If you ever use a traditional translation agency, you know how slow the translation is. You place an order and can't get the translation until a few days or even weeks later, depending on the content, nature and volume. Why can't we get translation quickly?

Translation is just slow

Translation work is detail oriented and labor intensive. The faster a translator works the more mistakes s/he makes. It's a rule true for all translators, regardless of their knowledge, skills and capabilities. To ensure an acceptable quality level, the translators have to control the speed. The daily max words for a translator to put out usually range from 1,000 to 2,500 words, depending on the languages, nature of source and quality requirements.

Difficulty in collaboration

For translation projects of millions of words, assigning multiple translators to work on the different parts of source at the same time may speed up. However doing so brings inconsistency and requires additional editing. Also, a translator cannot start editing a section until all of its source text has been translated.

For small jobs it is even more difficult to assign multiple translators and get translating, editing, and proofreading tasks done by different people in an efficient manner. It requires much more time in planning, communicating and coordinating who will do what and when. Collaborative translation for a turnaround shorter than 3 days is virtually impossible without an advanced system like COT

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Inefficient business process

Last but not the least - a large amount of time is allocated for non-productive business process such as contacting the translators, negotiating for delivery terms, processing files, orders, invoices, and payment. If you leave three days for the translation agency, the time left for translators might be as less as one day.

For all the above reasons, translation is slow and translation services are even slower! So you might wonder why COT can translate faster while applying the Alternating TEP process? Please keep reading!