{"id":307,"date":"2014-07-11T09:33:34","date_gmt":"2014-07-11T09:33:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tolnaitranslations.com\/?p=307"},"modified":"2014-07-11T09:34:08","modified_gmt":"2014-07-11T09:34:08","slug":"and-the-translation-goes-to","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tolnaitranslations.com\/?p=307","title":{"rendered":"And the translation goes to…"},"content":{"rendered":"

In today’s business world, companies do their best to sell their products or services to clients. To keep them satisfied, suppliers need to tailor the product\/service according to their clients’ needs. In other words, in order for a business to be successful, clients must be happy. And while for the great majority of businesses measuring customer satisfaction is pretty easy and intuitive, for the translation business the same process can lead to a serious headache. Why? Because more often than not the end client does not speak the target language and has no knowledge of the target culture. Which means that they cannot directly assess the quality of their \u201dpurchase\u201d. Well, yes, but there is always a third party (a QA specialist or a reviewer) who can assess the quality of a translation, right? Not quite… All s\/he can do is evaluate the correctness of the translation (provided, of course, that s\/he is truly objective). Quality can only be assessed based on the\u00a0reception of the target text by the intended readers. They are the addressees of translations.<\/p>\n

So the translator is faced with an apparent dilemma: who should s\/he obey, his\/her readers or the client? There is only one possible answer to this question. Objectively speaking, the client will be happy if the readers are happy, therefore, translators should always keep in mind the needs of their readers and act accordingly. This fact has multiple implications on the translation process and on the translator-client relationship. The translator is clearly an intercultural expert, with relevant knowledge of both the source and target cultures, which means that s\/he is always able to spot problems and issues that come up during the translation process. And clearly, s\/he must by all means keep the client informed. The following is a list of advice that I would give to translators (feel free to disagree and to add other suggestions in the comments section):<\/p>\n