How to choose the best translation company?

Have you ever thought how much care is needed in selecting your translating company or translator? It is as important as planning your strategy in other important domains of your business! Even a slight mistake on your part in selecting a worthless company or person would be disastrous for your business objective!

Communication is one of the most important pillars in any successful transaction – business is not an exception. If you want to thrive, you must select proper persons in your business to head various departments so that they communicate properly to take the business ahead by talking sensibly and aptly. In the same way, if you want to convey your thoughts to your employees, business partners or the public you must do it in a proper way so that what you want to convey is exactly conveyed! Here comes your skill in selecting a right company for translating all your ideas and thoughts!

If you, for instance want to select a translating company or translator to translate certain source documents that may be related to patents, legal disputes, marketing (advertisements), financial transactions including taxes, health care, food items or processing, government contracts or other government dealings, medicines, science, technology, travel, tourism etc. If your business is connected to any of these domains, be very very careful in choosing the proper translating company or translator!

Think of a company or translator you have save money or due to immense propaganda on the part of the company or individual and the output of the translated document you receive from it or the person. You were in a hurry; you wanted to get the job done at a cheaper rate; you never bothered to check the back ground; and so on. What you got is like this:

You indicated in the source text: 1 tsp

Think of a company or translator you ha once and the translated text shows 1 tbs once!

Your text shows payment of 1000 and the target text shows it 10000!!

You wanted to pay for 4 months and the target text translated shows 4 years!!!

You realize the mistake after the damage is done! In some cases, the translating company or the translator does not understand the end client’s culture and may use a term in the target text that may mean vulgar or detrimental to your business purpose. By the time you realize this, you would have spent a few thousands!

It reminds us the famous anecdote where, in the last moment before a person was to be hanged, the result of mercy petition was conveyed through a telegram, instead of “hang him not, release!”   as,  “hang him, not release!” A small mistake in placing the comma correctly, a punctuation error, cost the life of an innocent person!

In computer terminology, it is said “GIGO” – Garbage in, garbage out! What you feed is what you get!! In the same way, if you run after a cheap and worthless company or person, you get the result also to that extent!!

There are some companies engaged in translation who, without having any knowledge about the intricacies involved, try to become rich on your money and on some poor translator’s efforts! Remember – they are mere merchants. Just by speaking a few languages or owning a few dictionaries will not make a good company or translator! Even a person may be very strong in two languages but he/she may be a poor translator!! All bilinguals need not be good translators but all translators must be very good bilinguals!

In our company we check all these while selecting experts. People come with all sorts of stories to hype their chances. But by applying a few tests, we can easily recognize whether the individual is capable or not.

If you are really interested to carry on your business/trade successfully, please remember the following before selecting a translation company or a free lancer:

01. The person heading or owning the company must be thorough in the languages he/she is dealing or should have someone capable of doing this instead of depending on a few persons whose faces are unseen and transactions were done through a few tests that do not actually bring the worth of the persons selected.

02. Never be carried away by tall talks like we do it for you at cheaper rates or we do it faster than others etc. If you want quality, pay the right price for it! Each translation has its own merit. Some, being simple, may take less time and some being too complex may take more time. Hence do not force your time but try to find out the actual time required and also check if there is justification for this!

03. Never go to a company that uses machines or software for translation or non-natives or in-experienced translators since they do not work well for some languages, especially a language like Tamil or Sanskrit! Never be carried away by the so called Translation Memories because nothing can excel the human translation or human memory! The principle of “GIGO” applies to these memories!! Further, remember that you are charged for the cost of all these infra structures!! There are a lot of words and terms that you cannot find in a target language conveying exactly the same meaning as the source text. Besides, even though they might have supplied you translation memory that remembers a similar previous sentence on which you need not pay, there is every likelihood in the TMs mentioning a wrong translation due to a minor change in the source text with 99.99% remaining intact and this 0.01 would make a hell unless there is human intervention! Here comes the human intelligence to coin an apt term or word which the software or TMS can never help and it will be a sheer wastage of time.  

04. Remember each coin you pay for a good translation must worth the return! If you want a text that is meant to earn the Nobel Prize, then you must pay it accordingly. Instead, if you choose to pay a few penny, you will get a scrap only!

05. We feel pleasure in quoting Roger Chriss, Language Realm, U.S.A. rbchriss@languagerealm.com, 

www.languagerealm.com

“There is a Golden Triangle in any form of business. It is an equilateral triangle (meaning that all three sides are the same size), with the first side being Quality, the second, Time, and the last, Price. If you consider an ideal project to be a balance of all three, and therefore rest in the centre of the triangle, you can see what happens when you want to lower costs (imagine your job moving toward the Price side). Quality goes down and Time remains the same. If you want a cheap job done quickly, then Quality really drops. Conversely, if you want a job whose Quality is excellent, then Price and Time both rise.” Keep this in mind when you want to assign a translation job. The company or the individual engaged in translation will also keep these in mind as such you must see whether there is justification.

06. "No detail is too small and no effort is too great." This maxim must be remembered by you as well as the company or person whom you assign the translation job.

07. Always enter into a contract with a specific clause stating that if there is a loss of business or reputation due to poor translation, (which, of course, you have got to prove), then the company or the person translating the source target will be fully responsible for such damages and is liable to compensate as decided by the appropriate judicial system.

08. Never believe in the myth that a translation company or translator based in the same locality as yours can render the best quality service. The world has shrunk due to significant technological strides. Nothing is impossible as time or distance constraints will be nothing nowadays. You get anything from any part of the world in a couple of hours. Then why to stick to local companies or people without trying others to have the best? Remember to get always the best for the price you pay which should be reasonable and at the same time you should not be taken for a ride!

  

09. Ensure that you get after sales service free of charge for a fortnight after delivery so that any corrections, suggestions that may be needed can be got done without additional cost.

When it is Tamil and English always think of DoBash Trans. Why? Because:

01. We fulfil all the points raised above and your work is safe in our hands. We cater in a language that is native to our owner, CEO and all those who work for us. Besides, we have experts who have better level of education, either in translation or linguistics, writing skills, high level of understanding the modern usage, variations, cross cultural influences, slangs, dialects etc of the languages handled.

02. Expertise both in the general as well as specialized/Technical terms. For this, we have compiled our own dictionary consisting of correct terms for more complex usage. This dictionary has more than 1, 00,000 special words that you cannot find in any other dictionary since these were coined by us due to our expertise. These have received kudos from our clients and other organizations. This is meant exclusively for our use and not for sale.

03. Even though our experts work on any type of source texts and translate them in a manner better than the source, we do not rest at it. Every completed job coming to the table of our CEO has to pass her thorough check before passed on to the clients. Due to this, our job is not charged extra for review or proof reading and the rates are all inclusive. Till date there has been no complaint.

04. Our experts have better computing skills, are aware of the latest applications and their usage for faster turnaround.

05. Our clients include all types of people and companies – a small entrepreneur to a giant conglomeration both within India and abroad.

06. We are able to keep down our cost to fit into the budget of the clients by proper management of our overheads and infrastructures that normally other companies charge the clients.

07. We are happy to say that our clients are very satisfied and conveyed to us that their business could grow well by attracting more customers not only to their products and services but also to their web sites. They have better sales figures and rating. Their return on investment and net worth has increased after their tie-up with us.

08. If need be we arrange for certification of documents by our CEO as well as notaries at nominal costs especially in the case of vital documents.

09. Above all we rely on human brains and not machines or software.

10. Lastly, we confirm our commitment to the clients which is paramount to us and we do not compromise on this. Client satisfaction is all and the only motto. 

Affordable Tamil to English and English to Tamil Translation

We first thank all those clients who were sensible enough to identify the companies that took them for a joy trip hitherto and switched over to us. Unfortunately, for most of the economic ills faced by the countries in Europe and the USA, it is their failure to communicate properly and perceive the right thing timely. This is what most of the companies that still stick to their existing translation companies do. A day will come they will also realize their follies and agree to what we had mentioned in our previous article.

There is still time. They should try at least once Dobash Trans to know what we say is correct or not. In Dobash Trans, we not only engage natives (since all natives need not be experts and all experts need not be natives) for translation jobs, but also ensure that they are at least graduates both in Tamil and English. All jobs are certified by our CEO after finally checked by an expert before passing on to our esteemed client. Unlike other companies, our CEO is an expert linguist in Tamil and English. Normally in most of the companies they invest money to make money and are not aware of the alphabets of languages handled by them. They engage language experts but they cannot check whether what they render is as per the languages they handle. They totally depend on their in house or freelance linguists who may not be natives or well qualified.

Often, our new clients happen to be government agencies and private firms who need to enhance the quality of translated work that was delivered to them by other companies. At Dobash, we are gladly willing to evaluate and improve the quality of translations performed by other companies. If you have ever been frustrated by mediocre translation and are seeking a quality solution that befits the stature of an organisation such as yours, look no further.

At Dobash, we do not offer a “cookie-cutter” translation service like most of the translation companies do but we have the best solutions for customers according to their requirements, products, company, location etc. 

Our translation and DTP experts can handle anything in Tamil and English.  The rates are always quoted here after seeing the job to assess its complexity, duration required to complete, number of persons needed to do it etc. We do not charge separately for each sector and add to quote but we have our standard rates for each type of job. Our rates are inclusive of translation or DTP work, review, proof reading and certification. We do not charge any rush fee. For instance if we charge USD 150 for 1000 words or USD 10 for a normal DTP job, if you approach other companies you will be asked to pay USD 300 to 350 or more for translation or  USD 35 or more for the same DTP job. Out of this, they will pay their translation/DTP experts just 1/3^rd and get a bad work for you whereas we pay 2/3^rd and get a quality job for you.

Normally when there is a huge volume of work discount is given and translation companies are also not an exception. Dobash Trans allows you discount @5% if the job exceeds 1000 words whereas other companies may allow you discount only when the word count exceeds 5000 and probably less than what we offer.

We always stick to our commitments. We do not compromise quality just to get a work. Due to this we may commit to do a job in 10 days which other companies may agree to do just in 2 days. You must always see the compare the quality in such a case and not force for faster completion.

Certain documents need to be certified and notarized especially for date of birth, place of birth, legal documents related to property, marriage etc. While others charge you separately for this, we do not charge anything extra if your document needs notarization.

We have summarized below what we want to know about us and other companies. There may be a few companies offering the same services that we offer but what we have mentioned is the situation prevailing inb most of the translation companies.

There are a lot of things to be discussed like this. If you have any specific question(s) for your job you are always welcome to contact us. We will be pleased to assist you. Why don't you try us once and feel the difference in translate we actually advertise? Please visit us at www.dobash.com  

Function	Dobash Trans	Others
Translation and DTP	Done by a graduate native, reviewed by another and proofread by two persons who are graduates. Each job at final stage is checked by an expert who is a post graduate or a PhD. Company is managed by person well versed in the languages translated with vast experience.	Mostly done by one person at each stage who may or may not be qualified. Company is mostly managed by people not knowing the language translated.
Rate	Our rates include translation, review, proofreading by two persons and final check by an expert along with free formatting. Thus, you can get the job done at less than 50% of what others charge and yet get a better return.	Mostly you are charged separately for translation, review, proofreading by one person without any expert checking. Yet you get a poor job. You have to pay doubly.
Quality	Our quality is better as we get the job done by natives who are at least graduates in the language and our translation is done by post graduates who are natives also. Further we pay well our experts so that they turn out perfect jobs with sincerity and dedication.	Most of these people make money from you but pay far less than what we pay. They are unaware that they get cheap product by paying cheap.
Discount	For any translation exceeding 1000 words, we provide 5% discount.	Mostly they provide discount if the word count exceeds 5000 to 10000.
Quantum	We do not ask our translators to turn more than 800 words in a day since as per research more than this causes strain and mars the quality. The rest of the time we check through review and proof reading to ensure perfect quality.	Mostly than insist more than 1500 words per day which causes a lot of errors and delay the project besides affecting the goal of their clients.
Commitment	We do not commit to get the work but our commitments are based on several factors, the main being the turning round the best quality job and client satisfaction. We strictly adhere to our commitment without any dilly dallying.	Mostly they promise a lot to get work and then leave you in trot.
Rush fee	We do not charge if we undertake the job.	Mostly they charge between 10 to 25% extra.
Certification	We certify for quality and correctness and notarize if needed.	Mostly they do not follow this practice.