Your business is thriving and you are thinking about taking it to the next level by bringing it to the international scene. In order to do that, you know you need to reach your new customers in their native tongues. So, you have looked into multiple translation agencies and thought some of their prices were very steep. Many of your friends have told you that they are using free software to translate their personal letters and it seems to work great. Little do they know that the software will give you a context but will make mistakes after mistakes.

Software such as Babel Fish; Word Lingo and many others should never be used for business purposes. The software is inexact and cannot be a substitute for a live translator. Even simple words are not translated correctly. Many of our clients used a software before using our services to translate from English to French and this is a sample of what happened

"He has a heart" became "he has a center"; "the document is free" was translated to "the document has freedom", "the core values" by the "nuts values", "the wine list is great" by "the wine list is big" and the list goes on and on.

Another one had his web site done completely by a software and after many native customers told him that his site was full of mistakes, hard to understand, and that they were not sure they wanted to buy his products, he came to us for a quote and a review. After taking a look, we explained to him that every other sentence had grammatical errors, misspelled words, wrong genders, wrong preposition and he hired us to make the necessary corrections. Unfortunately for that client he lost many customers because of a job poorly done by the software and he had to spend more money to rebuild his professional image.

If you need your paperwork translated accurately, it needs to be done from one language to another by a native speaker. So if you want your Chinese document translated into Russian, you need a Russian translator who knows the Chinese language almost like a native. If your document is from Italian to French, you need a native French speaker who knows Italian, etc.

In the USA, the translation industry is not regulated by the government, so the services and the prices offered will often in times change from one agency to another. A reputable translation agency can bill you up to $0.45 per original word depending on the complexity of the project and if the targeted language is considered a rare language or not.

When planning for your translation budget, plan it accordingly to the number of hours you or another professional have spent working on it. So if it took you 50 hrs to have your technical manual done, it will take at least 50 hrs to have it translated. This will give you a rough estimate on how much a professional agency will charge you.

If you are not completely convinced that a professional agency is worth the money, and you are determined to still have a software translating all your documents, then you must hire a native speaker to edit your papers or website. The ultimate decision should be based on what you want to accomplish. Do you want to maintain a professional image and have it done correctly? Or do you want to spend more money in trying to fix the damages caused by a bad translation?

M. Blanc owns Hi-DefinitionStudios and has worked as a writer and translator for 20 years. She collaborates with Tectrad, a professional agency delivering timely and accurate French English translations to many large international corporations since 1989. Tectrad's high-fidelity translation services will help you reach an increasing number of foreign clients or customers at http://www.tectrad.com/en/translation-services.htm