Considering the proliferation of Translation Service Providers in the national and international market today, it is necessary to gain a thorough understanding of the degree and quality of services provided vis-à-vis the prices offered. A general norm harbored by most minds of course is that for highest quality, one needs to shell out exorbitant amounts of money. So generally mid-scale firms or institutions that have spent huge sums on developing their websites, brochures, manual and other texts, tend to settle for mediocre or makeshift services for translating their high quality content, simply because they feel that it is redundant to spend furthermore on the same text. What they fail to realize is that when they have invested so much in creating high quality content, by availing low-scale translation services, the very essence of the high quality content will be lost, defeating the entire purpose in the first place.
Delving a little deeper into the range of services currently available in the market, the cheapest packages offered are machine-executed translations similar to the lines of Google Translate. The reason for the rock bottom prices offered here is that it involves only literal conversion of words form one language into another without understanding the context whatsoever, the output being an irrelevant, out-of-context document or website content. The second category of services is a little higher priced than the former and involves the machine translated documents proof-read by an expert before delivering the same. Although this is better than the former category, the output still remains crude as one misses out on the nuances and finesse of the original document. Finally, the third category of services are undertaken and executed manually by expert and proficient language translators, who understand the nitty-gritty’s of the process. The translation is carried out carefully, keeping in mind the context, purpose and objective of the source document and the final translated version embodies all its nuances with sheer finesse, meeting the very purpose why the text was created in the first place.
So if you have a translation requirement and you are tempted to opt for cheap or rock-bottom packages being offered in the market, take a deep breath and logically analyze whether it is worthwhile to invest in such cheap services, which virtually offer no return on your investment? The image below depicts a very small example of a traanslation error; imagine similar errors magnified tenfold!
And most of all, not all quality services are priced sky-high. With increased globalization, and translation demands on the rise, a number of professional organizations with well-qualified translators are making reasonable offers that will definitely not burn a hole in your pocket. You just need to scrutinize the market carefully and understand what the service-provider is offering. Quality translation is all about finesse, or in the words of Irish Writer John Millington Synge, “A translation is no translation, unless it will give you the music of a poem, along with the words of it.”
And most of all, not all quality services are priced sky-high. With increased globalization, and translation demands on the rise, a number of professional organizations with well-qualified translators are making reasonable offers that will definitely not burn a hole in your pocket. You just need to scrutinize the market carefully and understand what the service-provider is offering. Quality translation is all about finesse, or in the words of Irish Writer John Millington Synge, “A translation is no translation, unless it will give you the music of a poem, along with the words of it.”
