Do you want to have articles translated and are you looking for a translator or translation agency? Good move! You may have no idea what to look out for and what is essential to know before taking a chance with a translator. Here are 5 tips to ensure that you will receive a professional and error-free article.

Euro-Com’s translators translate all kinds of articles. From scientific articles to newspaper articles. Our translators are natives, know about the exact right tone for your article and area of publication and are familiar with all the language and culture differences. Thanks to our many years of experience, we know everything about translating articles – so it’s about time to share it with you!

Don’t use free online translations from Google Translate, for example

You have written your article with care. Or had it written. You probably want it to be just as valuable in the other language and that it reads as well as the original article. Free translation services such as Google Translate and Deepl seem to translate quite nicely when you enter a single word or a short sentence. Yet there are some disadvantages to it:
• Your article to be translated loses its character.
• The translation is literal (word for word), which means that there will be grammar issues.
• Articles translated for free do not read well and are often incorrect.

Google Translate is most definitely a brilliant invention, but not suitable for the professional and correct translation of your article. Do you want to use your translated article online? Google recognises articles submitted by an automated tool (without human revision) as automatically generated content. This means that Google does not assign value to your article and therefore doesn’t index or show it when someone searches for it. At worst, Google does index your automatically translated article, albeit as spam. That will not be of benefit to your website. Oh, and good to know; free is never completely free. In this case, you pay with the article to be translated. After all, after translation your text becomes the property of the translation machine.

Choose a translator with a good understanding of the subject

Translating a scientific article? This is best done by a translator with good (language) knowledge of your industry. No matter how well your article is put together – a translator must know what she or he is working on. Without in-depth knowledge, a mistake is easily made; words in a different order can change the entire context of your scientific article. You may expect that everyone who pretends to be a translator actually knows the ropes and has knowledge of the type of text and the subject. This is not true. Anyone can be a translator as it’s an unrestricted profession. That is precisely what makes it so important that you know who you engage and what they do for you. But how do you find a good translator? And how can you be sure that you only have the very best translators working on your articles? Grace, our Vendor Manager, ensures that Euro-Com always (yes, really) has good translators for you – with knowledge of your speciality. Only 1% of interested translators makes it through our selection process.

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Submit your (PDF) article in the most convenient way (and reduce costs)

Is your article to be translated a PDF file? In that case, the translation process works slightly differently to a “normal” text file. For translators it’s not a case of opening the article and starting the translation. It’s most convenient, cheapest and most efficient if you provide the entire content of your PDF (text, images, text in images, captions – everything you want translated) in a text file. Is that not possible and can you only provide us with a PDF file? In that case the translation agency will need more time to translate your article. Don’t worry, we will always find the best way to extract everything from your PDF.

Also read → Having a PDF translated; this is what you need to know

Take a delivery time into account

We get it; you prefer to have your translated article delivered today. Nevertheless, it’s good to take a delivery time into account. On average, a translator translates about 2,500 to 3,000 words per day. Not only the number of hours a translator works and her or his productivity affect the time upon which you will receive your translation. The level of the text, your briefing, the collaboration with project managers and extensive quality control also influence the delivery time. For some translators the delivery time can be very short (no quality checks, blindly taking over machine translations), but if you want to be sure that your article has been translated correctly… take a delivery time into account.

Do you have a long article to translate with many words? Get in touch with our project managers who will be happy to give you an estimated delivery time for your translated article. No time to wait? Euro-Com also offers urgent translations and in this respect our project managers are happy to help you as well!

Comparing prices of translation agencies? Look beyond the final total

It makes sense to request quotes from multiple translation agencies for the translation of articles. And it also makes sense to compare the fees. Nobody likes paying too much. It would, however, be smart to not only look at the total amount, but also at what you’re getting for that amount. A translation agency that does not work with correction rounds and has no quality process in place may seem quite cheap at first glance. But what if your translated article contains a major error? (Just think of which was about King Willem Alexander who fell victim to a translation error in Mexico making him come across as being incredibly rude.)

At Euro-Com you will always receive – within 2 hours – a tailor-made quote. No unexpected costs afterwards, no unpleasant surprises. Why we do it this way and what the determining price factors are? You can read that here → Quote from a translation agency; why tailor-made and what are you actually paying for?

Need a quote for the translating of articles? You will receive it within 2 hours!

Want to know what it costs to have your article translated? Request a quote for the translation of your articles. We will let you know the price of the article to be translated within two hours. And as mentioned before; without unpleasant surprises or additional costs afterwards.