This technical translation presentation is designed by Quick Lingo to explain the process and importance of using such a service. Professional translation agencies have a great deal of responsibility when it comes to overcoming language barriers within all technical sectors. The above info-graphic illustrates the necessity for high quality linguistic professionals who have a strong grasp of industry specific terminology. It also explores the various scenarios and situations for which they may be required to work.

1. The Science Behind
Technical Translation
What is it?
Technical translation relates to a wide range of documents
spanning all manner of technological and scientific subjects.
What kind of documents are translated?
Material specifications, operating manuals and
technical reports are just some of the many
documents translated on a frequent basis.
What does it involve?
Technical translations require a high level of
knowledge and mastery of subject specific
terminology. Any misinterpretation or mistake in the
translations of user manuals or guides could lead to
a potentially dangerous situation for users. A notable
aspect of this type of translation is the precision with
which words are used - technical writing has to be
exact, direct and to the point, essentially giving a
translator the task of producing a perfect word-for-
word translation.
What are the areas of interest? Mining
Energy
Machinery
Aerospace
Electronics
Automotive
Manufacturing
Oil and Gas Extraction
IT & Telecommunications
Power Tools and Automation
Quick Lingo Ltd.

2. The Importance of a Controlled
Translation
What does it involve?
Controlled Translation has slowly emerged in the past few years as a new business
model which features the use of controlled languages, pre-editing, machine
translation, translation memory software, and post-editing processes in order to
speed up and standardise the multilingual production of technical documentation.
This new model is increasingly being adopted by
industries such as telecommunications and
software localisation, and offers an excellent
framework that meets the
translation needs of the
automotive industry.
When and why was it introduced?
Controlled languages were first used
in the aeronautic industry to tackle the
increasing complexity of the aircraft's
technical documentation, and since
then they have been introduced in
other areas such as heavy-equipment
machinery.
What happened next?
The automotive industry also followed the path initiated
by the aeronautic and heavy-equipment industry: General
Motors, for instance, in 1993 started the CASL Project
(Controlled Automotive Service Language) for technical
documentation; and the Swedish manufacturer Scania
also explored the feasibility of defining controlled
Swedish for truck maintenance documentation .
Quick Lingo Ltd.

3. Main benefits:
Clear and direct writing
Consistency in the style of the text
Reduction of syntactic and lexical ambiguity
Reusability of the text
And as a direct consequence...
A reduction in the cost of authoring and translation processes along with higher
customer satisfaction because of better documentation and translation.
The process is divided in three parts:
Pre editing:
Translators need to have the skills to adapt text to the Controlled Language
guidelines so that the translatability of the source text is improved. Pre-editing
guidelines can often be found in the literature of Controlled Languages when
grammatical and lexical constraints are described.
Controlled translation:
By combining the capabilities of Translation Memory software
and Machine Translation, productivity is increased and
consistency is maintained in all documentation produced.
Post editing:
This is an activity mainly associated with MachineTranslation. Clearly, since MT
provides almost 100% accuracy only under certain restricted circumstances (limited
vocabulary and grammar, use of a sublanguage), all other output must be post-edited
one way or another. Post Editing ranges from browsing to full process depending on
translation motivation, i.e. whether it is simply the process of "translating to
understand" (inbound translation) or the process of "translating to
communicate" (outbound translation).
Quick Lingo Ltd.