8 min reading time

I rarely make an outright recommendation, but I will today.

We get a surprising number of posts about translating materials for medical devices. As the former Director of Marketing Communications for a publicly traded medical device company, I recommend Peter Argondizzo at Argo Translations. He is competitively priced, quick, and accurate.

Plus, he’s a nice guy.

To wit, he’s offered to give a free webinar about things to look for when choosing a translation agency. In life sciences, as I’m sure you know, a wrong translation can mean big trouble.

See http://medgroup.biz/translations to register for the Nov 2 event (Noon, New York time).

We’ll cover:
• How to choose your translation vendor
• How to tackle software projects
• The best way to address regional considerations
• How to deal with the proper register of your translations
• How to improve your internal review process
• How translation memory works and why you need to know

And as a bonus, when you register, you can download a Sample RFP for your next translation services project.

Join us at http://medgroup.biz/translations on Wednesday, November 2.

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Discussions

Again with the Layoffs

Telemedicine in COPD

FDA to reclassify wound dressings with “drugs”

China extends clinical trial exemptions

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Make it a great week.

Joe Hage
Medical Devices Group Leader

P.S. We park the good stuff at http://medgroup.biz/MDG-SITE Register there now to stay up to date.

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Katalin Szilárd
DipTrans/LC – English-Hungarian Translation Expert in * Medical * Medical Device * Pharmaceutical * Law/Business fields
I agree with you in that, Barb. Yes, many assume that quality is guaranteed. And especially when the magic marketing term “ISO” is mentioned. ISO means that the agency insists on keeping the ISO requirements, but as the above story shows, ISO doesn’t mean quality. This American translation agency received maximum points on Blue Board, that’s why I was considering collaborating with them. But even trusted agencies commit such major mistakes. So when it comes to translation, end clients should be aware of daily turnarounds and realistic deadlines. And they should also know that an agency may accept impossible deadlines, just to have the project. Meanwhile a translator, who gives his/her own name to a project, has much more to lose if a project fails, therefore he/she will rather tell the end client a realistic deadline and insist on quality.

Barb Sichel
Director Business Development, Translations at International Language Services, Inc.
Katalin, you were right to walk away. Our bottom line is quality, also. We sometimes have to turn down projects for clients with unrealistic expectations regarding timing or price. We can usually accommodate our ongoing clients, as they appreciate that we have their best interests in mind, we have educated them over time and our translators are already familiar with their material. Newcomers who shop the internet, though, will always find someone to say “yes” to their request. They often assume that quality is guaranteed, until they encounter a problem. We prefer to steer clear of such situations.

Katalin Szilárd
DipTrans/LC – English-Hungarian Translation Expert in * Medical * Medical Device * Pharmaceutical * Law/Business fields
A week ago we were talking about ISO and deadlines.

I’ve just met the question of ISO vs. quality issue. A trusted translation agency accepted a pharmaceutical project to be done till a deadline that no professional translator would accept: about 7000 words translation + proofreading by proofreader 1. + editing by proofreader 2. within 2.5 days. I told the agency that this deadline was not enough. A translator can translate a specialized text of about 2500 words/day with good quality. They answered: due to ISO they had to ask a 3. person for a 2. proofreading. I told them if they did not have this ISO requirement the project could have been done by the deadline. They rather chose the translation to be done by the impossible deadline just to keep the ISO requirement. Since quality is my first priority I declined this job. Now this agency will assign this job to amateurs who are desperate about money and will accept this job that cannot be done with quality till the deadline.

Katalin Szilárd
DipTrans/LC – English-Hungarian Translation Expert in * Medical * Medical Device * Pharmaceutical * Law/Business fields

So when you are looking for a translation agency you must know that ISO does not mean quality and when you are giving a deadline please take into account that 2500 words/day is the normal turnaround for just the translation, proofreading or editing are not counted in this time.
Many agencies will accept impossible deadlines just to have the project and have your money.
Please, keep that in mind.

Barb Sichel
Director Business Development, Translations at International Language Services, Inc.
There are many of us who specialize in providing accurate technical translations for the medical device industry. It is important to develop a working relationship with a vendor who has the appropriate resources, experience and process to ensure accuracy and consistency. All clients are cost conscious, but our long term customers consider “value” over cost and trust us implicitly.

Katalin Szilárd
DipTrans/LC – English-Hungarian Translation Expert in * Medical * Medical Device * Pharmaceutical * Law/Business fields
Peter Argondizzo – Thank you for this exciting conversation about the insights.

Katalin Szilárd
DipTrans/LC – English-Hungarian Translation Expert in * Medical * Medical Device * Pharmaceutical * Law/Business fields
Joe Hage – Thank you for this exciting conversation.

Mike Waplington
Marketing Director at Omnilingua Ltd
Yes I have to agree with Peter totally. There is a big difference between a good translation company and a bad one. We specialise in medical device by the way.

Joe Hage
🔥 Find me at MedicalDevicesGroup.net 🔥
Katalin, perhaps the webinar will clear things up for you. Thanks for your conversation here.

Katalin Szilárd
DipTrans/LC – English-Hungarian Translation Expert in * Medical * Medical Device * Pharmaceutical * Law/Business fields
I like to “virtually grab” the document. Many colleagues of mine agree with that. Especially when it comes to tables, graphics, artworks it is crucial to see the document in the original layout. For example in Trados Studio I can make a clean file at any translation process stage and as a preview I can review my own clean translation at 10% or 20% etc.

When I previously mentioned that translators have to buy CAT tools and work in their own CAT tools, I did not mean that as a negative thing.
All I wanted to say is that agencies made us – translators – masters of almost all translation process stage. And rates do not reflect that. Meanwhile agencies ask a lot of money from medical/pharmaceutical companies for doing translations.

Katalin Szilárd
DipTrans/LC – English-Hungarian Translation Expert in * Medical * Medical Device * Pharmaceutical * Law/Business fields
Yes, when I checked your Blue Board records I read that you have a centralized server and translators work on that. 🙂 I worked on servers a few times, but I didn’t like it. Please, note since I never worked on yours, my experiences are based on other servers. Those I worked on, were slow. Plus I like to work with my own tools. For example if I work with my own tools and I remember that previously I translated a difficult or creative term in another project, I know where I can find that in my own memory, but I cannot do this if I work on somebody else’s server platform. Also I like to count words by myself (not that I don’t trust in agencies’ wordcount but it happened that mistakenly they did not count words in artworks/images).

Peter Argondizzo
Founder, Argo Translation
Katalin Szilárd just for the record, our translators don’t manage one bit of work relative to translation memory. We use a centralized server, translators log into our system. Translators are not responsible for buying a CAT tool, not responsible for managing translation memory or termbases, period. I would be very careful in drawing generalizations about how agencies do their work.

Again, plenty of bad examples out there but don’t sell us all short.

Katalin Szilárd
DipTrans/LC – English-Hungarian Translation Expert in * Medical * Medical Device * Pharmaceutical * Law/Business fields

Actually I have seen many good agencies that overcomplicated the project process and at the end a good translation turned into a nightmare. They hired 2 proofreaders and they also used back-translation, so at the end a very good translation was turned into a bad one. I was hired to decide which translation is better (who is right?): translator or proofreader 1. or proofreader 2. or the language validator and I also had to check the back-translator’s work. I had to make 1 good translation from 4 people’s job. Meanwhile if the agency hired one good translator and one good proofreader the project could have been done perfectly way before the deadline.
Sometimes simple things lead to the best results.

Katalin Szilárd
DipTrans/LC – English-Hungarian Translation Expert in * Medical * Medical Device * Pharmaceutical * Law/Business fields
I have never worked for your company, although I checked your company and I have seen that your agency received good ratings from translators. Congratulation! 🙂

But I do not think I am oversimplifying what a translation service firm does. 10 years ago translators were translators, now translators do almost everything. They buy CAT tools, work in CAT tools, update TMs, provide TMs back to the agency, the agency sends TMs to the client, translators handle client questions, they translate, proofread, they do QA check etc.

Peter Argondizzo
Founder, Argo Translation
Katalin Szilárd I am afraid you are oversimplifying what a good translation services firm does. I agree with you, there are some firms that are mere envelope switchers, work in, work out, no QA, no value added to the client. That really isn’t our model. So just to clarify, we do not hire translators who charge below market rates, you pay less, you get less. We handle translations for companies that make defibrillators and other high risk devices. We simply will not cut corners (like using MT or by using underpaid and under-qualified linguists). We are on the same page, bad LSP’s damage our industry, they are bad for freelance translators and bad for end clients. I respect your opinion but you simply can’t apply the generalizations to all translation service companies.

Katalin Szilárd
DipTrans/LC – English-Hungarian Translation Expert in * Medical * Medical Device * Pharmaceutical * Law/Business fields
Lynn Shuler – Thank you for your answer.
Let me share my experiences:
1) Translation agencies do not have non-English skills to assess effective translations. They do not have so called non-English speaking staff. They hire freelance translators to evaluate each others’ work. So simple.
2) No software systems are needed. We translators have to buy softwares and use them. If artwork is involved then agencies hire freelance DTP professionals or they may have in-house DTP professionals as well. The rest of the project is done by freelance translators.
3) Competitive bidding. 🙂 Do you mean that agencies attract clients with top translators’ names in their databases, ask top translators to sign their NDAs to win tenders and then they hire “best rate” (meaning low rate, low quality) translators instead of those translators whose names and credentials were the baits for clients? Not all agencies are working like this, but too many has this business approach not to mention it.

Katalin Szilárd
DipTrans/LC – English-Hungarian Translation Expert in * Medical * Medical Device * Pharmaceutical * Law/Business fields

Translation industry has changed a lot in the last 10 years.
Let companies decide and choose.

If you prefer hiring directly translators, I recommend to use this directory:
http://www.proz.com/translator-directory/

If you prefer to hire translation agencies, I recommend to check them on these lists:
Black list of translation agencies: http://translationethics.blogspot.hu/p/blog-page.html
Proz Blue Board (payment is needed): http://www.proz.com/blueboard/
LinkedIn Group: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/3415770 Unacceptable Translation Rates Naming & Shaming Group
Payment practices (payment is needed): www.paymentpractices.net/

Katalin Szilárd
DipTrans/LC – English-Hungarian Translation Expert in * Medical * Medical Device * Pharmaceutical * Law/Business fields
15 years ago when I started this profession translation was my only task, as time goes by the more tasks, more softwares are asked by translation agencies, such tasks that should be done by translation agencies originally.
Client review step is also done by translators, agencies are only “mediators”. We translators have to handle client questions by ourselves (if a client prefers another term or clients have questions we have to answer them, deal with the questions). Actually handling client questions/reviews through the agency is more circumstantial than talking to clients directly.

Katalin Szilárd
DipTrans/LC – English-Hungarian Translation Expert in * Medical * Medical Device * Pharmaceutical * Law/Business fields
Peter Argondizzo – Thank you for your answer.

Yes, when it comes to 90 languages it can be a hassle. That is the reason why there is a new trend in language industry: project managers go freelance and they are hired by end clients directly. Medical/pharmaceutical companies can hire freelance project managers who can handle multiple languages. Freelance project managers hire freelance DTP professionals and also freelance translators. It is cost-effective, because it means less administrative work and no profit must be produced to maintain a whole translation agency. The project manager doesn’t have to find the “best rate” (meaning low rate, low quality) translators, but the best quality translators are hired, since the project manager doesn’t need to make plus profit for a whole agency.

Peter Argondizzo
Founder, Argo Translation
Katalin Szilárd – I also wanted to add that freelancers are an important part of the process. I am not diminishing that in my lengthy response. But until you sit on the other side of the transaction, it is hard to know what defines A to Z. For most Med device companies there is a lot of extra work involved in properly managing a translation project that goes well beyond the actual translation and editing step.