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12 The Linguist Vol/54 No/2 2015 www.ciol.org.uk and simple. however, not every aspect of the translation process can be taken into account. nor can those devising the questionnaire be aware of all the potential pitfalls for translators. Some companies underestimate the translation challenges: to save money, they ask their own employees to translate the questions in the first cycle, only to realise that their in-house translation process has been more time-consuming than expected, diverting employees from their usual work and leading to poor-quality results. if the intended meaning is not clear in the translated versions, the quality of the measurements suffers, and employing qualified translators becomes indispensable in the next cycle. professional translators will be asked to translate any added/amended questions and adapt them to the style of the existing terminology. this process, albeit rather tedious, has the advantage that both the client and the customer have learned the value of the translators' work. Ensuring consistency as the coordinator, it is important that i fully understand what the customer wants to measure with each item/question, so that i can support my colleagues in the subsequent cross-national translation process. this is the only way to ensure that equivalence with the source questionnaire does not suffer because of inconsistent translations. i use this to compile a separate list of explanatory notes or to insert a column in the questionnaire spreadsheet with additional information (meta information), which may include details about the company and its products or links to references. this meta information is required where, for instance, questions are ambiguous, too complex or cause gender problems. For example, in 'i am satisfied with:', it is unclear whether the respondent is male or female (Sono contento/a con:). usually, colleagues discover yet more potential pitfalls. in my work, the original survey is usually devised in German but the english translation is used as the source document. therefore, the initial translation from German into english has to be taken especially seriously. terms for which there are no equivalents, such as Direktversicherung and Betriebsrente, which relate to automatic company insurance and pension provisions, are omitted or replaced with generic terms. there were similar issues with this item: Mit den Bedingungen direkt an meinem Arbeitsplatz bin ich zufrieden (z. B. Licht, Lärm, klimatische Verhältnisse, räumliche Gegebenheiten). i am satisfied with the conditions in my immediate workplace (e.g. lighting, noise, ambient conditions, available space). Räumliche Gegebenheiten is not the same as 'available space' but seemed to be the most logical solution, since it is the generic term for lighting, noise, ambient conditions and available space. as a result, the German question differs from the question in the final english questionnaire and, consequently, from all the other language versions. Sometimes we are also able to find semantic and/or pragmatic solutions for questions that have not been ideally formulated. For example, a literal translation of Meine Arbeit macht mir Spaß would have been 'My work is fun', but this does not reflect the intention of the question (which ideally would have been worded Meine Arbeit macht mir Freude). therefore, we used the english 'i enjoy my work', which our colleagues translated in their native languages as 'My work is pleasant' or 'i like/love my work'. though an apparently simple example, this clearly demonstrates that choosing an appropriate alternative is not always straightforward. Moreover, the coordinator needs to ask translators to refrain from making unilateral decisions, and to share their thoughts and identify potential problems, so that we can all agree on the same meaning when this isn't obvious. Finding translators Selecting translators is a crucial factor in any cross-cultural survey. in the first project i coordinated we had a source questionnaire If just one translator fails to deliver the required quality, it can threaten the whole project iMaGeS: © ShutterStOck