When you need regular translations, how do translation services compare to company staff?

If you have dealings in several languages and require translation services, do you simply assign translation to someone in your company who speaks both the languages or do you hire a translator? There is also a third option in that you can employ a translation agency. Which option you choose depends, of course, upon your own needs and requirements.Generally speaking, I would advise against simply asking somebody in your company who speaks both the necessarily languages, but who isn’t a trained language expert or translator to do the translation. This is a potentially disastrous option, because translation requires more than merely a knowledge of two different languages. It also requires that a person has excellent writing skills. This is especially true if any of the translated material is destined  to be read outside the company or by a larger  company.   Have you ever seen a packaging of a toy made in China, where the packaging was actually done by a Chinese company? You’ll find that this sort of packaging employs very bad English. You see here the results of not employing truly professional translation services.   So, whether you have your translation done in-house or hire a translation agency, one thing is certain, and that is that you need to get your translation done by someone who has been trained in translation. Now, whether you employ your own panel of translators or hire a translation agency depends upon the volume of material you need to have translated. If you have a large amount of material passing through your company that needs to be translated between two languages, then it really is your most viable and economical option to hire one or more translators and keep them on board in your company to translate this material. Not only will the translation be more economical in such a situation, but you’ll also get your results quicker. And if you need some particular document translation to be done  in a hurry, you can have it translated almost instantaneously. In such a case, choosing a competent translator or translators is very important and is not easy.So how do you go about choosing a competent translator? It’s very simple. You need to have some material in one language and have the translator translate it into the second language. Then you need to have a native speaker in the second language look at this material and ensure that it is without flaw. This is a crucial second step when you’re choosing your translator, because this ensures your translator actually can deliver the goods.Also, bear in mind that whatever employees you set to the tasks of translations,  will be drawing their salaries by only working upon translations. If your business revolves around translations, then this is an acceptable option, but if a translation is only accidental to your business, then you may consider whether it is more viable to have an employee working full time upon the translations or whether it is more viable to hire a translation agency.Now, there are certain advantages to hiring translation services when you need a translation. For one thing, most of these services actually employ freelance translators to do the job required and have a large database of these freelance translators on hand. This means that they have a larger group of skills available to choose form, and can pick and choose the translator who is most likely to fit your needs.Best of all, a professional service will ensure that quality is delivered. Professional translation services will also be more adaptable in terms of volume. If you need a single sheet of paper translated, they can do that. But if you need a large volume of material translated, then they can handle that as well.Remember when you hire your own translator that most translators will not be able to handle more than about two thousand words a day, so if you have a larger volume than this, it might be crucial to your business to hire translation services instead.