Myths and Risks of Cheap Russian Translation Services

Cheap Russian translation services can hurt your business. Seriously.

When it comes to buying a service, the main concern for customers, in most cases, is the price. Everyone wants to save money and it is hard to resist the temptation of buying cheap Russian translation services. In this article, we are going to talk about myths and risks of the so-called “low-cost” translation.

By the way, if you are wondering how you can find a great Russian translation partner, read our article to learn where to start.

Myth #1. Free machine translation is the fastest solution

Some believe that the traditional translation model (when a text is translated by a professional human translator, not a machine) is a left-over of the past time.

According to this opinion, it is a long and expensive process, while machine translation tools will help customers to save time and money. Meanwhile, such machine-translated texts rank first in a collection of translation humor.

No doubt, a computer algorithm will do the same job hundred times faster than a human. However, these translation tools (even after the introduction of neural translation by Google and Facebook) are still not perfect enough to consider such things as style, subject, and message.

In many instances, texts translated by machines still look funny and gimmicky. But if you need to translate a website, legal document or technical description, would you take the risk of making a show of yourself by using “very fast and totally free” tool?

We hope you wouldn’t.

Risks: inadequate translation, loss of the main idea and message of the text.

Myth #2. “Get the highest quality for the lowest price!”

Many Russian translation agencies use this or a similar slogan to advertise their services. But we never get something really good for free or at the lowest price, do we?

Translation agencies have to pay their project managers and translators for their job. If an agency offers low rates, imagine what peanuts translators get. A real professional would never agree to work for free or at a low rate.

In this scenario, you’ll face either a beginner with very poor translation experience or an unfair translator, who would better use Google Translate with post-editing to make the translation somewhat good.

The result of working with a cheap Russian translation agency may turn into a headache of multiple quality claims and proofreading requests. Just stay away from such service providers.

Risks: non-professional translation, grammar and punctuation mistakes, wrong terminology, a necessity to look for another provider for proofreading or correction services, extra costs.

Myth #3. Crowdsourcing is a way out.

Crowdsourcing is a relatively new translation approach combining machine and human translation. This method offers extremely low rates, which makes it very attractive.

But for your better understanding we would like to quote a message to potential employees of one of the largest crowdsourcing translation services provider: “You don’t need translation qualifications or experience to become our translator”.

It’s like “You don’t need a medical qualification or experience to become a surgeon in our clinic and make heart surgeries”. Sounds ridiculous, isn’t it?

Another disadvantage of crowdsourcing translation is that you never know who will translate your files. You won’t be able to communicate with a translator, give your recommendations and control the workflow.

All you get is a completed translation and no one can guarantee it was translated right. If you are a risky person, you should definitely like it, because this way of translation may often feel like playing Russian roulette.

Risks: no quality guarantees, non-professional translation, loss of the text’s message due to lack of communication with translator, wrong terminology and necessity to look for a third party for proofreading or correction services, extra costs.

I still need my documents translated. Who can help?

Even in the digital era, there is no better thing as human translation.

Translating texts into their native tongue only, professional translators take into consideration grammar rules, suitable style, terminology and other nuances of the target language. They can make your text read like an original, not like a translation.

The success of your expansion in the Russian market will depend on the words you say to your customers. Choosing the best words, avoiding awkward unnatural structures and making the message as clear as possible for the target audience – these are the main tasks of professional translators, still unfeasible for machines.

Remember that your translator or translation partner is your voice for the Russian customers. Don’t ever go with cheap Russian translation services, because this approach rarely brings any positive results.

It’s crucial to know what options you have on the translation market, and which of them will be the best for your business. We hope that any piece of this information will help you to find the right Russian translation partner and succeed on the Russian market.

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