“But that’s what it says in the source text!” (J)
The road to translation hell is paved with slavish adherence to the source text.
Quality assurance
What is the difference between a “translation company” and a “translation agency”? (J)
The term “agency” does have certain pejorative connotations. The term may imply that the agency has no in-house capabilities that are directly relevant to maintaining or improving the quality and accuracy of the translation.
A bridge too far—how not to manage a large-scale translation project (J)
How should a translation company approach a high-volume project? And what is the most ethical response to a client that insists that it needs an extremely high volume of material translated in an unrealistically short time?
The good, the bad and the ugly—ensuring quality in Japanese‑to‑English translation (J)
In Japan, with its huge Japanese‑to‑English translation market, the caveat that a translator should only translate into his or her own native language goes largely ignored, and a huge volume of Japanese material ends up being translated by native speakers of Japanese—often with dire results.
Why is there such large variation in the quality delivered by different translation companies? (J)
In many cases, the translation company has never had a high quality standard forced on it by the market, partially because the client typically cannot judge the quality of the product, or the client values low cost over high quality.