| Pages in topic: < [1 2] | Reviewing your own work according to client's observations Thread poster: Bianca Coggiola
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| Language changes | Aug 3, 2012 |
It is absolutely normal that language constantly changes, and some words will be replaced with others.
| | | | Sheila Wilson 
Spain
Local time: 02:00
Member (2007)
English
+ ...
| Some languages are less democratic than English | Aug 3, 2012 |
F Scott Ophof wrote:
it helps to take grammar 'bibles' as descriptive, not prescriptive.
It's certainly 100% true in English, and the 'bibles' I use all acknowledge that. However, I'm not sure if that's the case with Portuguese. I know that the French "Académie Française" believe they rule over every last letter in the French language. Of course they don't, but nobody would dare say so officially. Good job I've left the country!
it would seem to indeed be up to BiancaCoggiola to convince the client that capitalising each word in a string is not the accepted way in Portuguese, assuming that such capitalisation is indeed not commonly approved of in that field. Or maybe requiring the client to insert a note at the top of the target that the unconventional capitalisation is at the express request of the client?
I definitely support the first move. In the end, though, once a translation has been delivered (and paid for) it becomes the property of the client. There's no way they can be forced to insert anything, anywhere, however stupid they will appear to be. Translators just have to hope that the client is deemed the stupid one, and not the translator. This is one very good reason for keeping all original and translated texts, and correspondence. It's a complete audit trail of who said and did what, even years later.
Sheila
| | | | | Some complementary input | Aug 4, 2012 |
I had an interesting incident last week that in some ways relates to this issue. An advertising (not translation) agency hired me to translate EN > PT a digital photography system catalog, including a large number of accessories. No further instructions.
I happened to find the original manufacturer's web site translated into PT, so I followed the names/descriptions they used to specify everything. A couple of days later, the agency e-mailed me saying that their client had rejected t... See more I had an interesting incident last week that in some ways relates to this issue. An advertising (not translation) agency hired me to translate EN > PT a digital photography system catalog, including a large number of accessories. No further instructions.
I happened to find the original manufacturer's web site translated into PT, so I followed the names/descriptions they used to specify everything. A couple of days later, the agency e-mailed me saying that their client had rejected the translation on account of terminology used (names for the different parts & accessories), and asked me to implement the PT terminology adopted in their own web site and an acknowledged external expert's. Provided both URLs. The first problem was that these two often didn't match! To make matters worse, they didn't match the original manufacturer's translated web site either on several points (the less obvious ones).
To illustrate the situation (invented example), when the original EN word was "strap", I often had three translations into PT, e.g. (in EN, for clarity) "strap", "band", and "belt". Which one should I use??? Furthermore, some accessories had catchy names, like "Thingy" (invented example), which were preserved in one or another of the three translations, but not in all of them.
To add complexity, I found their stuff for sale on eBay-like Brazilian sites with more different translations.
So I revised it using the best common-sense choices I could from all these translations available and wrote an e-mail to the ad agency, telling that their client's marketing folks should sit down and go through each item (maybe some 30 of them, workable!), to decide upon the "official" PT translation for each one. Otherwise they'd run the risk of a reseller having a few dozen "Thingies" in stock, but being unable to sell one to a client who calls them "Krazypart" as per another web site, because they don't carry any "Krazyparts", only "Thingies", and there is no way to find out that they are the same, other than comparing pictures or SKUs, not always provided.
A couple of sidetracking points is that first, both sites the end-client recommended had a generous quantity of translation, spelling, and grammar mistakes. Second, they were quite happy with my marketing copy, which they considered "better" than what they had on their own web site in PT. So the problem was limited to naming their products in PT.
End of story is that they paid me as agreed, and I haven't heard from them since.
The issue here on this thread is that this problem may go beyond just generally accepted practices or rules within the target language.
[Edited at 2012-08-04 12:47 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Sheila Wilson
Spain
Local time: 02:00
Member (2007)
English
+ ...
| You can't please all of the people all of the time | Aug 4, 2012 |
José Henrique Lamensdorf wrote:
To illustrate the situation (invented example), when the original EN word was "strap", I often had three translations into PT, e.g. (in EN, for clarity) "strap", "band", and "belt". Which one should I use???
This is a problem that occurs time and time again, no matter what the field. If clients have a particular fondness for one particular term, why, oh why, don't they tell us????? But no, they wait until we deliver the translation and then they complain!
Am I a competent translator? YES!
Am I a mind reader? NO!!!!
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| It's just a question of quality. | Aug 4, 2012 |
[quote]I don't know why we linguists are so meek - but I know I am myself when I get the chance. Anything to avoid hassle, which in fact is counter productive. You just get clients coming back with more criticsm and making more hassle...[quote]
Yes, I'm meek, but not when it comes to language issues!
[quote]It's certainly 100% true in English, and the 'bibles' I use all acknowledge that. However, I'm not sure if that's the case with Portuguese. I know that the French "Académie Française" believe they rule over every last letter in the French language.[quote]
Yes, it's the same in Spain But thanks to the Real Academia Española some discussions can be avoided.
| | | | | Quality assurance agency | Aug 5, 2012 |
These days I met a number of reports from the so-called "independent quality assurance agency" about my translation quality of technical instruction manuals etc. It is surprising that the agency employs software to assess translated documents with minimum interference of human. I was frequently reported to be the bad translator. In fact, QA report from software need review of human's naked eyes to improve readability, idiom, writing style.
Those agencies hire external expert to set... See more These days I met a number of reports from the so-called "independent quality assurance agency" about my translation quality of technical instruction manuals etc. It is surprising that the agency employs software to assess translated documents with minimum interference of human. I was frequently reported to be the bad translator. In fact, QA report from software need review of human's naked eyes to improve readability, idiom, writing style.
Those agencies hire external expert to set the QA process but their recruitment processes cannot ensure the translation capability (reading from their advertisement in Proz etc.). I feel that this new trend sets a variation in the translation quality: somewhat machine translation that rule over human translators.
A UK agency who hired me for translation of a heavy construction machinery manuals refused to pay me because my translation QA report was not similar to MT. What an amazing professional practice.
Soonthon Lupkitaro ▲ Collapse
| | | | Vladimír Hoffman
Slovakia
Local time: 03:00
Member (2009)
English to Slovak
+ ...
| Oooh, I love it so much! | Aug 6, 2012 |
José Henrique Lamensdorf wrote:
and asked me to implement the PT terminology adopted in their own web site and an acknowledged external expert's. Provided both URLs.
Especially when I get a translation of, say, 1000-2000 words and I am asked to study huge website(s) and extract terminology. As if I have no other things to do than go through dozen pages to find one term. Ok, sometimes it is a part of job and sometimes it is my own fault that I don't know special term, but if a client wants of me to use words that are not contained even in specialised dictionaries or even invented by himself, he should provide short glossary in advance.
[Edited at 2012-08-06 14:54 GMT]
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