What does QA mean for us?
It means we have a tried and tested process for
- Analyzing your document
- Identifying the best translation option for you
- Ensuring the text reads correctly in the foreign language
- Dealing with all formatting requirements you have for the finished text
- Hitting your deadline.
It is an important stage used in the translation cycle that Localization Vision follows using many programs such as Xbench. Localization comprises making accommodations for certain ways of organizing or laying out text that are particular to a locale. Locales are geographic regions that can lie within or sometimes cross country borders.
There are a number of items to check for during localization, as there are:-
- Dates and times and their interstitial punctuation, spacing, and ordering of day, month, and year.
- Currency and whether they are translated, e.g., “Swiss Franks”, or not, e.g., “Euro”.
- Measurements such as length and weight and their particular units of measurement, e.g., yards vs. meters (particular standards may cover whether to abandon the source unit, if it is unknown in the locale, or to add it in parentheses for clarification).
- Alphabetical order, e.g., in lists where the appearance may differ depending on the translation of the term – case in point: “Germany vs. “Deutschland” in a list appears in a different place alphabetically.
- Geographic terminology such as city names which may or may not be translated in some languages, e.g., “Munich” as a translation of the German city of “München” vs. Mainz which remains untranslated.
- Names which are generally untranslated, especially registered ones.
- Idioms and colloquialisms, e.g., “nuts and bolts” which may have different meanings depending on locale or even context.
- Terms from other languages, e.g., loan words which may or may not be understood by the audience of the particular text.
- Regionalisms and cross-cultural references, e.g., “fast like a dog/horse/the wind” which may need to be transposed.
- Male and female references, e.g., names of professions, may need to be transformed into generic ones or vice versa.
- Localization Vision can provide web testing.
- Engineering post-translation services to ensure that all the pieces come together as perfectly as the original version.
- A comprehensive and ongoing quality assurance process so you can rest assured that your localized training materials are engaging for every end user, in every country.
- Familiarity with every technology, learning management system, file format and Software program—including Articulate, Captivate, Flash and more.