Polyglot blog

When you need a document translated into another language, you can either turn to a company (a translation agency) or an independent professional (a freelance translator) do to the job for you. Before I analyze their respective advantages and disadvantages, let me first briefly explain how translation agencies and freelance translators work:

A translation agency can be anything from a small local business (including one-man translation agencies operating out of a living-room which usually don’t last very long in business) to a large company with offices on various continents and hundreds of permanent employees. Some have in-house translators and proofreaders while others solely rely on freelance translators. If you hire a translation agency, one of their in-house project managers will be responsible for your translation. He or she will assign the translation either to an in-house translator or to a freelance translator, the latter being much for frequent as much more translation work is outsourced (subcontracted) than done in-house. A serious translation agency will thoroughly check and proofread the translation before sending it to the client, a less serious one will simply send the translation on to the client after receiving it from the freelance translator.

Freelance translators are self-employed, independent professionals who usually work from home or a small office. They work as subcontractors for translation agencies who outsource work to them or directly for companies and individuals who need translation services.

Advantages of a freelance translator:

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Individuals or companies who need a translation for the first time often do not know where to find a freelance translator. Most people have heard about translation companies, but many are still surprised to learn that there are also freelance translators offering the same services!

Here are some tips on where to look for a freelance translator:

- If there is a translators association in your country, a good place to start is the association’s member directory. Most associations have websites with an online list of their members. Depending on the language combination you need, it might also be a good idea to check the member directory of associations in other countries. For example, if you are based in Japan and need a Spanish to French translator, you might not be able to find a qualified translator in the member lists of the Japanese translator associations, but you will certainly find many suitable Spanish to French translators in the member lists of translator associations in France and probably also in Spain. Click here for an extensive list of translator and interpreter associations around the world.

- Another good place to search for translators is your local business directory or Yellow Pages in the “Translation” or “Translator” category. There you can usually find both freelance translators and translation agencies.

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Many individuals and companies who are not used to working with freelance translators are confused when it comes to choosing the right freelance translator. In most countries, translation is not a regulated profession. Anybody who speaks two languages, or thinks he speaks two languages, can offer his services as a freelance translator. It is therefore all the more important to choose somebody who is truly qualified.
Here are some guidelines to help you pick the best freelance translator for your project:

- Is the target language (the language the text will be translated into) the translator’s native language? It is generally believed that translators produce better quality when translating into their mother tongue. One usually has broader vocabulary and better writing skills in one’s native language than in a second language. A translation done by a non-native of the target language is likely to sound less natural or even awkward. If it is not possible to find a translator whose native language matches the target language (for very rare language combinations for example), make sure that the translation will be proofread and edited by a native of the target language. This criterion is especially important for literary or marketing texts where style and nuances are very important. Keep also in mind that for some languages spoken in various countries, there are considerable regional differences. Brazilian Portuguese is different from European Portuguese, Canadian French from European French, Mexican Spanish from Argentine Spanish, UK English from American English, etc. If your Spanish translation will be used in Chile for example, it will be much better adapted to the local market in Chile when translated by a Chilean translator rather than by a translator from Spain.

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Some translators claim to be able to translate as much as 10,000 words per day or even more. I do believe that it is possible to translate that much in a day (draft translation only – without proofreading – of very easy texts without special formatting or difficult terminology; speech recognition might also help to increase the speed) but I don’t believe that it is possible to produce a high-quality, error-free translation at such lightning speed.
The majority of professional translators reach an average volume of 2000 – 3000 words per day ready to be delivered to the client (that involves the translation itself, research on the subject if necessary, terminology lookup, formatting and careful proofreading). The more specialized a text is, the longer it usually takes to translate it.
My personal record is around 7000 words in a day, translation only without proofreading, for a fairly simple text.

Translation and interpreting are two distinct professions and yet hardly anybody except for language professionals seems to know, or care about, the difference.
Yet, the distinction is an easy one: translators work with the written word (they translate texts), whereas interpreters work with the spoken word (they interpret speech). All you need to remember is: translation = written and interpreting = spoken.
So next time you read in the press that somebody was “speaking through a translator”, you will know that it wasn’t a translator but an interpreter.

The skills required to become an interpreter are not the same as those required to become a translator. Both need to have a profound knowledge of their source and target languages as well as subject matter knowledge and broad general knowledge of course. In addition, interpreters also need a good memory, they have to be able to react very quickly, overcome a difficulty within seconds, understand a variety of different accents and pronunciations and they also have to be able to concentrate intensely. As for translators, it is important that they have an excellent writing style, impeccable grammar and spelling and broad vocabulary in a variety of fields and genres. An excellent interpreter can be a very bad translator and vice-versa, although there are a certain number of people who successfully combine the two professions.

In short, the mission of both translators and interpreters is to get a message across in a different language, but translators do so in writing while interpreters do so orally.