û The Corner Cutting Suppliers

ü GoLanguages.com

A multinational technology client couldn’t resist the rates offered by one agency for work into German. The problem was that the translations were being completed in India by 'translators' who were not German.

The regional office only saw the printed brochures at the product launch and pointed out to the head-office that they not only lacked proper German characters, but that most of the content made little or no sense at all. Everything had to be retranslated, reset and reprinted.

So, what was the price of this botched translation?

We place work in the target language country and only with mother-tongue speakers

We ONLY place work with experienced and qualified translators who ONLY work into their own mother-tongue language.

About 98 percent of our work is placed with translators living and working in their mother-tongue country, giving our clients access to contemporary and articulate copy. 

Don't be stupid ...

û Cost of 'cheap' translation £55

û Cost of printing/launch £50,000

û Cost of quality retranslation £200

û Lost sales/credibility £ unknown

û Total translation £50,255 û

... Be smart

ü Cost of "quality" translation £200

ü Cost of printing/launch £ nil

ü Cost of retranslation £ nil

ü Lost sales/credibility £ nil

ü Total of translation £200 ü

To cut costs, some suppliers will use machine translation to complete projects and then try to pass the work off as human translation without it ever being read or edited by a real person, let alone a qualified linguist.

Machine translation can be used for gist understanding, but it should never be used for work that is going to be published or where even the lowest level of accuracy is needed.

We never use machine translation.

Language is fluid, fluent, varied and diverse. No machine can come close to understanding the nuances of a language, let alone be able to translate those nuances into another language.

If you want your company’s documentation to “speak” to your colleagues or your clients, you have to use human translation.

There are sites on the net where some agencies trade language projects.  Usually, anyone can bid for projects, irrespective of whether they have the right skills, experience, or language knowledge.

One of our colleagues anonymously bid for a project into Spanish needed for Spain. He stated that he was a Brazilian national (Brazilians speak Portuguese, but the agency either didn't know this or didn't care) living in Argentina and that he would do the project for the offered fee of £15 per 1,000 words. Our bidder was English, couldn't read/write Spanish, and had no understanding of the subject matter. He was offered the job.

We only work with professional translators.

All of our work is placed with qualified professional translators - people who are experienced, tried and tested and who only work into their mother-tongue language.

All of our translators hold professional qualifications and (in the countries where such schemes exist) membership of a professional accreditation body.

If you care about your company, take great care who you buy your translations from.

Sad but true – there are some agencies out there that just con an endless stream of translators in to completing work for them without ever really intending to pay them for their skills.

One client moved their work because they were fed up of translators who had worked for their former agency calling them to ask for payment. The client had paid the agency for the work, but the agency had never paid any of the translators.

We pay all of our suppliers on time and at professional fee rates.

By ensuring we have a good relationship with our suppliers, we can offer our clients access to the best professionals in the world.