By: Sergio Alasia - Read Time: 7 minutes

The second most frequent question that clients ask us, right after “how much does this translation cost?” is definitely “how long does it take?”. This is not surprising, since in the communication business, deadlines are of paramount importance: the on-time launch of a marketing campaign can make all the difference, significantly improving its overall effectiveness.

In addition to producing targeted and valuable content in an attractive graphic layout, timing is the element that most contributes to the success of a campaign, because it directly affects the engagement of the target audience and the circulation of the content to be promoted. In other words, it’s not just what and the how that matter, but also when.

The Winning Tactic: Keeping One Move Ahead

In a marketing strategy, campaign planning often spans over several months and its pace is very tight. So much so that sometimes you take your time until the last moment to put the finishing touches on the copies and send them off for translation. You then find yourselves having to deal with a variable that had not been considered before, namely translation time. When the launch of the campaign is imminent, a quick service turns out to be as important an aspect as the translation rate, or maybe even more so.

This is not to be taken lightly: if it is Friday and the campaign must start on Monday in various countries, the texts in the respective languages need to be ready at all costs. Since these situations happen more often than you imagine, it is essential to allow sufficient time in the initial planning to let translators work unhurriedly. Sure, there can always be last-minute rethinks and updates, but they should be the exception, not the norm.

Here’s a clear example that happened to us a few years ago with a customer in the retail sector. The company in question had organized a contest related to the launch of a new product and had to publish it on various online channels. The text itself (trivia-like questions and answers) was not particularly long, and had already been translated and delivered in advance.

Unfortunately, however, until the morning before the launch, it hadn't occurred to anyone that the 3,000-plus-word terms and conditions needed to be available in all languages too.

We have always had a great relationship with this client and we gave them full availability to deliver the job the next morning. With a little effort (and for a reasonable surcharge) we managed to finish on time, but it was really a close call: the losses for our client could have been huge.

The Reference Value

Precisely to avoid these heart-pounding situations, it’s a good idea to reserve some time for translation when planning a multilingual marketing campaign. But how do you calculate that?

You would be inclined to think that it depends solely on the length of the text, which is usually measured in words. If this were the case, it would be enough to know how many words are translated on average in a certain amount of time to easily work out the result of the operation. Instead, even before word count, the translation speed depends on who (or what) is doing it.

If the translator is a machine translation engine, the problem doesn’t even arise, because the translation will be ready in seconds regardless of the number of words. Although this solution alone is inadvisable and to be reserved only for cases of absolute necessity, there are situations in which quantity is more important than quality, so it is not to be discarded by default.

On the contrary, from this perspective, machine translation post-editing can become a useful time-saving ally. It is not possible to give an exact percentage because each case has to be assessed individually. Far from being a miracle solution, we know from experience that time can realistically be reduced by 30%, while maintaining, if proper measures are taken, a quality comparable to that of a human translation.

If, on the other hand, you forgo shortcuts and take the slower but safer route of actual translation, the speed depends largely on the turnaround of the single translator. This value will not always be the same, but a good starting point for our calculation is to consider the typical estimate of 3,000 words per day at most.

But be careful: this is the average volume produced by a professional translator under optimal conditions in 8 hours of work, but actual productivity is often considerably lower. In fact, the time required for proofreading and quality control of the translation, as well as non-productive activities (e.g. reading any reference materials and guidelines) should not be overlooked.

All the more so if you are employing an agency, which always spends some time in translation project management, or there are other intermediaries involved, we can safely halve the “nominal” productivity of 3,000 translated words per day and set a base of 1,500 delivered words in 24 hours.

For the avoidance of doubt, I am deliberately not considering here the possibility of splitting the text among several translators. Although this is also something to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, I think it is not particularly convenient, because some of the time you gain in this way is lost anyway in the revision to ensure consistency of the text and in general project management.

The Other Variables to Consider

The base of 1,500 words in 24 hours should therefore apply to any text below that number of words. To request a translation for the same day is a risk because unforeseen events are always lurking and personally I tend to distrust those who promise this express service like fast food chains.

Although it is possible on paper, it is only feasible in the case of a very close collaboration and if there is full trust between customer and provider. The #1 rule is therefore to avoid as much as possible leaving translations (even if the text is very short) for the very last day.

Moreover, the volume of words is indeed the determining factor, but it is not the only one. In fact, at least three other elements have a significant impact on the final result: the number of target languages, the file format and the type of content. Our reference value so far does not take them into account, but only applies to a text document, spreadsheet or presentation, of non-technical subject matter, to be translated into one language.

All projects that fall outside of this “standard” model will inevitably be slower. As a matter of fact, many files require format conversions to be processed by translation software. Even extremely common documents such as PDFs are not translator-friendly. Another fairly frequent situation is represented by desktop publishing formats such as InDesign or Illustrator, which often require a manual fixing of the layout.

Each of these steps uses up time and must be given careful consideration as well. Similarly, if the translation is required in two or more languages, or if the content is specialized, requiring special preparation on the part of the translator, delivery time will be affected. According to our experience, for example, up to 20% more time should be expected for 6 target languages and up.

This brief analysis makes it clear that the calculation is not straightforward, since the possible combinations of all these variables are numerous and the variables themselves are not at all easy to quantify exactly.

That’s why we have decided to offer our visitors a calculator for this purpose. With just a few basic data, it will provide you with an estimate of the delivery time of a translation, on which to base the planning of your marketing campaigns and your communication strategy in general.

The Qalculator

Easily calculate how long it takes to translate a document

Do you need a translation by a certain date and are not sure if it will make it on time? The Qalculator only needs 4 key parameters to give you a rough estimate of the timing of a translation: