Translation Services - Buyers Guide

Translation Services Introduction

Translation services have earned an integral role in international communication. As the globe is shrinking in terms of attainable distances and intertwining business interests, accurate understanding of languages besides our mother tongue has become a necessity in all walks of life. Modern translation services today offer a variety of languages for translation and if we are considering quality work, the translators should be highly qualified professionals as well. Most translation agencies offer a wide array of services covering several categories.

A popular translation service nowadays, but lagging behind when it comes to quality and accuracy, is the computer-generated translation. This form of translation is sometimes free to access and provides tolerable results if we work with simply constructed sentences. In general, any machine-produced translation would lack the necessary "human touch" that adds style, taste and wit to our writing.

Individual translators, who come from different backgrounds, can also carry out translation services. Some have actual translation training or education, but most have experience through formal language training and some exposure to translation. Certified or sworn translators form a category of their own within this sphere. They are those professionals, who have been authorized by their government to translate and notarize documents. Any certified translation produced by a sworn translator is an official document proved by a stamped declaration in the relevant language, as well as in English.

All individual translators at one point or another come into contact with companies that provide professional translation services in all major languages. These companies are usually the reliable, traceable so-called "big fish" of the industry.

The most common services provided by translation companies on a day-to-day basis are:

· Professional translations
· Corporate translations
· Document translations
· Website translations
· Online translations

An international phenomenon is the focus on the most widely spoken languages in terms of translation services. This category of languages includes Chinese, American and British English, Hindustani, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Bengali, Portuguese, Malay-Indonesian and French. This top- ten list could then be completed with less common, but still widely used languages of our time, such as German, Italian, and Japanese among others. Naturally this would constitute the largest market, yet the competition is also more acute on the top. Therefore, some translation agencies experiment with less common languages as well, naturally charging a higher fee for such services. Yet the common tendency is to swim back to safe waters and stick to widely spoken languages when providing translation services. International companies are localized, meaning that regardless to their actual geographical location, work is being prepared on the given spot or online.

The Translation Services Buyers' Guide provides information on how to choose a translation company most suitable for your personalized needs. Furthermore, the Buyers Guide provides common translation agencies terminology, a translation services checklist, and a selection of interesting articles related to the topic of translation services.

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I immediately got a call from a moving company who was very professional. We've had good communication, the survey was punctual and they returned a quotation the following day as promised. So far, so good!

Kate, Buyer
Adelaide, Australia