1.  The translation/localization market is huge and getting bigger each year. There?s a lot of money to be made, and that attracts not merely professional providers, but also unscrupulous players who are either outright cheating or simply economical with the reality. Buyers get quotes which range from suspiciously rock-bottom to unjustifiably sky-high and don?t know what to think. How can the price for the same task differ so much? Or is someone taking them for a ride?
2.  What is translation?
3.  Before you understand how much translation costs, you will need to ask yourself a more basic question: what is translation? Everybody thinks they know the answer to this one, but think about it for a minute:
4.  Is Google Translate?s output really ?translation??
5.  If a language student translated something as part of their homework, does it deserve exactly the same name as what professionals do?
6.  For better and for worse, there is no one standard definition and it?s the nature of any creative work that there?ll always be arguments about what?s sufficient and what isn?t. The good news is that there are best practices out there, widely followed through the entire industry with the exception of some fly-by-night operators, whom I?ll get to later on.
7.  The standard process goes something like this:
8.  Before translation - Collecting files, deciding what should be translated and what doesn't, piecing together reference materials like translation memories, termbases, style guides and so forth, getting quotes and deciding who will do the work.
9.  Translation - This is where the magic happens. An extremely educated bilingual professional actually enters what in the new language that reflects the foundation text in an accurate and perhaps even beautiful manner. You can find three things that can occur next:
10.  - The translator says it?s ready and that?s it, also known as ?self-check?;
11.  - it?s sent to a different linguist who checks the work word-by-word comparing to source, also called ?editing?, which adds 33-40% to the price;
12.  - it?s sent to a different linguist who checks the target-language version only, often known as ?proofreading?, which adds 15-20% to the purchase price.
13.  - Finally, usually automated QA checks will undoubtedly be done on the content to look for issues that are easy to miss for the human eye, such as for example double spaces or missing punctuation. These checks could be run by the translator, the editor/proofreader or the agency.
14.  After translation ? taking the translation and putting it back to the environment it came from. If it?s a formatted document, such as .docx or .pptx files, it is advisable to replace the original text with the translation and usually make some extra adjustments to layout, line-breaking and fonts to create everything look good. If the written text is from software or perhaps a website, things get more complicated and a substantial amount of work may be needed to integrate it correctly.
15.  If you need something translated, that can be done it in a few different ways starting with the simplest (and free!) to the most sophisticated:
16.  Translate it yourself, if you happen to speak the language
17.  Use Google Translate or another free online machine translation tool
18.  Ask an employee or perhaps a friend to do it for free or cheap
19.  Find a freelance translator
20.  Upload your files to an online crowdsourced translation marketplace
21.  Work with a different agency (Single Language Vendor - SLV) for every language
22.  Use an Multi-Language Vendor (MLV)
23.  Build a full-service translation department in your organization
24.  http://professionalcarpetcleaners.com/user/profile/351803
25.  (Andovar fits into the one before last, in case you?re wondering.)
26.  How much does translation really cost?
27.  It?s a free of charge market, so people can require what they please, depending on how they value their work, what their costs of living are, whether they?re just starting and need to get work experience or they are seasoned professionals busy with long-term clients. But you can find established averages in terms of professional translation and one method of finding them is through Proz.com. This can be a huge online marketplace where translators advertise their services and buyers post jobs. Based on what rates thousands of translators have entered within their profiles, Proz publishes a table with averages. You can see the most used languages below and the full & most recent table here.
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29.  Remember that these are rates charged by individual translators, and that:
30.  Agencies often offer translation + editing or proofreading by another translator, which increases cost.
31.  These rates are for what?s called ?new words?, during every project there will also be ?repeated words? which many providers offer at a discounted rate thanks to translation memory technology.
32.  Agencies can do other work along with translation itself, such as for example: create style guides and termbases, localization engineering, DTP, testing, etc. That is sometimes rolled in to the per-word rates, sometimes not.
33.  Short, urgent and technical or creative texts usually call for higher rates, while simple, long rather than urgent ones are cheaper.
34.  Agencies are businesses, so they add a profit percentage to the rates they pay to translators.
35.  Keeping in mind the above, the rates charged by individual translators will be the foundation on which agencies calculate their pricing to get rid of clients.
36.  Not absolutely all agencies are alike
37.  Some buyers of translation choose to work with freelancers directly. It?s obviously less costly, and can be a good idea for simple jobs in a single or two languages. When projects increase, new languages are added and file formats are not straightforward you may need a company to help handle all of the extra work. Secondly, dealing with different freelancers and/or online marketplaces at all times means you will have no consistency between projects. Agencies typically maintain reference materials like translation memories, termbases and style guides, which help maintain consistency over time.
38.  To be competitive, agencies look for methods to lower their costs and provide cheaper rates to clients. Ideas are sound, others unscrupulous and even illegal. Let?s look at a few:
39.  What?s included? While most agencies understand that it?s risky to offer translation without the editing, proofreading or quality control, they could still do it to make their rates as low as possible. When you compare rates between agencies, make sure to find out what they use in the per-word rate. Could it be translation-only? Translation with editing? With proofreading? What QA steps are followed? Do they charge for localization engineering, file handing, termbases, style sheets, etc. separately?
40.  Geo-leveraging It?s not a secret that costs of living and running a business are lower in some countries. The world has been becoming flat for a long time and outsourcing or moving offices to less costly regions doesn?t create as much controversy as it did before. Translation companies do that too. While translators themselves usually live and work in their native countries (see next point), agencies offer localization engineering, desktop publishing, audio recording and project management that may be done cheaper elsewhere. That is among the reasons Andovar has offices in Thailand, India and Colombia. If you want to know where your work will in actuality be achieved, ask your vendor.
41.  Native speakers Native speakers of - let?s say - Norwegian usually live in Norway where costs of living are high. This makes it one of the most expensive languages to translate (as you can plainly see in the table higher up). But what if we look for speakers of Norwegian in another country? Maybe one with low costs of living, like India or Russia? Bingo ? they'll definitely consent to charge lower rates than their friends in snowy Norway! But is Norwegian their mother tongue? And when they are native speakers who happen to live abroad, is their knowledge of the language on par making use of their compatriots in Norway? It usually is, if they made an attempt to stay in touch with their native cultures and how the language is used.
42.  (Un)qualified translators Not only is it a native speaker, why is someone qualified to translate? There's actually no easy answer to this even though some countries have official certification, translator associations and exams, others don?t and there is no established international standard. What this means is an agency can call whomever they need a ?qualified translator?, including individuals who are students, inexperienced and not native speakers. While the results may be acceptable for simple content, there must be transparency about who will do the work.
43.  Outsourcing Lots of the world?s biggest MLVs don?t really work as simple agents between clients and translators, but add more layers of outsourcing. Once the language pair or subject matter is not their forte, they hire smaller vendors to accomplish the work. However, with every additional level the risk of miscommunication, delay and end price all increase.
44.  Reputation What to do if an agency insists they only use native-speaking and highly-qualified professionals, nevertheless, you still have doubts? Proz, the web site mentioned earlier, also maintains a database of translation providers alongside scores translators give them. It?s worth looking up the company you?re speaking with and observe how they fare. If they are not on the list or have minimal scores ? they likely don?t work with professional translators or have only recently opened. If the scores are low, this means they don?t treat their translators well. Another website worth checking is GlassDoor, which stores comments from company employees and ex-employees.
45.  What?s a PM Fee? Most agencies will charge something called the Project Management or PM Fee. It typically ranges from 1 to 10% of the total and covers the work of the project manager handling your projects. Taking the PM Fee out of the per-word rate can make it go down, but PM Fee will still be added later on. Some agencies will also have Set-up, Kick-off and other types of fees. When you compare quotes from agencies, be sure to check just how many percent they charge you need to include that in your comparison.
46.  Audio quality Many agencies, and Andovar is one of them, also offer audio services in various languages. Some have their own recording studios created to industry standard and produce broadcast quality audio, while some ask speakers of the language to record the scripts at home using their own computers and even mobile phones. Desire to guess which one costs more? And which one is of higher quality?
47.  Bait and switch Some agencies present great-looking CVs of translators they work with and offer their just work at rock-bottom rates. How is that possible? It?s not the same people doing the work! The CVs may be real, but the translation is performed by their less-qualified colleagues. The extreme version of this is the following:
48.  Do you know what the most recent translation agency scam is? It goes like this:
49.  Advertise to get the very best resumes from linguists.
50.  Advertise to get the lowest cost amateur translators at 2 or 3 3 cents.
51.  Swap the contact information on the linguists? CVs with newly created Hotmail or Yahoo addresses that go to the scammers.
52.  Advertise unbeatable rates of 6-7 cents and show prospective clients the amazing CVs of the nice linguists.
53.  Get the translation done by the cheap amateur translators.
54.  When possible, get advance payment or at least 50% using PayPal.
55.  If client complains about quality, use that fact to refuse to pay the amateur translators.
56.  Sometimes the scammers even leave the names of the borrowed linguists unchanged.
57.  Laugh completely to the bank.
58.  Focusing on what doesn?t matter Some providers will go at great lengths to create a good impression:
59.  They?ll say they work with thousands of translators to make themselves look like big companies (however they are actually freelancers rather than full-time employees);
60.  Try to impress with ISO or other certification (nonetheless it?s applied to something as meaningless as ?recruitment process? rather than have anything regarding translation quality);
61.  Show off their worldwide locations (however they are only virtual offices with no employees on-site);
62.  Talk about flawless quality and a large number of satisfied customers (but provide no real testimonials with names and contact details).
63.  Business is business?
64.  I hope this article explained a number of the tactics translation agencies employ. Business is business and as long as it?s not illegal, an organization can perform whatever it wants. However, as a buyer of translation you need to understand who you?re coping with before hiring a company to work for you
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