Human Translation Services: Why They Still Matter for Russian and Serbian Texts

Published: November 30, 2024

In today’s interconnected world, human translation services play a vital role in breaking language barriers and ensuring effective communication across cultures. While machine translation has gained popularity for its speed, it often falls short in capturing the nuances and context of human languages, especially of those that are syntactically and lexically dissimilar to English (e.g., Russian, Serbian). This article explores the benefits of specialized human translation, its costs, and why it remains indispensable for businesses and their corporate and business documents.

What Are Human Translation Services?

Human translation services involve professional linguists, who translate written or spoken content between languages. These experts combine their knowledge of grammar, culture, industry and context to ensure translations are both accurate and meaningful. Unlike machine translation, which often produces literal or robotic results, human translators ensure your message is fully understood by the target audience.

Common Use Cases for Human Translation Services:

• Legal documents (contracts, patents)
• Financial and accounting documents
• Business communication (corporate reports, proposals)
• Marketing materials (campaigns, slogans, advertisements)
• Web and app localization

Click here if you need your business documents translated between English and Russian by a human translator.

For human translation services between English and Serbian please follow this link.

Why Choose Human Translation Over Machine Translation?

Human translators understand the nuances of language and ensure that each word and phrase is translated correctly in its specific context. For example, idioms or culturally unique phrases often require creative adaptation, which machine translation cannot achieve. This is especially true for Russian and Serbian. Research shows that machine translation is not equally effective across all language pairs. It performs relatively well when translating from English into similar languages (e.g., Dutch, German, and most Romance languages, such as Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Italian). In contrast, machine translation struggles significantly when translating from English into Russian, Serbian, Hungarian, and Finnish, and fails to convey nuances accurately.

A professional human translator makes sure that your content aligns with the cultural norms and expectations of the target audience. This is particularly important in marketing and advertising, where the wrong message could harm your brand.

Fields like law and finance require precise terminology. Human translation services ensure consistency and accuracy in such critical areas, which is why they are preferred for high-stakes documents. For the sake of clarity, a human translator cannot know everything. Legal and financial documents cannot and must not be translated by just any human translator. They must only be entrusted to human translators, who specialize in law and finance respectively. Keep this important detail in mind next time you go searching for translation services. And do not forget to refer to the research we've mentioned above: machine translation will be useless for high-stakes documents, should you need your documents translated from English into complex languages, such as Russian or Serbian.

Understanding Human Translation Costs

One common question is: What does human translation cost?

The cost of human translation depends on several factors:

1. Language Pair: Rare language combinations often cost more.
2. Complexity of the Content: financial, marketing, or legal translations typically cost more than general content. SEO-driven content adds to the cost, as it requires in-depth keyword research in addition to the translation-editing-proofreading (TEP).
3. Urgency: Rush projects may include additional rush fees (typically a 20-30% surcharge).
4. Volume: Larger projects may qualify for bulk discounts.

Average Cost of Human Translation Services:

• Per Word: Typically ranges from $0.06 for simple, everyday texts with straightforward language to $0.20 per word for more complex content that requires not only translation but also SEO. However, the realistic current market price for professional translation of specialized texts without SEO hovers around $0.10-$0.12 per source word. Not everyone needs SEO.
• Per Hour: For specialized tasks like editing or proofreading, the hourly rate may range from $20 to $50.
• Flat Project Fees: Some projects, like website localization or document bundles, may be priced as a package.

While machine translation may appear cheaper upfront, the additional time and cost needed for human editing often negate the savings. Investing in human translation ensures quality from the start.

Human Translation vs. Machine Translation

For businesses debating between machine and human translation, it’s important to understand the trade-offs.

When quality, accuracy, and context matter, human translation services are the clear choice. Not convinced by our arguments? Read one more opinion on the topic here and another opinion here.

Industries That Rely on Human Translation Services

1. Legal and Financial

Mistranslated contracts or financial reports can lead to costly errors. Human translators ensure every term is precise and compliant with local regulations.

2. Marketing and Creative Content

From slogans to advertisements, creative content needs to evoke the same emotional impact in the target language. Human translation services achieve this through transcreation.

3. Corporate and Business

Annual reports, internal communications, and business proposals must maintain professionalism and clarity. Human translation takes care of this too.

Factors to Consider When Hiring a Human Translation Service

When selecting a translation provider, keep these key factors in mind:

1. Expertise: Choose translators with experience in your specific industry. This cannot be stressed enough.
2. Quality Assurance: Look for services that include editing and proofreading. Typically, a translation service quoted to you includes TEP (translation, editing, proofreading).
3. Turnaround Time: Confirm that the provider can meet your deadlines.
4. Cost Transparency: Understand the pricing structure, including potential additional fees for specialized or urgent work.

The Long-Term Value of Human Translation Services

While the cost of human translation may seem higher than machine options, it offers unmatched value for businesses. Poorly translated corporate and business documents can harm your reputation, while high-quality translations build trust, engage customers, and boost revenue.

Conclusion

Human translation services are essential for anyone seeking high-quality, accurate, and culturally relevant translations. Whether you're a business expanding into new markets or an individual with important documents, professional translators ensure your message is delivered effectively.

Investing in human translation is not just about avoiding errors—it’s about building meaningful connections across languages and cultures.