Here are the top five reasons why a freelance translator might be the best person for your project.

1. Direct communication between a freelance translator and the client results in improved translation quality.

When you work directly with a freelancer translator, the translator sends their questions to you and gets a direct answer. If the translator finds the answer unclear, they can simply rephrase it or request more clarification.

When you send your document to an agency to have it translated, however, there is a middle-man—the project manager—which means that the freelancer who is hired for the project must send all of their questions about the translation to the agency who, in turn, relays all information to the end client. Because this a less efficient way to work, the project’s total turnaround time increases. In addition, the project manager probably won’t grasp the specific nuances of the project given that they often don’t speak the foreign language, which increases the potential for miscommunication.

2. Working with a freelance translator ensures faster turnaround times.

As mentioned in my previous point, project managers increase the total turnaround time for projects due to the intermediary role they play between the translator and the end client. As soon as an agency receives a project, they must also find the best translator for the job and confirm the project details before the translator can even start. For rush projects, this puts immense pressure on both the agency and the translator, who must negotiate the project details quickly, in addition to doing the work. Conversely, if a client contacts a freelancer directly, negotiations are fast, and the project can move ahead more quickly than if everything had to go through a project manager.

3. Working with the same freelancer every time ensures consistency from one project to the next.

When you contact a freelance translator, it’s guaranteed that they will either be the person translating your document, or that they’ll have their eyes on your translation before you receive it if they are overloaded and have to subcontract the project to a colleague. This ensures that translations are consistent from one to the next with respect to terminology and recycled content (not to mention cheaper in that respect). When you send a document to an agency for translation, however, there’s no guarantee that the same person who translated your last document will be available the next time you need a translation.

4. A freelance translator is more likely to get to know your company or organization to serve you better.

While in-house translators are just as passionate about the art of translation as freelancers, freelancers are solopreneurs who have their clients at heart, most obviously since their own success depends on whether their clients are successful. Freelance translators who work directly with clients are therefore deeply involved in their work and gain a larger perspective of their clients’ businesses as they work directly with them year over year. This means that the freelancer essentially becomes an extension of your team and understands the implications of every single project.

5. Communicating directly with the translator provides the translator with a better understanding of the project, resulting in more accurate quotes that take every aspect of your project into account.

When you contact a freelance translator for a quote, the translator can ask questions like “What does your company do, exactly?”, “Who are your clients/customers?”, “What will this document be used for?” and “Who is the target audience?” When a translator simply receives the document via an agency, there is a distance created between the translator and the end client that ultimately results in a poorer understanding of the project.

When a freelance translator must provide a quote to a translation agency, different factors are also taken into consideration than if the translator were to provide a quote directly to the client.

For example, translation agencies often have specific requirements that are completely unrelated to the project at hand. They may require the translator to work with a translation memory, a termbase, or translation software, all of which require time on the translator’s part with respect to learning how to use the technology. In addition, turnaround times are often longer when working with agencies given that there is a delay between the moment that the agency’s quote is accepted and when the translator is provided with all of the necessary project details, not to mention that the translator has to submit the translation to the agency before the agency can send the final translation to the end client. As a result of all of this, translators are focused on taking the agency’s terms into account, rather than the nature of the project itself.

Summing it all up

Despite all these points, you may be saying to yourself, “Yes, but agencies are better at handling large, multilingual projects, and there is always available someone to help.” This may be only one of two exceptions where a larger agency might be a better fit. In this case, large projects may require more project management than pure translation skills, for example, such as a corporate ethics charter that has been created in InDesign and must be translated from English into 15 languages. A project of that nature would require desktop publishing skills and a specific quality assurance process, which makes the project better suited for a larger, multilingual agency. That’s not to say that a freelancer couldn’t do it, but most freelancers wouldn’t want to.

The other exception would be smaller agencies who have the ability to designate a single translator for each client. This ensures consistency between projects as well; however, it’s not guaranteed that their prices will be the same as a freelancer given their overhead costs.

So while an agency might be a better fit in those cases, I would argue that there is a perfect freelancer for every project who has the specific experience and skills you need.

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