Human Translation

Quality

Duration Of A Translation & Time Deadlines

Charges

Methods Of Payment

This page is under construction.

This will be dealt with later. For now we'll do with the following.

Hence, the rhetoric of how great and super duper, cutting edge, state of the art etc one is, does not indicate anything.

As a rough check on a translator's quality, checking one in their native language is of no use. One is definitely better in ones native language compared to ones claimed second language. Hence check samples from the translator in the language foreign to him/her. But maybe that sample is actually a source text, that was submitted for translation and not a target text. Or maybe it was polished up by another for advertising purposes and does not reflect the translator's actual working quality. The best solution is to find a bilingual translator. But many non-bilingual translators will claim to be bilingual. If you are using the services of a translator translating from his mother tongue language to your mother tongue language you are lucky. You can then check the quality of his/her translation by what he/she submits. You can even assess that quality by his/her email letters to you.

Another check is to look into the quality of clients that deal with the translator if a list of clients is provided. High quality firms normally only deal with high quality translators.

You can also look into their website to see the quality of the text on their websites.

In all cases the final assessment is from what they finally give you. If it's in your mother tongue language you'll know. If it's to a language foreign to you, the party that you are addressing it to will know and maybe inform you if you ask.

In general most full-time translators can produce an average of 2500 words per day (in pages, that might be around 10 pages of size A4 in size 10 or 12 fonts, but the word count is more accurate).

However this does not mean that a translator can finish off 2500 words in one day for any request. A translator may be busy with another request such as being in the midst of a 50,000 word request. Or maybe having 3 or 4 requests on hand in a combination of 100 to 1000 words. Hence he/she can only ensure a 500-1000 word per day request for any single client. But if there's no other request that day, you'll normally get the 2500 words done.

Over large jobs you might be able to rely on around 1000 words daily given to your request. If the translator is free, you'll get the average 2500 words per day output from a full timer.

Daily or in one day does not mean supplying your request after 6:00 p.m. and expecting it done at 8:00 a.m. the next morning. A day is 24 hours.

Time differences between locations of client and translator may serve both for a shorter duration normally.

Weekends also play a part in the duration. Some translators don't work over weekends, whilst others do. The days of "weekend" differ between different countries/regions of the world.

Charges differ between translators. In general the highest charges will be by translators in high-income locations, with the better translator requesting the highest charges. However this does not mean that cheapest is worst. Nor does it mean that a translator in a low-income country would necessarily request cheapest of prices.

The Internet provides both client and service provider with the worldwide market for clients and services. A high quality translator may take advantage of this and drop all his local clients to go after clients living in high-income countries that pay better. A low quality translator may be content with whatever from anywhere regardless of where he/she is located. A freelancer may migrate to a low-income location to make most of what he can from high fees. No one is going to tell you that he/she is a low quality translator to explain why his/her price is low. They'll claim being able to quote cheap prices because they live in low cost locations. There's all sorts of combinations that make price and quality not always related. But a TV or a car or a plane ticket or a PC or a watch or shirt or most things are the same price anywhere and none of them are working for the food and rent only.

Everyone not just translators are working for a better life and mainly all for the same things. Hence quality, location, charge are not simply related. You can aim for one, but you won't necessarily get the other two to your 100% liking.

Quality is what you should go after as a top requirement. Bad quality is never cheap in the end, no matter how little you pay for it. Location doesn't signify what quality you'll get. If you finally decide on quality being your top requirement, go back to the top of this page and read what it says under "Quality".

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