I recently read a forum article whilst doing some research and was having a perfectly happy, stress-free day when I came across not one but two references that would make any reasonably minded professional translator choke on their decaf coffee. The gist of the post concerned how the poster could not understand why translators have to charge so much for their services (the poster preferring to pay around $0.02-03 USD per word for a translation) and what is wrong with using Google Translate when it’s there to be used.

Well, Google Translate is a topic for another blog post. Long story short: if you want to get the gist of what is written and you have an understanding of the topic and the source language, all well and good. GT should only be used for commercial, official or academic purposes under penalty of being laughed off the face of the planet.

Why do translators charge so much? What translators charge depends on many circumstances including the part of the world in which they are based. Many of you will have noticed well qualified and experienced translators from certain regions charging considerably less than EU based translators, for instance. 

Generally, what you are paying for is qualification, knowledge, experience, competence and service. 

Cutting to the chase, would you pay your window cleaner the same amount of money you would pay your lawyer or accountant for advice? The window cleaner may be perfectly, pleasant, knowledgeable and experienced so why doesn’t he deserve the same reward? Answering that question would be like teaching granny to suck eggs.

Think about what you are really paying for when you hire a translator to translate a company document, a legal document or product specification. Is it just someone who speaks a language and can get the message across? Is that enough?

The ultimate aim for translation service providers and clients alike has to be the obtaining of an ideal translation of satisfactory quality, by whatever means. A general rule is the larger or more complex the text, the more checks ought to be in place and these can only be performed by  a qualified, experienced and competent human translator. This is why translators charge so much and why very often getting what you pay for is the most accurate maxim.