Industry context in "24 Hours to Phase Two: Arabic, Spanish and Portuguese Translation Orders Surge". This article is only about delivery itself — what actually happened on our three lines between midnight on 21 October and 18:00 on 22 October, broken down by time, with order numbers, types, delivery times and mistakes. Everything here is real; there are no composite cases.
Arabic line: 7 jobs, two branch mistakes
Arabic ran two translators plus one proofreader on a 24-hour rota. Seven jobs through the window: six product catalogues (two requiring Gulf branch, four requiring North African branch), one certified stamp job. Delivery times ranged from 8 to 18 hours.
Two mistakes made their way through. First job: a Qatari client's catalogue. The client did not specify Gulf branch, and the translator defaulted to North African idiom, rendering "composite flooring" with the North African term "bloc laminé" transliterated into Arabic when Gulf buyers use the phrase "لوحة مركبة" (roughly "lohah murakkabah"). The client spotted the mix-up on-site and asked for a re-render, adding six hours. We now list "confirm Gulf / North African / other" as the first item on our Arabic client confirmation sheet. Second mistake: our termbase lacked the standard Arabic term for "GCC-certified fire rating", and the translator spent twenty minutes searching before finding it, losing roughly half an hour. That term is now in the termbase.
The slowest of the seven jobs was the certified stamp, at eighteen hours: six translating, two proofreading, eight travelling between stamp institutions and back (because the client required a stamp from a specific authority designated by Gulf customs — our standard stamp is not valid there). Those eight hours are not under our control, which is why our client commitment always leaves a "stamp may need an additional 2-12 hours" buffer.
Spanish line: 9 jobs, one container code mix-up and one standard error
Spanish ran two translators (Latin American branch plus European branch) with one proofreader. Nine jobs: five quotation sheets (four in Latin American branch, one in European), three product catalogues (all Latin American), one certified stamp. Delivery times ranged from 6 to 12 hours.
One hard mistake: container codes. A Brazilian client asked for a quotation sheet re-laid out by container type, and the translator simply rendered the container code "20GP" into Spanish "20GP" — literally correct, but the client actually wanted Brazilian local naming, where "20 pés padrão" and the Spanish "20 pies estándar are recognised differently by South American customs systems. The client was not even aware of the difference when asked, and we ended up re-laying out to Brazilian standards — adding roughly two hours.
The second mistake was fire rating standards. The client wanted Brazilian NBR standards, but the translator worked from European EN standards — the standard codes are completely different (NBR 15575 versus EN 13823), and the client immediately asked for a re-issue. This job's deadline compressed from the agreed 12 hours down to 8, because our Spanish line happened to have two duty seats running: one translator proofreading another catalogue was pulled over to fix the fire rating section, and the on-duty proofreader covered that translator's original task. The dual-shift arrangement proved its value here.
Portuguese line: 4 jobs, all Brazilian branch, stamp job the slowest
Portuguese ran one translator (Brazilian branch primary) with proofreading covered by the Spanish European branch translator. Four jobs: three product catalogues (all Brazilian branch), one certified stamp. Delivery times ranged from 10 to 16 hours.
Portuguese had the fewest mistakes but the slowest average speed — the pool of in-house Portuguese translators is small, and we keep only one resident. Other Portuguese jobs need to be pulled in from outside, which adds lag. The slowest of the four was the certified stamp: six translating, three proofreading, seven processing with a Brazilian-certified stamp institution (few such agencies exist in Guangzhou, so our contact needed three hours of travel plus four hours of stamp processing). The client is a São Paulo construction firm, and he told us that Brazilian customs' requirements for certified documents are stricter than the EU's — "an unstamped document goes straight in the bin".
What we learnt: build delivery buffers into the promise
These 48 hours delivered one clear conclusion: there will always be a gap between "normal" and "what the client actually needs" in lesser-spoken-language translation. That gap is not about translator capability — it is because clients underestimate the complexity of the standard system, container code or stamp institution they actually need. So we have revised our delivery promise to "translation 6-12 hours, stamps +2 to +12 hours depending on institution" and now require clients to confirm standard system, container code and stamp authority up front. These three need to be locked down first — without them, speed buys nothing. We learnt this once in Phase One and applied it to the very first client of Phase Two.
Translator earnings and comparisons are in "Phase Two Translator Reality — Lesser-Spokened-Language Work Pays Twice as Much as English MTPE". For the next batch of multilingual documents, contact us to reserve a rota slot.