Before you even begin to use product translation services, it is important to check that your current ingredients / contents / technical specifications are permitted in the country in which you intend to sell your product/s. When this has been completed, it‘s then time to confirm which legislation/s your products are regulated by. This is carried out by the Compliance Partner (e.g. referencing CLP Regulation (CE) 1272/2008 or EU - FIC Regulations 1169/2011 - Food Labelling).

Before we get started with our translation process, the Compliance Partner carries out a review. This is put in place to ensure the following:

• All mandatory information is included for the target market.

• The information is displayed in the correct manner.

• That artwork adheres to field of vision, font sizes, allergens, contrast, etc.

• On-pack marketing claims adhere.

• Other country-specific labelling elements, such as religious requirements / certification adhere.

At this stage of the process, the Compliance Partner will return their report, usually managed by compliance expert/s in the market/s in which you intend to sell - to ensure that your source content is correct before you start. You can analyse their advice for use and adjust product packaging and other information accordingly. Please note that this product translation process can be carried out for stickering as well as full label / packaging artwork to aid your business in creating effective packaging for every product.

1. Review / Research / QUOTATION. Analyse enquiry, determine feasibility and resources.

2. ORDER / Financial.

3. REVIEW. Project Manager review / research; administrative, technical and linguistic aspects according to the project spec; source language content analysis.

4. PRE-PROCESSING. Pre-processing of file(s) / formatting; technical and pre-production tasks in order to prepare the source language content for translation.

5. SOURCING. Source suppliers from linguist team: language, content, appropriateness for subject matter.

6. LEGISLATION GLOSSARY MATCH. Extraction and intelligent referencing and application of any legislative terms.

7. TRANSLATION. Human: ISO 17100 process: compliance with specific domain / client terminology, semantic accuracy, syntax, spelling, punctuation, diacritical marks and other orthographical conventions, lexical cohesion and phraseology, locale and any applicable standards; formatting; target audience and purpose of the target language content. Self-revision; semantic, grammatical and spelling issues, and for omissions and other errors.

8. REVIEW. Project Manager review / discussion of feedback.

9. PROOFREADING. A person other than the translator examines the target language against the source language content for any errors and other issues, and its suitability for purpose. This shall include comparison of the source and target language content.

10. REVIEW. PM review / QA check. Final delivery review; final verification of the project against specifications by the PM before delivery to the client.

11. POST PROCESSING. Post-processing of file(s); technical, formatting, quality checks.

12. TYPESETTING (optional). Typesetting of translations into artwork format; InDesign, etc.

13. DELIVERY. Delivery by the agreed deadline, in the agreed format.

14. FEEDBACK ‘CIRCLE’ / COMPLIANCE. With or after delivery: Feedback (PM): A process for handling client feedback, for assessment of client satisfaction and for making appropriate corrections and/or taking corrective action. If there is a need to implement any corrections, the work will be redelivered to the client.

15. GLOSSARY / TRANSLATION MEMORY. Translations may be retained in our Translation Memory (TM) software, allowing for consistency and cost savings in future.

As part of our product translation services, we pride ourselves on working closely with each of our clients to deliver translations in a format that works with their operating systems. We not only discuss this with you, but we will also ensure we know the best way to transfer files as well as the target format that you would like us to work in. More commonly with product translation, the final translations are delivered to you in easily understandable multilingual columns / a spreadsheet, or we can provide implementation as below to ensure you can place this on your product packaging as quickly as possible.

Multilingual Typesetting

Errors usually occur when typesetting is handled by someone who does not understand the language/s, therefore we avoid this issue by managing the process for you. We also carry out another 'in-context' review of the label / packaging to ensure all required information is present, reads well and adheres.

This includes:

• Typesetting the translations into the artwork (InDesign, Illustrator, etc.), by either over-typing the existing English, or typesetting the translations into allocated space/s.

• Check that the translations have been typeset correctly: no missing characters, diacritics check, line flow, correct text structure, etc. to ensure that it is readable and fits within the allotted space in the character design.

• Localisation / cultural checks are included as part of our product translation services to ensure product translation is completely natural.

• In-context proofread.

• We can provide script languages outlined for your typesetters.

OR Artwork Review

Alternatively, Talking Heads can carry out a native-speaker review after you / your designers have typeset the translations.

This native-speaker review includes:

• Checks that translations have been typeset correctly: no missing characters, diacritics check, line flow, correct text structure, etc.

• Localisation / cultural checks to ensure that all translation appears natural on the packaging. This is important when it comes to reaching your target audience as the more natural the translation appears, the better the product is likely to sell.

• In-context proofread.

This is the crucial stage which confirms absolute compliance, and where the Compliance Partner becomes responsible for the compliance of your product/s in market.

This assesses both the translated wording on the packaging, and also visual compliance (e.g. colours, use of certain logos, pictogram, etc). This check is done against the local market laws. This will preferably be carried out 'in-country'; by a compliance expert in the country in which you intend to sell.