I learned a lot about the agencies and ther translators in the the last three months. And I learned it the hard way. What we are faced with in dealing with the matchmaking agencies is that the translators work for the agency. They will delete any correspondence they think may endanger the relationship. So anger is not often communicated. They also add to the letter things that are fictions. A lot of flowery jargon and poetic nonsense to "liven up" the conversation. They are often prone to add a lot of " I love you" dear and "hehe" to the letters. They will often make up stories to discourage direct communications. At least this has been my experience dealing with chnlove.com and the Changchun agency representing the lady I communicate with. We don't like it but there are few alternatives.
For those of you that "simply don't trust the translators" at the agency's. I have found a great alternative. She is a young English school teacher. So far I have used her for translating email and telephone calls and it has worked great. She knows the requirements, correct and accurate translations "verbatim" . No rewording and no embellishments. Her fees are negotiable. I just sent her a retainer that she bills against as services are rendered. The turn around time is about 24 hours on week days. She has a QQ account so I am going to try an experiment in realtime three way chat with her in the middle. I'll let you know how that goes. I also intend to use her when I travel to China to visit. She is kust a phone call away.
I asked that when she translates email for me that she include the original transcript along with the translation. I then had it checked by Jing (ex-wife) and she said it was accurate. So I am very happy with this service so far. If anyone else wants to use her, here is her contact information. mingxi jiang (
mingxi_jiang@hotmail.com) she uses the name Rachel.
I hope this helps somene. Gerry