Using French learning software and French translators can be a very good option for those who want to learn to French but are short on time. Top Ten REVIEWS has selected the best French Translators and French Learning Software programs, based on criteria including Feature Set, such as touch, sight, and sound; Ease of Use and Installation; Help/Documentation and technical support; Fundamentals; and Effectiveness.

French Before You Know It: This French learning tool is a flashcard program created by Transparent, which is designed to help users develop their French Vocabulary and retain certain words and phrases, with a bit of entertainment thrown in. Main features include speech recording software which evaluates French pronunciation, several flashcard modes, French spelling practice, vocabulary building and writing tools, etc.

French Now  This is a French language program that allows you listen to live conversations, read articles, and watch videos from France. Since this is an immersion program, you need to have a little knowledge of French before using it. Main features include a French Pronunciation Tool, which allows you to compare your pronunciations with that of a native speaker; grammar and writing tools, featuring a global writer to help you write and spell-check in French; and GrammarPro, a series of grammar tutorials and quizzes.

Instant Immersion French:

Lesson Plan includes CD 1 Alphabet, sounds, CD 2 Greetings, introductions, subject pronouns, CD 3 Gender agreement, physical descriptions, and corresponding verbs, CD 4 Weather, numbers, irregular verbs, finding and following directions, CD 5 Days of the week, date, useful shopping terms, CD 6 Restaurants, food and corresponding verbs, CD 7 Cultural notes on ethnic food and customs, finding accommodations, and CD 8 Time/hours, corresponding verbs, and use of object pronouns.

Learn to Speak French Deluxe: Learn to Speak French incorporates certain features that make learning French and its fundamentals easier, such as built-in pretest that evaluates your current French level; progress tests to see how much you've learned; simulated French conversations to test your conversation skills; writing and speech recognition; and multiple accounts for the family.

TeachMe! French: TeachMe! French uses the blackboard method of teaching, and includes four main categories - French pronunciation, French grammar, French vocabulary, and French stories. The program also features three different modes - Normal Mode, for advanced French learners; Auto Word Mode, for beginners; and Game Mode, with focus on French culture and history.

Rosetta Stone French: Developed by Fairfield Language Technologies, Rosetta Stone French mainly focuses on vocabulary building, and helps you learn French by image and word association. This language program features thousands of pictures to represent a broad French vocabulary, adjustable writing program, speech recognition software, etc. Help is content-sensitive, and every screen has a help button, while every page has a guided tutorial.

Tell Me More French: This French language software is the Top Ten Reviews Choice Gold Award Winner, designed to designed to grow with you as you learn French. The program features three main modes - Guided Mode, for beginners; Free-to-Roam Mode, for intermediates; and Dynamic Mode, for experts. The speech recognition software can evaluate pronunciation, and automatically detect and correct errors. Another notable feature is the 3-D animation program to illustrate exact lip and mouth movements.

I love almost everything about travel. I love the wonder and the newness of entering a culture that I have never been to before. I love meeting new people, trying new customs, and getting acquainted with the foods and drinks that people around the world love dearly. One thing, however, that I always struggle with in my travels is communication. While many people in the world speak English even if it is not their first language, I hate being the tourist that enters a new land and expects people to do things on my terms. So when I was preparing to spend a month working on a photography book in France, I was most happy to have the services of a French translator.

When my company told me that they were sending me and a team of three other photographers to France to get initial shots for a tour of France photojournalism book, I could not have been more excited. That is, until they told us that we would be staying with French people, doing French things, and learning to see France through the eyes of the native people. I was nervous about having to communicate with the French in their own language since I had barely made it through two years of high school French.

My French translator was the best resource during that trip.

Our French translator was an amazing French woman that was more than happy to accompany us on the month long journey all around her native country. We met her at the airport and she never made us feel anything but safe and at home in her native land. I took a special liking to our French translator, I guess partly because she was doing the hard work of crossing the language barrier that I always dreaded about travel.

I told our French translator that while I did in fact need and want her to translate for me in most situations, I also wanted her to teach me as much French as possible during our month together. She obliged and we immediately began a month of intensive French lessons. I loved my lessons and I loved feeling like I knew way more about speaking French after just one month with a personal tutor.

Our French translator was the one who talked with me about the importance of learning foreign languages and of realizing that English was not the only language of the world. I learned so much from her that month. We became lifelong friends. I was so glad that she helped me make it through my month in France.

There is no shortage of translators who take the plunge and set up shop as self-employed freelancers, but few have the ambition or the spirit to start up their own all-round translation agency. This is not surprising, of course, as the establishment of a full- scale translation agency is a quantum leap compared with what it takes to launch a viable freelance practice. Nevertheless, the intellectual and financial rewards of business ownership can be substantial. Below I will discuss various aspects you will have to take into account should you consider beginning your own professional and all-round translation business.

All-round translations

First of all, what is meant, in this particular context, by the term "all-round"? Basically, it refers to the scope of your product. As a freelancer your output would be confined to your own language combination and degree of specialization; as an agency owner you will be able to supply your clients with translations across a whole range of source and target languages and disciplines, including commercial, technical, medical and legal documents. In theory, your range would be limited only by the number of staff you would be prepare to contract.

Internal Organization

If you want to establish your own translation company, you would be well advised to find a competent partner first unless you are willing to hire staff right from the start (which, in most cases, is not a recommendable procedure).

Ideally, your business partner should be a person whose qualities are complementary to your own, if only because in such cases the division of tasks is usually quite obvious (and a potential source of conflict is removed). There are good reasons to separate responsibility for product quality (i.e., the quality of the translations) from organizational responsibilities (order processing, account management, etc.). These two roles do not go together very well in practice, and the associated skills are not usually combined within one and the same person anyway.

Find suitable office accommodation that includes at least two rooms: one library-style room where you can work in peace, and one nerve center where the business is done. Make sure you have at least three computer workstations (one spare station is no luxury) and an office printer, a telephone switchboard with at least two external lines and a fax.

Get yourself a straightforward high-quality accounting program with a CRM module and document your working methods in detailed systematic procedures.

Don't forget to lay down and formalize a number of essential agreements on tasks and responsibilities with your business partner, so as to prevent any misunderstandings.

Business Plan

Once you have gathered all the information you need, you should draw up a Business Plan. Examples of such plans are available at your local Chamber of Commerce, or can be downloaded (for a fee) from the Internet. These specimen copies are structured in such a way that they will assist you in each step of your own Business Plan. One of the main advantages of having a reliable Business Plan is that it will present you with a realistic estimate of the money you will need to get your agency off the ground. If your capital requirements exceed your private budget (and it is quite likely that they will), you will have to present a thorough Business Plan to the bank in order to persuade them that your plans will pay off.

High-quality freelance translator network
The main asset of any translation agency is obviously its network of reliable translators. Incidentally, you need not be a networking freak to build up such a freelance network. Many freelancers will present themselves to you spontaneously as soon as they get wind of your existence; alternatively, you can actively recruit them and check out CVs on a variety of collective freelance websites, such as Translators Café or GoTranslators. The snag is that you will be hard put to appraise a freelancer's skills if you do not master the language concerned. CV assessment is important, but by no means sufficient: you will need to be able to judge the quality of a freelancer's actual output before entrusting him or her to your clients!

To obviate this problem, check your own network of colleagues or friends for highly-educated native speakers of the language concerned, ask several freelancers to submit (free) trial translations, have them assessed and select the two or three most promising freelancers for each language combination you intend to offer. Carefully document the strengths and weaknesses of each selected freelancer and list the specializations. Note that you won't get a truly reliable picture of a freelancer's capacity and skills until he/she has had the opportunity to do several translation jobs for you.

Once you have a pool of reliable freelance translators for each language combination, you can obviously also ask them to check and assess trial translations submitted by other candidates.

Another point to bear in mind is that the freelancers you decide to work with should comply with all the requirements imposed by your country's Tax & Customs Administration. Each freelancer should be able to produce a formal statement, issued by the tax authorities, attesting to his/her status as an independent translator.

Reliable network of suppliers

Your freelance translators are obviously your most important suppliers, but the supply network comprises other parties as well that will need to be carefully selected as you will need to use their services on an ongoing basis. These include the bank, the accountant, the printer and the graphic designer.

Marketing

Once the internal set-up of your agency is in place, your first priority should be to recruit clients in a systematic manner. For many start-ups in the translation business, this is the most difficult hurdle. Obviously there is a multitude of strategies that can help you attract clients in the business-to-business segment (which accounts for most of the turnover of any self-sufficient translation agency). One very helpful tool, if used correctly, is Direct Marketing. In principle, two different Direct Marketing strategies are available:

1. Internet marketing
One effective and relatively cheap method of generating business in the short term is Search Engine Optimization (SEO), a term that refers to a variety of techniques to help you strengthen your presence on the Internet, and to help prospective clients find you there.

A strong position in Internet search engines will increase the number of times you are invited to submit a quote for a translation job, for the simple reason that you will be more likely to be selected if you are easy to find on the Internet.

Some Internet facility agencies have specialized in Search Engine Optimization and will be able to improve your search engine rating within a couple of months. Most of these companies charge annual subscription fees. If you want immediate results, ask for an adwords campaign.

2. Database marketing
This a rather more expensive client acquisition technique.

Call large international corporations and government agencies likely to produce texts for translation on a regular basis, and ask for the name of the person who is responsible for translation services (usually an official at the Director's Office, Communications or the Marketing Department). Gather the information in a database and mail the contact persons four or five times a year. The mailing could comprise your company brochure, a letter of recommendation, flyers, a magazine for business relations or any other item that will help remind the reader of your name and the level of quality that you offer.

An effective database contains at least 1,000 companies or other organizations, and should also contain the names of the contact persons. It goes without saying that you will also have to invest in continually updating your database.

Global trade has necessitated translation to and from many languages of the globe. An intricate process, owning to variations in syntax and construction rules in world languages, translation entails a careful selection of translator and reviewer services.

Since you cant review the quality of a translated document, you can make sure that:

1. The document you are giving for translation is of the best level possible.

2. The team you are paying meets your top notch requirements.

Before handing off:

1. Initiate the spell check and grammar check: An obvious but a completely necessary step. Remember, if your document is error free, there will be fewer translation errors to deal with!

2. Keep a copy of the document with you: This might seem like a superfluous suggestion but an excessively enormous number of people forget to do so!

3. In your document: Keep the sentences short and clear and avoid using abbreviations (Say can not instead of can't).

Deciding on the translator:

1. Inexpensive is not best. Your neighbors kid who took a French paper last year might be able to flaunt his French connection but translation is a professional calling. Paying less might turn out to be very costly for you.

2. Choose a service provider who has a large number of years of experience in translating into the language you are seeking.

3. The translator should be a native user of the language and must be conversant with the culture and minutiae of the language he/she is attempting to translate from.

4. The translator should also be able to understand the finer nuances of the language he/she is translating from.

5. Choose a translation company that offers to take the complete project - from translation to editing, proofreading and even desktop publishing.

After handing over

Handing over the document doesnt ensure great translation. Your inputs will be important even after handing over. Time invested here will extract advantages in terms of error free documents of great quality.

1. Make sure you have a detailed discussion about your project with the service provider to explain your requirements and to understand his/her concerns.

2. Be accessible to answer concerns and questions whenever the translator requires you.

Some more things

1. Never press the translator to do a sloppy job. Think through your project well and build in time for assessments and translations properly.

2. Select a good reviewer with the help of your translator.

3. Don't submit a half finished document. Translating corrections and additions can be pricey and may introduce errors.

4. Never try to piece together bits of translated material yourself.

Ensuring the quality of translated documents is as much your responsibility as that of your translator. You can ensure quality by also insisting proofreading and making sure that the numbers, dates and figures are error-free.

You also need to share supporting documents like references and glossaries with your translator to enable him/her to do a better job. Most of all, you must set realistic turn around time for your translators.

Never get lost in translation again!