Good translation agency? - Sworn Chinese Translation Agency
Sworn Chinese translations and Chinese interpreting
If you search the internet for the words ‘translation agency’, you will get more than 1 million hits. That is not so strange as anyone can call themselves a translator. After all, the title is not protected in any way.
How do you find a good translation agency? It can indeed be difficult because you yourself are mostly not in a position to check the end result. If you can do the final check yourself, then maybe you do not need a translation agency any more. Of course you can check the translators’ education, experience and references, but more important is the quality control that is performed and the use of translation tools.
Some agencies offer translation services for dozens of languages. Very often the agency consist of a few people who only outsource the work. Sometimes the work is again outsourced by the second party. The work that is delivered to the agency goes straight to you without any further checking. You pay a substantial margin on the price without getting any added value for it. So you pay too much.
The better agencies do the translation work independently, make use of advanced translation tools, and have organised their own quality control system. As regards the quality control systems, you must take into account the amount of work that is offered for the language concerned. An agency that offers 25 languages, and says that it does the final check itself, will possibly have someone in permanent employment who must carry out the checks for the common languages such as English. For the more exotic languages such as Chinese and Japanese, in general they do not employ a permanent editor because the demand for these languages is too small. For these languages many larger translation agencies will only function as an intermediary.
This is different in a specialised company. For LBS, Chinese and Japanese are not exotic languages; we work with nothing else all day!
So for you as a potential client it is important to go deeply into the agency's speciality, the quality control and the use of translation software. In addition it is important that your translation is always carried out by someone who has the target language as their mother tongue.
LBS is specialised in the Chinese, Japanese, English and Dutch languages. We only use translators who translate into their mother tongue and mostly live in the country where your translation is going to be used. This guarantees up-to-date use of the language as it is also used by your local target group. We also use the newest translation tools. In this way we can guarantee the quality and consistency of our translations even more. For the use of these tools, database (‘translation memories’) are created containing client-specific terminology and then used for each successive translation. In this way your specific translations are always carried out using the same memory, whereby the same translations are always used. In addition, for each new commission a check is first carried out automatically against your database. For all the exact matches in the translation you receive a discount on the following translation.
Apart from what is mentioned above, you have yet another guarantee with LBS. For each Chinese translation a final check on your translation is carried out by a sworn translator who is registered in the Rbtv (Register beëdigde tolken en vertalers or Register of sworn interpreters and translators)! If required we can also officially certify the translation with the appropriate stamps and signature.
TIP: Many translation agency websites are set up in more than one language. Compare the Dutch text to the English translation of their own website. This often gives a clear image of the quality that will or will not be provided.
