Proofreading

Our foremost concern as a translation agency is accuracy and while, of course, we always proofread our own work, the best option is to have a colleague run through the translation before delivery. This will naturally incur a slightly higher cost – somewhere around a third extra - but is well worth the investment, to guarantee the perfect translation. Four eyes are better than two, we always say! Or, in Japanese - 四つの目の方が二つよりよく見える (Yotsu no me no hou ga futatsu yoriyoku mieru). If you have a lower budget, please contact us to discuss your specific requirements and enquire about our monolingual proofreading option.

MONOLINGUAL PROOFREADING

As the name suggests, the reviewer is working in only one language, the target language. Here the proof-reader isn’t looking at the source material, but only at what has been translated. Naturally, there are pros and cons to this. The pros being that, turnaround time is often twice as fast and cost is far lower. Another “hidden pro” to monolingual proofreading is that, the reviewer will not get bogged down in deciphering every nuanced meaning available in the source text, which does happen in heavily context-based languages such as Japanese, but rather will quickly produce a smooth, natural reading piece of text, free of any overly literal wording. The cons are obviously that as the reviewer has no knowledge of the original document, any mistranslations, unnecessary additions or omissions made by the translator will be left either in or out as the case may be. We only work with experienced linguist who we trust will not make these kinds of mistakes but, we still always recommend erring on the cautious side and having your document proof-read, even if it costs a little more.