We live in a multicultural world. English is the main language in business, a position that is now being challenged by Mandarin Chinese. 8.3% and 7% of the world’s population speak Hindi and Spanish respectively.
The fact that a company’s sales will rapidly increase if they reach other cultures is clear, and translation is the tool to achieve it. But how do we approach translation? What is the difference between a translation agency and a freelance translator? Who should we hire when we need our text to be written in another language?
First, let’s establish their differences.
A freelance translator:
- is a single individual
- will usually charge less
- only works with a limited number of languages
- usually translates into their native language only
- may be busy to take on more projects
A translation agency:
- is a team of project managers and linguists
- may charge a bit more (not always)
- works with multiple languages, to and from
- can cover the whole process of translation + quality checking
- keeps its own terminology databases updated
- is able to accept all projects
Both freelance translators and translation companies are more than capable of handling all our linguistic needs – written translation, video and audio transcription, text revision and proofreading, subtitling, oral translation or interpreting…
So now the real question – who should we hire for our translation needs? Well, that really depends on the size of the project and the turnaround time. If it is a small project with only one language and we are not in a hurry, then our best option would be a freelance translator. However, if it involves more than one language and/or it is rather urgent, then we should definitely get a translation agency that will streamline the process – will advise you on the best computer-assisted translation tools, will manage the translation and proofreading process and will probably deliver the work faster.
Swift Lingua is a translation company made up of professionals with more than ten years of experience. Our job is to meet your company’s linguistic needs – we have worked in many fields along our trajectory and we are sensitive to the linguistic requirements of our clients.