The first multilingual project is about much more than delivering a translation. It’s about building a process that makes every future project faster, easier and more consistent.
One of the things I enjoy most is seeing how a client relationship evolves over time.
The first project is usually the most demanding.
We spend time discussing terminology, reviewing previous material, understanding the audience, agreeing on tone of voice, collecting glossaries and answering dozens of small questions that help us understand how the client communicates.
At first, this can seem like a lot of work.
In reality, it’s an investment.
Once we’ve selected the right linguist, agreed on the preferred writing style and documented all the client’s requirements, the entire process changes.
Future projects become remarkably straightforward.
The client no longer needs to explain the same preferences every time.
The linguist already knows the brand, the terminology and the expected style.
We already know how the client’s internal review process works, which file formats they prefer and which details require particular attention.
The result is not only faster turnaround times, but greater consistency across every brochure, website, presentation, subtitle file or marketing campaign.
This continuity is particularly important in localization.
Readers may not consciously notice consistency, but they immediately notice inconsistency.
Different terminology, changing tone of voice or varying writing styles can make a brand feel fragmented, even when every translation is technically correct.
That’s why I always see the first project as the foundation of a long-term partnership rather than a one-off assignment.
The more we work together, the more efficient the process becomes.
Eventually, many clients simply send an email saying, “Could you take care of this?”
And that’s exactly the goal.
They don’t have to think about the workflow anymore because we’ve already built it together.