17 Misunderstood Facts About Translation Services

By: Rabia Tanveer Posted on Mon, 07-03-2016

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If there ever was a service severely misunderstood, it is translation services. Professional Certified Language Translators are one of the most seriously misunderstood and underappreciated professionals right after content writers. People have a lot of misconceptions about this service and because of that they ignore it. This creates a huge discrepancy in what sales they make and how many sales they could have.

Every time someone mentions using translation services, you will jump on to tell them all about weird ways translation services fool you and laugh evillywhile they roll in the money they made off you. But is that really true? Are these misunderstandings, really misunderstandings?

If you can clear these misunderstandings, you can actually get a lot of benefits out of these services. So without further ado, let us clear these misinterpretations about translation services and send you on your way to greater profits, greater market space and a making of agreatsale day.

Translation Market Is Very Small

According to many misconceptions about translation services, the translation market is very small and that most of it is filled with subpar service providers. This is, perhaps, one of the most ludicrous misinterpretations about translation services. Professional Translation Services have quickly taken a major space in the online community. Any company that wants to make a massive impact on its customers needs to use translation services. In the past 10 years, translation services have seen a tremendous growth and it is not stopping any time soon. These services are here to stay for a long, long, long time.

Translation Services Future Is Grim

Many people have the misconception that the translation services will not be needed in the future. They believe that the people who use Translation Services will get better options that are not human and will be one hundred percent free. In short, in the future human translators will not be needed at all, which is saying something because for the past decade or so, international corporations have been ditching machine translations for human translations because the results are indefinitely better. So saying that the future of translation services is grim is not really a great prediction.

Many of the translation services provide a plethora of services that are very handy in your business management, marketing and branding. Most professional companies provide services like Subtitling Services, Voice-Over Services, Interpretation Services and Transcription Services. They can also transcreate any content for you in the language of your desire. The amateur companies, sadly, do not have these services for you.

Books; That Is What Translators Work On

Many people believe that the only work translators have is when they are translating books. That is a serious misconception that must be denied at all possible opportunities. The translation community is working on more than just books. With the globalization on high demand, companies are now using Fast Translation Services for everything. They are using professional human translatorsfor product descriptions, pamphlets, brochures, ads, reports, communication reports, websites and yes, books too.

Only Bilingual People Can Translate Good

If that were true, then maybe we would never have had great translations of literature by people like Charles Baudelaire, Anthony Burgess and Whittaker Chambers. Yes, bilingual people have a great chance of becoming good translators, but translation industry is not restricted to bilingual people. Any one who knows two or more languages well can translate. There are many people learn new languages just because they want to become translators.

All Translators Can Work On All Languages

First of all, this is not humanly possible. Do you know how many languages are spoken in the world? 6,500. Now imagine a single person knowing all these languages. Yes, there are many translators who know multiple languages, but no one can know all languages and expecting someone to would be extremely mean.

It Is Only For Language Industry

The people who believe, and make others believe, that translation services are only for the language industry should rethink their choices. Perhaps, Quality Translation Services in the only service that is actually developed to help all other industries. Every sector, business type and niche market can take help from the translation industry. Even governmental organizations frequently use translation services, and almost every courthouse has at least ten to fifteen translators who can jump and provide quality translations anytime a judge requires.

Crowdsourcing Is Evil

Believing Crowdsourcing companies are an unnecessaryevil is just plain wrong. It has actually been very good for the translation industry. Many translators now have regular income because crowdsourcing made it possible for them to have frequent work. Remember that those days are gone when translators only worked for the literary agencies. Now translators are working from home out of their laptops and they don’t have to sit at a desk 9 to 5. This has allowed the crowdsourcing companies to offer services in more than 100 languages and simply make sure that if you need services in any language, you have it.

Machine Translation Rules

Here is the thing, if you require translation for something that is strictly technical and you are on hundred sure that the content you enter does not have any quirks;go ahead and maybe the machine will translate it good. However, if it is something that has even a smidgen of character and quirks, be prepared to have a gigantic pile of mess at your hands. You may have seen with your eyes what happens when you are not careful with machine translation, especially when you are using it to translate your documents into a language you don’t know.

Really, you don’t remember?Let me share some with you:

Not remembering anything?

I can go on for days…

Translation Will Be Free One Day

Would you work for someone for free? Maybe in the future, when you are in a better place? I don’t think so. Sure machine translation will be free, as it should be. However, quality translation services would never be free. It is not possible, and expecting someone to provide his or her services for free is just simply ridiculous.

So no, if you are waiting for the day these services will be free, you better forget it.

Anyone Can Translate Anything

First of all, anyone cannot translate. If you don’t know the language or you know the language “a little”, please don’t try it on your own. Because by the time you are done with it, head would be exploding and no amount of Advil will help you ease the pain. The translators can do a good job of it because it is their job. Plus, all translators do not work on anything. They have their specializations and their niches. If a translator specializes in business translations, he will not translate a literary book; say like a book of poems. Everyone has their own jobs and they will do it how it should be done. So don’t expect things that are impossible. They are translators, not superman.

All Translations Are The Same

Let me make this clear, all translations are not the same. A language pair cannot be translated the same way. Translating from English to Spanish is different from translating from Spanish to English. It may seem the same, but it is not. For example, for the former pair, you would look for a Spanish translator (meaning a person who can translate into Spanish) and for the latter; you will look for an English translator (a person who can translate into English.) So no, not all translations are the same.

Certification Is Not A Big Deal – Anyone Can Get It

Was it easy for you to get your college degree? Then why do you think it is easy to get certified? Translators have to work tooth and nail to get their certification. Many times, the translators have to apply more than once to get their certification because it is that difficult. Plus, after they do get their certification, they have to pass countless other tests to get a job, especially if they are working for a crowdsourcing company because their tests are the toughest of them all.

Translation Services Are Very Expensive

All right, whoever started this misconception is clearly living in the 80s or he or she has been fooled by one too many amateur translation services. Quality translation services or any Language Translator for that matter are not that expensive. They have fixed rates yes, but these rates are also very affordable. You don’t have to worry about sending a ton of money on a single document because if you have studied the market recently, you will notice that all the good and experienced services have competitive rates.

Translation Services Are Very Cheap

*Queue eye roll* you should be expecting that. Document Translation Services are not expensive, but they are not that cheap as well. What do you think; translators live in the 17th century where a penny was a great pay day? Remember, translation services have competitive rates, meaning, they will fall in your budget and make you declare bankruptcy after you pay them.

One Translator Is Enough

Yeah, and tacos are not Mexican *major eye roll*. Your source language content holds a lot of value. If your source content is not written that good, expect the translation to have some flaws as well. The source content needs to be perfect. There should be no grammatical errors, spelling mistakes or structural issues, because the translator will translate it as it is. So make sure that your source content is in good condition before you send it forward.

Everyone Translates The Same Way

Not everyone can translate the same way. Every translator has their own methodology and their own time division. If your previous translator translated a 10,000 words document in two days, your new translator would not be able to handle that the same way. In fact, he or she would definitely handle it the same way. You see translators are craftsmen and women. Just like every carpenter works in a different way and uses the same technique in a different way, translators do the same. Translation is an art people, and there is no right or wrong way of it.

The translation industry is very big. Translators from all over the world work together to create a masterpiece for you that is as good as the original. However, such misinterpretation can put a dent in their income.

Of course, there is also the fact that such misunderstood facts stop you from using a service that can help bring in that extra crowd in who will bring you some major sales.

With the Internet, there is nothing that can’t happen. Companies are expanding, creating new market spaces (and getting insanely rich, might I add) because they were brave enough to take a chance with translation services and it paid off.

They may have heard of these rumors before, but they took a chance and see where they are. 80% of the multinational companies hire translation agencies to help them with their immense workload.

If they didn’t take this chance, they would have been sitting here, making the same mistakes that countless companies make; ignore translation services and the profit they can bring to their companies. The choice is really yours, my friend. You can either choose to stay on the dark side and pay the price or you can choose the light and start rolling in money and great fortune.