This paper documents the results of a series of experiments conducted by the Institute for Defense Analyses on translating technical material from English to Vietnamese. The work was accomplished in support of the Office of the Deputy Director, Research and Engineering, Deputy Director for Southeast Asia Matters. The paper addresses the question of translation speed, number of errors, and quality assessment. Three different methods for measuring the quality of translations are examined: back-translation, knowledge testing, and performance. Translation costs and means of writing translatable English are also reviewed. It is concluded that: 400 words per hour is a reasonable speech expectation for technical material; quality of translation significantly affects performance, and quality may be sampled by any of the means tested; costs can be reduced by several methods but seventy dollars per thousand words is a reasonable estimate. (Author/FWB)