Translation: Determining what service you need and what it will cost
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| | | Not sure if I'm allowed to post this here | Jun 11, 2010 |
Going one step beyond, I put together some candid tips for translation customers who feel lost in the woods upon having to choose between hiring a freelance translator or a translation agency at: http://www.lamensdorf.com.br/trxag.html
Of course there are more and deeper criteria, however this compilation was as general as I managed to make it, having preset for myself a fixed number of... See more Going one step beyond, I put together some candid tips for translation customers who feel lost in the woods upon having to choose between hiring a freelance translator or a translation agency at: http://www.lamensdorf.com.br/trxag.html
Of course there are more and deeper criteria, however this compilation was as general as I managed to make it, having preset for myself a fixed number of 10 items in each list, and the goal of making it as simple as possible. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Thanks José! | Jun 12, 2010 |
Nice! Would you mind adding the link to the article itself as further reading (I can do this for you as well)? You're also more than welcome to expand on this article or any other being added to the wiki. Thanks!
Jared
| | | | Oliver Walter 
United Kingdom
Local time: 16:24
German to English
+ ...
| Different first (or zeroth) question: "what is it for?" | Jul 1, 2010 |
This article states "First question: What level of quality is required?". Maybe I'm being slightly pedantic, but I disagree. In my opinion, the first question is "What is the purpose of the translation?" From the answer to this, one can determine what level of quality is required. This is to some extent recognised in the article, in phrases like "For translations being performed for informational purposes," and "may be appropriate, especially when translation of very large volumes of texts is ne... See more This article states "First question: What level of quality is required?". Maybe I'm being slightly pedantic, but I disagree. In my opinion, the first question is "What is the purpose of the translation?" From the answer to this, one can determine what level of quality is required. This is to some extent recognised in the article, in phrases like "For translations being performed for informational purposes," and "may be appropriate, especially when translation of very large volumes of texts is needed in a short time".
Oliver ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Translation: Determining what service you need and what it will cost | Jul 1, 2010 |
José Henrique Lamensdorf wrote:
Going one step beyond, I put together some candid tips for translation customers who feel lost in the woods upon having to choose between hiring a freelance translator or a translation agency at: http://www.lamensdorf.com.br/trxag.html
Of course there are more and deeper criteria, however this compilation was as general as I managed to make it, having preset for myself a fixed number of 10 items in each list, and the goal of making it as simple as possible.
I disagree to some extent too. Very few translation brokers are able to pay an at least a reasonable price for a high tecnical translation done by an engineer who knows exactly what he's talking about.
[Editado a las 2010-07-01 23:13 GMT]
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I cannot say that I agree with all the points in the article, but overall I find it useful, so I've added a link to it from my new SEO translator blog.
The main criticism I have to the article is that it assumes that freelance translators can only translate general texts (I make a very good living translating highly specialized technical translations), and that for specialized texts you need an agency. This is funny, because the vast majority of the agencies don't have in-house tran... See more I cannot say that I agree with all the points in the article, but overall I find it useful, so I've added a link to it from my new SEO translator blog.
The main criticism I have to the article is that it assumes that freelance translators can only translate general texts (I make a very good living translating highly specialized technical translations), and that for specialized texts you need an agency. This is funny, because the vast majority of the agencies don't have in-house translators, and most of the time their technical or specialized skills are even worse than those of the translators they hire.
The second main criticism I have is that it assumes that only agencies can provide top quality work. I find that a personal offense, as I take a personal pride in providing quality work (and also charging for it). Too many agencies are just middle men, and provide no additional value. A good agency can indeed ensure good quality, and have a quality process that disallows even the slightest mistake, but I've also encountered just the opposite: That I had to raise hell because the "editing" had converted a perfect translation into an unreadable mess.
BTW, José Henrique, do something with the menus of your website... they are not very user friendly, I am clicking the whole time beside the item I want to select... and that kind of thing is bad for business!
[Editado a las 2010-07-02 20:23 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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