双语 | 翻译如果“质量为王”，那么谁是王后？

时下翻译需求不断增长，很多翻译企业似乎有些招架不住，纷纷开始寻找应对之策，SDL公司结合一项最新调查，为企业“如何在大规模翻译过程中保证质量”支招，并得出结论：If Translation Quality is King then Connectivity is Queen（如果翻译质量为王，沟通协作就是王后）。

Translation quality is over four times more important than cost to corporates, according to a recent survey of over 550 respondents from dozens of countries across North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific.

最近一项调查显示，对企业来讲，翻译质量比成本更重要，选择前者的人数是后者的四倍。这项调查涵盖了来自北美、欧洲及亚太地区各国的550名受访者。

Translation software provider SDL found that for respondents “quality is king”. According to SDL Marketing Director David Morgan, “quality is the number one priority, but also the number one challenge.”

翻译软件供应商SDL发现，受访者普遍认为“质量为王”。但据SDL市场总监戴维·摩根介绍：“质量是重中之重，但也是最大的挑战。”

The Corporate Translation Technology Survey 2017 builds upon the findings of SDL’s Translation Technology Insights 2016. The most recent survey focuses exclusively on private and public sector organizations, examining what it takes to maintain translation quality at scale.

基于“SDL翻译技术研究（2016）”的调研结果，“企业翻译技术调查（2017）”得以进行。这项最新调查聚焦个人与公共组织，旨在搞清楚他们是如何大规模地维持翻译质量的。

Top translation challenges

翻译面临的主要挑战

• Maintaining quality and consistency across the business

在业务全过程中保持质量和连贯性

• Shortened project timelines

工期被缩短

• Increased demand internally for translations

国内不断增长的翻译需求

• Lack of qualified translators

高质量译员匮乏

• Educating stakeholders on the translation process

在翻译流程上对利益相关方进行培训

• Translation budgets not increasing in line with demand

翻译预算不随需求的增长而增加

• Increase in the number of language pairs to be translated

需要翻译的语言对数量增加

• Getting sign off on new technology investment

停止对新技术的投资

• Managing third-party translation suppliers (eg. LSPs)

管理第三方翻译服务供应者（如语言服务供应商）

Is outsourcing an answer?

外包是解决办法吗？

Corporates are certainly outsourcing translations: to the tune of 89% of the respondents in this case.

根据对受访者的调查，高达89%的企业把翻译业务外包出去。

Clearly it’s not straightforward for corporates to reach out externally to plug gaps in resource and skills, while also feeling confident about quality and cost control.

显而易见，企业很难直接通过外部来弥补资源与技能的短板，同时还能对质量和成本控制满怀信心。

This is easy enough to understand. The external resource is an unknown at first, located elsewhere with different ways of working. For project managers already under considerable pressure, the time and effort to allocate, track and manage work can quickly multiply.

这很容易理解。外部资源首先是个未知数，工作方式和方位都有所不同。对于压力山大的项目经理来说，分配、跟踪、管理工作所需的时间和精力很快就会成倍增加。

Is technology an answer?

技术是解决办法吗？

Greater — or smarter — use of technology is another common route to maintaining quality in the face of growing demand.

面对日益增长的需求，另一种保持质量的常用办法就是更多更巧妙地运用技术。

CAT and MT make translators more productive, especially through the use of translation memory to speed up translation of content previously encountered and simplify the re-use of quality work.

计算机辅助翻译和机器翻译能让译者更为高效，特别是通过使用翻译记忆，加速之前遇到过的内容的翻译，并简化优质内容的重复利用。

How much of the content translated by your organization would you say is brand new vs previously translated? For the survey respondents, on average, it’s almost 50-50.

在你翻译的内容中，新文本和之前翻译过的文本各占多少？受访者表示，平均而言，几乎是五五分。

That’s both good news and bad news in the face of increasing demand: good because there’s a lot for translation memories to help with; and bad because equally, there’s a lot that they can’t.

在面对日益增长的需求时，这既是好消息也是坏消息。好消息是，翻译记忆可以提供很多帮助；同样，坏消息是，它们也有很多帮不上忙的地方。

Only just over a quarter (28%) are using machine translation, with Europe (25%) lagging behind North America (35%) and APAC (31%). And even for them, full adoption is some way off: on average they’re using it to translate less than half (42%) of their brand new content. For public sector organizations, it’s as little as one fifth (22%) of their new content, possibly a reflection of greater concern over exposing content to a public (cloud) MT service.

大概只有四分之一（28%）的受访者使用机器翻译，欧洲受访者的使用比例为25%，落后于北美（35%）和亚太地区（31%）。然而，即便对他们而言，离完全使用机器翻译还有一段路要走：平均来说，他们将机翻用于新文本的比例还不到一半（42%）。对公共组织而言，这一数字仅有五分之一（22%），这可能反映出对于向公共机器翻译服务（云服务）暴露内容的担忧。

What does this mean for corporates?

对企业来说意味着什么？

Outsourcing and in-house: all about sharing

外包和内部：共享无处不在

For outsourcing to be a robust solution to growth in translation demand, corporates have to feel confident about the quality they get back, and it has to be easy enough to achieve (ie, without making project management too onerous). This confidence and efficiency can only arise if there is trust between the parties and they work together well. Trust takes time to build, but it can happen more quickly if the parties are working well together from the start.

为了使外包成为应对翻译需求增长的有力解决方案，企业必须对他们交回内容的质量有信心，而且必须很容易实现（即不使项目管理过于繁重）。这种信心和效率只有在双方互信和合作良好的情况下才会产生。信任需要时间来构建，但如果双方从一开始就合作顺畅，就会很快建立。

LSPs and freelancers may never be quite as close and convenient as the colleague you can talk to by leaning over the desk, but corporates can definitely do more to share knowledge and processes with these partners.

语言服务供应商和自由译者或许永远无法像同事之间那样，可以坐在桌旁，近距离方便地沟通，但企业绝对可以提供更多帮助，与这些合作伙伴共享知识和流程。

Whether they outsource a lot or a little, corporates need to make the most of their in-house resources to cope with increasing demand. Sharing knowledge and managing workflows matters here as much as it does with external partners.

无论外包业务多少，企业都需要充分利用自身内部资源来应对日益增长的需求。无论对内还是对外，知识和管理流程的共享都同等重要。

Communication beyond the translation team is vital to resolve terminology queries, review translation quality, and promote correct use of terminology to the wider organization. The more efficiently this happens, the more you can do with existing resource.

对于解决术语查询问题、审核译文质量并在更大范围的组织内统一术语的正确用法来说，翻译团队的外部沟通尤为重要。这种沟通越有成效，现有资源就越能得到充分的利用。

Machine translation: weighing accessibility and security

机器翻译：权衡可用性和安全性

Not making a decision carries a risk. If there isn’t a readily accessible, approved corporate MT solution for employees, by default they will use one of the free public-cloud services. Few employees will realize that such free-to-access services store, use and expose the content submitted to them, so they may well leak confidential data.

缺乏决策会带来风险。如果企业没有为员工制定成型的、一致认可的机器翻译解决方案，他们自然而然会使用免费的公开云服务。鲜有员工能意识到这些可随意获取的服务会存储、使用并公开所上传的内容，因此可能会泄露机密数据。

For corporates that will only contemplate on-premises or private-cloud solutions, there’s no need to hang back from making 52 29383 52 15290 0 0 3098 0 0:00:09 0:00:04 0:00:05 3098 a choice. Not too long ago, in-house MT solutions just weren’t affordable for any but the largest corporates with the largest translation requirements. But recent advances in MT technology have made in-house solutions practical for a much wider range of organizations.

只青睐预置型或私有云方案的企业可以果断选择机器翻译。不久前，只有翻译需求量大的大型企业才买得起内部机翻解决方案，但最近机翻技术的进步让更多组织机构也能用上这种内部解决方案了。

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英文来源：Slator
编译：Yee君 

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