Tips for accurate Kannada and Tamil translation.

As discussed in many of our earlier blogs, there is a surge in the demand for localization services in India. More and more linguists are entering the translation domain regularly. However, maintaining high quality in translation is one of the foremost jobs of any translator or translation agency. Let us take two south Indian languages in this article - Kannada (spoken in Karnataka) and Tamil (spoken in Tamil Nadu).  Bangalore being a Metro and Kannada used as the language there by native people, there is a sound demand for professional Kannada translation services in Bangalore and the rest of the country. Similarly, Tamil being the language spoken in Chennai and adjoining areas, the demand for Tamil translation is also on the rise. For both these languages, we have many translators who are working either full time or part time. Also, we can see than an Affordable Tamil translation agency is finding a lot of customers these days. Now, coming to the most important question - maintaining accuracy in translation.  Here we shall list down a few parameters that can ensure good quality. 1) Context is the most important thing in translation. So, the translator must understand the context/subject of the source and do the conversion/translation accordingly. 2) The translator should keep in mind that the translated target document must convey exactly (neither less nor more) the same information as the source document in as simple manner as possible. 3) The document should be consistent, ie same terms and phrases should be translated in the same manner at all places within a document. (We have discussed regarding the relevance of CAT tools in this context in one of our earlier blogs). 4) The language used and the syntax/sentence framing etc should be as per the target language grammar. Example, if the translation is being done from English to Kannada, then the translated document structure should be as per the Kannada grammar style and not as per the source English text. Many translators commit this error by doing a word to word translation. 5) The terms used should be as per the domain of the document at hand. We know that a word can have multiple synonyms, the usage of the right word in a particular document actually distinguishes between machine and human translation. (Of course, there are many other factors, this is also one of them). 6) The document must be thoroughly proofread/checked for grammar/spellings etc before being considered as final. As a premium translation service provider, we actually deploy a three tier quality policy which involves translation followed by proofreading by another translator. 7) Finally, the formatting of the source document should be retained. In short, quality is one of the most basic expectations from a translation and each translator/translation agency must strive towards high quality.

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