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April 24, 2009

Tolingo – Translating Local Ideas into Global Success

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Have you ever tried Google translate? The translations are typically terrible, and often amusing. They can give you a general idea about what someone is trying to say, but if you need a professional translation – say for a bi-lingual marketing newsletter, it simply won’t work. The best option is to hire a professional translator but that can be expensive – and many of us wouldn’t even know where to look.

The service Tolingo (To Lingo) aims to help people translate documents into a long list of possible languages: Bosnian, Bulgarian, Chinese – not every language on the planet but quite comprehensive nonetheless. Users simply upload the text of any document and the site’s online cost calculator determines the best price available and the amount of time for a given translation with expedited services available for a higher fee.

Generally, Tolingo is for business-related documents. If you want your novel translated into another language, this is not the service, as Tolingo lists non-fiction topics as their areas of specialty. For that purpose, Tolingo offers good-quality translation services. Prices are a bit steep. For instance, to translate this brief review into French costs around 25 euros, so if you’re looking at translating an extensive document, it can be costly. But if you require accurate translation services in a reasonably short amount of time, Tolingo is a great starting point.

Practical Uses:

  • Get the contents of a website translated into other languages to reach a larger pool of customers
  • Find new clients in other countries by translating your correspondence into other languages
  • Translate contracts and company manuals into languages for your international business division
  • If you’re an experienced translator in need of some extra work, become a part of the paid Tolingo staff

Insider Tips:

  • Get the translation proofread by a senior translator – a fresh set of eyes. This is more expensive, but will help ensure accuracy
  • Choose your topic carefully when getting a cost estimate, as the topic will dictate how much you are charged
  • Pare down a document to its most salient points to cut down on translation costs

What we liked:

  • Easy to use website and cost-calculator
  • The translations are – on the whole – of good quality. For the purposes of this review it was not possible to get translations of the dozens of different languages, but Tolingo does appear to make good on its word to provide quality translations
  • Good turnaround time
  • Data is promised to be secure by never housing it on the site and translators need to sign a confidentiality agreement before receiving any work

What we didn’t like:

  • It’s expensive, even for small documents
  • Proofreading, while useful, should be part of the upfront cost
  • Not the most organized or polished website for the type of services offered. For example: “we also carry our vigarous (sic) quality control checks,” which is ironic and doesn’t instill confidence

Alternatives:

Company Info:

  • Launched: April 2008
  • Privately Held
  • Headquarters: Hamburg, Germany
  • Founded by: Hanno v.d Decken, Johan Wenz, and Sebastian Sobisch
  • Web site: http://www.tolingo.com

Costs:

  • Depends on length of document, language, type of document, proofreading, and timeframe

Comments

  1. May 5, 2009

    Reply
    Mike Unwalla

    Quote: Have you ever tried Google translate? The translations are typically terrible, and often amusing. They can give you a general idea about what someone is trying to say, but if you need a professional translation – say for a bi-lingual marketing newsletter, it simply won’t work.

    Henry,

    Often, automated translations are not good because the source text is not optimised for automated translation. Automated translation can give good results. For a small evaluation of the quality of automated translation, see ‘Evaluation of international English and machine translation’ (http://www.international-english.co.uk/mt-evaluation-details.html).

  2. August 23, 2010

    Reply
    Website Localization

    Mike Unwalla is correct. Online machine translation can be very dangerous.

  3. April 24, 2012

    Reply
    Bob Ross

    Hi,

    Translate By Humans is another good alternative. Also it is cost saving thal above services. They provide translaiton services from only $0.10/word and without any hidden or project management cost.

    Thanks
    Bob

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