Scope of Work



Two different languages rarely share the same syntax, grammar, aesthetics, or semantics. This is especially true of English and Traditional Chinese, the dominant language pair for businesses and translation agencies in Hong Kong. Consequently, literal translations between the two languages are famously grossly inadequate and easy to spot.

At Wordcraft, our translation and localization team in Hong Kong relentlessly seeks to always achieve an ideal combination of authenticity and consistency with the source document, the careful choice among many possibilities of the most appropriate equivalent wordings and constructions in the target language, and a constant attention to whether the target version reads natively. Achieving the latter objective implies that the produced translation will often be further edited and polished by a native editor, up to a point where our clients would consider any additional change would result in a translation the style of which risks diverging too much from the original version.

Going a step further is localization, where a client would privilege, for instance, the commercial appeal of the target copy, both in terms of wording and in terms of compatibility with the cultural context of the audience, over strict consistency between the two versions. This process can be interpreted as having a copywriter in the target language treat the first draft of the translation as an information brief, and creatively compose a brand-new copy that rewords and restructures the original content in the most effective manner given a target audience.

It is not unusual for first-time clients not in a position to share detailed branding guidelines beforehand to request amendments to the first draft of a translation as every organization has its own preferences in terms of vocabulary and tone of voice. At Wordcraft we offer our clients three complimentary rounds of revisions for such fine-tuning, with one round usually being sufficient.

Why Wordcraft



Wordcraft possesses a rich experience in translation and localization and has translated more than 1,200,000 words since our inception, often in conjunction with our copywriting services. Our translators specialize in the same industries as our copywriters and therefore have strong capabilities in the legal and financial fields. We have created multilingual content for a wide variety of purposes, including press releases, CEO speeches and addresses, brochures, newsletters, magazines, websites, eDMs, and user manuals. Besides English, Simplified and Traditional Chinese, we also offer translation support in multiple Asian and European languages, e.g. Japanese, Korean, Thai, Vietnamese, Bahasa Malaysia, Bahasa Indonesia, German, French, Italian, and Spanish.

Case Study



We were engaged by a global fintech company headquartered in Hong Kong to localize their website and translate their press releases from English to nine Asian and European languages. The scope included not only the homepage and products page (that needed adaptation to each country’s culture and conversational fashions), but also extensive legal content such as the website’s terms of use, privacy policy and cookies policy, for which our team was well-equipped.

As the project was time-sensitive, we delivered each localized version of the website within four working days, to the full satisfaction of the respective local teams. The client provided excellent feedback, recognizing our translation team’s precision, understanding of its business, objectives and terminology, and quicker-than-expected turnaround.