A simple online search for translation services will throw up a huge number of options, from freelance translators to professional translation agencies to free online tools, all vying for your business. With such a proliferation of options and wide variance in prices, you might well question whether you should pay above the minimum or, indeed, if you should pay anything at all.
It's easy to see the potential pitfalls and horror stories that free online machine translations can result in. What may not be quite as clear to a company are the benefits that paying that little bit more to employ the services of a professional agency rather than the cheaper online alternatives can have for its business. After all, you might ask yourself, if the workload is the same, why should I pay any more? The answer is quite simple; professional translation agencies provide a
professional service, with all the expertise and customer service you would expect from any professional business.
While a freelance translator working for 2 cents a word and promising a same-day turnaround may seem very appealing, in most cases you will be paying for an unedited, un-proofread translation. It is simply impossible for him or her to ensure the same level of quality, consistency and specialisation offered by professional translation agencies. On the other hand, an agency will employ the necessary personnel, resources and quality-driven business processes to ensure that, from the moment of contact until the final delivery, the service you receive is of the highest standard.
The most valuable resource that truly professional translation agencies have is a team of qualified, native, in-country linguists, both in-house and freelance, possessing multiple language combinations as well as a wide range of subject matter expertise. This means that they will always have a translator with the appropriate linguistic ability and subject matter knowledge on hand to deal with your project, which saves you the hours spent trawling the net for someone who may or may not be able to do the job. The translator's work will then always be reviewed and proofed by a senior editor according to a strict set of requirements. The fact that the agency will manage your project from receipt until delivery will also mean savings in terms of time and resources for you. In most cases you simply need to email them your project files to receive a complete, checked and corrected translation on time and on budget.
Professional translation agencies will also have at their disposal all the translation technologies, such as
CAT tools, which are required to best complete your translation project. Translation memory technologies such as
Trados allow previous translations to be leveraged, while terminology management tools like
Xbench ensure the consistent application of terminology throughout a project. A wide array of these tools as well as fully trained translators will be available to professional translation agencies
, while cost constraints will mean that freelance translators often work with only one (or sometimes none) of these tools, inevitably leading to a lack of consistency, and to extra costs for you. Translation memories are particularly important for on-going projects as repetitions can be charged at a reduced rate, producing long-term savings for you. The combination of highly skilled staff, project management expertise, and the most up-to-date technologies mean not only that the quality of the finished product is consistently higher, but that professional agenciescan handle a far higher volume of work than other translation options.
Perhaps the most important factor that sets professional translation agencies apart from the rest of the field is that they implement quality-driven business processes which ensure that each individual translation project is allocated all the resources necessary to give you the best possible translation in the shortest turnaround time. These steps include thorough project evaluation and preparation including the creation of translation glossaries and query management systems in conjunction with the customer, the allocation of appropriate resources, translation using the most suitable technology, and an in-depth quality check by a senior reviewer to ensure that the translation is not only word perfect, but that it reads as if written in the target language.
And so, whether or not you decide to employ a
professional translation agency for your business content really comes down to whether you want your customers and partners abroad to receive the same level of professionalism as those at home, and to how highly you value their business. When it comes to using a professional translation service for your business versus a cheap alternative, surely the real question is, can you afford not to?
If you are looking for a professional translation company then the link below is one that comes highly recommended. See for yourself.
translation agency
