Evaluate Your Translated Resources | NAATI Document Translation Sydney

Evaluate your translated resources – NAATI Document Translation Sydney

In a world as diverse as Australia, where Cultural and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) communities thrive, the need for effective communication is undeniable. NAATI document translation services have become a lifeline, bridging the gap between languages and cultures. But the question we seldom ask ourselves is this: Are these translations truly making the impact we intend?

Here’s the thing: without clearly defined goals and a robust evaluation process, your project is at risk of falling flat. And that’s where the magic of evaluation comes into play. Let’s dive into why you should consider evaluating your translated resources, and why it’s not just a choice but a necessity.

Why Should we Evaluate Translated Resources?

NAATI document translations are expensive, yet necessary. Oh, are they? That, my friend, will depend on what YOU do with them.

If you come to us asking for help to translate a set of health promotion fact sheets into 10 community languages, you probably have the budget for it. Why do you know that you will get an acceptable return on investment?

The fact that it is a community translations project and the aim is not to ‘charge’ for your fact sheets doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t have a process in place to guarantee successful outcomes.

So what outcomes do you need to achieve to consider your translation efforts a good investment for your organisation?

If you haven’t defined and quantified what the successful outcomes of your community translations will be, you are setting your project for failure. You probably did set up clear goals for your overall project, but have you thought about the role that in-language content will play?

Knowing to what extent community translations will affect project outcomes is key to the overall project evaluation.

These are the top five reasons why I think everyone investing in community translations should be setting clear objectives and evaluate translation outcomes:

1. It is the only way to know if you accomplished your objective. We often talk about having a clear objective. Well, it’s almost useless to have one if you are not going to assess if you accomplished it.
2. It will help you assess if the time, money and effort of producing community translations was well spent. Sounds pretty obvious, right? How else are you going to decide if translating for a certain community is the way to go next time?
3. What you learn from the evaluation process will help you improve the outcomes of future projects. You realised that you got a lot out of the translations, but you clearly see what the pain points were and how they can be avoided in the future. So why not share the love with your colleagues too?
4. If the evaluation proves that the investment in community translations was worthwhile, you will be better equipped to build a case for future funding applications. Having other stakeholders on board is sometimes harder than the actual resource development process. Knowing the benefits of producing community translations is the first step to convincing other stakeholders of the importance of producing high quality community translations.
5. The evaluation process will help you collect data. Data can be useful to determine community behaviours. Knowing how different diverse communities behave over time will help you make better decisions to reach out to them with future campaigns.
6. You will be able to validate the hypothesis you worked with when the decision to translate was made. So you were assuming that Italian women over 65 years old would like to have translated cancer information to take home and read. However, during the evaluation you realise that those translations didn’t make an impact. Was it because of the distribution channels? Or perhaps the colours of the fact sheet, or the language used?

Ensuring Accuracy and Quality in NAATI Translations

Ensuring accuracy and quality in NAATI translations is paramount. Start by hiring a NAATI certified translator who understands the project’s scope, target audience, and purpose. Provide complete source documents, maintain confidentiality if needed, and offer glossaries or reference materials for technical content. Verify the translator’s qualifications and maintain open communication throughout the project. Consider proofreading and editing by a second expert, adhere to any legal or formatting requirements, and be culturally sensitive. Encourage client involvement in the review process, gather feedback for continuous improvement, and keep comprehensive project records. Following these steps guarantees precise and high-quality translations that meet your specific requirements.

In short, evaluating the outcomes of community translations will tell us:

• If we did the right thing,
• how we can make things better in the future and,
• most important of all, we will learn what not to do again.

And what’s the bottom line? Australian diverse communities will be better served.

I hope I made my case.

Get in touch if you are looking for NAATI document translation Sydney.