Idiomatic CANADA Case Study: Working with a translator vs. with a translation company

Working with a translator vs. with a translation company

In the past, the translation industry was often referred to as the “biggest industry you’ve never seen.” Translation forms part of a $47B language services market that, if done well, shouldn’t be noticed – after all, we only ever see the internet memes showing examples of poor translations.

Within the segment, there are countless good translators who specialize in many, many things, however, even the best translators are limited by the number of words they can translate per day, and the languages they translate into and out of.

Additionally, an individual translator is merely that – an individual. They may go on vacation, get sick, and just be too busy to take on any more work. A company on the other hand, consists of multiple people and multiple linguists. Idiomatic offers a one stop shop for our clients‘ language services needs.

Price Savings

Let’s be honest, money talks! When deciding whether to work with a language service provider, price is an extremely important factor. When working together with Idiomatic Canada, the benefits of scale that we can leverage through our network of translators can lead to significant cost savings for our clients.

This can especially be true for companies that have a large demand of language services, so much that they have hired “in house” translators at their firm, thus saving them money on payroll taxes, social security, etc.

The power of the group: a case study

A large company with a national footprint contacted us requesting translations of training materials into 7 different languages, as well a narration of the same training module. The languages included Spanish, Punjabi, and Swahili. Some of the narrations would require multiple people to be involved, thus necessitating the involvement of multiple translators. Thanks to Idiomatic‘s large network of translators, we were able to complete the job within a short period of time.

The seven translations and narratives underwent a final quality control before being sent to the client, who was very satisfied with the quality.

What would happen if you worked with an individual?

In the project mentioned above, there were many moving parts: multiple languages - some of which are uncommon - multiple steps within each project, and relatively short deadlines. By leveraging our expertise and the experience of our team, Idiomatic was able to deliver a high-quality result to the client. The client did not have to worry about the actual organisation of the project, just send the training materials to Idiomatic and give us specific instructions.

If the client had worked with individual translators instead, they would have had to first find professionals capable of taking on the project, who may or may not be available at that time. The challenge of finding as many people available to record a dialogue at the same time for each language pair is no walk in the park!

In addition, the time required to manage and coordinate the various facets of the project and the final quality assurance (if any) would be enormous.

Working with individual language experts is certainly an option, but working with a company that has multiple resources provides peace of mind and removes the guesswork. An individual may or may not have a Plan B. A good company, on the other hand, has a Plan B, a Plan C, and a Plan Z.

Can we help you with your translation needs? Get in touch with Idiomatic here.