Forbes.com - May 17, 2005
TransPerfect Translations, one of the world's largest providers of language services, today announced the creation of a linguist certification program designed to establish the gold standard for linguist certification in the translation industry.
Despite the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on translation services each year to support global markets, to date no standardized system has emerged for assessing a linguist's language ability and specific subject area expertise. As a result, companies contend with a wide range of skill within the profession without the information required to make critical hiring decisions. TransPerfect's certification program will empower businesses to make informed decisions on their language support staffing whether they utilize TransPerfect's service or manage their own linguists.
Liz Elting, President and CEO of TransPerfect, said, "When we started TransPerfect in 1992 there were no measures that enabled us to identify the most skilled and highly specialized linguists. In order to deliver on that promise to our clients, we created our own method to screen linguists for language-pair abilities and depth of subject matter expertise."
To address the certification gap, TransPerfect, one of the few translation companies in the world to be ISO 9001:2008 certified, has developed the TransPerfect Linguist Certification (TLC) Program. The TLC Program provides a reliable, consistent measure of linguists' abilities in over 100 languages and 70 areas of specialization. The subject area portion of the TLC Program is focused on very specific levels of industry knowledge. For example, the general "Financial" subject area is broken down into sub-categories such as "Insurance, Accounting, Investment, etc." These sub-categories are further broken down into micro-categories such as "Securities Marketing, Investment Vehicles, Securities Investments, and Basic Banking/Investments."
To obtain TransPerfect certification, a linguist must provide documented proof of training and experience as a translator or interpreter, documented proof of employment as a linguist in a specific subject area, and three professional references. Linguists who meet these criteria are required to take two tests: one focusing on policies and procedures; the other on professional standards and conduct. Finally, linguists with the top test scores are asked to perform test translations or interpretations in their respective language and area of specialization in a simulated real-life scenario.
Elting notes, "Once a linguist has obtained TransPerfect linguist certification, you can be assured that they have demonstrated their ability to provide professional-level quality in both language and subject matter." She concludes, "Our testing process sets the industry standard that our clients in diverse industries worldwide rely upon when they want to employ the highest caliber, most skilled linguists to support their enterprise."
About TransPerfect
With revenue of over $250 million, TransPerfect is the largest privately held language services provider in the world. From offices in 66 cities on 5 continents, TransPerfect offers a full range of services in over 100 languages to multinationals worldwide. With a global network of over 4,000 linguists and subject-area specialists, TransPerfect is the largest translation company to be fully ISO 9001:2008 and EN 15038:2006 certified. TransPerfect is headquartered in New York and has regional headquarters in London and Hong Kong. For more information, please visit our website at www.transperfect.com.