations with no clear sense of organizational priorities, decision-making processes, budgets or quality control. 

These basic problems are not exclusive to health care, but attention to translation and quality of production is more advanced in other fields, including law, business, marketing and literature (although, perhaps one can argue that the consequences of mistranslation may not be as dire in some of these other areas). Many of the potential sources of error can be addressed by paying closer attention to the mechanics of the translation process, such as translator selection, specification of translation requirements, project management, prioritization, budgeting and translation quality assessment. Since many health care organizations, especially smaller ones, are still struggling with these technical know-how requirements for translation vendors, a number of tips for improving this basic process are summarized in Section 2.

The Steps and Players in the Translation Project

The translation process begins with a source text in the original language and results in the creation of a target text in another language. The aim is to produce a translation product that corresponds to the source text, according to the criteria agreed upon in advance. There are many ways to organize the translation project, and each organization will use a combination of processes and personnel that makes

sense for each project, its timeline, and available in-house capabilities and budget.

At a minimum, the four basic phases involved in translation projects include the following:

• Needs Assessment Phase

Key Players:

• Requester (department or service needing the translation),
• Project manager (requester or lead on the project)

Key Steps:

• Generating or receiving a request for the translation of a specific English text
• Assessing the reason behind the request, the content and intended audience, and the quality of the source text
• Asking: Is translation the best strategy? Will our communicative objective be met? (and, if not, proposing alternatives)

• Specification Phase

Key Players:

• Requester
• Project manager
• Experts on the subject, target culture and/or language and those dispensing the source text                 

Key Steps:

• Determining the specific requirements of the job (e.g., language, audience, format, adaptations, timelines)
• Analyzing the communicative objectives, understanding the purpose and use of a text and specifying the translation requirements (e.g., medium of delivery, conducting audience reviews if required, adaptation needed, tools and reference texts to be used)
• Preparing written instructions and translation priorities (e.g., the Translation Brief)

• Production Phase

Key Players:

• Project manager
• Translators
• Editors
• Graphic designers
• Other essential team members (e.g., proofreaders, terminologists, software engineers)

Key Steps:

• Evaluating the source text and agreeing upon project specifications 
• Choosing the translation vendor or translator/editor/consultant needed for the job
• Reviewing the translation brief to ensure translator understanding and to develop project specifications
• Translating from source to target text
• Commissioning assessment of translation quality using the Translation Quality Assessment Tool
• Designing graphics, layout, type of document
• Depending on the text purpose or content, conducting audience reviews of the translation with intended user group
• Verification and sign-off

• Post Translation Phase

Key Players:

• Project manager
• User departments

Key Steps:
Learning from past experience and developing process improvement review procedures to evaluate satisfaction and effectiveness of translated materials.

Develop procedures for:

• Tracking outcomes and user (patient and staff) satisfaction with the final product
• Identifying lessons learned during the translation project (e.g., cultural and language nuances related to how information needs to be conveyed, form and structure of text and translator performance)
• Documenting lessons learned through each translation project and developing style guides and glossaries to inform future projects