Let’s start this post with a single question: Why is it important to hire a professional translator? After all, why shell out that extra cash from your wallet if you can just use machine translation sites like Google Translate and Bing Microsoft Translator? Those are free sites whereas a good translation service can end up costing a notable amount, especially if you translate a lot of content.

If you are an entrepreneur working in many different countries, have many foreign clients, or deal with contracts that involve companies from other countries, you know the importance of an accurate and reliable translation service. Translation can allow you to communicate and expand your products and services to other countries.  This could result in the revelation of a whole new market for your business that might not have been possible to get with just one language. And as important as translation itself, so is the quality and accuracy of the translation.

Sure, you can use machine translation, but translation isn’t simply about translating individual words and putting them together. Grammatical structures, verb conjugations, literal vs interpretive definitions, etc. are all important factors that need to be considered. Another important factor that is involved in translation is the cultural use of the language and vocabulary in different regions.  For example, take the Spanish phrase “por si las moscas.” What does it mean? In Spanish, it literally means “for if the flies.” Makes sense? Probably not. It is a common phrase that means “just in case”. This is the interpretive definition, and to get this, verbatim translation just doesn’t work.

High quality and accurate translation is needed also to make sure important legal documents, such as contracts, are accurately translated. Verbatim or machine translation might miss some crucial details or the essence of the contract and can also lead to potential disagreements, even legal issues due to the misunderstandings. It is a safer investment to use a high quality translation service. Also, you want a translator or an agency that knows that its translators are proficient in the languages they translate, and can guarantee you a translation that is correct and accurate.

In the end, translation can play important role in increasing business and can enable you to expand the market for your services, and equally important is having an accurate, experienced, and reliable translator or translation agency. So next time you are looking for professional and accurate translation, hire a professional translator or translation agency rather than relying on free machine translations.