Translation Agencies: How to choose a good translation agency for your job
There are literally thousands of translation agencies out there to choose from. Just check the web or the yellow pages. If you decide to hire a agency for your translation services, how do you pick the right one?
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Quality
The number one factor when choosing a translation service provider must be quality. Period. While there are many agencies out there that offer rock-bottom prices, be aware that you will pay for a poor-quality translation over and over again. Every time someone reads the translation, your company will be shed in a poor light. But how do you know if the agency you choose will provide a quality service? Here are some questions to ask:
How do you pick your translators? What qualifications do your translators have? How experienced are your translators?
The translator working on your job should have pertinent education in translation and knowledge of the subject of your translation. If you need legal translation services, the translator should be certified by a court. However, experience is far more important than formal education. Some of the best translators never took a translation degree. The translator should only translate into his or her mother tongue and preferably live in a country that speaks the target language or have close ties to his or her home country.
How do you ensure the quality of the translation?
Is the translation proofread by a second translator? This should always be the case unless you will only be using the translation internally or you have your own proofreaders. Good translation agencies will also have tight quality management to weed out underperforming translators.
Do you use translation memories?
This is becoming more and more important and is now used by many translation agencies. A translation memory is a database that is used by so-called CAT (computer aided translation) software. It effectively recycles translations done in the past. When you have a second text to be translated, the software searches its database for each source sentence to check if it has been translated in the past. If so, the old translation is inserted in place of the source text. A good translation agency will still have all the text proofread in context to make sure it fits, but you will not have to pay for the same translation twice. When you update your documents or have several similar documents to be translated, this can potentially save you thousands of dollars on translation services. It should not be confused with machine translation or automated translation. All translations are still performed by a human translator.
Price
When choosing a translation agency, price should be a secondary consideration. As mentioned above, you will pay a high price for a poor-quality translation. After you narrow down your choice to a few translation agencies though, you might want to get several quotes from several agencies before you make your final decision.
List of Recommended Translation Agencies
All the translation agencies listed below have a proven quality record. If you decide to choose one of these agencies for your translation needs or even just visit their website, please consider subscribing to our mailing list. I will send you a quality satisfaction survey in one month, and then twice a year, to get feedback from you. The survey will only take 2 minutes to complete, and it helps me greatly to make sure that only agencies that provide highest quality are included in this list. You can unsubscribe from the mailing list anytime and you are not obliged to answer the survey.
Added Bonus: Subscribe to the survey today, and I will assist you if, contrary to all expectations, you should ever have any problems in dealing with any of the recommended agencies. It's like an added quality insurance.
P.S.: I am in no way affiliated with any of these agencies.
Lengua Translations Lengua is a translation agency strongly committed to delivering high-quality translation. Their quality control is exceptional. They offer all languages, European and Asian at reasonable rates. Highly recommended.
Admcity China Specializing in Chinese Translation. Also offer Chinese search engine and directory registration. Admittedly, their website isn't the best. Rely on them only for translation into Chinese. For Chinese translation and related services, however, their quality is excellent. They are located in China, so they know the Chinese market intimately.
