TextMaster.com

Introduction

Textmaster is an entirely online based translation website service which has a keen focus on the use of technology in translation. The following review breaks down some of the critical services the website offers as well as advice you on the quality of the services compared to some other translation websites available in the market.

Service Offered

Textmaster has invested heavily on research and development of tools that assist in translation and as such carry-out translation using proprietary technology such as Translation Memory and Translation Glossary.

Their Translation Memory tool skims through documents keeping a data repository of all translated information and carrying out regular comparisons to maintain consistency in the translation pattern. All the material entered into the system is shareable by another user through the cloud. A single document can, therefore, be worked on by multiple individuals in different locations.

Their Translation Glossary is a tool that different text master reviews have shown to be popular on the website and it provides a database of terminology to the translators to keep a certain level of consistency for industry sensitive translation material. The database also has functionality that suggests terminology included in the glossary of the client.

Post Editor is another proprietary tool developed by TextMaster that uses machine translation to do quick reviews of the project before a translator makes it readable to human beings.  The post editing machine has the capability of reading through projects written in a variety of languages. This could be considered a TextMaster scam as it is unverifiable whether a machine translator went through the material or human translator was assigned the translation project.

Textmaster allows its clients to use different interfaces as the client may please. Through TextMaster's API, clients can use plugins that have been developed in-house by their developers while still benefit from additional features provided.

Textmaster allows its clients to translate a large number of documents from PDFs to texts on brochures and deliver the translated material in the same format.

Quality of Services

The variety of services offered is dependent on the machine employed. While machines are generally more accurate than human translators, the final material may be ambiguous and not understandable by the intended audience.

A look at the TextMaster review on technology would reveal that the extensive use of technology in the services generally keep the accuracy of the material reasonably high.

Translation costs per word charged by the website are highly dependent on the urgency of the task. Rush orders, for example, are charged differently from regular enterprise fees. While for extra proofreading clients would be required to dig deeper into their pockets.

Pros & Cons

Pros

• Textmaster has a rigorous recruitment policy.
• Translation technology can sift through large quantities of material to be translated in a shorter period.

Cons

• Translation employs heavy technology and as such lack of human touch to them.
• Textmaster translation charges extra for professional translators
• Knowing for sure the accuracy of the translated material is difficult as most of the translators are natives with limited knowledge
• When the document is sent in a non-editable format, the website charges an extra fee for text extraction

Summary

Looking at the textmaster.com review, it is clear that the translation service is almost up to industry standards. The translation service, however, is limiting to clients since all the translated material needs to be in text format. Clients with audiovisual material to be translated would, therefore, be better off looking for a translation service provider that offers that kind of translation.