Commissioning your first game translation: how the process works

Deciding to pay someone to translate your game is the easy part. The awkward part is everything immediately after: you do not know where to look, you do not know what information a translator needs from you, you are not sure what a reasonable request even sounds like, and you have no idea how you will tell whether what comes back is any good.

None of that is because the process is complicated. It is because nobody describes it end to end, so first-time clients improvise, and the avoidable problems all come from the same place — starting the conversation before the project is ready to be quoted on.

This walks through the whole sequence, from what you prepare before contacting anyone to what you do when the files land in your inbox.

Get these things ready before you contact anyone

A translator cannot quote on a description. They can quote on a file. The single most common reason a first inquiry goes nowhere is that it contains an idea rather than a project, and answering it would require the translator to do unpaid discovery work.

Before you write to anyone, assemble the following. Most of it you need anyway, and having it ready typically gets you faster replies, better rates, and fewer misunderstandings later.

• The actual text, exported to a file — the exact volume in words or characters, not an estimate from memory
• The file format you will send and expect back, and whether the translator works directly in it
• A breakdown by type: how much is UI, how much is dialogue, how much is store and marketing copy
• Character limits wherever they exist, recorded per string rather than mentioned in passing
• Context material: a build or demo key, a short document on tone and setting, character notes, and screenshots of the screens the text appears on
• Your deadline, and whether it is fixed by a release date or flexible
• Your budget range — withholding it does not get you a better price, it gets you a quote for a scope you did not want

An individual translator or an agency

For a first commission on an indie-scale game, this is usually a choice between one freelance translator per language and one agency handling several languages at once. Neither is the right answer in general; they trade different things.

A freelancer gives you a direct relationship with the person actually writing the words. You can talk about tone, they can ask you questions, and their understanding of your game compounds across updates. The cost is that you are managing each language yourself, and if that person is unavailable when your patch ships, you have no substitute who knows the project.

An agency gives you coordination: one contract, one schedule, several languages, and usually a review step included by default. The cost is distance. You often do not know who translated your text, questions travel through a coordinator, and the specific person who learned your game may not be there next time.

Two practical points regardless of which you choose. First, look for demonstrable game experience rather than general translation experience — game text has conventions, constraints, and file formats that general commercial translation does not. Second, ask for a small paid sample of your own text, not a portfolio piece. A sample of your real dialogue, quoted and paid for at the normal rate, is the cheapest information you will buy in this whole process.

Writing the first message

A good first message is short, concrete, and answerable without a follow-up call. It tells them what the game is, how much text there is, what format it is in, when you need it, and that context material exists. Anything longer than a screen tends to reduce your reply rate rather than increase it.

Do not open by asking for a discount, do not ask them to translate a paragraph for free to prove themselves, and do not describe the job as small unless you have counted. Every experienced translator has been told a job was small by someone who had not exported their text.

Subject: Translation inquiry - [game name], EN to [language], ~12,000 words

Hello,

I am the developer of [game name], a [genre] game releasing on [platform]
in [month]. I am looking for a translator for the [language] version.

Scope: about 12,000 words total - roughly 2,000 words of UI and system
text, 9,000 words of dialogue, and 1,000 words of store page copy.
Format: CSV with key, source, context, and character-limit columns.
Deadline: first draft by [date], flexible by about two weeks.
Budget: [range].

I can provide a build key, a tone and setting document, character notes,
and screenshots for the UI strings. I am also happy to commission a
paid sample of a few hundred words first if that suits you.

Would you be available, and what would you need from me to quote?

[name]

From quote to agreement: settle these in writing

When a quote comes back, read it for structure before you read it for the number. Rates are typically stated per source word or per source character, so check which one, and check whether review is included in that figure or priced separately — a translation-only price and a translation-plus-review price are not comparable, and the difference matters more than a small gap in rate.

Before work starts, agree the following in writing. An email exchange both parties can point to later is enough for a small commission; a contract is better once the amounts get serious.

• Exact scope: which files, which strings, and what happens to text you add after the count was taken
• Deliverable format, and that the key column comes back unchanged
• Schedule, including whether it arrives in one delivery or in batches
• How many revision rounds are included, and what counts as a fix versus a new request
• Payment terms: amount, currency, timing, method, and who absorbs transfer fees
• Who owns the translated text once paid, and whether you may edit it afterwards
• Credit: whether they want to be credited, and under what name
• Confidentiality, if your game is unannounced

While the work is running, questions are a good sign

Once translation starts, the most useful thing you can do is be reachable. A translator who asks whether two characters are close friends, whether a term is a proper noun, or whether a variable holds a number or a name is doing the job properly. Silence for three weeks followed by a complete delivery is not always a bad sign, but it is never as good a sign as it feels.

Set up one place for questions — a shared document, a thread, a channel — and answer in batches rather than making them wait for each one individually. If you find yourself answering the same kind of question repeatedly, that answer belongs in the glossary or the context document, where it will save you from answering it again for the next language.

Expect a terminology list to come back for approval early on, especially for names and system vocabulary. Approve it promptly. Deciding that a skill name should have been rendered differently after nine thousand lines have been written is expensive for both of you.

Checking a delivery in a language you cannot read

You will not be able to judge the writing, but you can verify a great deal else, and you should do it before you approve payment rather than after.

Start mechanically. Confirm the row count matches what you sent and that every key is present and unchanged. Compare the placeholders and markup tags in each source and target pair — they must match exactly. Look for target cells that are byte-identical to the source, which usually means a line was skipped rather than deliberately left as is. Check every string that has a character limit against that limit.

Then put it in the game and look at it. Most remaining problems are visual: overflowing labels, clipped buttons, missing glyphs showing as boxes, line breaks in awkward places. You do not need to read the language to see any of those.

For the writing itself, the honest answer is that you need a second pair of eyes, and the cheapest version is a native-speaking player or fellow developer giving you an impression of the first hour rather than a full review. If something is badly off, they will tell you within minutes. If the report is that it reads naturally and the characters sound distinct, you have what you paid for.

Finally, pay on the terms you agreed, promptly. The freelance world runs on reputation in both directions, and a developer who pays on time with clear feedback is someone good translators make room for the next time — which matters more than you expect, because your next patch will need them.