It seems that the Spanish translation industry is rapidly expanding, with more and more people needing professional translation services. However, some people are still reluctant to hire a Spanish translator and would rather turn to free Spanish translation engines and websites rather than pay a professional Spanish translator.

There are a ton of reasons for this, but I'd like to mention one of those here in this article, which is that people are unwilling to pay translators for their services believing that translation is not difficult and simply consists of copying the original document down in another language.

Many of these people look at all of the free Spanish translation tools that are available online and think to themselves, "Why do I need to pay a professional when I can have it done automatically for free?" Little do they realize the true cost of free Spanish translation services.

A business is always under the scrutinizing eye of the public. Everything you write, from emails that you send to customers, to quarterly financial reports, all demonstrates the pride you have in your company. If you conduct your correspondence in English, but pay no attention to grammar or the words you use, you won't be in business much longer. The same is true for your foreign language correspondence.

Why would you for a second believe that a potential client reading your marketing material in another language would not be turned off by a sub-par, or even a ridiculous translation? However, that is exactly what you are getting by using a free Spanish translation service you would find online, such as Google's or Altavista's.

You will not only be costing your business future revenue, but also, if word of you trying to pass off your materials in another language by using a free Spanish translation tool gets out to your English-speaking clients, they might believe you are not serious about your business and sever their relationship with you. I don't know about you, but that's a pretty high price I wouldn't be willing to pay.

So what are these free online Spanish translators good for? Well, the only thing I think they are good at is giving you a main idea of what the text is about. Let me give you a brief example.

I ran the first paragraph of an article I found in a Mexican newspaper through the free Spanish translation tool at Google's website. Here's the resulting English exactly as it was rendered:

The man assassinated in the bar Capon's, turned out to be an ex- municipal police, informed the police authorities. The victim was identified with the name of Luis Antiga Hernandez, of 35 years of age.

...and here is what the English should be:

Police authorities have reported that the man assassinated in Capon's Bar was a former municipal policeman. The victim was identified as 35-year-old Luis Antiga Hern