How we translate into English

• We did our first translations before the computer revolution. At that time most texts arrived by post on paper and we wrote out our draft translations in long-hand, using a dictionary or two and the reference books available and then typed them up using a typewriter. Copies were made with a photocopier and returned to the customer by post.

Today things are very different. For two translators we operate four modern PCs with a fast Internet connection. Most texts for translation come as attachments to e-mails in a computerised form on which we can work directly. Reference documentation is no longer limited to our specialised library since Internet searches can be most helpful.

• We have invested in the latest specialised CAT memory programs which, while requiring extra skills to use them, allow us to provide consistency in the use of terminology in your documents which was previously impossible to guarantee. However, while these expensive tools are a great benefit, they can only act as an aid as no tools can recognise that the same words, phrase or sentence may have a completely different meaning in another context.

• For those documents which can only be provided on paper, as a fax or pdf file, we have the most modern optical recognition programs which generally allow us to convert them into computer files before translation.

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