Professional translation services may not be something that you originally accounted for in your budget, so you might be interested in ways to reduce transation costs. As a business owner, you are probably aware that the most successful companies communicate in more than one language. Translating your content is therefore the path to boosting your company's growth and enlarging your global footprint. You can reap huge benefits by overcoming the language barrier because it enables you to capture new markets. You have probably also considered the risk involved in using amateur or online translation tools to present your personal brand to foreign countries and the devastating impact they could have on your international image. Lucky for you, there are some measures you could take to reduce translation costs and make your translation project within your budget.
4 ways in which you can reduce translation costs
If you are outsourcing your translation project and have done some research regarding the matter, you are probably aware of the hefty price tag that comes with language services. But, what if your budget does not allow you to go all out and spend your company money on translation services? We have made a list of methods you can follow to deal with this situation and reduce translation costs.
How can you reduce translation costs?
- Plan your content:
Translation costs are dictated by the word count in your source text. This is a huge advantage for translation buyers because it allows you to manipulate the final translation costs to make them fit within your budget once you have been informed of the rates. Your source text should only contain essential information that addresses the audience's needs and should be written in simple language. Do not overcomplicate your text. The smaller the word count, the more affordable your translation project will be.
- Reuse your content:
Professional translation agencies use computer-assisted translation tools. You can get huge discounts for repeated sentences because they are only subject to translation once before they are stored in translation memories. The translator is therefore only translating the sentence once and then applies the translation automatically the second time an identical sentence appears. For example: Use this twice: our hotel offers customers a wide range of comfortable rooms, with views over the mountains and sea. Do not use: our hotel offers customers a wide range of comfortable rooms, with views over the mountains and sea and: our hotel offers visitors a variety of comfortable rooms, with views by the mountains and sea. Both statements carry the same meaning and provide an identical description for your hotel rooms. Using the same statement twice will guarantee reduced translation costs because the translator applies the translation automatically, which requires minimal effort.
- Make the most of technology:
If your translation content is embedded in non-editable format, make sure you extract it before proceeding to requesting a quote. Professional translation agencies provide text-extraction services, but they will unfortunately request additional pay. If your document is an uneditable PDF document, try to find the original Word document, or spend some time extracting the content in an editable format, such as a Word document or a PowerPoint. This will help reduce translation costs because you are narrowing the service and centralising the process on translation.
- Plan ahead:
Requesting a translation within a tight deadline will only lead to an unnecessary increase in the price tag. Make sure you plan ahead and give your language provider a comfortable timeframe to deliver the assignment in order to reduce translation costs. Not only will this help you save money, but it will also reduce stress and allow for a more accurate and smooth turnaround. Most translation buyers hesitate to invest in translation because it is beyond their means. Unfortunately, business owners who translate their content by themselves or with the help of bilingual in-house staff who have no knowledge of translation can sometimes end up paying a higher price. Read more about the consequences of a bad translation at: https://www.pangeanic.com/diary-inhouse-translator/how-much-does-a-bad-translation-cost/
