Erichsen & Partner

If you want to know how good a translation service really is, the best thing to do is to give them a text to translate. Despite modern translation methods being increasingly process-oriented, standardised and legally assured, the quality of the finished product can vary dramatically. Consequently, there is no substitute for your own personal experience.

Let us impress you with our performance and lay the foundations for a lasting relationship - put us to the test today! We want to be more than simply a supplier to your business; instead we aim to be a reliable partner providing support for key processes. When crafting a text for you, we pursue your interests as if they were our own.

A lasting partnership does not depend on whether you engage our services once a year or three times a week. The important thing is that we are your first port of call for all of your translation needs into or from English. Our clients know they can count on personal service from Erichsen & Partner, particularly in the case of urgent or technically challenging translations, and can remain secure in the knowledge that their translations are in safe hands.

At Erichsen & Partner the cooperation between German and English native speakers is not just one of our strengths - it is the fundamental idea behind our concept.

• Behind the name Erichsen & Partner is a team of experienced translators who share an understanding of what makes a quality translation and how to provide a solid service for their clients. As such, they decided to work together, meaning that every translation is, to a greater or lesser extent, jointly produced by an English and a German native speaker. This has proved hugely beneficial from the beginning. Challenging passages can be untangled quickly and more effectively. Doubts can be allayed. Cultural and linguistic background knowledge is always at hand. We, and more importantly our clients, profit noticeably from this cooperation.
• Any translator who we may contract, whether on an in-house or freelance basis, is considered a member of the team, subject to the same demands in respect of qualification, integrity and reliability as ourselves. It is also our wish that external translators should benefit from our supportive and inclusive approach.
• For the duration of the translation job, the client may also become part of the team. Any open questions on the content of the text, intended readership and so on will be clarified, and alternatives will be offered, if appropriate, to produce the best possible text. We always request background information or existing material from the client in order that our foreign language version meets your internal criteria and remains consistent with your use of terminology. In our opinion, such an approach is the hallmark of any quality oriented translator.

Our work confirms time and again, that so-called 'legalese' will always be a language of its own. Its basic aims (clarity of content, avoidance of ambiguity in terminology and compactness) do not allow much leeway for simplification. Hence, when it comes to rendering a legal text into another language, our clients value a specialist.

The characteristics of a good translator of legal texts include a familiarity with basic legal principles, specific knowledge of sentence structure and wording of legal texts, as well as a pedantically perfectionist attitude. We possess, in addition to our translation qualifications, extensive experience in the translation of legal and commercial law texts. Furthermore, it is our aim, year on year to extend our expert knowledge through dedicated further learning. As such, we regularly attend lectures and seminars at the Humboldt University in Berlin. As yet, the focus has been on media law and related fields such as unfair competition law and contract law. In addition, we seek contact with academics and practicing professionals to enhance our understanding of these, our chosen fields.

More so than in some other areas, if a translator misses a deadline for a legal text, this could prove a major irritation or even render the investment worthless. Reliability and punctuality are understandably of high priority to lawyers and legal departments. We recognise this and place great value in sticking to agreed time scales.

To deliver on time does not mean to simply translate as quickly as possible. The way to ensure reliable quality and sufficient certainty for both parties, is to agree a binding delivery date (and time where appropriate). This agreement is an important part of our systematic work process. This date is then the latest point at which we would deliver a translation. For translations which our clients need "by yesterday", we can estimate a best possible time but be sure and agree a definite latest time.

50 years ago, linguists and programmers were convinced fully automated computer translation was around the corner. Today, we seem to be as far away from this as ever.

In contrast, computer aids designed to support the human translator have become valuable tools enabling higher quality, more consistent translations to be produced. These tools include electronic dictionaries, terminology management programmes and so-called translation memory systems. Software is primarily of benefit in the translation of technical texts where it has proved indispensible. However, computer aided translation can be of great use in legal translation as well.

For you as a customer this means:

• higher quality
• better consistency - this is especially important with larger jobs involving more than one translator
• better value for money - the time saved is reflected in our rates
• the potential to incorporate client-specific jargon
• the potential of providing you with a glossary of company-specific words and phrases

Erichsen & Partner most frequently uses Wordfast, Trados and Multiterm.

So as to eliminate the possibility of communication errors arising from the outset and to organise translation jobs as efficiently as possible, we adopt a straightforward 5-step process beginning with receipt of your inquiry and ending with invoicing.

1. Receipt of inquiry
With new clients in particular, actual order placement is usually preceded by a non-binding inquiry. We accept inquiries by telephone or e-mail.

2. Offer
We will normally make you a non-binding offer that includes a price and deadline for the requested translation immediately.

3. Confirmation of order
Once you have accepted our offer (verbally or in writing), we will send you an order confirmation and ask you to check that the information it contains is correct and complete returning it to us. The order becomes binding as soon as you return the order confirmation to us.

4. Translation
During the translation stage, we may contact you with questions regarding the content of the source text. At this stage we may also request any relevant material that could help us to complete the work, for example in-house glossaries or additional background texts to improve understanding.

5. Invoice
We will send you our invoice together with the translation or at a later date by e-mail or, if you prefer, by post. We will only request advance payments in exceptional cases, such as very large or long-term projects.