Case Studies
Translation is often invisible. When it works, nobody notices. The document reads naturally, the terminology is exact, the message lands — and the work behind it disappears entirely.
These two projects are cases where that invisibility mattered enormously. One involved medical research that could shape how cancer treatments are understood and communicated across the French-speaking world. The other involved a public infrastructure project where a single mistranslated technical term could create a safety risk on a live construction site.
In both cases, the stakes were real. So was the work.
01. Canadian Cancer Society – Clinical Trial Translation at Scale
The Client
The Canadian Cancer Society is one of Canada’s most respected health organizations, funding cancer research and driving progress in treatment, prevention, and patient support across the country. Their research division produces a continuous flow of highly specialized scientific documentation — clinical trial protocols, treatment studies, and medical research reports that must be made accessible in both of Canada’s official languages.
The Challenge
Clinical trial documentation is among the most demanding material a translator can work with. The terminology is technical, precise, and unforgiving — a mistranslated dosage unit, a misread protocol instruction, or an imprecise rendering of a pharmacological term is not a stylistic imperfection. It is a potential error in a scientific record.
The additional complexity in this mandate: many of the treatments documented in these trials were not yet on the market. Standard terminology databases — the reference tools that medical translators rely on — had no established French equivalents for some of the compounds, procedures, and clinical concepts involved. Our translators had to research, verify, and in some cases propose terminology for concepts that French-language medical literature had not yet formally named.
The Canadian Cancer Society also required the translated content to be delivered directly integrated into their Excel files — formatted, structured, and ready to use — not as raw text requiring a second round of layout work.
What We Delivered
In June 2025, Frenchside translated more than 150,000 words of clinical trial documentation in a single week for the Canadian Cancer Society.
That figure requires context. 150,000 words is the equivalent of a full-length novel — translated, verified, and formatted in seven days, by a coordinated team of specialized French medical translators working simultaneously on parallel document batches. Every term was cross-checked. Every new or emerging concept was researched until a reliable French equivalent was confirmed or proposed. The final deliverable was returned fully integrated into the original Excel structure, ready for immediate use.
Speed and volume, however, were never the point. Accuracy was. Clinical research documentation exists to advance understanding of how diseases are treated and how lives can be saved. Making that knowledge accessible in French — for researchers, clinicians, students, and institutions across the French-speaking world — is work we take seriously.
The Ongoing Relationship
The Canadian Cancer Society has been a regular Frenchside client ever since. The volumes vary, the documents change, but the mandate remains the same: precise, reliable French medical translation delivered on time, with the rigour that scientific communication demands.
We are proud that our work contributes, in its own way, to making advances in cancer research accessible to the global French-speaking scientific community.
02. National Capital Commission – Technical Translation for a Major Urban Infrastructure Project
The Client
The Challenge
The NCC engaged Frenchside to translate a large volume of technical documentation for a major infrastructure project: the construction of a shuttle route connecting Ottawa to Gatineau Park, including the installation of bus shelters, pedestrian infrastructure, landscaping, signage, and road works.
The primary constraint was terminology. Every technical document produced for this project — from architectural plans to construction specifications — had to use the exact terminology established in the project’s Design and Development Norms (DDN). These norms define the precise vocabulary for every element of the project: the structural components, the materials, the installation procedures, the safety protocols.
Using a different term for the same concept — even a synonymous one — creates inconsistency across documents. On a construction site, inconsistency is a safety risk. When a contractor reads a specification that describes a structural element using a term that differs from what appears on the architectural plan, confusion follows. And confusion on a live construction site has consequences.
What We Delivered
Frenchside translated an extensive set of technical documents for the NCC project, including:
- Construction specifications and tender documents (cahiers des charges) for road works, signage, bus shelter installation, and landscaping
- Architectural plans and technical drawing legends
- Wayfinding and display terminal specifications
- Landscaping and urban design documentation
- Safety and installation protocols
Before a single word was translated, our team conducted a thorough review of the DDN to map the established terminology framework. Every translation decision was anchored to that framework. Where the English source used a term that corresponded to a defined DDN concept, the French translation used the designated DDN equivalent — consistently, across every document in the project.
The result was a complete, coherent, bilingual documentation set that allowed the construction teams, architects, engineers, and project managers on both sides of the river to work from documents that spoke the same technical language — in both official languages.
Why This Project Matters?
Public infrastructure is a shared resource. It is built for everyone, and it must be communicated to everyone — in the language they work in, with the precision their safety requires.
We are proud to have contributed to a project that now serves thousands of residents and visitors in the National Capital Region: a modern, green, accessible urban corridor that connects two communities and two linguistic worlds. The translations we produced were never meant to be noticed. They were meant to work. And they did.
What These Projects Have in Common
Two very different mandates — one in medical research, one in urban infrastructure. But the same fundamentals applied to both.
- Specialized expertise. Neither project could have been handled by a generalist translator. Both required deep domain knowledge: medical terminology for clinical trials, technical and regulatory vocabulary for construction documentation. At Frenchside, every project is assigned to a translator with proven expertise in the relevant field.
- Rigorous terminology research. In both cases, standard reference materials were not sufficient. Our translators went further, researching emerging medical concepts, cross-referencing technical norms, verifying every term that carried a precision requirement. That research is not billed as an extra. It is part of what we do.
- Volume and speed without compromise. 150,000 words in a week. Dozens of technical documents across a multi-phase construction project. Large volumes, tight timelines, delivered without cutting corners on accuracy.
- Pride in the purpose. The Canadian Cancer Society advances cancer research. The NCC builds the shared spaces of Canada’s capital. When we translate for organizations like these, we are contributing to work that matters. That is not a marketing statement. It is why the people at Frenchside do what they do.