KENAX Standards of Quality and Cooperation

 

This website was created to help our translators and various human resource employees understand the requirements of our cooperation.

To many, these standards may be obvious, but we have found that many others do not share the same insight (or experience). Therefore, we recommend that you read these instructions carefully and in full, even though some parts may seem obvious.

For all jobs concerning the translation process (translation, proofread, vetting) shown below, make special note that you are all working together as a team to deliver a quality product on time. Any link in this chain that falls behind will create additional pressure on subsequent links in the process. The translating industry is NOT tolerant for breaches of deadlines and we have lost many good customers because of this. So we must emphasise this to all links in this process, and use only those people who we can rely on to fulfil their deadlines.

If any of you are having a problem, do not hide it but communicate with us. We have a lot of experience and resources at our disposal, and it is within our interest to help you accomplish the quality product that we want to deliver, on time, to our customer.

If some instructions are not clear, we can rewrite them. If you zip through a project without reading the project's instructions carefully, and end up doing something wrong, or if you keep writing us endless emails asking something we have already answered, you will be charged for our time, or for having to fix something because you did not read the instructions properly. The instructions below are general and should already be known by a professional and seasoned translator or proofreader. If you lack this experience, we suggest you read the below text.
When emailing with us, proofread your email so that everything is clear for the project managers and so that time is not wasted.
 

Instructions to Translators
Instructions to Proofreaders
Instructions for all other Jobs

What you can expect from us
Useful Links

 

Instructions to Translators:

You can find other and more detailed tips on translating at our translation tips page.

Instructions to Proofreaders:

Depending on the source and target languages, it may often be difficult for a translator to not be influenced by the original text and write the translation in a smooth and freely flowing manner. This is where the proofreader becomes effective and who can take a fresh look at the final product from the perspective of the target language and help bring the final product closer to an ideal. This is made more difficult if the quality of the translation (which may be influenced by the quality of the translator or if the original document is not good) is poor, so your feedback concerning this matter is always important to us. If something seems strange or not quite understandable, rather than guess what the original document actually meant and change the meaning, it is often advisable to put comments in the translation in < > brackets and inform us of the problem. Either we will take a look at it or send it back to the translator for further review. Your work is an important step towards finding inconsistencies, taking a fresh and different look at the translation, and in polishing it up overall to produce a truly quality product.
For those proofreaders who prefer to charge by the hour instead of by the word, we know how long things generally take, and we often send your proofread with changes shown back to the translator for their opinion. We can also ask the opinion of other qualified translators, so it does not make sense to make lots of unnecessary changes. The important point is to comb through the translation to look for errors, polish the style, and make sure the final quality is something we can be proud of. You are not expected to compare the entire translation against the original, but you can refer to the original if something seems odd in the translation. After you, the vettor will be responsible for comparing the translation against the original to make sure nothing is missing and that the formatting is correct.
For those who prefer to charge by the hour as opposed to by the word, please read our comments concerning this in the section below on Instructions for All Other Jobs.

Instructions for all other jobs:

Instructions for all other jobs are similar to the above. Essentially, you must respect deadlines. If you are falling behind, inform us well in advance so that we can try to find someone to help you. Pace yourself and manage your time so that you can produce a quality product. If you commit yourself to a task and deadline but then find some other more interesting or better paying work, you can expect to never receive work from us again. We cannot provide a quality service to our clients based on people with these types of work ethics. In such cases, you may think of a suitable excuse why you could not accomplish something, but we will always log such excuses and eventually decide on the above. Of course, unanticipated circumstances do occasionally occur, and we can be forgiving and helpful, but we generally have a good idea how often such circumstances occur. Therefore, we suggest that you just do honest and ethical work, based on which we can provide a quality service to our clients and in turn guarantee you more work in the future.
For those who will be charging by the hour and not by piece work or actual projects, as with the proofreading above, our agreeing to such price terms is not the issuance of a blank cheque. We know how long tasks should take, so if you take your time, work in less efficient ways and even inflate your hours so as to cash in as much as possible from the get go (as some people have done in the past), not only will we not necessarily honour your initial charges, but it will set you on a bad footing with us. The beginning of our cooperation is understood as a trial period and not a binding contract for whatever invoice you choose to send us. The purpose of such cooperation is to find people who are productive, efficient and honourable. This is the rock on which we can build our services and offer something competitive and substantial to our customers. Those employees who fulfill these conditions will be assigned the most work.

 

What you can expect from us:

For payment and other related matters, please refer to our translators information pages.

Sometimes large projects, or if we have a lot of work, can tax our resources, but generally we always try to be supportive and helpful. A translator is expected to use the internet and other available resources to help them with terminology and other issues, but we can also scour our database to look for experts in particular fields, if you need help with something. Or we can help you with formatting issues, such as can be found on our translation tips pages, or help you with your computer, with specific issues or refer you to our computer tips pages. We are a team and we should work together to produce the best possible product for the customer and ensure ourselves a steady stream of work.

 

Useful Links:

How to work with Transit PE - translation memory software, free version. Some customer require the use of this software, while some large projects requiring many translators require it for practical and quality reasons.

Translation Resources - links to many online dictionaries and other resources which you may find useful for your work.

Download Translation Programs - mostly free software which you can download and which could help you with your work.