Once you know what you’re translating, it’s time to select translation tools and services. Tip #6 will help you answer:

• How do I know if a translation service is right for me?
• Do I go with one service, or several?

Language service companies are diverse. In our industry, the vast majority of professionals are independent contractors, many of whom freelance with larger agencies. By some measures, around two thirds of language service-related companies fit this profile. There are scores of magnificent translators and translation specialists all around the world, but companies often choose to go with larger companies to achieve the scale and technology needed for business.

Of these language service companies, popular translation options include:

• Machine translation
• Post-edited machine translation
• Crowdsourced translation (itself with different types of crowdsourcing)
• In-house translation
• Freelance/independent translation
• Agency translation
• Specialist translation (i.e. legal, medical, technical)

This is not an exhaustive list, and there is often a great deal of overlap—many agencies contract with independent translators, and often offer specialist translation, for example. These different kinds of translation offer varying levels of quality, cost, speed and ease, which is why you might choose to go with one over another, and is also why we strongly recommend matching different kinds of content to each method. Pay attention to:

• Brand impact (high brand impact = use a service that promises higher quality)
• Kind of document (legal, technical, medical texts require a specialist)
• Safety impact (similar to specialized texts, find an appropriate service)
• Shelf life (shorter shelf life = use more inexpensive options)
• Volume (higher volume = look for a scalable or integrated option)
• Application (internal business use only = use cheaper/free translation options)

Still confused about which kind of translation you need? When investigating your options, do the following:

• Submit a test translation or request a trial with a translation service as you would with other vendors and assess quality with a native speaker
• Search for useful metrics and other statements of what the service does and doesn’t support to get a sense what different quality levels and price points mean across companies
• Be aware of the skill/tech gaps in your team and in your service—if you’re managing translation files using a proprietary system of your own, then you won’t need a translation management system. Don’t have internal native speakers to double-check quality or edit? Then you’ll need a service that translates at high quality, where other teams might translate everything in-house or use cheaper translation of lower quality. Mix and match translation to meet your needs.

There’s also technology to support nearly every function related to translation without offering translation as a service of its own. Many of these platforms integrate with translation services to help make the process easier for you. Here are a few common categories of translation software, with examples from Gengo’s partner ecosystem:

• File/project management for software localization, like Phrase and Transifex, among other favorites
• Social media translation, like Fliplingo
• Support translation, like Zendesk (via Transfluent plugin)
• Multimedia translation, like 3PlayMedia

Researching Gengo as a potential translation service? Talk to us today! We’d love to help.

Read all of the tips in Gengo’s Going Global Countdown:

• #1: Choose your timing and timeline
• #2: Research and choose target markets
• #3: Define your offering and level of service
• #4: Build an internationally-minded team
• #5: Craft a working translation/localization strategy
• #6: Select the best translation tools and services
• #7: Internationalize properly
• #8: Translate cleanly
• #9: Check, double check, launch
• #10: Create a great global growth machine
• #11: Round it out with multilingual support
• #12: Kaizen! Optimize

Go global with Gengo’s people-powered translation platform.

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