How to Evaluate the Quality of Vietnamese Financial Translation Services?

The subjective nature of language makes it challenging to evaluate the quality of a translation, especially when it comes to Vietnamese financial translation services. Everyone subscribes to their own definition of what is considered a high-quality translation. Thus, to avoid confusion when assessing your Vietnamese financial translation, you need to set a measurement strategy (or KPIs), along with clear indicators beforehand.

In the article, we will show you some key indicators to measure the quality of the Vietnamese financial translation services you are using. Please note that the list of indicators varies from project to project.

What are quality Vietnamese financial translation services?

In general, you know that you are using great quality Vietnamese financial translation services when your translations convey accurate and easy-to-read information. The original tone and messages should be unchanged while cultural factors are taken into consideration. Besides linguistic aspects, you should pay attention to the serving manner of your translation partners – their ability to deliver translations within the promised deadlines and the correlation between the price you pay and the quality of translations.

Three main key indicators to evaluate Vietnamese financial translation services are

• • Delivery Time
  • Costs
  • Project Quality

#1. Delivery Time

Almost every Vietnamese translation agency out there boasts about how they can surely deliver your translations on time. Of course, it is great if they can keep their words and bring you the best quality translations within the deadlines that they promised. However, unexpected situations happen all the time during the translation process. In case the translation partner cannot deliver the translations on time, you can evaluate whether their services are good and bad based on how they notify you of this change:

• • Bad Vietnamese financial translation services – No prior notice of the late delivery is sent to you. They do not notify you beforehand nor apologize to you in their delivery email.
  • Good Vietnamese financial translation services – A prior notice should be sent to you no later than the point when 50% of the expected turnaround time (TAT) has passed.

#2. Costs

Achieving the highest quality of translations at the most optimal costs is the ultimate goal of almost all companies when it comes to translation. In other words, you should expect to receive value-for-money Vietnamese financial translation services that are worth every dollar you spend. To assess if your project meets this goal or not, you should consider the following factors:

• • Are the costs within your budget?
  • Do the costs and quality proportionate?
  • Is there any additional cost you have to pay during the translation process?
  • Are the additional fees charged reasonably?

#3. Project Quality

A standard method used to evaluate the quality of Vietnamese financial translation services is the LQA form (Language Quality Assessment form). The form looks into errors in document language use (mistranslation, accuracy, terminology, style, consistency, etc.) and document formatting (layout, graphics, TOC, index, etc.). For software, app, and website localization projects, you should also assess the software functionality (localizable text, dialogue functionality, menu functionality, etc.)

Each category and metric will be classified as Minor, Major or Critical with weighting features. For example, if the financial translation contains two major errors in the accuracy metric, it will generate a score of 10. But if you record three critical errors, they will generate a score of 30.

A sample of an LQA form

This process is usually performed on 50-10% of the translation project’s volume. After the LQA process, the scores from these categories are added up to give you the total score of the translation. If the total number is higher than the predefined threshold you set, then the translation is considered “pass” or good. So what you need to do in this step is to decide what the pass rate will be.

It is worth noting that only professional native Vietnamese linguists with a solid background in the financial industry should be assigned to perform the LQA step.

Common mistakes in Vietnamese financial translation to avoid

Translating financial documents from a foreign language to Vietnamese can be very challenging due to the great differences in the punctual and value systems between the two languages. Below are some common mistakes that unprofessional Vietnamese financial translators are likely to be made. If your financial translations contain many of the mistakes below, it seems that the Vietnamese financial translation services you are using are of bad quality.

#1. Punctual Mistakes

The accuracy of numbers is no doubt the top priority of a financial translation. When translating numbers from English to Vietnamese, misusing comma (,) and dot (.) can cause a huge problem. While in English, 3,500 means three thousand and five hundred, it is three and a half in Vietnamese. If you want to write three thousand and five hundred in Vietnamese, you have to use the dot instead (3.500).

#2. Value Confusion

Since it is easy to mess up the dot and comma in numbers when translating financial content to Vietnamese, some decide to write them in letters. Although this method proves effective in most cases, you still have to face the long and short scales. Numbers under 1,000,000,000 (or 109) are the same for the two scales. But the confusion comes when you handle bigger numbers.

English speaking countries, Arabic-speaking countries, and some others use the short-scale while Dutch, French, German, Portuguese, and Spanish-speaking countries use the long scale. However, the Vietnamese use neither of the two scales. They use naming systems for larger numbers that are not related to the mentioned scales. When translating financial documents to Vietnamese, you need to be extra careful and follow the country’s preferred number system.

#3. Confidentiality Violation

Whether your documents are financial reports, personal tax reports or income statements, the confidentiality of the data should be paid close attention to. The leak of such sensitive information might cost you a great deal of money and even brand images. To avoid this mistake, make sure to ask your translators to sign an NDA before starting the project.

How to find high-quality Vietnamese financial translation services?

We recommend three tips that you can easily apply to find the right Vietnamese financial translation services providers and achieve high-quality financial translations in the Vietnamese language:

• • Always go for professional financial translation services from 100% native Vietnamese linguists. Ideally, your translation partners should be based in Vietnam as they are likely to have a better understanding of the Vietnamese language and culture and they offer reasonable prices. The translation partners must also specialize in financial-related content.
  • Your team should carefully prepare clear translation instructions – style guide and glossary to help your translators go on the right track.
  • Frequently discuss and communicate with the translators in charge to manage the project progress.

GTE Localize is a professional translation agency focusing on Vietnamese financial translation services. Having an office in Vietnam, we are confident to bring you best-in-class native Vietnamese financial translators at the most affordable rates.

• • See our financial translation case study – How we helped Exness successfully localize its contents into 11 languages.

Kick-off your Vietnamese financial translation projects today by joining a 1:1 free consultancy with our localization experts!