Difficulty in finding reliable French Translators

16 Sep Difficulty in finding reliable French Translators

So many translators, so little time

When it comes to English to French translation, it is easy to get confused by the thousands of translation services providers out there. These providers include native speakers who wish to earn extra money, translation students that want experience, and professional translation agencies. Whilst for some people with French translation needs the first two groups would work well, a professional English to French translation can meet a lot more needs and satisfy expectations to a much higher degree.

Fluency isn’t everything

Someone who is fluent in French or bilingual doesn’t automatically possess qualifications to offer English to French translation services. Indeed, most professional translation companies require their prospective employees to be certified or accredited, and have experience in a field other than French translation. To give you an example, technical translation service is one of the most popular translation services. When people order such translations, they don’t just want a person fluent in French that can use a dictionary of technical terms – they want someone who understands the industry and can put technical terms in the right context. For example, someone unfamiliar with the technical industry can make the mistake of translating the word “bolt” into the French “leverrou”, whereas in that context, bolt is to mean “le boulon”. A mistake like that might not seem like a big deal, but it can cost the client who uses a technical specification in question in their work quite a lot if they interpret the instructions incorrectly.

Choose human translators over online tools

It is unreasonable to expect that technology hasn’t had any impact on the translation industry. Many translators, even professional ones, use CAT tools in their work in order to save time. However, a good provider of English to French translation service combines the advantages given to them by technology with experience and talent of human translators that they employ. Most often, CAT tools translate things word-for-word, which only amounts to about 50% of the work that needs to be done on an English text in order for a French speaker to perceive it as though its source language is French. That is why it is better to approach professional translators rather than amateurs – they are much more likely to proofread the draft done by a CAT tool and adapt it in accordance with your expectations. It is also important to note that CAT tools don’t recognize the need to use plain language, whereas professional English to French translators know the need for it in this day and age.

Learning matters

Finally, languages evolve over time. Online tools often don’t catch the ongoing changes in them, but a professional translator invests time and money into learning and gaining experience, thus getting to know these changes in order to provide English to French translation service of the highest quality.