Translation company in St. Petersburg:
Myths and realities

It is remarkable that in each service industry or professional activity there is a history and the certain traditions which have arisen from the Soviet past. For certain you faced that in the shops trading Chinese or Turkish jeans, sellers convince customers that their goods are from Europe and the USA; and home appliances are exclusively of Japanese assemblage. Cosmetics selling from their hands are natural, and are cheap simply because it is sells on streets. It is the same with translation companies - there are very many myths in their activity.

Myth №1 - ''Translation of texts into any languages of the world''.

If you see such announcement in advertising - you are deceived. Even if translators work at home how huge should be a staff in such translation company!  For each such translator knowing one of the languages, qualified editor is necessary for reading and text editing. Otherwise it can be happened so that translator from a Hindi or a Hebrew will write complete nonsense, and there will be nobody to correct it. Customer will be not satisfied by work of the translation company and hardly will make use of its services in the future. Furthermore, translators and editors of translation agencies, knowing rare languages, will not work for a paltry sum of money - there is always demand for their work. That is why unfair companies often give such orders to “first comer”. After similar actions customer hardly will receive a high-quality translation. For example, it was also such when customer received the finished work, and already then it found out that the text is translated into other language.

Myth №2 - ''Translation of texts of any subjects''.

If you see such announcement somewhere - you are deceived. How do you think, how much qualitatively is possible to perform the translation to "home" translation company consisting of several persons, then without losing sight of the customer to earn money? Many texts of narrow subjects cannot be translated competently, without having serious experience of translation on the given subject. That is why assertions of translation company consisting of one or two persons, that they professionally translate technical, law, medical and other texts, raise doubts.

Myth №3 - ''Urgent translation of any complexity without quality loss''.

Again, reading such nonsense, you should understand that you are deceived. It is clear that the customers poorly understanding in subtleties of professional translation activity will actively address to the translation company which so operatively consulting with urgent orders. But the skilled philology expert hardly will declare that it is possible to translate 2500-3000 pages a day qualitatively. Poor-quality translation is a serious risk for your reputation.

Uniting all 3 aforementioned promises, we receive literally the following: ''Our translation company can translate study of new tendencies in metal working into a Hindi within 24 hours!'' What should you think? It is clear that sensible translation is not possible within one day, and hardly even native speaker of a Hindi can something to understand. The skilled specialist of translation company, specified in technical texts, certainly will tell that sometimes more than one day can be spent only for searches of meaning of some terms in any language. For full translation of technical text even professionals having the certain experience of work on the given technical speciality, should look through many dictionaries and additional literature on the given subject.

Myth №4 - ''Our services are cheap because we co-operate with translators who live in small towns of Russia and the CIS countries''.

If you have seen such announcement – run away from such company. It is simply masterpiece of play jack with potential customers. Translators living in significant removal from Moscow and St. Petersburg, nowadays have earnings comparable to earnings of metropolitan colleagues. The reason for it is Internet. If translation agency co-operates with freelancers - what difference could be where this person lives: in Moscow, Minsk, Voronezh or Kharkov? Unique criterion of selection of remote employees is their professionalism.

Few words about new directions in work of professional translation company in St. Petersburg:

1. The number of customers, preferring to address to professional translation companies instead of separate private persons, recently has much more increased. The Russian market of translations replenishes with companies from St. Petersburg, and the number of foreign agencies and freelance translators gradually decreases.

2. At the moment, there are many "home" translation companies exist in St. Petersburg (so called fly-by-nights companies) which cannot compete to serious professional translation companies. Small translation companies do not do anything such, for what they could be held criminally liable. Simply results of their work not always satisfy customers, as it appears after.