Technical Translation Best Practices: What is ‘Average’?
Translating technical documents requires a high level of accuracy and technical expertise. Even a minor imprecision could have serious legal implications.
A poor quality translation could slip-up on issues such as the difference between a UK and a US billion, a decimal point or a decimal comma, or the conversion of metric to imperial measurements. QuickSilver’s specialised translators will ensure that your technical information is absolutely accurate, in terms of language and of figures.
Find out more: How to Translate Technical Documents
Technical documents include
- Operating or installation manuals
- Maintenance manuals
- Technical data sheets
- Material safety data sheets
- Standards & Patents
One such term, where clarity is essential, is “average”. Average is a rather imprecise term. It has mathematical connotations, but it is used in everyday speech to mean or imply a variety of different things. ‘Average’ is generally taken to refer to ‘the mean’, but it is not always clear from the context. This can create problems in translation, particularly technical translations in which precision is paramount. Mean, median and mode, by contrast, are precisely defined mathematical concepts.
Different Kinds of ‘Average’
Mean, median and mode are all measures of central tendency in statistics. In different ways they each tell us what value in a data set is typical or representative of the data set. In the case of a perfectly symmetrical bell curve of data then the three numbers will coincide, but if you have skewed data then, of course, they won’t.
MEAN
The mean is the mathematical average of a set of numbers. The average is calculated by adding up two or more scores and dividing the total by the number of values. Consider the following number set: 2, 4, 6, 9, 12. The mean is calculated in the following manner: 2 + 4 + 6 + 9 + 12 = 33 / 5 = 6.6. So the mean of the number set is 6.6.
MEDIAN
The median is the score located at the centre of a number distribution. Consider this set of numbers: 2, 3, 6, 8, 10. The median of this number distribution is 6. For distributions with an even number of values, take the average of the two extreme values to find the median.
MODE
The mode is the most frequently occurring value in a number distribution. Consider the following number distribution of 2, 3, 6, 3, 7, 5, 1, 2, 3, 9. The mode of these numbers would be 3, since three is the most frequently occurring number.
Specialised Translation
As with financial and legal translations, the translation of technical documents (AKA, technical translation) requires an extremely high degree of accuracy and fidelity to the original text. Furthermore, clear and accurate communication in local languages is essential in a context with zero margin for error. This is set against an increasingly complicated international regulatory system. For example, the Chinese authorities are by no means the only ones who now require all relevant technical documentation to be translated and submitted in the local language.
At QuickSilver Translate, we guarantee that all technical documentation projects are translated by qualified, specialised translators, and overseen personally by our in-house expert, Colin Whiteley.
Related topic: Translating Technical Terminology with Precision and Expertise
Design and DTP
If you’ll be producing your technical document in two or more languages, it is cost-efficient to consider this from the start. Different languages take up different amounts of space — often very different amounts, as is the case with English and Chinese, for example.
For this reason, if your design accommodates only one language, you will have to adapt, maybe even re-design it, when you translate. For example, imagine you have a two page spread in Spanish, but the English translation only takes up one page. Or, even worse, the other way round, and you need to insert an extra page to accommodate the Spanish text.
This is particularly true if the design/layout is relatively rigid and inflexible. Often graphic designers are unaware of the challenges involved in setting up and maintaining multi-lingual documentation. And don’t forget that designers generally charge by the hour, so retroactively adapting your technical document will generate significant expenses. For these reasons, we believe that the language service provider (LSP) should be involved in the DTP process from the outset.
One of the techniques we use is to pay close attention to the early stages of design work. For instance, it is important that the text ‘flows’; that the format accepts text segments of varying length; and that you avoid the use of manual line breaks within paragraphs.
Benefits to You
We are able to offer considerable savings to our customers by managing the DTP, as well as the translation(s) of a technical document:
- Reducing Time-to-market — as soon as the translations are ready, you can release your document. No more to-ing and fro-ing between designers, translators and project managers.
- Reducing Costs — you do not need to pay a graphic design team.
- Considerably reducing the Hassle! All you need to do is send us the document, and we’ll send it back… finished!
Updates
In addition, our translation software ensures that when you need to update the document, it will be easy! We understand that producing a ‘new’ version of a technical document often doesn’t involve very much actual revision. We use (client-specific) translation memories and termbases. This means, we only translate text that has actually changed — rather than translating the whole thing from scratch. This, of course, saves you both time, and money.