Working in parallel

Editor's note: Jill Bishop is founder and CEO of Multilingual Connections. 

One of the most exciting and rewarding areas of market research is the opportunity to capture diverse cultural perspectives via multilingual research. But it’s important to have the right tools in your suitcase when you head off into the unknown – even if it your trip is virtual.

If you’re reading this, you probably already know that thinking of translation services as an afterthought is a no-no but it bears repeating. The reality is that our industry continues to diversify and the requests for multilingual research are on the rise. As a network of language and culture investigators, our firm has learned a thing or two about supporting multilingual market research needs over the years. Before you start your next project, review these seven tips to ensure your data quality doesn’t get lost in translation.

1. Allow enough time. When you’re doing a study that involves other countries or languages, don’t make the mistake of waiting until the last minute to think about translation and transcription services. Partnering with a team of linguists from the beginning ensures you’ll get the most out of your research without adding extra items to your to-do list. 

It’s best to consider translation services as an integral part of your project from the very start. This gives you the chance to build in adequate translation time. Whenever possible, engage with a universal translation services partner in the early stages of your project planning – the earlier, the better!

Specifically, when doing research in a foreign country, keep in mind that whatever you’re doing in your native language, you ALSO need to have done parallel in the target language(s).

So, for example, typically for any research project, you’re going to need: a screener; a qualitative guide or quantitative questionnaire; and probably stimulus materials, transcripts, subtitles for video, and a report.

For each of these materials, you’ll want to take into account the time required for getting them done (and done WELL) in that second language (or many times, multiple languages).

Pro tip: Lead-time varies by volume and project. Be sure you account for the additional time appropriately. It’s not just the original, one-time translation of material that you need to consider. Each of these translations will need to be checked (and sometimes rechecked) – just like you will be checking (and rechecking) all of these materials in the original English language.

2. Allow enough budget. Similarly, you’ll want to make sure you’ve accounted for the extra budget needed to translate your research materials into the target language. It’s downright dangerous to discount the importance of quality translation. Just think about how hard you work to get your screening qualifications clarified in one language! And think about the intricacies of a qualitative discussion guide or an online quantitative questionnaire. These tools can be complicated in one language, let alone two or more.

Allowing enough time to evaluate suppliers (see Rule 1) and being clear with your request (see Rule 3) will both help to ensure that you have the information you need to secure the budget for the level of translation.

Pro tip: One cost-saving trick to keep in mind when working in foreign languages is to finalize your materials in your source language first (presumably English) before moving into the translation stage for any of those materials. This strategy, though it requires discipline, will save you money, time and aggravation.

3. Be specific with your request. In order to get the best quality and cost efficiencies with translation, you need to be clear on what you are asking your translator, or linguist, to do. What type of research material is it: screener, qualitative guide, quantitative questionnaire, transcript, report, etc.?

About how long is the document you’re having translated and in what format do you need it delivered? For example, if you’re having a screener translated, as a guideline, think about the average length of a screener for the type of project you are working on. Regardless of which type of research material you are having translated, providing your translation services partner with a sample document is always helpful, for both cost estimation and definition of deliverables.

Ditto for the desired output. Not only is it helpful for alignment with the translator but this will save you time as you move through your own documentation and reporting process.

One important point to consider is how refined you need the output to be. Sometimes, having a first pass of what was said is enough (in other words, what the translator provides to you and your research team for internal analysis and report writing may not necessarily need to be end-client ready). Having clarity on this point will also help with securing a better cost estimate.

Pro tip: Don’t forget to take into account time zones when you’re planning international work. If you give your deadlines in your time zone, that’s fine, but you might get better results if you make sure you’re aligned with your translator in terms of what that deadline means in their time zone. Working with a vendor who sources an in-region linguist for you can help alleviate the pressure of this frustration.

4. Check your mind-set: It’s never “just translation.” Nuance is everything when it comes to translation. Think about how hard you work to use the correct words in your own language. How much effort you put into the specificity of what you are trying to explore on research projects. How you make sure to ask the questions so they do not lead respondents (or somehow otherwise bias them).

When you are rendering research materials in another language, many things must be taken into account. It’s not just the words. It’s the nuances, the tone, an ear for the cultural and linguistic understanding and intention of the original language. And how that should be interpreted in the target language. Same is true for the flipside – the nuances of the respondents’ answers. 

Even in native English the words can be different from one English-speaking country to the next, e.g., “boot” in British English compared to “trunk” in American English. Now let’s expand that to include different countries – many of which have more than one dialect. Each language can have different implications in different verticals – legal, financial and health care come to mind as being particularly challenging. 

All of these considerations should be taken into account when trying to approximate research materials into foreign languages, since the goal is to have your words resonate and engage your research participants meaningfully, no matter where they live or what language they may speak.

5. Check your mind-set, part two: Just because they can speak a language doesn’t mean they’ll be a good translator. In the never-ending quest to cut corners (a.k.a. the race to faster, less expensive insights), it is tempting to hope that a Spanish-speaking employee (a specialist in accounting) might be able to bang out the translation for your upcoming research study on automobiles in South America.

See it this way: It’s a tall order to think just because someone speaks English, they’ll be able to write a research screener or a quantitative questionnaire. 

Utilizing outsourcing to free up your native-speaking accountant (or better yet, your native speaking research team members) means their time will be better used – focused on the data. 

A word about machine translation: It’s definitely getting better over time. Some languages are more accurately machine-translated than others and, depending on what you are trying to translate, it could serve your needs very well – for example, something that is highly repetitive or lists of words that can be easily double-checked.

But the minute you step into something that requires more linguistic accuracy and cultural nuance (e.g., screeners, questionnaires, positioning statements), there can be a steep drop-off in terms of quality. Just looking at an English to English machine transcription of an audio recording will give you an idea of how easily things can go awry – and then imagine English to Chinese! Your translation partner should help you identify if your project is right for machine translation.

Is all research equal? (We’re hearing you say “NO.”) Neither is linguistic and cultural interpretation.

Pro tip: Similarly, when thinking of non-native-English-speaking research participants (i.e., Russian, Vietnamese, Hispanic, etc.), don’t expect that just because someone can speak English as a second language they will be able to express themselves fully in a research situation or feel comfortable doing so. 

6. Streamline your translation process. You can hire translators directly or you can work with an agency but it’s important to have the right people involved in your project and to streamline the process. If you send a finished screener in English (that you have written or at least approved) directly to a translator (one who you know and who speaks the target language as their native language), you would be able to give your instructions directly to that native-speaking translator, which is great. However, sourcing and managing a team of linguists can take a lot of your time and resources, especially if you are looking at large projects and in multiple languages.

Another way to translate your materials is by working with an agency. Professional translation agencies usually work with a network of language experts that have been pre-vetted and they’re able to determine the best linguist for the job based on native language, region and industry expertise. One potential scenario is for you to work with one or two dedicated contacts at the agency who do the heavy lifting and communicate directly with the translators about your project specs.

7. Seek out a good, long-term partnership. Whenever possible (especially if you have ongoing needs for a particular language or languages), seek to establish a long-term relationship with a partner for how you’re going to get that work done. The continuous learning that results comes in handy when working under the pressure of deadlines and budget constraints, since your translation services partner can help you develop customized solutions that fit your needs.

Of course, you can consider multiple relationships but a “one-stop-shop” also has the advantage of minimizing the number of people involved (see Rule 6), as well as creating synergies in terms of understanding time and budget expectations. It can also result in cost savings in the long term. 

Valued as a priority 

As the race continues towards faster data, quality can’t be left in the dust. While many factors contribute to the outcomes of a project, translation and transcription services need to be valued as a priority.