Looking for good & cheap translation services

Soon needing large quantity translated to English

[louponne]

I'm building a couple of content websites for friends and they will need large quantities of text translated from French to English. I have tried in the past different approaches: professional translators, univ students, etc and here their prices would be way too high.

Are there offshore / freelancer / whatever services available that would be good quality?

[nomis5]

It's a previously well-discussed topic and the conclusion always seems to be that pure translators don't generate a successful site. Significant knowledge of the subject matter as well as a deep understanding of the translated language's culture is required.

I arranged "translation" of my UK site into Russian. I went into partnership with a UK based Russian who understood the subject matter and clearly understood the Russian culture and the nuances of the language. In fact he was so good that in the end the site is now not based on my site, rather he generates his own individual content.

Aside from the fact that the Russian internet market is crumbling before our eyes, the exercise has proved to be very beneficial to both of us. When markets return to normal, we will be there as the number one authority site in Russia.

I fully believe that there are no shortcuts which work as far as translation is concerned.

[Shimrit]

You get what you pay for. If you want decent work, you have to be willing to pay decent money for it or offer a viable alternative (revenue share, skill swap, goods, etc.).

[LifeinAsia]

here their prices would be way too high

Um, where exactly is the "here" that you mean? France? America? U.K.?

Obviously, professional translators will tend to be the most expensive, since that is how they make a living. Students will tend to be cheaper, but it also depends on where you look for the students. Using a French Studies major at Harvard is probably going to cost you more than an exchange student from France studying at a state college in middle America.

But since you want French -> English, I would recommend English speaking exchange students currently in France (again, look at the smaller, less expensive schools). Not sure about the exchange rates over there right now, but I would suspect that American students would be cheaper than those from the U.K.

[idolw]

If the sites are supposed to make money I'd just use an agency anyway. We had to do some big scale translations few months ago and although we saved on pure translation services we actually wasted one person's time to look after everything and make sure it is correct. So in the end the cost was the same but we lost time of one person who could have done something good.

[louponne]

Very interesting comments, many thanks!

The idea of seeing if I can find interested anglophone exchange students in France especially intrigues me. Time to work up some contacts in that area and see what comes of that idea. In any case, it's pretty simple to do a relatively short amount as a test and then see...

Thanks again!

[nealrodriguez]

just a thought: you could try to seek people who can perform the work in french-speaking countries where your country's currency is worth more.