The Language Room, Translation & Interpretation, Edinburgh, Scotland, London, UK

Friendly user guide to translation services (part 2)

In our previous post we discussed a few important points to help you choose the best translation service for your needs. There are more to think about and we have detailed below a few important aspects to look into before hiring an agency. The choice of language seems quite straight forward however you need to […]

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Friendly user guide to translation services (part 2)

by | Friday, August 26th, 2016 | The Language Room, Translation

In our previous post we discussed a few important points to help you choose the best translation service for your needs.

There are more to think about and we have detailed below a few important aspects to look into before hiring an agency.

The choice of language seems quite straight forward however you need to be very specific about it as you may not wish for a French from Quebec to translate into French the document you have been slaving on for a few weeks in order to make it perfect when you are sending it to….. France! The same applies for South American Spanish, Brazilian or Angolan Portuguese, US or UK English and so on. So when you order your translation, make sure you state the language as well as the country it is destined to.

The format is also to consider prior to giving the go ahead for translation: it sometimes does not matter as, once translated, you will hand over the document to your in-house team of graphic designers. You may want to have your in-house team to do it or need to instruct the translation company to format it themselves as one of your requirements. However this is something which is important to make clear before the onset of the translation as it can affect the price you will get charge for and the finished product you will receive.

Another important element is the deadline. Translation takes time. We have already gone over the fact that translators are actual real human beings with an actual brain and fingers typing your text in a computer. So….it does take time and is going to take longer than clicking on the button ‘translate’ of Google Translate.

Therefore, be careful. Plan ahead if you need a quick turnaround or be ready to pay a little more for an urgent deadline as your translation agency will probably need to allocate a project manager for the task and divide your document between several translators in order to respect the deadline. This requires time, energy and a very high attention to detail so…. the price will match! Planning ahead will save you a lot of money especially for large documents or multi lingual projects.