Translation of documents

Translation is the rendering of the meaning in the source language into the target language to produce a text that is accurate in terms of the grammar rules of the target language, and that complies with the instructions received in the translation project assignment. The ‘source language’ is the language in which the original text (also called the ‘source text’) is written, and the ‘target language’ is the language into which the source text is translated. Documents are pre-processed to identify repetitive material and facilitate the re-use of content in the Centre’s translation memories (TMs) and to benefit from the use of machine translation (MT) engines, unless they fall under any of the following categories:

• very urgent documents
• urgent documents in specific formats which require special pre-processing operations

Translation requests that meet the right conditions for using the Centre’s custom machine translation engines are automatically pre-processed with these engines and benefit from reduced prices for the different turnaround times. Such pre-translated documents undergo a full post-editing by the Centre’s linguists to make sure that the final result is entirely comparable with the result obtained through traditional translation (i.e. by a translator who produces the translation using a translation memory tool combined with machine translation).

Revision of translations

Revision is the examination of a translation to check that it is fit for the agreed purpose by comparing the source and target texts and making corrections, where necessary. The Centre offers revision of translated documents. If, however, during revision, the translator considers that the translation to be revised needs substantial rewriting, the Centre may reject the revision request and recommend that the client places a request for translation instead.

Paste ‘n’ Go translation

Paste ‘n’ Go is a translation service for texts up to four pages (6 000 characters), with simple formatting options, where the preparation for translation and the final technical check are fully automated. Instead of uploading files, clients simply paste the text to be translated into a specific area of the Client Portal and, upon delivery of the translated text, copy it back into their own systems.

Automatic translation

This is a completely automatic service for the translation of documents using a combination of the Centre’s translation memories and custom machine translation engines, without any quality control by translators or preparation of the source documents for technical processing or formatting.

Light post-editing of neural machine translation output

This is a translation service in which post editors improve the output of machine translation. The service includes editing, modifying and/or correcting machine translation output when the final text is not intended for publication and is mainly for information ‘gisting’, i.e. communicating the essential meaning without necessarily being perfect in the target language. The output will be a comprehensible text in which no important information has been accidentally omitted, and no incorrect information has been added.

Web translation

The Centre has offered web translation as a service since 2015 and won the Ombudsman Award for Good Administration (category: Excellence in citizen/customer-focused services delivery) in 2017 for the solution put in place together with the EUIPO and EU-OSHA to facilitate the management of multilingual websites. Since then, the service has been considerably enhanced as the Centre has completely redeveloped its web translation module for Drupal-based websites. The module now runs on Drupal 7, 8 and 9, has been validated by the Commission’s DIGIT, and can be downloaded from the Drupal.org platform.

Translation of EUTMs, MP files and RCDs

Translation of European Union trade marks (EUTMs), Madrid Protocol (MP) files and registered Community designs (RCDs) refers to the translation of standardised technical texts in the field of industrial/intellectual property consisting of lists of goods and services based on the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) International Classification of Goods and Services for the Purposes of the Registration of Marks (Nice Classification) or the Locarno Agreement Establishing an International Classification for Industrial Designs (Locarno Classification).

Modification of translations

Modification refers to the insertion of changes into a previously translated text. When requesting a modification, the client has to provide a document showing all changes made to the previous text, including insertions and deletions, as well as the previous language version(s) of the document(s) to be modified. The Centre’s translators adapt the translations according to the modifications made to the original.