Here is my step--step English – Vietnamese editing procedure:

1. Read the English sentence first. Does it make sense? Source text errors are uncommon, but it happens. If there is a source text error, make a note to communicate with the project manager/client.
2. Now that the English sentence looks fine, and I get a good idea of what it means, I then read the Vietnamese sentence.
3. Does the Vietnamese sentence convey ALL necessary meanings of the source sentence? When the sentence gets long and complicated, spend extra time to make extra sure that we are not missing anything.
4. The Vietnamese sentence could have conveyed all the meanings, but does it look like a word--word translation? Does it sound like a Vietnamese author wrote it, and not a “translated” version? Sentences should “flow” naturally as if they were written a Vietnamese author.
5. Check for contextual fit. CAT tools are a great thing, but breaking it down into small chunks, TM might put something in from some other contexts that simply won’t work here. Please watch out for those instances. It happens very often.
6. Move on to the next sentence.

These English – Vietnamese editing steps are an integral part of our quality assurance procedure. 

Some clients would specifically ask for English – Vietnamese editing only when it is absolutely necessary (like where the meaning is wrong or the grammar isn’t correct). For these clients, stylistic changes are not necessary.

English – Vietnamese Proofreading Best Practices -What to look for to ensure top-notch quality

We do these steps after our English – Vietnamese editing steps above

1. Font corruption. It occurs more often than we thought it would, so watch out. Best fonts for Vietnamese are “Times New Roman” and “Arial”. We might consider others fonts, if we must. But if I have the authority to choose the font, my gut is to go with “Times New Roman”. Translated materials are usually a bit longer than the original. This font is more compact and most of the time would fit almost perfectly within the space provided in the original document.
2. Typos. This is the easiest to achieve. We should comb through the translated document for obvious typos. Any additional grammatical errors missed in the editing step should be detected in this step when things “don’t sound right.”
3. Target language style. Sentences should “flow” naturally. Put yourself in the author’s shoe and imagine what a Vietnamese author would have wrote to convey the same ideas.
4. Formatting issues. This is, sadly, the most often overlooked area. Clients in the United States are professional organizations and they want to look professional in every way. Look for cut-off sentences, missing texts, texts hidden in a box because the translated content become too long for the space originally provided.

These English – Vietnamese editing and proofreading steps have always been part of our projects. As a result, and all of our clients are happy with our translation quality.

Also check out our English – Vietnamese Translation Best Practices

And our English – Vietnamese Document Translation Services

Questions and comments? Feel free to email project@usaviettranslations.com