Since the diverse areas of your life and the world have started to co-exist and cooperate and established good working and personal relationships, the need of translators has become unquestionable. You cannot rely on yourself to translate a document accurately and effectively without losing its meaning. You need professionals who are native to that language and understand it deeply. But many have started preferring translation agencies over the individual translators. These agencies are of great use in case of huge amount of work. Also, they should be used if projects with specialized subject matters have to be translated within a short time in a standardized way. But that is no reason to forget the importance of individual translators. A few advantages of hiring the latter are -
* If your document is sensitive in nature or you have an emotional attachment to it, then you would only prefer an individual translator. You would like to establish a comfort level with him, trust him and then open up about your work. This process of getting to know your own translator is never done in agencies.
* In a company or an agency, the translators are anonymous for a client. The clients do not know in whose hands lies the future of their project. Thus, they cannot talk to the translator or discuss what they need. The client requirements reach the translator through someone else or a chain. The meaning could easily get lost in the way.
* Any queries that you may have or any doubts at any time of the project being created, you can clarify directly from the individual translator. The vice-versa is true for the translators as well.
* The charges that they ask for are much lesser than an agency. In fact, translators of an agency may not be as well-paid; hence the lowered motivation to work leads to bad quality of work.
* The agencies may not hire an excellent translator. You just have their word for it. You do not know the language yourself and can easily be fooled. This is possible with individual translators as well. But, the personal contact with him makes the truth come out more easily. The translator is working out in the open without hiding behind a bureaucracy.
* You can choose an individual translator out of many, based on the technical or specialized knowledge they have. In an agency, you do not know who has been handed over your project or whether he has any expertise in the field or not.
You have more control over the whole translation process with an individual translator and can oversee your project directly without a manager cutting in. Also, you can trust the same translator again for future projects, based on the results of the work.