Transcription services has grown over time with no signs of slowing…and with good reason.
For starters, the evolution of the internet as a global village and the need to share multi-lingual content has played a huge part.
Breaking down audio into written text and translating written or spoken text into more languages fit for different audiences form the foundation of a good transcription service provider.
Translation
As one of the crucial pillars of transcription, translation plays a starring role in this communication.
As such, let us take a dive into translation, its impact plus all the important factors to consider when finding the best service for you.
In this digital age, translation companies continue to multiply by the day.
With all the options at your disposal, it can be quite a tiresome task to find the right translation partner for your projects.
Every business or project has numerous criteria that need to be met.
With everyone promising great service and value, it’s important to note that not everyone will meet your expectations or keep their intended promises.
When you choose the wrong service for your business, there are many challenges guaranteed to come your way.
From average to below average results, inaccuracy or lateness, your project has everything to lose with a bad decision.
Secondly, there is the dilemma of deciding whether to go for human or machine translation.
You might feel the need to go for a machine translator as a shortcut or quick fix for obvious reasons.
While a machine is cost-effective, fast and convenient, it is actually not very reliable.
If you are looking for a premium service for literal translation that is both affordable and popular, then you are better of looking somewhere else.
Also, if you are looking to translate a quality project for a respectable audience, you will need much more than just a word-for-word translation which only humans can give.
Once that decision is out of the way, then comes the second challenge. This is the part where you need to choose the right translation service for your needs.
When it comes to such a decision, it is important to be well educated on all the important factors to consider when choosing a translation service.
Without this type of knowledge, you will be trying to pick a needle from a haystack.
Luckily for you, there is no need to worry about all that as you have already landed in the right place to get yourself up to scratch.
To help you find the best translation service, let us look at all the key points you will need to consider.
The Basics of Translation
Before hiring a person or company to translate your work, you need to know what to look out for.
For starters, make sure the translator is fluent in the target language of your project. This is the reason you are hiring them in the first place.
They should also be able to produce a written copy that maintains the true meaning of the content while keeping a natural flow that reads well with your target audience.
Sometimes, even the best translators might utilize a software or dictionary to scrutinize the true meaning and context of any given material.
This puts them in a position to produce the best and most accurate translation.
If the translator does not possess the conversational skills of a certain language, it’s not the end of the world.
As long as they can read and understand the original document, they can use any of the tools mentioned above to fill any gaps they are not 100% sure about.
However, bilingual translators may find the work much easier than their monolingual counterparts.
That being said, the most important thing is that the translator is fluent in the language you want to translate to e.g. English to Spanish.
In this case, English is the language of your content, and Spanish is the language it is being translated to.
Finding the Right Translator for Your Project
To ensure quality of work, you need a translator with the skill level that can match your project needs.
There are cases where you will need a one language translator and others that call for a bilingual translator.
A bilingual translator comes in handy when looking to translate niche or advanced content.
Some of it may include; legal material ( providing legal translation services ), medicine and health, scientific content and graduate-level academic material.
If you are a fashion blogger, run an ecommerce, gaming or music website, then you are in good hands with a translator who understands the target language.
Choosing a professional translation service is very imperative. The great approach to translation services will depend most on the needs of your firm and your content management workflows.
Price
Low priced translation services online come with their challenges.
To begin with, you may not always get the specific skill level of translators you want working on your project. Some cheap translation companies looking to save a buck hire staff without ensuring fluency in a given language.
Additionally, hiring freelance translators that you come across different websites, claiming to know two to three languages may not be the best idea.
They may charge cheap for their services yes, but it’s the final quality product you are after.
In many cases, they may not be able to provide that. Also, the last thing you want is to hire a translator who turns to Google Translate to do the heavy work for them.
Just like any other software, Google works well if you can polish the machine part of the content with a human touch.
These adjustments can make all the difference to a final draft that is fluent and sensible. Unfortunately, many low level translators do not have the skill or the time to polish their work.
What you get from this is error ridden work that your clients will not appreciate or that which may well be repeated. That is both a waste of time and resource.
For best results, you need a translator who is fluent in a specific language.
That allows them to understand the context of your work and drive it in whatever direction you wish.
A quality translation service that is both affordable and proven should get the job done for you.
Additional Skills
Although fluency is the ultimate quality to observe when choosing a translator, additional skills or specialized knowledge does not hurt at all.
In fact, it is a welcome trait. If you are looking to translate content in an advanced-language, it will not work so well with average or low level translation.
This is another reason to take some time to do some background check on the translator you intend to hire.
For every project, a recommendable translation service should have a wide pool of good, experienced and advanced translators to pick from.
If you are talking about health, law, sports, business or just life skills in your content, you need a translator that is fluent in the target niche.
Medicine, finance and law for instance, all have jargons and languages on their own with many terminologies that may be lost in translation with the wrong choice of translator.
Where to Find Quality Translation Service?
For the best transcription and translation services, I always recommend GoTranscript, a company with a proven record and the source of high quality translation services.
GoTranscript ticks all the boxes. They offer low priced translation services thanks to their commitment to superefficient hiring, training, and production methods.
They offer translation services in a wide range of languages from Albanian, Arabic, Bengali, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Catalan, Croatian and more.
The biggest advantages of choosing GoTranscript has to be their ability to handle the most complex projects regardless of how technical, scientific, or academic they may be.
There you go!
