You can’t expect the different target audiences for your professional translation to see your message in the same way. Unless it’s a legal document, like a birth certificate or a contract, you will have to get the document translator to translate your information to suit different readers. This will mean your translator has to carefully go through each section to ensure the text focuses on the audience.
Not every native speaker is a good translator:
Translation requires a person who has experience translating documents because of the importance of accuracy. There is a distinct difference between a bilingual person doing translations and a specialist document translator who is also bilingual. Before a translator is employed to take on a task he or she should be asked to translate a paragraph to ensure the style and tone of the translation fits the desired audience.
The value of a translation agency:
Translation agencies may be more impersonal than a freelance translator, however, once you have had one translation completed they will keep your translation on file so the style can be used for further translations. Translation software is used by agencies too which means different documents from the same client can be checked for consistency.
Success of the translators’ translations depends on what they are told:
When hiring a professional translator it’s necessary to tell the person who will read the document, what dialect should be used and what style of language is required.
Don’t forget to get an editor to check the translation:
Get a native speaker to check the translation for grammatical errors and stylistic problems.
Go for a perfect translation:
If you want to see the difference between a good translation and a poor translation, select a bit of text copy it into Google Translate and see the results. You will notice that the translation is far from perfect. You should offer the same piece of text to your chosen translator or translation agency and compare the two results. You should see a far better translation from a human translator than any machine translation. The human translator can adjust style and voice which machine translators have difficulty doing.
