About El Turco
A translation, localization and AI training data company for Turkish, Arabic, Persian, Balkan, Eastern European and Turkic languages.
- Founded in Istanbul
- 2016
- Headquarters moved to London
- 2021
- Regional languages
- 19
- Vetted native linguists
- 700+
Who we are.
Founded in Istanbul in 2016, headquartered in London since 2021, production in Istanbul.
A small in-house team of project managers and a vendor manager, backed by 700+ vetted native linguists in 19 languages.
El Turco started in Istanbul in 2016 as a Turkish translation boutique and grew into a vendor for Turkish, Arabic, Persian, Balkan, Eastern European and Turkic languages across Türkiye, the Middle East, the Balkans, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia, delivering translation, localization and AI training data. A vendor to global LSPs since 2017, El Turco handles 100K+ localization tasks a year and has delivered 75M+ words since 2020.
How we work
Every translation job runs in a CAT tool with the client's translation memory and glossary. Automated checks run in What's Wrong?, the translation QA tool from Still Needs a Human. A second native linguist reviews every job before delivery. Project management is in-house: Dispatch, our business management system, handles resource allocation and progress tracking. Hub, our middleware, connects LSP vendor portals and TMS platforms to Dispatch.
The workflow for a job, from a 500-word product description to a million-word game localization, is agreed at scoping and documented, so the same steps run on every batch that follows. AI data work runs in batches against the agreed guidelines, with gold tasks and spot checks on each batch.
Our culture
We are a remote-first team. Whether on a call or in the office, there is usually music playing, some laughter and a heated debate about the best way to localize a gaming meme for the Turkish market.
On every account
- Second linguist on every job
- A second native linguist reviews every translation against the source before delivery, under ISO 17100.
- Native linguists for each market
- Screened with a language quiz and a paid test of 500 to 1,000 words in their domain, then a mentored onboarding period before they work on client jobs.
- Post-editing under ISO 18587
- Where a program uses machine translation, post-editing runs under ISO 18587, with automated checks and a human sign-off on every delivery.
- One contact per account
- The same project manager stays on an account from one release to the next.
A note from the founder
“I started El Turco in 2016 because Turkish, Arabic, Persian and the Balkan languages kept being treated as an afterthought: last to ship, first to be cut. We built the team I wished existed back then: native linguists who live in these languages, backed by process and tooling that holds up at scale. If your project depends on getting these languages right, I'd like to hear about it.”
Life at El Turco.
Conferences, bootcamps, team dinners and everything in between.
Our story, year by year.
From a Turkish translation boutique to translation, localization and AI training data in 19 languages.
- 2016
Founded in Istanbul
Started as a Turkish translation boutique.
- 2017
Vendor to global LSPs
Started working as a vendor to global language service providers.
- 2017
First Localization Ninja
Launched our in-house talent development bootcamp.
- 2018
Regional expansion
Added Arabic, Persian and Azerbaijani to core language offerings.
- 2020
Balkan coverage
Expanded into Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Albanian markets.
- 2021
London
Moved headquarters to London.
- 2022
AI data services
Launched crowd data collection and annotation services for AI.
- 2025
AI data at scale
AI data services grew into a second core line next to localization.
Certifications and memberships.
Our processes are certified to international standards for translation, post-editing, quality and information security.
Certificate copies and registration numbers are available on request: request certificate copies. Security and compliance questions are answered in the FAQ.
- ISO 17100:2015Translation services
- ISO 18587:2017Post-editing of machine translation output
- ISO 9001:2015Quality management systems
- ISO/IEC 27001Information security management
- ELIA member (opens in a new tab)European Language Industry Association
The people behind El Turco.
A small remote-first in-house team, backed by a vetted network of 700+ regional linguists.
Work with us.
Whether you are an enterprise or an LSP, tell us about your project and we will scope it with you.
A project manager reads your brief, usually the same working day.