Handing website content to translators

Freeze the source first

Translators need final text. Every change to the source after translation has started creates a second round: someone has to find the changed sentence, send it out, wait for it to come back and place it in every language. With three target languages, one late edit becomes three small jobs.

A content freeze is simply a date after which the source language changes only for corrections, and each correction is logged. It sounds bureaucratic, but it is what makes the translation estimate reliable. If the source cannot be frozen across the whole site, freeze it section by section and translate in the same order.

Choose an export format both sides can handle

How text leaves your site depends on the platform. The aim is the same everywhere: translators receive only the words that need translating, with enough structure that the words can go back into the right places without retyping.

Ask your translators which formats their tools accept before choosing. A professional translator or agency will name formats; a bilingual colleague may prefer a document. Either can work if the route back into the site is planned.

What to send with the text

A glossary

List the terms that must be translated the same way every time, or not translated at all: product names, service names, legal terms, the names of your departments. Give the approved translation for each language once it exists. Even a short glossary gives every translator the same answer to the same question.

Context

A string like "Book" could be a noun or a verb. Screenshots of the pages, or access to a staging site, let translators see where each sentence lives. Mark which strings are buttons, which are headings and which are error messages, because each has its own conventions.

Length limits

Where a string must fit a fixed space, such as a button or a navigation item, say so and give a rough limit. W3C guidance on text size notes that short source strings tend to grow the most in translation, with English texts of up to ten characters growing to two or three times their English length on average in IBM's figures ¹. Our guide to text expansion covers the design side.

Tone and audience

One paragraph is enough: who reads the site, whether to use the formal or informal form of address, and any words to avoid. In German and French this choice of address shapes every sentence, so settle it before translation starts.

Agree how questions get answered

Translators will have questions, and they arrive while you are busy with other parts of the project. Name one person who answers them, agree a channel, and keep a shared list of answers so the same question is not asked twice in three languages.

Review in the layout, not the spreadsheet

The most important review happens after the text is back in the site. A translation that reads well in a document can still break the page: a German heading that wraps into four lines, an Italian button label that is cut off, an Arabic sentence whose punctuation lands on the wrong side.

Review each language on the real pages, on a phone and a desktop, and check:

• headings and buttons for overflow or awkward breaks;
• links, which should point to the same-language page;
• form labels, hints and error messages, which are easy to miss because they only appear after an action;
• automatic emails and confirmation pages;
• alternative text for images, which some content systems store apart from the body text, so it can slip out of an export. Add it to the export list explicitly.

Who signs off

Each language needs a final approver who reads it fluently. That person confirms that the page says what the source says and that it reads naturally for your audience. Where nobody in-house reads a language, budget for a second translator to review the first, and keep a record of who approved what and when.

After launch

Translation does not end at launch. Every later edit to the source has to reach the other languages. Decide now how that will work: a weekly batch, a monthly batch, or immediate updates for prices and legal text only. Write the rule into your site documentation, and make the content system show which pages in which languages are out of date if it can.

The project planner gives a word count per language from your own figures, which is what translators will ask for before they can quote.