Trainee report on BME TFK’s office visit to Albion Languages

We visited the Budapest office of Albion Languages Fordítóiroda Kft. (part of the Albion Group) on 6^th March 2018. Currently, Albion Languages does not belong to any Hungarian association of translators, but it is a member of several international professional associations (i.e. GALA, Tekom). The majority of their work comprises of projects dealing with technical and medical translations.

Firstly, our group was welcomed production manager István Antal who gave us some general information about the history of the firm. His job entails monitoring the workflow of the projects and ensuring their profitability besides balanced workloads. The next person talking about the work of project managers was Piroska Ténai, also responsible for Albion’s training activities. Piroska explained that she was responsible for as many as 100 projects every month which, considering the office’s 800 projects on average, is particularly remarkable.

As for the translation process–overseen by project managers–the usual procedure is as follows: after a client signs up with the office, the new purchase order goes to the project managers. Many of the contracting partners are regulars; therefore the managers can cooperate with them in a customized way. New project managers joining the company are also supported by Piroska, and their carrier starts with an initial training lasting over a period of 3-4 months. During the training, the new colleague gets acquainted with CAT-tools and software (i.e. Outlook, XTRF) and the unique workflows applied at the office.

After Piroska, Petra Kis-Jakab took over the floor. As a vendor manager, she is responsible for recruiting new translators, maintaining and broadening the company’s vendor database on-demand. She emphasised the increasing popularity of online platforms (i.e. fordit.hu, TranslatorsCafé, LinkedIn) as a networking tool among the office and its translators. Due to the high specialisation of projects taken up by Albion Languages, all new applicants, wishing to become staff translators at the company, need to accomplish a test translation (into their working languages, according to their strongest domain). The translated projects are revised by full-time linguists.

Zsófia Gregor, director of the language group, gave us a detailed insight into  this process. They apply software (e.g. Verifika) for quality assurance. To the objective method of measurement for their translators, Albion uses a internal system based on LISA QA.

At the end of the meeting, some numbers and figures were discussed. A translator translates approximately 2,000 words daily. It is a weighted value, calculated by CAT-tools. The daily minimum for revisers is 4,000 words, although the amount mainly depends on the subject, as it was highlighted by staff linguist Sándor Papp. Among the questions, the translators’ fees came up as well. And although the fee is subject to several factors (such as language direction, domain, experience, etc.), their fee usually ranges between 8-12/word HUF.