If it’s the time for your business to expand into new markets with the need for translation becoming inevitable, you will start a journey to look for a translation company – the right one. In the course of this journey, you will find hundreds or even thousands of companies you can choose from. A dilemma isn’t it!
Everyone is working hard to get a bigger share of the cake. One of the factors that affect your decision is the budget and price for the translation. You can communicate with more than one translation company and get their price lists. But the question here is: How would you be able to know if these quotations are relevant or not?
Here are some helpful tips that make it easier for you to select the best quote for your project.
Document Translation Tasks
If you are looking for a translation company for your project, you can expect that there are multiple tasks that are related to your project, especially if your project is a long-term one. The translation is not limited to converting a text from language A to language B, as there are other tasks related to document translation services such as;
- Editing
- Proofreading
- Post-translational engineering
- Graphics localization
- Desktop publishing (DTP)
- Glossary development
These tasks are considered extra services you can ask for while negotiating a deal with your translation company and make sure they are capable of handling them.
Machine Translation or Human Translation?
There is always a dilemma for any company that has a translation project and is looking for a translation company which is “Cost”. Companies always want to get a professional service with the least budget.
Any company that has a translation project and is looking for a translation services vendor is usually facing the dilemma of “Cost”, as they always want to outsource a professional service with the least budget.
At the bottom of the barrel for translation services lie the one-touch automated programs that simply change words and phrases in one language to another language automatically. You can even find these for free. However, if you are interested in presenting your business products or services to a global audience, you need a lot more than the basic results you get with these types of systems.
After all, saving money on the front end will not provide benefits to your business at large if the end result is dissatisfaction, misunderstanding, or lack of a positive impression for your global leads. Only you understand your precise goal and mission when it comes to the translation and localization service of the written or recorded material. Although we help a variety of industries with everything from technical manuals to video subtitles to desktop publishing, the outcome comes down to the benefits you want to pay for. You need to invest in high-quality foreign language translation services to make the most powerful impact.
Neural Machine Translation (NMT) uses the ever-expanding power of machine learning to create the possibility of more natural and human translations. Instead of simply transposing phraseology, these systems use what are essentially computerized brains to constantly improve their ability to translate in much the same way as a human can. In other words, they actually understand what the words mean, notice nuance, and improve localization through a type of digitized understanding.
It is impossible to replicate the abilities of the human mind, of course. The software can only recognize what it is programmed to learn and improves within the confines of its systematic abilities. It does need a very large pool of data to pull from and has difficulty with longer or more complex sentences. However, it does have the ability to predict expected language outcomes in order to make the translation as realistic as possible. This is a constantly evolving and improving industry associated with artificial intelligence and deep learning technology.
So, is machine translation services less expensive and more affordable? The answer is Yes!.
Does it guarantee that you will get the most professional document translation services? Sorry, No, it will not!
Pricing models for document translation services
Document translation per word
Translating per word is considered the most common and fair model for pricing. You will be charged for the actual words in your files and documents. So, if you have a document that contains 1000 words, you will be charged for them. And in case of any repetitive words, you won’t be charged for them. This will keep your project costs under control.
Document translation per hour
Sometimes you might find translation companies that are charging per hour which is hard to control. As the effort might vary according to the skills of the linguists or the difficulty of the language. Some companies are using the hour pricing model for editing and proofreading as it doesn’t make sense to charge per word for editing as many words will be the same after being edited.
Document translation per page
Sometimes you won’t be able to get the word count of some documents as they are scanned as PDFs or images. Also, when it comes to such documents as court documents, medical records, and handwriting files, it’s hard to get an exact number of words on every page.
In such cases, pricing will be per page which might be somewhat expensive. However, you still can negotiate with the translation company to decrease the price. Otherwise, you still have the other solution, which is to provide the translation company with editable files.
Document translation minimum price
If you have a small document or project in the area of 250 words or less, you might expect that your translation company will offer minimum fees for the translation. Whether you have a document that has 50 or 100 words, you are going to pay the same fees for it.
The benchmark for the minimum fees varies according to the policy of the translation company; so you should ask about this information before submitting the document.
At Future Trans, we believe in flexibility while working with our partners. o we always provide different schemes of pricing according to the clients’ objectives, budget, and plan.
As our expertise is not limited to a specific industry, we are capable of providing document translation services in medical, legal, education, finance, tourism and many more. We translate;
- Legal contracts
- Medical reports and documents
- Marketing brochures and press releases
- User manuals
- Employee handbooks
- Product Catalogs
To be able to deliver professional document translation services to our clients, we’ve equipped ourselves with a huge network of linguists (translators, editors, and proofreaders) to deliver 100% human translation services.
To know more about our document translation services, contact us now and one of our sales team will get back to you shortly.