Lotus Publishing are an independent UK based publisher specialising in illustrated books on anatomy, physical wellbeing, health & fitness, and lifestyle and personal development. STB has recently done a book translation for them from German into English.
“We have worked with Surrey Translation Bureau on several projects now and we have always found their work extremely accurate, and their ability to work to often very tight schedules is a fantastic bonus. I can highly recommend them!” Lotus Publishing
We quoted the client for translating and revising a cookbook containing roughly 25,000 words.
First, we translated the blurb for the book as the client wanted to advertise it to their target market immediately and needed the brief in English to do so. Once we had successfully delivered the blurb, we moved on to the full content of the book.
The book essentially contained vegan recipes for every meal of the day, plus some extras. Because the original recipes were put together for a German audience, many of the ingredients used are not widely available for shoppers in the UK. As a solution, we provided a comprehensive list of ingredient substitutes and any notes to highlight where we had to deviate from the original German recipe in order to make it more suitable for the UK market. For example, carrot cake was mentioned as a traditional treat in Germany around Easter time, but the same isn’t true for the UK so this statement had to be amended. Another example would be the use of Yufka-Teig (Yufka pastry), again not a commonly found ingredient in the UK. Filo pastry is a very close substitute that comes in rectangular sheets instead of triangles (as with Yufka), so the translators substituted the ingredient and included an extra instruction about cutting the filo into triangles so as not to confuse the readers.
“I must say that I’m very impressed with your work! I really love how attentive you are and that you take care of anything to correct mistakes! I’m very happy if someone supports me and it means a lot to me that you pay so much attention and that you do anything so well and even do research to find substitutes etc.” Bianca Zapatka, Author
The client was reassured that we had taken the time to make sure our translation was accurate and there were no misleading or tricky steps/ingredients that would make the English book unpopular in the UK. All the notes were recorded in one place and those that required the client’s approval were sent to them before final delivery of the English content.
As an award winning ISO certified translation agency, we offer language services to corporates, professional organisations, public bodies, individuals and other translation agencies. We have experience translating across almost all world languages and work with specialists in a wide range of fields including medical, legal, technical, marketing, financial, science, the EU and environment.
STB’s mission today is to provide high-quality and customised language solutions for any client – whatever their size – who wants to thrive in the dynamic global market or who simply wants to communicate more effectively with their customers and suppliers overseas.