TalkingHeads Are Now Offering Translations for All Types of Publications

TalkingHeads is a translation company in Sheffield which is now offering legal document translations and many other different types of translating services for publications.

If a piece needs translating for publication, there's a lot of work involved. It's important for publication pieces to convey the necessary information, while also being written in the appropriate dialect for the target audience. For this reason, it's very important to have a native speaker of the language work on the piece, in order that any idioms and regional phrases are communicated effectively.

Proofreading is a vital part of any written work, although often the person who does the initial translation will proofread their own piece to check for errors. However, in pieces intended for public consumption, an external proofreader will almost always be brought in, as it's important for public pieces to be correct and of good quality, in order to protect the reputation of the company the work has been done for. This becomes even more apparent when translating important documents such as medical translation and interpretations. If the translator has a gap in their knowledge, they will be unable to correct it themselves during proofreading, whereas if an outsider who also has an excellent knowledge of the language proofreads it, they are much more likely to catch these mistakes.

There's another, highly specialised type of translation that requires a creative touch. Readers of different languages often engage in different cultural practices, and these cultural differences can also be portrayed through the written word. This means the target language may suit a different tone of voice, or that cultural-specific items need to be omitted or included accordingly in order to be appropriate to the target audience. Magazines are the most common type of written material to require this sort of creative service, due to the vastly differing cultures of the nations it's being translated into. For example, a fashion magazine being translated from French into English or English to French will often need a complete overhaul in order to suit the styles of the differing nations.

Common Translation Mistakes
When translating a piece of writing, there are several mistakes that can easily be made due to the similarity of particular words in certain languages – for instance, if a word means one thing in English, French readers may interpret the word incorrectly due to there being a very similar word in French. English readers may make the same mistake when attempting to translate French to English. This type of mistake is called "false friends".

False friends are words that look or sound similar in two languages, but actually have completely different meanings. For example, the English word "advertisement" is similar in appearance to the French word "avertissement", but the former is a commercial, whereas the latter means "to warn".

Grammatical errors are also commonly made, often by inexperienced translators. The sentence structure of different languages can vary dramatically, a particularly prominent example of this being English in relation to numerous European languages; where the English would be "the green tree," the Spanish equivalent would be, "el árbol verde" which, if translated directly to English, would read "the tree green".

Choosing the Right Translator
When deciding on a translation agency to work with, it's important to consider the level of service required. If a simple summary or a direct translation is needed, it's often possible to find a more modestly price service, whereas creative pieces intended for publication will command a higher price. The source and target languages must be within the agencies' repertoire, and the more experienced the translators are the better. Translation agencies often offer free quotes to ensure the needs of the customer will be met.

After just recently reaching 500 linguists, Laurianne Enos, part of the management team at TalkingHeads, has described their rapidly expanding company as "moving fast; fast in the right direction". This is a Sheffield based company which offers legal interpretation services in Sheffield and many other translations for documents.