When the time comes to get the immigration to another country (Singapore), the only thing that comes to mind is “should need to translate documents for ICA” .
No doubt, calculating the estimated cost of the translation service can be confusing, especially for those individuals who are choosing the document translation service for the first time.
Any document translation agency you choose, you always want to be sure that you are getting your money‘s worth. In this article, we have covered how you can calculate the estimated amount that you need to pay and the essential tips to minimize the price of translation service documents.
Word count and characters of the original documents are not enough to keep in mind when approaching a translation service for document translation.
However, several other things need to be kept in mind, including source languages and target, the text you want your document to translate into like business Brochure or legal document, how often you require translation, and advanced tools that will be used in translation and many more.
In addition, translation rates may vary depending upon the type of agency that offers you translation services.
How translation agency set the charge of the cost of the document translation service?
However, there are no standard costs of document translation services. Instead, several factors determine the cost of translation. Certified translator and translation agencies use several modes to charge for document translation. Let us have a glimpse of how to registered translation services are priced:
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Per-Word Rates
Per-Word rates are one of the most common modes used by the translator and translating agency to charge for document translation that uses Latin alphabets across the world. Per-word rates might differ for several reasons, but you might expect to pay as low as $0.15 to as high as $0.30 per word. If any translation agency asks for less or more than this rate is generally unreasonable, excluding those documents translation which is time-consuming to translate, such as a poem or other literary work.
Per-Character Rates
Foreign languages like Japanese or Chinese use pictorial characters to convey the message of the written text. Every character written in Chinese or Japanese language symbolizes a different word; there are more than 50,000 characters only in the Japanese ‘Katakana’ script.
Therefore, acquiring document translation to or from these languages is comparatively harder to translate for any translation agency or translator.
However, you might be asked to pay more for this type of translation where the source language uses to convey the meaning of the written text. The majority of the document translation agency or translator uses per character rates from source documents to translate these types of documents—other companies charges based on the total words.
Per-Line Rates
You will notice per line rates in several German-speaking countries. Generally, a line is defined as 55 characters along with spaces. Like this you can also get per page rates.
Per-Hour Rates
Some of the freelance translator charges per hour rate for providing document translation service. This mode of charging document translation usually applies for bigger projects that consume greater time to complete such as Smartphone applications, or localizing a website.
Additionally, most document translation agencies and translators charge per hour rate for some services like proofreading, desktop publishing, and reviewing. These are some of the services that are difficult to calculate in other modes.
Apart from this, there are several other metrics used across the world for charging document translation services. Moreover, these rates are limited to some of the local regions. Quoting the document translation price based on the hour, character or word are most commonly used.
Minimum Fee
Apart from all the above rates, a translator charges a minimum fee for translating a document. It usually applies to the short document. Some of the translators quote a fixed price for text up to specified characters or words. However, most of the companies prefer charging a minimum fee for the documents within 200 words.
What Parameters can Determine the price of Document Translation?
Source and Target Languages
Some of the languages are difficult to translate to/from as compared to others. Generally, the most spoken language translation rate will be much cheaper. This is because there will be more excellent translators alternative will be available to translate the documents. In contrast, translation of those rarely spoken documents has a lesser qualified translator and also costs higher rates to translate. However, those documents that are written in katakana script will cost more as a translator will invest extra effort in translating pictorial characters into words.
Subject Matter Knowledge
Some documents like medical reports or legal papers are translated by the certified translator for which the translator has undergone advanced training. As such, this type of document will cost more when compared to another type of document translation. In this type of translation service, you will be paying for the translator’s expertise, which has the complete knowledge of several technical terms and code of conduct utilized in that field.
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Certification/Notarization
Translation of official documents usually requires the signature of the translator to make sure the accuracy of the translation. However, you need to get notarization of the official documents in most cases, including while applying for immigration visas, court evidence, submitting the document to government agencies, etc. Most of the document translation agencies offer you certified/notarized translation.
Proofreading
Proofreading is one of the essential parts of any document translation as it ensures the quality of the document. Therefore, every certified translator proofreads the documents before sending them to you. Moreover, the proofreading process needs additional time and costs set by the translator.
Technology Used
The use of advanced technological tools adequately decreases the cost of translation services. Most of the quality translation service provider uses computer-assisted translation tools (CAT) with translation memories (TM) to execute document translation for each client. As more documents are translated, translation memories and the service provider will provide you lower rates for each document translation.
Delivery Time
Quick document translation services can also significantly increases the cost of translation. For example, for extremely urgent document translation, translation agencies might charge premium fees.
Ways to Minimize the price of Document Translation
Fortunately, there are a few quick steps following which you can decrease the cost of documents translation. However, these methods can also help you out in receiving excellent quality translation in a short period of time. Here are the following tips that you need to follow prior to submitting your document for translation:
Simplify the Text
The first thing you need to do before submitting your document for translation is to make the text easier to understand. If the text written in your document is easier to understand with simple vocabulary, then it will allow the translator to offer you a more quickly and accurate translation of the documents. Therefore, it is highly recommended always to use shorter sentences and try to repeatedly use the same words as much as possible and make sure the sentence does not sound monotonous. This will not only help in getting low translation rates in future, but it will also build up translation memory.
Extract the Text from Images and Diagrams
If the text is embedded in the image, it will require an additional skilled person in photo manipulation, which might cost you more. In such a situation, to minimize the rate of translation, try to separate the text from the images. For example, suppose your documents are in the form of a pie chart or any other graph, then ensure that the text is not embedded in the image. Instead, use a separate label or box.
Change the File Format
Always prefer sending the file in the same format which you used to create the file. For example, suppose you wrote an article in the Word file or create a separate spreadsheet in excel, then it’s recommended to send either the ‘docx’ file or ‘xlsx’ file rather than PDF to a translation agency for document translation. Doing this will make the work easier for the translator when the time comes to format the final document.
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The above guide has covered everything about how you can calculate the estimated price of the document translation and what steps you can take to minimize the rate of document translation.
For rapid, accurate and professional document translation service always prefer choosing Singapore translator. We have a vast year of experience in the document translation industry, and our team of translators believes in providing better quality translation. Apart from general document translation services, the translator also provides notarized translation Singapore like entertainment, education, healthcare, marketing, and many more.
At Singapore translator, our primary motive is to meet the expectation of clients above anything else. So quickly get in touch with the Singapore translator and team to get a quality document translation service for your immigration document rapidly, accurately, and professionally at the lowest possible cost.
