Hassle-free translations – no questions asked
If you ask me to translate a document for you, I could ask you a lot of questions to make sure the document is fully aligned with your expectations.
But I won’t.
Just let me handle it.
You expect a quality translation, the Dutch equivalent of your English copy, and I will deliver that. Without any hassle.
Unless your text contains an error, or something is really unclear, I will not bother you while I am translating your text.
There are a few exceptions – there is a small chance I might ask you these questions:
Do you want me to use formal or informal “you”? (and if you don’t know, for instance because your language has only one form of “you”, I will help you decide by informing you about the different impacts of these)
·Can you give me some more background information about the topic, so that I have more specific knowledge of what I am translating about?
If you have used Dutch translations before - could you provide a terminology list or some reference materials with terminology your company uses? (For instance, do you use many English terms? Do you prefer e.g. “afdrukken” or “printen”, to give an easy example?)
But often I will find the answer myself by checking your website and similar materials I can find online, so I won’t even need to ask these questions.
And I certainly won’t bother you with all these other questions we translators find important. You would not believe which details we need to decide while translating. We are regular language geeks!
Things like:
How should bulleted text be handled? Should I copy the source’s punctuation or follow the stricter guidelines that Taaladvies (the Dutch language reference website) provides?
Should the text be gender-neutral? Gender-inclusive? Or can I just name genders?
Should I use straight or curly quotation marks? Single or double?
Should I follow the ISO and BIN standard when writing figures, with a space as a separator (10 000 000), or should I use periods (10.000.000)?
For UIs: should I follow Microsoft’s model (“Annuleren”) or Apple’s (“Annuleer”)?
Don’t worry, I will decide all that myself! (Unless you a have a strong opinion on any of these or similar issues, in which case you are welcome to let me know!)
All you have to do, is pass me the document, and after accepting the quote and agreeing on a deadline, there will not be much else to do but wait for the delivery. You will receive your translation on time, as agreed, without any hassle!
I’ll take care of the translating, so you can concentrate on your own work.