The following content is translated from Chinese source by machine translation without post-editing.
Project Background:
The form of foreign-related training may involve Chinese students and foreign teachers, such as some management courses designed for Chinese students but with foreign lecturers; Or conversely, Chinese teachers and foreign students are most typical of China’s foreign aid training programs.
Regardless of the form, translation services are needed in both in class and out of class communication, as well as in daily life, to ensure the smooth progress of foreign-related training programs. Due to limited space, we will take foreign aid training as an example to share TalkingChina’s translation service practice.
In response to the national “going global” and “the Belt and Road” policies, the Ministry of Commerce led several units across the country to train industrial, commercial and public management talents in various fields for the assisted countries. From 2017 to 2018, TalkingChina Translation successfully won the bid as a translation service provider for the foreign aid projects of Shanghai Business School and Zhejiang Police College. The bidding is based on the needs of the business school/police college for foreign aid training. The bidding content is to select translation service providers who provide high-quality translation of training materials, course interpretation (consecutive interpretation, simultaneous interpreting) and life assistant (accompanying interpretation). The languages involved include Chinese English, Chinese French, Chinese Arabic, Chinese Western, Chinese Portuguese, and Chinese Russian related to foreign aid training programs.
Customer demand analysis:
Translation requirements for course materials:
Management team and translator requirements: Establish a scientific and rigorous translation management system, equipped with high professional competence, strong sense of responsibility, and patience
A team of meticulous and experienced translators; The final translation adheres to the translation principles of “faithfulness, expressiveness, and elegance”, ensuring smooth language, precise wording, unified terminology, and fidelity to the original text. English translators should have a Level 2 translation proficiency or above from the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security. Translation requires high-quality and professional communication of course content.
Course interpretation requirements:
1. Service content: Alternating interpretation or simultaneous interpretation for classroom lectures, seminars, visits, and other activities.
2. Languages involved: English, French, Spanish, Russian, German, Portuguese, etc.
3. The specific project date and project requirements details are yet to be confirmed by the client.
4. Translator requirements: A scientific and rigorous interpretation management system, equipped with a team of highly professional, responsible, quick thinking, good image, and experienced foreign affairs interpreters. English interpreters should have a Level 2 or higher level of interpretation proficiency from the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security. There are many interactive sessions between teachers and students without prepared materials on site, and interpreters must have rich experience in course interpretation and be familiar with the teaching field;
Life/Project Assistant Requirements:
1. Provide full process accompanying translation services during project preparation, organization, and summary, and undertake partial translation work for certain content,
Assist the project leader in completing other assigned tasks.
2. Requirement: Equip a reserve team of project assistant talents with excellent language skills, strong sense of responsibility, careful and proactive work. project
The assistant must have a master’s degree or above in the corresponding language (including current studies), and ensure that they are on duty during the project period (project week)
The period is generally 9-23 days. Each project must provide four or more candidates who meet the requirements one week before the project starts. The main job responsibilities include communication, coordination, and service in the lives of foreign students coming to China. Although the difficulty is not high, it requires interpreters to be enthusiastic and friendly, able to handle problems flexibly, have a good service attitude, and strong communication skills.
TalkingChina’s translation solution:
How to meet the needs of multilingual translation:
Firstly, TalkingChina selected translation service personnel for this project who have relevant translation experience, certificates, and industry case studies in English, French, Spanish, Russian, German, Portuguese, and other languages required by the business school
(1) Provides multiple options for completion;
(2) Adequate human resources and a comprehensive translation plan;
(3) The scientific processing flow, strict use of technical tools, and accumulation of language terminology ensure the smooth implementation of the project.
(4) Accuracy requirements: The translation of teaching materials should strive to be faithful to the original text, without any technical errors, and should not contradict the original meaning.
(5) Professional requirements should be put into effort: conforming to language usage habits, being authentic and fluent, and expressing professional words accurately and consistently.
(6) Put effort into confidentiality requirements: sign confidentiality agreements and job responsibility agreements with service personnel involved in the project, provide relevant training and education to translators, and set permissions for managing computer folders.
How to meet the interpretation needs of multilingual courses:
Meet the interpretation needs of more than 6 languages:
(1) Flexible assessment and stable resource management system; Recommend translators to clients as potential candidates before the training program begins, and make sufficient personnel preparations;
(2) The translator team possesses the professional qualifications required by the business school, and a combination of full-time translator teams and some contracted freelance translators work together to complete the task;
(3) Strong management mechanism and rich project experience: TalkingChina is an excellent interpretation service provider in China, and has served many well-known large-scale projects such as the Expo, World Expo, Shanghai International Film Festival, TV Festival, Oracle Conference, Lawrence Conference, etc. At most, nearly 100 simultaneous interpreting and consecutive interpreters can be dispatched at the same time, relying on scientific service processes to ensure that they have sufficient capacity to meet the needs of business schools.
How to meet the needs of life/project assistants:
The role of a life assistant translator is more of an “assistant” rather than a conventional translator. Translators need to be able to identify the needs and issues of foreign students at any time and actively help solve them, such as exchanging foreign currency, dining, seeking medical attention, and other daily details. TalkingChina focuses on this prominent requirement when selecting translators, and has a strong subjective initiative in dispatching translators who can fully cooperate with the school’s requirements. At the same time, in addition to interpreting skills, life assistants also need to have a certain level of translation ability, able to handle translation needs that arise at any time, whether it is interpreting or translating.
Translation services before/during/after the project:
1. Project preparation stage: Confirm translation requirements within 30 minutes after receiving inquiries; Translate requirement analysis source files, submit quotations (including price, delivery time, translation team), determine project team, and carry out work according to the schedule. Screen and prepare translators based on the demand for interpretation;
2. Project execution phase: Translation project: engineering preprocessing, image content extraction, and other related work; Translation, Editing, and Proofreading (TEP); Supplement and update the CAT lexicon; Post project processing: typesetting, image editing, and quality inspection before webpage release; Submit the translation and vocabulary. Interpretation project: Confirm the translator candidate, provide preparation materials, do a good job in logistics management, ensure smooth implementation of the project site, and handle emergency situations.
3. Project summary stage: Collect customer feedback after submitting the translated manuscript; TM updates and maintenance; If required by the client, submit a summary report and other necessary documents within two days. Interpretation requirements: Collect customer feedback, evaluate translators, summarize and impose corresponding rewards and punishments.
Project effectiveness and reflection:
As of December 2018, TalkingChina has provided at least 8 training programs for Zhejiang Police College, including Spanish, French, Russian, etc., and has accumulated about 150 composite talents who integrate interpretation and translation; Provided Shanghai Business School with over 50 sessions of course interpretation for 6 training programs in Portuguese, Spanish, and English, and translated over 80000 words of course materials into Chinese and Portuguese, as well as over 50000 words into Chinese and English.
Whether it is the translation of course materials, course interpretation, or life assistant interpretation, TalkingChina’s quality and service have been highly praised by foreign students and training organizers from various countries who have participated in the training, accumulating a wealth of practical experience in interpreting and translating foreign-related training projects. The foreign aid training program served by TalkingChina has also achieved very good results, taking a solid step towards the implementation of national strategies.
The greatest value of an excellent translation service provider is the ability to analyze customers’ language needs clearly, put customer needs at the center, propose and implement complete and professional solutions, use appropriate products or product combinations to meet customers’ language needs, help customers solve problems, and achieve project results. This is always the goal and direction that TalkingChina strives for.
Post time: Nov-19-2025