Industry Profiles - One Hour Translation Review

In this post we’ll take a closer look at one of the prominent companies in the online translation industry, and review what makes it unique.

History

One Hour Translation was founded in 2008, and since that point has grown to be one of the largest online translation services. Through an online portal users can gain access to human translators covering over 75 different languages, which means every major language in the world is covered along with some you’ve probably never heard of. 

In 2014 the company received a $10 million investment from a leading private equity investment group, which allowed them to grow substantially. Nowadays there are a lot of competing translation services available in the online market, and OHT had to differentiate itself from the pack. It chose speed as its differentiator. Utilizing a network of 17,000 translators, the group promises to translate a 200 word page in an hour. At this rate of delivery it offers the world's fastest professional translation service. 

The company now has offices in North America, Europe and Asia, and it employs a network of thousands translators working across 100 different countries. In recent years it’s formed business relationships with a long list of Fortune 500 companies – in fact One Hour Translation claims to serve 50% of them.

Products and Services

Translation can be a complicated process and in more technical industries the translations can get more and more challenging. Think about the engineering and aerospace sectors for example: I wouldn't know half the terms used in these industries in English, let alone another language. One of the nice things I learned about while writing this One Hour Translation review is that they have a range of business industry experts on hand to translate the most technical of documents. They actually divide this service up into four specific business areas. 

Industry Wide Expertise

Business and Legal Translations - The translators working in this space all have legal, accounting or business backgrounds and work is allocated to a translator that is the best match for the assignment. From a client's perspective, it's reassuring to know that your legal contract is being handled by someone with a legal background and your financial report is handled by an accounting translator. 

Technical and Scientific Translations - Again it's essential for oil and gas companies or medical science groups to be able to have faith in the final translated product. This industry bracket caters to everything from automotive, to scientific and construction sectors. 

High-Tech Translation - This space has become critical for all translation service providers. The booming worldwide tech and software industries have created massive demand for a range of niche translation services. One Hour Translation cater for websites, apps, software localization, gaming and other areas, with a group of on call specialists. 

Marketing Translations - The marketing sector may be the least technical of the four disciplines, however conveying the same message to different worldwide audiences without losing the impact or nuances of the message is a real challenge. Again, that's why they have a dedicated pool of marketing staff that can handle these intricacies. 

Proofreading

Often overlooked, proofreading acts as the final hurdle that many organizations and individuals trip up on before publishing their content. Having done all of the hard work, the temptation to just click publish and get it done can be overwhelming. Translating and proofreading go hand in hand, so it's no great surprise that this is one of the key services offered by the group, to help screen documents and any kind of content for mistakes that have slipped through the gaps. 

Transcription

This is a great service that you don't always find with translation providers. A lot of companies fail to document important information that happens every day in meetings or presentations, simply because they don't have the resources available to handle it. One of the unique selling points of this service for clients is that after simply recording a meeting and passing on the file, one of 7,000 registered transcribers will take care of the rest for you. 

Translation Methods

One Hour Translation uses human translators that work across 75 languages and 2500 language pairs. Language pairs mean that you will have a different translator working on English to Italian jobs than you will on an Italian to English job. The two are distinctly different. Their model is also based on the principle of localization. This involves adapting the translation to suit the specific locality the client is targeting. Consider how different the Spanish spoken in regions of Spain, with all its local dialects, can be from the Spanish spoken in South America . An in-depth understanding of the local culture and language is required to ensure that the correct word choices are made. 

Thanks to a range of digital platforms, a client’s online translation request can be quickly processed, allocated to the best translator, and with a localized finished product returned in a short amount of time. 

Summary

In this One Hour Translation review we’ve covered a lot about the company’s business processes, but what really stands out is that since 2008 it has risen to become one of the most prominent translation services in the world. There are a few points that really separate it from the pack, the first being its simple business model. Whether you are a large corporate organization or a freelancer looking for a quick translation service, your user journey will be the same because the online portal is so streamlined. 

Another point we've touched on is the speed of One Hour Translation’s service. This is the other main feature that really impresses. You know once you click the order button how long it will take until you receive the translated text. A super-quick one hour service is available, but their standard service is still extremely fast. 

Finally, trustworthiness and reliability are things that can only be earned over time. This company has managed to achieve both by applying their expertise across key business sectors, working with some of the world’s leading organizations, and employing a huge number of reliable human translation specialists.