English to Vietnamese translation of assessment instruments and reports

We are looking for a partner to assist with the translation of personality and cognitive assessment instruments from English into Vietnamese.

There are two main components to this work, translating the questions and translating the reports. Whilst both require careful translation, the question items are of critical importance. It will not merely be a question of word-for-word translation, but frequently a case of adaptation into the Vietnamese context and culture. There is a lot of idiomatic language in the questions that will need to be adapted into a Vietnamese equivalent that has the same meaning. Furthermore, the accurate translation of adverbs of frequency is also very important.

The tone of the reports is formal, sensitive (to the reader’s feelings), tentative rather than categorical, but clear.

We are likely to have an ongoing need for translation/adaptation in this market but our initial requirement is for around 4,000 words of questions and up to 30,000 words of reports. Our pricing parameters are based on a translation rate of around 300 words per hour for question items rising up to 400 words per hour for reports, which we have found realistic in other language translations. We calculate around 90-100 hours of work initially.

We would like to have the work finished by the end of 2010 or earlier if possible. The question items are the first priority.

A sample of question items and of report text is attached and we request that anyone interested in bidding for this work, submit translation samples of this.