About the studio
A small studio for documents that matter on both sides of a page.
Founded in Tsim Sha Tsui, Lingara translates documents the way our linguists were trained to — slowly, twice, and with the glossary written down.
Return to HomeOur story
From a shared desk in Kowloon
Lingara began in 2017, when three working translators in Hong Kong agreed they wanted a quieter way to work — fewer files at once, more time on each, and the glossary written down so a phrase rendered one way in one document would read the same way in the next.
The studio took its name from lingua and para — language, and beside. It captures what we do: place two languages next to each other, set in matching measure, and read across.
We work on documents — contracts, internal policies, technical manuals, articles of association, training materials, board memoranda. We do not chase volume. The studio takes on the work it can read carefully, and turns down the rest.
Our office sits on the eleventh floor of a quiet building on Mody Road. We share it with a small reference library: bilingual dictionaries, subject lexicons, and the bound glossaries we maintain for our retainer clients.
Mission
To return documents in a second language that read as if they were written there — accurate to the source, faithful to the format, and steady in voice across files.
Method
Source assessment first, then translator pairing, glossary build, two-pass review, and final formatting. Each stage is a person at a desk reading the document — not a tool running over it.
Manner
Plain quotes, honest turnarounds, and a written record of every terminology choice. We tell you when a deadline is too tight rather than agreeing and cutting corners.
The desk
Our linguists
Four resident translators run the studio, supported by a wider network of subject specialists called in by language pair and field.
Chan Lai-Yin
Founding Translator · ZH<>EN
Twelve years on legal and corporate documents between Traditional Chinese and English. Chan Lai-Yin runs the studio's legal queue.
Marcus O'Donnell
Senior Reviewer · EN<>FR/DE
Reads the second pass on European-language files. Background in technical manuals and standards documents from a previous engineering desk.
Yamamoto Tetsuro
Translator · JA<>EN/ZH
Reads and writes across Japanese, English, and Chinese. Holds the studio's pharmaceutical and medical-device subject glossary.
Priya Wong
Glossary & Format Lead
Maintains the studio's terminology archive and handles final formatting on every file before delivery, so layouts return as they came in.
Standards we hold
How the studio works
A short list of the practices that hold across every file we take on.
ISO 17100 alignment
Our process follows the steps set out in ISO 17100 for translation services — translator competence, revision by a second linguist, and a documented record.
PDPO confidentiality
Personal data in source files is held in line with Hong Kong's Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance. Every linguist signs a written non-disclosure undertaking.
Two-pass review
No file leaves the studio without a second linguist reading the draft against the source. The reviewer's notes are returned with the file.
Written glossaries
Terminology is recorded on every engagement. Retainer clients keep a living glossary that grows with the work.
Encrypted file handling
Source files sit on encrypted storage in Hong Kong. Access is logged. Files are removed from active storage thirty days after delivery.
Continuing education
Resident linguists set aside a working day each month for subject reading — recent legislation, journal articles in the fields they translate, and standards updates.
On documents and the work of moving them across languages
A note on craft
Document translation looks, from the outside, like a conversion. A page comes in one language and leaves in another. The work itself is rarely that simple. A contract drafted under Hong Kong common law uses a vocabulary that does not sit in a one-to-one relationship with French civil law or with the conventions of mainland Chinese commercial drafting. A medical-device manual carries assumed knowledge that the original reader holds and the translated reader may not.
Our linguists treat each file as a piece of writing first. We read the source through before any drafting begins. We note what is technical, what is house-specific, and what reads as obviously translated only because someone has rendered an idiom literally. We pull a draft glossary. We send it for client comment when there is time, and we hold it on the file when there is not.
The drafting that follows tries to write into the target language rather than out of the source one. A French sentence translated word-for-word into English is recognisable. A French sentence understood and rewritten in English reads as if it began there. The same holds in the other direction, and it holds across every pair we work in.
The second pass — a separate linguist reading draft against source — is where errors are found. Tired drafters skip a clause. Well-meaning drafters smooth out a phrase the lawyers wrote awkwardly on purpose. The second reader catches both. The mark-up returns to the first translator, conflicts are resolved with reference to the glossary, and the file moves to the format desk for final layout.
None of this is fast. It is, in our reading, what the work asks for.
Have a document on the desk?
Send us the source file or a short description of it. We will read it, write back with a turnaround and price, and start when you confirm.