Being Traducendo Ltd

Traducendo is a translation company run by translators to empower back other translators while translating.

Like the definition?

We love it, even if it hardly makes any sense.

Let’s try to explain a bit better with an easy comparison with a traditional agency.

A normal translation agency counts on a series of different characters:

- The Commercial (let’s call it COM, it’s shorter)

- The Project Manager (let’s call it PM, as everybody does)

- The Translator (let’s call it Tradu, it’s nicer)

-The Proofreader (let’s call it Proofer, it’s cooler)

- The Accountant (let’s call it Vampire, is more realistic!)

- The Editor (sometimes)

- The DTP guy (this is a rather mysterious character, many talk about him, no one ever saw him. It’s a bit like the Big Foot of translation)

Here is how it works.

The Commercial contacts the clients selling  amazing translation services (which 99% of the time has never tested). To do this job you must be good, so good. No, no, seriously, you must be damn good, or rather you must find a lot of easy to convince fools.

Anyway, COM sells, client gets convinced, COM passes all the work to the PM. The PM usually cries in despair because the client requires  many crazy things, which the COM accepted  in order to sell, and now the PM has to sort them out. Frustrated PM gets some translators from a database prepared by someone else (if he/she’s lucky) or by him/herself (usually). PM unloads this huge load of frustration to the chosen translator for a rate that could barely be accepted in Niger during a year of heavy famine. But “Hey, there is  crisis, you know how many translators I could find, if I only wanted to, who would work for half  your fee?” Tradu accepts, of course.

Let’s do it quickly, I’m already getting the PM frustration . These things actually bore me a lot.

So, Tradu translates and sends to PM, who complains about something and sends to Proofer, who says that “everything is a shit, one of the worse translation ever, bla bla bla” and sends it back to PM, who gets back to Tradu complaining about what Proofer said. Tradu gets mad because Proofer corrections are only style matters bla bla bla…anyway, Tradu makes some more comments, amends few things and sends back to PM, who sends back to Proofer for confirmation. Proofer sends back to PM who (if needed) sends to DTP guy, who does stuff (nobody actually knows what t DTP guys do), and sends back to PM, who sends to Editor, who edits and does all kinds of  editing stuff and sends back to PM, who finally, and just 1 second before crying, sends to COM, who sends to client, who complains about (choose one) late delivery, over-expensive rates, bad terminology, and sends back to COM, who sends to PM, who sends to Tradu then PM then Proofer then PM then Editor then PM then COM then client. If they are all lucky, at this point job is done. Now Tradu, Proofer, PM , COM, Editor, and the mysterious DTP guy need to go to the Vampire to get paid. But this is another story.

Time to do that has been on average 5 days. Cost to do that has been on average HUGE!!! Stress to do that is impossible to quantify.

Then, there is Traducendo Ltd.

I love to think at ourselves as the translators’ oasis.

We do it in this way.

Client talks to PM which is also COM. PM picks the most suited Tradu, the most suited Proofer and the most suited Editor (if needed). Then, they all sit  together in front of their PC (that in our case are just 500 m away from an Atlantic beach of southern Spain, yes, oh yes, it’s been a month already since we started swimming and enjoying mojitos at sunset….) and they all work together, simultaneously on the translation. Translator translates and asks for suggestion to the proofer which asks for explanations to the translators and the editor supervises everything while the PM helps providing reference material, mediation to avoid assassination attempts between Tradus and Proofers, and bad jokes on DTP guys.

What do we get for this?

We translate the same document in 3 days vs. 5, at an average of  1/3 of the other agency fee and we have created a team of professionals who actually like each other (it’s crazy, I know).

Now, it’s not that we are perfect, we are so far from that, but hey, we found a way to save money, time and stress, and increasing personal relationship in an industry mostly composed by nerds with no social life (I include myself in the category as well).

We are not geniuses, but we are damn good, I would say Super Translators!