QUALITY POLICY
A quality standard should be real, not just on paper.
A clear look at how Kether Translations ensures translation quality.
We’ve been working as a pair — Anton and Lena — for 19 years now. When the workload calls for it, we bring in additional translators, but always with full transparency to the client. Over the years we’ve worked out a handful of principles we hold to without exception — not as a marketing line, but as actual working practice.
Before being sent to the client, every translation goes through two people — one translates, the other reviews. This doesn’t depend on the size of the job, its urgency or its price. The client gets this either way, not as an upgrade.
We don’t resell jobs. If you order a translation from Kether, we are the ones who do it — not an unknown freelancer. For rare language pairs we can’t handle ourselves, we have a small pool of trusted translators.
Everything you send us stays between us. For sensitive materials we don’t use public AI services. We’re happy to sign an NDA, store materials locally, and delete them on an agreed schedule when required.
We use modern tools to speed up the routine work — terminology checks, consistency, technical errors. But the final text is always human — you won’t get a lightly-edited machine translation from us dressed up as handcrafted work.
Deadline and price are agreed before the work starts. If something changes along the way — the volume turns out larger, urgency is needed, transcreation becomes necessary — we tell you and discuss the options together. No surprises on the invoice.
Under ISO 17100, a translator’s qualification is confirmed by one of three criteria: a translation degree, a degree in any field plus two years of experience, or five years of experience.
We meet both with a huge margin to spare. Anton has been working as a translator since 2007 — 19 years full-time. Lena has the same number of years behind her. Together that’s 38 years of practice in the Estonian–Russian–English combinations specifically, with particular depth in corporate and PR material.
We aren’t ISO 17100-certified — and we think it’s only fair to say why. The certificate runs around €3,500–€11,000 for the first three years, and that’s before annual audits. For a boutique of our size that’s real money — and at the moment we’d rather invest it in the actual quality of our work and in our clients than in a certification document.
On top of that, ISO 17100 is gradually losing relevance in an era when AI-assisted workflows are becoming more and more common — and those are covered by a different standard, ISO 18587. We’ll come back to certification under that one in 2027–2028, when the market settles down a bit.
If a formal certificate is critical for you, say so up front and we can help connect you with a partner who holds it — rather than taking on a job that doesn’t match your requirements.
In 2026 this is the first question corporate clients ask. Here’s how we do it:
A brief look at what working with us looks like — from first contact to delivery.
You send the text or a description of the task. Within an hour during business hours we reply with an estimate of volume, possible turnaround and likely cost. Or we simply confirm receipt, if we already have ongoing arrangements with you.
We confirm the glossary (if any), the deadline (firm or with buffer), the preferred delivery format (DOCX, PDF, HTML). NDA signed if needed.
One of us translates, we maintain the glossary and flag questions for the client. We get terminology right as we go, not at the last minute.
The second person reviews the whole text, not just selected paragraphs. We make edits and talk through anything contentious between ourselves.
A final automated pass for typographic standards: quotation marks, dashes, non-breaking spaces, numbers and units.
The client gets the file, and we’re open to discussing any revisions. We don’t defend the translation — we work it out.
In 19 years, we’ve done thousands of translations. Mistakes happen — we’re people, not machines, and that’s a good thing. Here’s what we do when one slips through:
We don’t juggle phrases like «you’ve misread our translation» or «that’s not an error, it’s a stylistic choice». If the client thinks there’s a mistake, we look into what happened — rather than insisting flatly that there isn’t.
For those who run formal supplier assessments and want public information that’s easy to verify.
If you have any questions left, we’ll be happy to reply by email. We don’t have a pre-packaged set of documents for every occasion — we’re a small bureau — but we answer specific questions quickly and to the point.
Kether Translations OÜ
Reg. code: 11442445 | VAT code: EE101183978 | Current account: Swedbank EE782200221038580009
© 2026 by Kether Translations OÜ
Designed by Anton & Lotte. Very special thanks to Clauda.
