Proofreading

Proofreading is a vital element of the translation process. No human is perfect, even our translators. Having a second pair of eyes checking over a text minimises the risk of an error getting through to virtually zero. Sometimes a translation can still contain a faint "echo" of the original text which can be removed with some careful rephrasing by the proofreader.

As part of our translation service

Proofreading is part and parcel of our translation service. All translated texts are proofread by a native speaker of the target language who has extensive knowledge and experience in the subject matter of the particular project. This is what we call our "4-eyes" approach - 2 belonging to the translator and 2 to the proofreader. This way you can be sure of the quality and accuracy of your translations. And it's included in the price.

As a separate service

Print PDFs: you may wish us to do a final check of print PDFs created by your graphic designer before they're sent off to the printers. We thoroughly recommend you do, so that we can pick up any formatting errors (e.g. ends of sentences lost due to not enough space) that may have crept in at the DTP stage. To have a whole print run binned on account of a simply avoidable error can be very expensive.

3rd party translations: we can also proofread texts translated by someone other than ourselves. As it is very difficult to estimate at the outset how much work this will entail, we charge per hour calculated on completion of the job. You'll have to trust us on this one. With poorly translated texts, we'll inform you when it would be more cost effective, and give a better result, to simply start again by translating from the source text.
With large proofreading jobs, we can do 2 or 3 hours and then inform you how far we've got. From this you should be able to roughly estimate the total cost of the proofreading job and then decide whether you'd like us to continue.