“There Must Be a Reason Why Major Korean Law Firms Choose BeringAI😎“
Today, we introduce an interview with HB Kim, who works as a translation PM and an in-house translator at Bering Lab. HB Kim has over 10 years of experience living abroad, possessing not only linguistic skills but also specialized knowledge in patent translation gained from working with foreign language teams at domestic patent law firms. Let’s explore her experiences and the work she has been doing!
Q. What are your main responsibilities at Bering Lab currently?
A. I currently manage both translation PM and translation tasks. As a PM, I handle client requests primarily focused on patents, while also working on business-related translations. Additionally, I collaborate with the marketing team to create informative content related to patent translation.
Q. What experiences did you have before joining Bering Lab?
A. Before joining Bering Lab, I worked as a translator in the foreign language team at a domestic patent law firm. My main responsibilities included translating patent technical documents and technical comments from patent attorneys.
Q. The patent field seems to involve a lot of technical content. Did you face any difficulties when you started?
A. Yes, that’s right. When I first entered the field of patent translation, I was surprised by how different it was from what I had expected (laughs). As you mentioned, patent translation mainly involves ‘technical documents,’ and precise word-for-word translation is crucial because there can’t be any overlapping inventions. It was challenging because accuracy was more important than creativity or discretion. Additionally, the terminology varies depending on the technical field, so I referred to many prior art documents for comparison during translations. Now, my experience in translating patents across various technical fields has become a valuable asset, helping me with translations in other areas as well.
Q. You seem to have extensive experience living abroad. Do you think this experience has significantly influenced your translation work?
A. Yes, I lived abroad from my teenage years, graduated from international schools, and experienced various languages and cultures. As a translator, the ‘hardware’ aspect of language is important, but having extensive knowledge in various fields, the ‘software’ aspect, is also crucial. My experiences abroad and exposure to different cultures help me better reflect the culture and nuances of the target language in my translations, increasing the degree of localization.
Q. You worked at a domestic patent law firm for quite a while. How did you come to join Bering Lab?
A. While working at a patent law firm, I mainly dealt with ‘patent-related documents.’ I believed that as a professional translator, it was important to experience translations in various fields, which led me to move to Bering Lab. Bering Lab caught my attention because it aims to improve the outdated translation ecosystem through AI as a ‘legal tech’ company, rather than just offering translation services. I think this aligns well with my belief that translators who excel in post-editing will be more important in the future translation market.
Q. What is your typical process for carrying out translation tasks?
A. I prefer to work methodically. I set goals by pages according to the translation schedule, calculate the overall timeline to meet deadlines, and proceed sequentially. However, when urgent translation requests come in, I translate all at once and then do post-editing in sequence. I also emphasize the importance of referencing how similar documents are translated into the target language to enhance localization, so I use glossaries and references extensively.
Q. Bering Lab operates the BeringAI translation service to save translators’ resources. How do you use it in your translation work?
A. I primarily handle patent and business translations. For ‘patent translations,’ tools like BeringAI are very effective. Patent documents often exceed 100 pages, and it’s crucial to ensure consistency and check for redundancy in long documents. Manually checking everything can lead to missed parts and require extensive resources. However, using BeringAI helps maintain consistency and quality while speeding up the process. Compared to DeepL or Google Translate, BeringAI is particularly good at creating the ‘framework’ of the document. It provides a solid initial translation, which improves the quality when professional translators finalize and review the work.
Q. Finally, can you tell our users how Bering Lab’s services differentiate from other translation services?
A. As a translation PM, I was surprised by the sheer volume of translations needed in the business world! (laughs) As global transactions and operations become more common, I believe legal translations will continue to grow in importance. Besides the need, legal documents require high accuracy, importance, and speed, making domain-specific translators like BeringAI essential for high-quality final outputs. General translators struggle to produce specialized legal translations. There’s a reason why major domestic law firms choose to use BeringAI (laughs). In the future, I think it will be crucial to use AI for preliminary translations to reduce human resources and have translation experts review and focus on specialization for higher quality work in the legal field.
Bering Lab offers a variety of business and legal document translations through its BeringAI and BeringAI+ services, which combine high-performance AI with expert reviews to save resources and provide services that are three times faster and 40% cheaper than competitors.
Currently, over 130 law firms both domestically and internationally, along with various global corporations, actively use our services.
Experience the high-quality professional translation of Bering Lab, trusted by the nation’s top law firms, with documents directly reviewed by attorneys. Contact Bering Lab for more information.
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