ITS commenced translating in 1988 and began printing in 1997. Excluding our part-time and in-house translators/proofreaders, there are 16 people in our office: 10 translating and printing transactors and 6 directors for operations and accounting.

　　Translating is done by more than 2000 freelancers - most of them located in Beijing and other big cities - with whom we communicate by phone, fax and e-mail. Some minority language translations are supplied by an associate who also provides interpreters. We accept full responsibility for any loss, up to a maximum of ￥100,000, that a customer may suffer as a result of an avoidable fault in our service.

　　As a rule of thumb a translator can translate and key 2,000 words (say eight word-processed pages) into his mother tongue in a day. A thorough check for accuracy and fluency by another translator would take an additional half day - but deadlines usually preclude more than scanning, to make sure a translation is not corrupted and that no paragraphs are missing, before it is sent to the customer. Because translations have to be right first time we have adopted the following procedures to protect our customers and ourselves.

1. Our Notes for Translators, which every in-house translator and freelancer has to acknowledge and accept, require each translator to accept responsibility for any loss we may suffer as a result of a failure on his part.

2. We have professional indemnity insurance which provides a maximum of ￥100,000 in respect of each and every claim for any loss a customer may suffer as a result of faulty translating; breach of professional duty; libel and slander; loss of documents.

3. With every text we send for translating, we include any background information that might help its translator. We pay good rates and pay our translators on time. As a result, our work is given a high priority and, from time to time, we hear from translators to whom we have been recommended by members of our team. These applicants are usually better qualified than those who get in touch with us out of the blue.

4. Translators who apply for work are carefully sifted. We send a testpiece to anyone whose track record satisfies us. Each test translation that comes back is checked and a copy of the checker's comments is sent to the applicant. If the test translation is satisfactory, we add the new certified translator to our list. In the course of a year, the ratio of applicants to new translators exceeds 20:1.

5. Each translator on our list is checked rigorously. Normally we duplicate the first two translations from a new translator by sending one copy to our customer, while the second copy is simultaniously checked by us. If this audit is cleared, he is then checked at different intervals. Usually once a month for the first three months, then once per six monthes and after two years once a year.　Copies of the checker's comments, the text and the translation are always sent back to the translator. If we consider a translator's work to be unsatisfactory, his contract is terminated. Occasionally, we use translators whose track records satisfy us but who are not on our list. We might, for example, need to use a specialist to translate text about medieval musical instruments.