What Do Translators and Translation Companies Do?

What do translators and translation companies actually do? What is their essential function?

There may be a number of ways to describe the function of those who work in the field of language services. Perhaps the best way we’ve come up with is to say that we provide services that help remove barriers to communication due to different languages. If everyone spoke the same language then difficulties in communication would be less, not non-existent, but lower.

Since there are many languages spoken and written in the world we have a scenario where considerable barriers to communication exist between languages. The services provided by translators and translation organizations seek to minimize these barriers.