10 Tips for Saving Money on Translation

The role of languages and translation in our world and society is huge and cannot be great enough to be overestimated.

Serving as a primary medium for our communication, languages connect people and essentially drive the world further throughout progress. At the same time, translation, as a vital supplement part of the languages, ensures that our communication is possible all around the world and between all people. Although translation is quite a challenging skill to acquire and manage, our advancements in technology have allowed us to work reasonably and well enough. With the number of translation software and services, we can translate nearly everything and any given time. The problems with translation today, however, often rely on its cost.

Avoiding Costly Translations

There are dozens if not hundreds of translation apps, websites, programs, etc. that offer premium results instantaneously, without much preparation, financial input, and effort from you. But as we all know if something simply sounds too good there may be some details that you have not accounted for. Oftentimes such detail is cost. If you wish to get a high-quality translation, you should expect that you need to invest something in it – whether it will be your time or money. But that doesn’t mean that you have no other option but to enlist the help of an overpriced translation agency to get the job done. There are options you can consider, whether you wish to do the translation yourself or include a professional into your project.

1. Clearly define what you need. Obviously, you cannot choose if you don’t know what to choose from. State your needs clearly to yourself, define the objective vital criteria strictly before you go searching. You will significantly narrow down the offer list by doing that, which will make your search much easier and ensure that you will find exactly what you need.
   
   
2. Consider using machine translation first. It’s often free and provides some great results. Of course, it won’t work for official documents, but it will still give you a general picture of how your final translation should look like.
   
   
3. Edit machine translation. Should you land on machine translation, after all, make sure you thoroughly read it and edit the result. Some minor inaccuracies might get overlooked upon the quick check, yet, can be spotted by someone who reads this document or listens to your report. Yet, such a translation will be free of charge and will cost you only a couple of hours of your time.
   
   
4. Use translation management software. If you decide that you’re ready to pay for your translation, then consider using translation management. This set of apps and digital assistants for the translators often include cloud technologies and translation memories, which largely increase your productivity and are relatively easy to use.
   
   
5. Automate the process. Speaking about translation memories, automating processes is not only possible in translation today, but is also very important. Translation memory apps allow you to not only accelerate the process of translation but also be consistent throughout your document.
   
   
6. Enlist only a reliable service that is worth its price. If you are set on hiring a translation service, make sure to browse the internet and review your options before you take your pick. Take into account that some apps or services can be hyped up but don’t live up to their image. Thankfully, there are resources that took up the task of narrowing down the list of possible candidates for you. You can read up on the reviews of translation services online and get a better idea about different agencies, their prices, customer reviews, and the services they provide.
   
   
7. Higher a trusted freelancer on a regular basis. Whether you hire someone you know closely or get a specialist via freelance platforms, it’s always great when a single person handles your translation needs. You won’t have to pay more and more with time, and you’ll be still sure about the quality you get.
   
   
8. Provide clear instructions. As you hire a person or someone from the agency, you must make sure that you transmit your needs (defined in point #1) as clearly as possible as you do it for yourself. Appropriate and well-stated instructions comprise half of the successful translation.
   
   
9. Consider security. Whenever you translate something important, like documents, you must make sure that such a translation goes confidentially. Oftentimes, the information leak can cost a lot, so hiring a certified professional or using a trusted piece of software is more than reasonable.
   
   
10. Don’t always trust the price. Expensive doesn’t mean high quality and cheap doesn’t mean poor. When choosing software or a language service provider, keep in mind that you might not need to pay a fortune for a good translation, or you might give everything you have for quite a poor result. Choose the translation assistance based on what you need, not on how much you’ll have to pay.

Saving Your Brain Cells and Lifeforce is the Most Important

No matter how much money or effort you save on translation, remember that saving your mental well-being is the most important thing. Although you might not need to do any translation work yourself, you should still make some effort in choosing the assistance that is the most appropriate particularly for you. The one who seeks always finds, they say, so make sure to know your needs and articulate them clearly. If you have that checked, consider that half of the work is done.