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If you've browsed the Internet for any moderate amount of time, paid close attention to the instruction manual for that Chinese MP3 player you bought the other day or, heaven forbid,received a machine-translated newsletter from a foreign company, you know that bad translation directly zaps money out of people's pockets.

There's the story about the computer
designed to translate between Russian and
English. The English phrase "the spirit is
willing but the flesh is weak" was submitted
and then the Russian translation of that
was resubmitted for conversion back to
English.
The result: "The wine is good but the meat
is rotten."

A translation is truly a product of effort, training and attention to detail. That being said, if you want to achieve an excellent translation of important material you will need to take responsibility for the translation and make sure you embark on a business relationship with a translation service with a very good reputation.

I know what you might be thinking, "I don't need a translation service! I attended one of the best French schools France has to offer!" I understand where you're coming from, it's an easy trap to fall into and who wouldn't want to save some money for your next vacations. While I commend your efforts to properly learn French in France and am sure you are a great speaker with the skills to match a native, let me tell you that translation is a different beast altogether. Even if you could do a semi-decent job by translating yourself, you should know that the skills for translating are different than the ones you learned at language school and that a successful translation requires not only a masterful handling of the foreign language, but also a superb knowledge of the language you're translating to (and if that is your native language it's very likely that you don't have what it takes.) I don't blame you, it's very easy to fall into this trap.

In a Bucharest hotel lobby:
The lift is being fixed for the next day. During
that time we regret that you will be unbearable.

In a Bangkok dry cleaner's:
Drop your trousers here for best results.

You can't afford to fall into the trap, however. You can perhaps afford to walk into it, if situation demands it. What I mean is that, if you are completely out of capital to invest in the translation service you might be able to get by (for a while) with your own language skills (or the ones of someone you know.) But this is the kind of dire straits decision you make when there is really no other way, not when you want to save up for that Blue Ray player. And if you're really that broke, you should really consider putting the project off until you can properly fund it.

When you want to ensure you will receive an excellent translation for your material, it helps to be proactive and do some research on your end. Translation problems can and will arise and it's very hard to be aware of them if you are not a native speaker. Assess the resources within your organization, such as people that have specialized knowledge of the subject. If you are lucky someone might have either limited or excellent command of the target language. Get that person to help you out as they can have a much better perception as to what the problematic language in the source text will be. Make sure you work vigorously to catch what could be a stumbling block for your target audience. With this knowledge at hand you can begin the review process with the translation agency from a much better position and ask the right questions.