is there a better way to create .po files?

is there a better way to create .po files

i am relatively new to drupal and am loving it more and more everyday. i am suppose to create a multi-lingual site and have downloaded i18n module foe the same.
i understand the concept of importing and exporting .po files for the concerned language and was also successful in adding strings to the existing .po files as well.
i just want to know whether there is any "more" efficient way to add the words that exist in my nodes for translation because the methodology that i am currently using is really time consuming.
help is appreciated :)