Professional Academic Translation Services

Prices vary, depending on the translator’s expenses (taxes, office, cost of living in their city). However, you are unlikely to obtain a professional translation at a very low price. Look at it from the translator’s perspective: would you work for the same pay as an unskilled laborer? Would you entrust your hard work to a translator who accepted such low pay?

A professional translator translates about 2000 to 4000 words a day, depending on how many hours she works each day. Of course, a translator may have 2 or more jobs waiting to be translated and cannot necessarily translate your text first. Contact me as soon as you know what your deadline is and when your text will be ready.

Machine translation has its place—for example when you need to have some idea of what a text is about. However, for academic translation, you need 1) correct terminology, 2) perfect grammar and 3) elegant academic style. Machine translation provides none of these. Plus, the output is often gibberish.

I charge by the word for academic translation, but by the hour for editing. So, depending on how good your academic English is, paying me to edit may cost more in the end. Additionally, I will assume you know the correct translations for the technical terms.

When you are writing a thesis, it is best to send me each chapter as it is ready. If you are writing a shorter text, like a journal article, feel free to request an estimate based on the unfinished text. However, it is better to start translating only when the text is in its final version. I charge by the hour to incorporate later changes.

A journal article must comply with the journal’s guidelines (see an example from Elsevier), and these guidelines specify a required referencing system (Harvard, MLA, Chicago, APA, etc.). The English dialect must also usually match the country of the journal (e.g. UK English for a journal in the UK), or the dialect must at least be consistent. Universities also have guidelines for theses. I can make sure your article follows these guidelines.

a) Be more concise, and write shorter sentences

Native speakers like to read short English sentences. And foreigners do too! In general, English sentences should start with a subject, then an active verb, then the rest of the sentence, which should not go over 30 words. Sometimes, authors writing in romance languages like Italian and Portuguese like to really polish their text before sending it for translation. When doing this, they join sentences together to make very long, complex sentences. This may be stylish in romance languages, but it is considered poor style in English. Consequently, the translator will have to untangle the long sentences and break them up into digestible parts.

b) Avoid the passive, use real subjects and active verbs

In romance languages, academic writers are taught that they should avoid saying we/I in academic texts. Thus, they write all sentences in the passive, bending over backward with awkward syntax to avoid we/I. Then, when I translate the text, I routinely convert all sentences into the active voice and insert we/I or a subject. In modern Academic English, using the passive is frequently considered old-fashioned or poor style. Make it easier on both of us and write your text in the active voice. If you are unsure, look at your references, especially the ones written by native speakers of English. Do they use the passive, or we/I? This can depend on the field.