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When a new translation agency is founded, several things have to be taken into account.

A new agency probably consists of one man or woman who, very sensibly, wants to start with the lowest possible expenditure - so no other translators or assistants of any kind are yet employed in the agency.

If the new translation agency owner has already worked in some other field, whatever it may be, he or she would be well advised to advertise his or her ability in that field, to gain advantage from that expertise. The first customers of the agency can probably be gained by telephoning to companies in the owner's specific field (including, often, his or her previous employer).

When one or more customers have been found - the problem then is to find suitable freelance translators. An estimated 90% of translations supplied by translation agencies have been done by freelance translators, who work on a price per word or price per character basis. It is obviously impossible to have sufficient translators employed within even the largest translation agency, due to the multiplicity of languages in the world and the fact that demand for one language can fluctuate to a very great extent.

While the agency owner hay be able to translate from one or two foreign languages into his or her native language (and ONLY in this direction), the first customers may well ask for translations from or into completely different languages.

There are several freelance translator directories on the Internet which are accessible to translation agencies. Care should be taken to ensure that the translator chosen is of a high enough standard and that he or she specializes in the subject of the document to be translated.

In general, long-established freelance translators are best. Translators with less experience can be tested by having to translate a one-page document (about 250 or 300 words). A test translation is one of the best ways of checking even highly experienced translators. If the agency owner does not know the language concerned, the test translation can be sent for proof-reading to a translator whose expertise is well known to the agency.

The question of a freelance translator's speciality is very important. A very good way of ensuring that the translator knows the correct vocabulary is to search for translators who have practical work experience in the specific field. There are professional translators - doctors, scientists, accountants, lawyers, architects and also electronic technicians and engineers, nurses, construction engineers, IT programmers, even bankers, etc. etc. each of whom has practical knowledge of his or her subject - and usually in two or more languages as well.

Any translation agency will find that for documents which contain a certain number of repetitive sentences or terms, translation memories can be used. These save time for the translator, since standard translations already in the computer memory are automatically translated by the computer. This saves money for the translation agency, since the freelance translator is paid less for already translated sentences.

Using the same word for the same thing may seem quite obvious, but some translated handbooks never manage to use standard vocabulary.

A translation memory system ensures that there is never any confusion in the mind of the user - he or she is never going to wonder whether the screw mentioned on page 6 is the same as the bolt mentioned on page 8.

I'm sure that people in companies who are responsible for technical or commercial literature would be very interested to learn about translation memories, which can cut translation costs and improve vocabulary consistency in their documentation.

And then we come to the appearance of the translation and the way the pages are set up: Customers often send the original text to be translated in DTP form and all the well-known DTP programs need to be available. DTP personnel must be used to working with all languages - not just the most common European languages but also the languages of Eastern Europe and the Middle and Far East. New agency owners can find DTP operators on the Internet who specialize in page lay-outs for different languages - for example, Arabic and Hebrew read from right to left and books in those languages start from what Europeans would consider to be the back. Often the type face has to be adjusted, because the translated language takes up more or less space than the original language.

It is necessary to work very closely with the customer to make sure that the end product has the required appearance. Good appearance gives confidence in the product.

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Oxford Translation's specialities include technical translation, commercial and advertising translation.
A-Translation also specializes in various fields within technical translation.

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