1. Is the translation for information only? Will only one or two people be reading the document, then filing it away?
2. Is it a formal document to be read by business associates in another country? Will its correctness or lack thereof have repercussions on your business?
3. Is it marketing material targeted for readers in a foreign country? Will the material be read by hundreds or thousands of people?
4. Did your company create the document, or did you receive it from a business partner or as part of a research activity?

We ask these questions because:

1. In some cases, not all of the text will need to be translated. Translating and recreating figures and tables in a document received as a fax or pdf file is particularly costly.
2. Text to be used to convince the reader, both marketing text, annual reports, and some legal documents, need a special touch to maintain their persuasiveness.
3. Translations for information purposes (or verification) need to be correct, but the exact register and style need not always be maintained.

Clients often pay one translation company to translate an ad into a foreign language (type 2, above), then pay another company to translate the ad back into the original language (type 3). If the second company is not aware of this, the two transformations of idiomatic expressions may result in an unrecognizable final text, even if the intermediate translation is very good.

Another example is the correction of errors in the source text. Most translators automatically correct obvious errors in source text, but in some cases the client needs to know about these errors. The type of translation will indicate how we should treat these errors.