One example for the detective work that sometimes precedes the translation: a client asked for an English translation of the topic of a conference: "Endlich regiert der Nachfrager".

Literally this could simply have been translated as "The demanders rule at last" – but the English reader would be none the wiser as to who these "demanders" are.

What we knew was that the conference was about the future urban development of a major city. The website of the organization hosting the event thankfully included a number of articles written by several experts who had presented their papers during the conference. Two of these three-page articles pointed out that it would be getting more and more difficult for the citizens to find affordable rented accommodation. Another confirmed the same trend with condos. So those who are looking for rented apartments or other properties could not be the "demanders" as in such a situation it would be the supply that "rules".

In an introductory text to the conference, however, one sentence mentioned that the "demand of investors was unabated". So the question of supply and demand that stood behind the topic was not related to the marketplace made up of tenants and landlords but to the market where investors seek out (or "demand") investment opportunities. And since there is an abundance of available investment chances, the investor is in a position to select the opportunity that best suits its purposes. So the translation should be "Investors rule at last".

So to translate a single word, we had to search and (were lucky enough to find) the website of the hosting organization and skim several articles of the real-estate experts to understand what was meant by this word in this context. In a second approach, the misleading German title had to be reinterpreted which was only possible by changing the perspective – from the housing market to investment market. It turned out, by the way, that our interpretation was correct.