Translation Service in Singapore

As the world grows smaller; people travel across the globe more frequently and more business is done internationally, translation services Singapore are increasingly in demand. A translation service can now be needed for anything from the translation of an education certificate to translating a website. Due to the demand there are now hundreds of translation agencies across the globe. Finding a translation service Singapore can be daunting. Where does one start to look for a translation service and when they find one, how do they know if they will be able to do the job well? What questions should one ask? This article will offer some useful tips on how to find a translation service to meet your needs.

Where to find a Translation Service in Singapore?

There are three main ways of finding a translation service. The first port of call should be your local directory such as the Yellow Pages. If you have a specific business directory for your area then even better. Simply look up "translation" or it may sometimes be under "translators & interpreters". Have thumb through the listings and earmark some to contact. The second, and easiest, means of finding a translation service is through the internet. Using the main search engines such as Google, Yahoo! and MSN can bring up hundreds of listings. One added advantage of using a search engine is that you can be more specific with your searches. For example, if you are looking for a translation service local to you type "translation service London" or "translation service Oxford". Similarly if you are in need of a specific language try something like "German translation service". With search engine results you will be presented with two types of listings, paid listings (advertisements) and organic listings (non-advertised results). It is good to bear in mind that those with organic listings are there for a reason, i.e. the search engine naturally sees them as important sites for translation services. On the other hand paid listings will be from companies that need the business. This is not necessarily a negative thing but good to consider when making a choice. The last means of finding a translation service is to ask colleagues, friends or family. A personal recommendation is always best.

Contacting the Translation Service Singapore

Once you have a list of the translation service providers you want to contact, it is then key that you are prepared with information necessary to get an accurate quote. Any decent translation service will want to know what languages they are translating from and into, the length of the document (especially the number of source words), the nature of the text (is it business or technical?), the format of the document (is it a paper document, an email or brochure?), when you need the translation delivered by and if necessary what format it should be delivered in. These details will help the translation service price your piece of work. However, remember that many translation service providers may not give you a concrete quote until they see the document. This is because once they see it they may realise they under-quoted you due to unforeseen elements such as the format, poor image quality or technicality of the document. It is always a good idea to have your translation in a format that can be emailed or faxed. When speaking to the customer service agent make sure you thoroughly explain your needs. A good translation service however will always ask the right questions so they get a decent grasp of what you will need.

Questions to ask the translation service

Once you have established the cost of your translation it is always a good idea to probe the translation service with a few more questions to gain a better understanding of their capabilities. For example here are 10 basic questions: 1. If they gave you on price, ask what their charge is per 1000 words? 2. Will they charge you per source word or per target word? For example, if you are having a document translated from Italian to English, Italian will be the source language. 3. Is the quote they gave you fixed? i.e. they can not charge you more afterwards. 4. Are all their translators qualified? What is their procedure for hiring translators? 5. Do their translators work solely into their native languages? 6. If your deadline is missed how will you still have to pay? 7. Does the price include proof-reading by another translator? 8. If your translation is specific or technical, do the translators have experience in the subject matter? 9. What format will they return your translation in? 10. If it is a large or important job it is possible to ask for a trial translation - however, this may not always be free. These questions for your translation service should give you some insight into their understanding of the industry and their capabilities.

Which translation service?

Ultimately for many people, when it comes to the crunch they choose a translation service based on cost, location and speed of service. There are no hard and fast rules as to how to choose a translation service and it is really up to the individual to go with what they feel it best for them. In the general scheme of things most translation service providers are bona fide and professional outfits. If when asking the questions above to a translation service Singapore you sense a level of uncertainty then it may be best to go with the service that seems to know what you want and how to give it to you. Translation Services Singapore offer wide range of translation services that includes Website Translation, Transcript Translation and Academic Translation, Translation Service to Translate from English to Chinese and other translation services.

About Translation Services Singapore

We are a translation service provider founded in Singapore with the goal of completing each translation project professionally and is, to the best knowledge of the company and the translators, of high quality and accurate transfer of information throughout.

Our translators not only master the languages concerned and translation techniques, we take into account context and local terminologies, and possess sensitivity to cultural nuances. Specialised in Translation English to Chinese.

Translation And Interpreting Methods And Approaches

The disciplines of language translation services Singapore and interpreting serve the purpose of making communication possible between speakers of different languages. In the past there has been a tendency to perceive interpreting as an area of translation services, but from the second half of the 20th century differentiation between the two areas has become necessary.

As supported by many researchers, translation services and interpreting can be perceived as the process that allows the transfer of sense from one language to another, rather than the transfer of the linguistic meaning of each word. Firstly it is necessary to understand the difference between the concepts of linguistic meaning and sense. According to the definition given by Bolinger and Sears, “the word is the smallest unit of language that can be used by itself” (Bolinger and Sears, 1968:43). Each unit has a lexical meaning, which determines the value and the identity of each word in a specific language.

However this does not necessarily mean that lexical units also correspond to the basic meaningful elements in a language, as meaning is usually carried by units that can be smaller or larger than the word. Furthermore each word corresponds to a phoneme. However a phoneme can carry several linguistic meanings, depending on the way it relates to the rest of the speech. For example, the Italian translation of the English phoneme /nait/, isolated from its context, can be either “cavaliere” (knight) or “notte” (night). However if the speaker talked about a “chivalrous and courageous knight”, there would be no hesitation in choosing the Italian translation “cavaliere”, rather than “notte”. Therefore Seleskovitch points out that when drawing a difference between linguistic meaning and sense it is important to remember that in speech words lose some of the potential meanings attached to their phonemic structure and retain only their contextual relevant meaning. However even whole utterances that have a clear linguistic meaning can raise problems if isolated from the context.

Therefore during the act of communication the listener automatically attaches his previously acquired knowledge to the language sounds, which immediately clarifies the sense of the utterance. This cognitive addition is independent from the semantic components of the speech and represents another fundamental difference between linguistic meaning and sense. This cognitive process is significantly reduced in translation compared to interpreting, especially when dealing with ancient or unfamiliar texts, as the translator in Singapore can take his time to analyse every single word or phrase, preventing consciousness from immediately identifying the sense of the utterance. Interpreters instead are restricted by the immediacy of the process of communication and have to grasp the meaning regardless of the equivalence at the word-level. Memory is another fundamental part of communication, as the listener retains his previously acquired knowledge to grasp the sense. Seleskovitch also adds that sense is always conscious. When we speak our own language the choice of words is not deliberate.

All we do is to convey the message in the best way we can, so the result can change from one speaker to another. As a consequence, there can be several ways to express the same idea but all the utterances produced with that purpose would reflect a particular shape, which results from the semantics of a specific language. Nevertheless different languages do not express the same idea with the same semantic components and that is why a simple conversion of one language into another cannot be satisfactory in translation or interpreting.

Seleskovitch argues that words are meaningless unless there is a cognitive addition on behalf of both the sender and the recipient of the message. Words become meaningful only when referred to a specific object or concept. However words that have the same meaning in different languages do not associate with the same words in more complex contexts designing the same thing in different languages. This is because languages only reveal part of our knowledge, thus leaving implicit concepts unsaid. Therefore the cognitive addition is necessary. For example, the literary English translation of the of the Italian phrase: Il presidente del Consiglio si Translation Services Singapore specialized in translating English to Chinese with competitive pricing scheme.