Did you know how that the name of Coca-Cola in China was first rendered as "ke-kou-ke-la"? But, unfortunately, did you know what they discovered after thousands of signs had been printed? That the phrase meant: Bite the wax tadpole or Female horse stuffed with wax (!!!).

Choose your translating agency wisely and your project will become trouble-free, efficient, and cost-effective. By choosing the right translation company, your translation will get the attention it deserves.

Here's 5 simple tips to choose the right translation agency for you.

1. Select the lower pricing its always a risk

You can never save with cheap translation! You can always find lower and lower prices if you keep searching on the Internet. You can get the translation done at a lower cost but you will never actually save with cheap translation. Qualified professional translators seldom, if ever, take jobs at a very low price. If someone offers you very low prices, you can imagine who will actually do the translation. Poor translators deliver poor translation. And in the end you have to pay more to improve the translation, not to mention the potential business opportunities you might lose.

2. Select the ones who offering a quality assurance process

A good translation company will manage your project from translation through to editing, desktop publishing and proofreading (some professional translators call it TEP and when you say TEP, they know you're an experienced client who understands how quality translation is made.)

The agency should have a stringent quality assurance process setup – this quality process should cover both, linguistic quality and quality of business practices and procedures. This usually includes how the translators are selected and supervised, as well as editors and proofreaders who will ultimately verify the quality of the translation being done. An additional process, is that the project managers should be trained or at least knowledgeable in translation work and preferably, have done some work as translators themselves.

3. Select the ones who plan carefully your translation

In translation, the better you plan your project, the more difficult the process will be.

If you spent a week writing a document, there's no way that a translator will re-write it in a night.

A translator can produce 2,000 - 2,500 translated words in one working day. And that's not the end. When the translation is complete, it is advisable to have editing and in-country review done by your own people.

Any text intended for publication requires careful proofreading of the typeset copy.

Do not trust "fast agency"m they are unlikely to produce a good task.

4. Select specialized agencies

When you consider a translation agency, specify the project in as much detail as possible. Make a list of things important to you and e-mail or fax them to the translation team. Explain the nature of your document. Is it a scientific translation? Is it financial terminology? Make sure to ask your important questions up front. Choose the ones who work in a specialized sector. Be aware that time constraints may affect the price and accuracy of a translation.

What makes for a good translation agency may be - unfortunately - invisible to the client.

• A team of translators assessed directly by scholars for competency and talent

• Well-paid translators and editors

• A management team dedicated to operational efficiency and quality control

• Realistic time schedules to ensure translation accuracy and consistency

• Friendly, flexible services to accommodate specific requests

• Commitment to fair and reasonable pricing

• A team that is run not by businessmen, but by linguists who have an obvious love for language.

5. Ask for the evidence

It's a wise move asking if the agency can provide any evidence for the implementation of described processes. Compare quality with brief texts to be translated (500 words). Compare rates per words.

And remember: always enjoy a relaxing experience working with professionals!