London Translation Services provides a suite of translation and interpreting services to clients based in London, neighbouring communities, the whole of the United Kingdom and internationally. Below you will find detailed information regarding the services that are offered as well as a Translation FAQ that answers many of the commonly asked questions by our clients.
What are your main translation services?
As a multilingaul translation agency based in London, we really do offer a one-stop-shop for all translation and interpreting needs. If we do not have the resources required in-house, we can fall back onto our growing database of translators and linguistic professionals throughout the world to ensure your project can be completed within your timeframe and on budget. However our main areas of expertise are as follows:
- Sworn Translations
- Website Translations
- Certified Translations
- Legal Translations
- Technical (or Scientific) Translations
- Medical Translations
What are your standard translation prices?
Unlike other translation agencies based in London, here at London Translation Services, we do not offer standardised pricing of any kind. This is done to the benefit of our clients. Each and every single translation project - no matter how big or small - is reviewed by one of our project managers and the absolute best price we can offer at that time will be quoted. As we work with translators internationally, there are many factors that have a role on the final price, which fluctuate daily (availability, currency fluxutations depending on the translator's currency, etc.). Our quotations generally remain valid for one business day for this reason.
Are you official translators?
Yes, as a European translation company, we are able to provide UK Certified Translations of virtually any document. In cases where the translation is into another language than English, the rules and regulations for official translations vary greatly from country to country. In some countries, only court-registered translators are authorised to do this - this is, at the time of writing, the case in France for documents translated from English to French. Below you will find a list of the most frequent language combinations that London Translation Services has completed certified translations of within the past few weeks:
Translation Technologies Used
In today's competitive marketplace many other agencies operating in London and around the United Kingdom are doing all that they can do in a short period of time to cut costs and bring the overall price down. Unfortunately, this means sacrificing both the quality and the ability to meet deadlines for their clients. The following Q&A should hopefully explain how we work.
Do you use Google Translate?
No. We most certainly do not. Automated translation software of any kind is not used. These are very handy tools for people to use to get a general idea of text in a foreign language, but the technology is simply not there yet to use Google Translate (or any similar services) in any way, shape or form as a translation tool by professionals.
I have a small document in English that I need translated into another language; who will be doing that for me?
In this instance, the individual that will be doing the work and/or proofreading it prior to sending to the client will be all of the following:
- University educated (with a degree) in translation from English to the other language
- A native speaker of the other language (our translators only ever translate into the mother tongue)
- An individual that has been thoroughly vetted by the HR team of London Translation Services
- An individual that has proven expertise in the subject matter of the document
Do your translators use any software at all?
Yes. Our translators and proof-readers utilise a wide range of software during the course of their everyday work. There are only two types of software used that have anything to do with the actual translation themselves. They are:
Translation Memory Software (such as Trados)
These tools are very useful, and work in a similar manner to Google Translate, only it is the translator's own translations that are “remembered” by the software. Once a phrase or sentence has been translated once, the next time that same phrase or sentence appears in a project they work on, they are suggested to use the same translation. In large translation projects that include many repetitive words / phrases (e.g. compilations of financial statements, user manuals repeating the same text over and over with model number changes, etc.. and utilising translation memory software, we can quote a far lower price for repetitions then for new words.
OCR Software
This refers to Object Character Recognition and is an extremely useful tool for documents that have been scanned and/or any type of document that the client does not have the soft copy of. A document can be processed by the OCR application and essentially convert the document to text-editable format (such as Microsoft Word). With large archives of documents scanning them alone is insufficient for many companies as they require the content, not just a picture of the document which is in fact, what a scan is. Our translators use many different OCR applications. For your reference one of the more popular with translators is Abby PDF converter. What if the text I need translated is very specialised (e.g. a paper on thermonuclear dynamics)? Do you have translators in-house for everything? Employing translators to cover every subject matter would be impossible. Our database has thousands of translators within it, and if we do not have a translator in our database for your specific needs, we will use our network of additional resources and agency contacts throughout the world to find them for you. The managing director of London Translation Services had this to say about a particular translation for a large European organisation in 2023: “I consider myself to be a fairly well-versed individual with a stronger command of the English language than most; however after reading and re-reading the 2,500 word document over 10 times I was not able to fully understand more than 2 sentences and had I not known the title, I could not have even hazarded a guess at the true meaning of the text”. London Translation Services successfully translated that same text into 27 different languages all to the highest standard.
The document I need to be translated is highly confidential. Can I trust you?
Yes. We have previously translated many such documents for a wide range of organisations, government bodies, NGOs and corporate clients. Discretion and confidentiality are standard practice at London Translation Services and upon request, we have an NDA that we can send, and/or our management team can be made available to peruse and sign off on your own NDA should you wish. We are fully GDPR compliant and documentation regarding this compliance is available upon request.
I want to know more about the translation services you offer in London.
Great! We can't wait to hear from you! Call or email us now, and one of our project managers will be glad to answer your questions.