Recently I read an article named The Translation Industry in China: Current Development and Potential for International Cooperation by Huang Youyi & Huang Changqi.It is quite useful of reading this article as we can have brief understanding of translation industry in China.

As one important part of translation industry in China, CCJK has witnessed the fast growth and challenges of Chinese translation industry.And CCJK has found workable solutions to cope with the challenges mentioned bellow:

Challenges Facing the Chinese Translation Industry

It is nice to talk about the great progress and huge opportunities for the translation industry, but we at the same time must recognize the tremendous problems and challenges. Among the challenges, the following are most prominent:

The Professional nature of translation is not properly understood and acknowledged.

It’s a simple truth that translation should be done by professional translators, just as financial statements should be prepared by professional accountants. But we translators have to fight very hard to convince the public and the client of this truth. The misconception that anyone who speaks two languages can do translation still prevails in China.

It thus opens the door for unqualified people to enter the translation market and deliver poor translation products. It also leads to low recognition and low payment to professional translators. The sad thing for translators is that when people discover wrong translations, they invariably pinpoint their fingers at the individual translators who have done the particular translation job, not aware that the root cause lies with the ignorance of the need for professionalism on the part, first and foremost, of administers or those who have failed to give out translation jobs to the professional translator.

Another misconception is that translation is a mechanical work involving simply the replacement of one language with another. A document can take weeks or even months to prepare, but the translator is often given only a few days to translate.

The difficulties involved in the creative translation process are hardly understood by the client and the general public, and translators seldom see their names appear on the product they produce. To many people, to hire a translator to do a job, no matter how difficult it is, is simply like getting a taxi in the street, waving at it, riding in it, then having had enjoyed its service, paying it and sending it off.

In the case of hiring a translator, it is even easier since tipping is not needed. To be sure, translators should provide services as convenient, timely and reliable as taxies, but to place translators at the beck and call will not help the cultivation of professionalism in the industry.

As a result, professional translators can hardly feel the pride in their profession, and are often disheartened. What suffers is the professional pride and quality.
Remarks: We value every translator’s work and we are proud of having them being part of CCJK. Every translator we are working with is very pleased of working with CCJK.

The supply of professional translators is far short of demand.

China News Weekly estimates that some 400 million Chinese are studying English now, but the fact is that both translation agencies and the clients are complaining about the lack of qualified translators. This is mainly because translation has long been regarded as a minor part of language learning, and professional training for translators has not been given due attention.

Statistics from the Ministry of Personnel of the central government show that there are more than 60,000 translators with professional titles, but they are mostly in-house translators with government departments, public institutions and big state-owned enterprises.

The number of people who actually practice translation or interpretation is estimated (very conservatively) to be at around 500,000, most of whom are part-time translators who hold a regular job elsewhere. Being part-time translators, they lack both professional skills and professional ethics, especially when they are doing it on an occasional or temporal basis.

The shortage of qualified translators is especially true in the translation from Chinese into foreign languages. Take publishing for example. Each year, Chinese publishers translate several thousand foreign books into Chinese, but only very few Chinese books are translated into foreign languages.

Foreign copyright purchase is roughly 10 times that of Chinese copyright sales. This is partly because there are not enough qualified Chinese to foreign language translators.

Remarks: To focus on our customers’ needs by a united network of excellent professionals worldwide to provide the best quality, services and solutions in order to consistently create maximum value for customers. Now we have 30 in-house linguistic, engineering and DTP experts. upported by
2,000+talented linguists, engineers, designers and programmers who work as a super organized team.

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Expert of Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Japanese, Korean and 90 more Asian and European languages..

The translation industry is still in its infancy and needs regulation.
As mentioned before, China’s translation market is huge, and the players are numerous. But quantity does not automatically transfer into quality, and quite the contrary, it often means lawlessness and chaos.

As a new service industry, the translation industry in China is still in its infancy. The market is largely in an open free market, with little coordination and guidance from a central source. Some examples: professional training is still very limited, and the professional level of the workforce is not up to standard;

Translation companies vary greatly in scale, management and price, since there is no stringent entry requirements in place; quality appraisal and monitoring systems are not yet established, and poor translations can be found just about everywhere; standardization efforts in the industry is far from comprehensive;

Professional ethics and self-discipline are not given due attention; information exchange within the sector is not smooth; the pay rate fluctuates greatly from region to region, from case to case. A lot needs to be done to establish the industry as a mature one.

Remarks: After 11 years growth and development, CCJK has automated its business process and become a leading player in the localization industry across the Asian Pacific region, successfully gaining the trust of a host of internationally renowned companies, such as Intel, Maersk and Cisco etc. CCJK has formed a standard process of treating clients’document translation:

Take a look at how we helped our client by localizing their project for Chinese language. Click here to read the complete case study

CCJK Documentation Localization Process

1. Quotation

–File Drop:

customer drops source files to CCJK.

–File Analyzer:

CCJK analyzes the source files and gets a chargeable word- count and / or working hours. Converts the source files to editable format if necessary. Runs against existing TM if it is an update project.

–Submit Quotation:

CCJK presents CUSTOMER a formal quotation.

2. Preparation

–File Handoff

customer sends source files to CCJK.

File Preparetion and Translation Memory Creation

PM checks source files to ensure completeness, and prepares source files in TM environment.

–Existing Project Glossary?

NO

Create Glossary

LINGUIST extracts key terminology from source files to create a Glossary, then translates and edits Glossary terms.

–Review Glossary

CUSTOMER reviews translated Glossary.

–Implement Review Changes

LINGUIST implements review changes in Glossary.

YES

3. Translation

–Translate

TRANSLATOR translate in TM environment,following the establisthed Style Guide,maintaining consistency with exiting TM and approved Glossary.

–Edit
EDITOR works TM environment to review translation against source text for consistency and quaity.

–DTP

UI/Graphic Localization

DTP OPERATOR localizes the source graphic and takes screenshot of the final UI if necessary.

–DTP 1

DTP OPERATOR converts bilingual files to the source format. Places localized graphic and screenshot. Formats document and conducts QA.

4. Quality Assurance

–Linguistic QA

LINGUISTIC LEAD verifies linguistic quality in context. Highlights changes in layout files and enters changes in bilingual files.

–DTP 2

DTP OPERATOR implements Linguistic QA changes, verifies layout quality and creates fully paginated PDF for DTP QA.

–DTP QA

DTP LEAD checks layout quality in PDF format and annotates any issues.

–DTP QA Changes

DTP OPERATOR implements DTP QA changes identified.

–Review

Review Delivery Preparation

PM prepares localized files and ensure file integrity before delivery.

5. Review

–CUSTOMER reviews localized files.

–Implement Review Changes

LINGUISTIC and DTP LEAD implements review changes in Glossary, bilingual files and layout files.

–Delivery

Final Delivery and TM Creation

PM prepares approved files and final TM for final delivery.

I sincerely wish CCJK will continue focusing on customers’ needs by a united network of excellent professionals worldwide to provide the best quality, services and solutions in order to consistently create maximum value for customers. And CCJK will be a proud of translation industry in China!