2 languages, 20 documents, 70,000 words – one extraordinary project

Recently, one of our valued clients contacted us with an unusual request: translating a large batch of documents examining Ukrainian-Russian relationships, military transactions, missile purchases, the personal backgrounds of businessmen, and so on. The files for translation couldn’t have been more diverse – these included transcripts of interviews, contracts, and letters, but also screenshots from Facebook and handwritten notes. On top of that, they were written partly in Ukrainian and partly in Russian, sometimes switching back and forth between the two languages.

In the case of large projects like that, it is crucial to assemble the right team of linguists. As always, we were looking for native speakers of the target language (which in this case was English) who are experienced in law and social affairs. This has proved to be a difficult task, since it’s not easy to select linguists in the Russian-English and Ukrainian-English language combinations.

However, after the team was ready, the project ran quite smoothly. The linguists were not only great professionals in the field but also kind and flexible, which made cooperation more of a pleasure than a burden. The translations were continually delivered to the client for almost a month, making this project the longest-lasting of all Euridea’s jobs in the summer of 2017.

The project was challenging, not only for the translators but also for me (the project manager), and for the QA team. Handling all the documents, making sure that all of them were translated perfectly and on time, required a lot of concentration – not to mention that every single step had to be administered correctly. As a new colleague at Eurideas, this was my first big translation project, and while it was very difficult to manage, I have now gained great experience.

Given the confidential nature of the documents, these translations are intended for internal use and will probably not be published on any platform; however, we hope that we could contribute to the success of our client and maintain this long-lasting and fruitful relationship.

By Kata Vas, Eurideas project management team