I have been providing language translation services over many years and it pains me to see translation buyers ending up with botched up translations, or paying way too much than required. This is not only ethically wrong but also creates a bad impression of language translation services providers. Keeping that in mind I have prepared a set of the following tips that would help language translation buyers to get the best translation services at desirable rates. Just like other industries, there are bad apples in the language translation field as well, but I hope that the following tips would save language translation buyers from any unsavory experiences-
- Never fall for the cheapest rates- This is a major mistake that a lot of language translation buyers make and end up paying much more than they should have, if they had gone for standard translation rates in the beginning. So if you require language translation services, get to know the standard rates, you can be more specific and research the prevalent rates for your required language pair and the field, or subject of your translation job. Getting a job done for lower than standard rates is like ensuring a bad job.
- Set achievable deadlines- There are only 24 hours in a day and people need their rest and rejuvenation time, apart from the time required to tend to other needs of life. So a language translator can only work for limited number of hours every day. Within that also he/she would be able to complete a limited amount of quality work taking into account the complexity associated with the language pair and that of the material. Keeping all these in mind, always give your language translator a reasonable amount of time to produce the required translation.
- Specifying requirements in details – Language translation service providers are not superhuman beings, they cannot anticipate your requirements if you don’t tell them yourself. So if you have specific requirements for your project, make them clear to your translation services provider in the beginning. At the same time, get to know the translator’s/ translation agency’s terms in detail. You should also enquire whether you can avail of any discounts; many translation services providers do have various discount schemes running which can save you a good amount of money.
