| Pages in topic: < [1 2] | How can we deal with bad manner proofreader Thread poster: Kerati Kuaimongkol
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Adam Łobatiuk 
Poland
Local time: 23:01
Member (2009)
English to Polish
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| Spend some time and quote sources | Feb 8, 2011 |
I agree with the colleagues who suggest you do that - it has worked in my case. Sometimes I even take the time to scan book pages. Of course, it would make no sense to fight over each job you do for them, but you can do that once in a while.
I understand that the client is not Thai and probably doesn't speak the language or even know the script. Still, there could be an online English- Thai dictionary that you could provide links to in order to prove that the word X means "often" an... See more I agree with the colleagues who suggest you do that - it has worked in my case. Sometimes I even take the time to scan book pages. Of course, it would make no sense to fight over each job you do for them, but you can do that once in a while.
I understand that the client is not Thai and probably doesn't speak the language or even know the script. Still, there could be an online English- Thai dictionary that you could provide links to in order to prove that the word X means "often" and not "always". Put such links in your e-mail message. If the client can easily see 1-2 convincing examples, they are more likely to believe you. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 23:01
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
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| Depends on the job, Tom | Feb 8, 2011 |
Tom in London wrote:
Isn't that what all proofreaders do? -look for as many "mistakes" as possible, even when there aren't any?
It depends on the job and on what the client wants. For some jobs, I look for as few errors as possible (i.e. only errors that can be proven to be errors and that cannot be justified by any reasonable translator). For other jobs, I make as many changes as I think necessary (many of them preferential) in order to improve the text to the best that it can possibly be.
| | | | B D Finch
France
Local time: 23:01
French to English
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| Not being a speaker of Thai ... | Feb 8, 2011 |
... and, so far as I can see nor is any other contributor to this discussion, other than the Asker, how can we judge the complaint? I don't know whether the proof reader was right or wrong and can only comment on the principle involved in the general case of a dispute over proof-reading. I do think that there should be some means of arbitrating and yet there doesn't seem to be any.
Ideally, Kerati should be able to ask the client to have the source text and both translations sub... See more ... and, so far as I can see nor is any other contributor to this discussion, other than the Asker, how can we judge the complaint? I don't know whether the proof reader was right or wrong and can only comment on the principle involved in the general case of a dispute over proof-reading. I do think that there should be some means of arbitrating and yet there doesn't seem to be any.
Ideally, Kerati should be able to ask the client to have the source text and both translations submitted anonymously to an arbitrator and the arbitrator's opinion should be sent directly to the client, the proofreader and Kerati. The provision of such a service would cost money and, to have credibility, it should be run by a professional body. I would certainly be prepared to pay higher membership fees to the CIoL if it provided such a service. The translator and proofreader involved in the dispute should also be expected to pay an arbitration fee with a refund of that fee to either party if their translation or proof-reading is found to be of acceptable professional quality. ▲ Collapse
| | | | IPtranslate (X)
Brazil
English to Dutch
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| A couple of things.... | Feb 8, 2011 |
Amy Duncan wrote:
...than an overzealous proofreader. Not only is it annoying when you see a bunch of totally unnecessary "corrections," but to me the worst thing is that it's a time-waster. It takes time (sometimes a LOT of time) to defend yourself against one of these zealots. I once stopped working with a company because of this problem.
Exactly my feeling as well; there is something like "correcting a mistake" (mistakes we, by the way, ALL make) and then there is something like "changing something because you like it better"....
When a proofreader finds mistakes in my translations and the mistakes are genuine, I am more than willing to agree and thank the proofer for having found them; when the mistake is a real blunder, I apologize more than once and try to learn from it. What drives me up the wall, however, are "corrections" that are nothing else but modifications to suit personal taste....as if there were only one way of saying or writing an idea that needs to be expressed.
As I tend to work for the same customers over and over again, customers who know very well what I am capable of (and of what I am not capable...), I don't defend myself anymore against the second class of corrections. I used to do so in the beginning, until my clients got the hang of it....Now, a simple word mentioning "aesthetic proofreading" is sufficient to convey the message....But I agree that it remains (sometimes very) annoying.
As to "corrections" that are in fact instances in which the proofer shows that he or she hasn't got the slightest grasp of the subject matter (which happens a lot in the fields I mostly work in: engineering and intellectual property) and/or hasn't got a clue what the "acceptable register" of these texts is, I VERY clearly and meticulously report these to my clients. If you (the proofer) can't stand the heat, (he or she has to) stay out of the kitchen!
[Edited at 2011-02-08 14:50 GMT]
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Lingua 5B
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Local time: 23:01
Member (2009)
English to Croatian
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| This is not synonymous. | Feb 8, 2011 |
Kerati Kuaimongkol wrote:
It's hard to inform you guys exactly about why I said it is unfair.
Most of the changes is like: Change " I always go to school by bus" to "I often goes to school by bus" or something like this.
Always vs. often is actually altering the meaning, especially if it concerns factual content. Proofreader shouldn't be doing this, unless you actually used a wrong word in your version, which I cannot judge at all even if you presented samples here, as I don't know Thai.
Unfortunately, agencies sometimes hire very clumsy and incompetent proofreaders, and trust their word as the last one. If it's so, I don't see why the proofreader doesn't do the job in the first place, if he/she is the ultimate judge? Wouldn't that be more convenient?
In the normal literary world, it is the author who's leading the proofreader, not vice versa.
| | | | Michal Glowacki
Poland
Local time: 23:01
Member (2010)
English to Polish
+ ...
| Overly enthusiastic proofreading | Feb 8, 2011 |
When I proofread files, I make 2 types of changes:
1. corrections of things that are plain wrong
2. improvements - so thing that are not plain wrong, but, in my opinion, would be better if they were phrased in another way
I always tend to mark what is a mere improvement and what is a plain error.
As for being on the other side:
I'm stubborn and if someone marks up my text and shows that there are many errors, I am happy to agree with those which are i... See more When I proofread files, I make 2 types of changes:
1. corrections of things that are plain wrong
2. improvements - so thing that are not plain wrong, but, in my opinion, would be better if they were phrased in another way
I always tend to mark what is a mere improvement and what is a plain error.
As for being on the other side:
I'm stubborn and if someone marks up my text and shows that there are many errors, I am happy to agree with those which are in fact errors. But if someone changes something that is correct and appropriate into something else - I reject the change and say why. Sometimes for the simple reason that I don't want the PM or anyone else to have the wrong impression my translation was of poor quality.
As for bad experiences...I once had a QA procedure conducted on my translation and I "failed" it badly, apparently. But when I received the comments, I saw that this was 100% unfair. Out of 10 or so errors that have been "noted": 2 changed something correct into something wrong. 4 were preferential changes (and classified as serious errors too!), 2 were improvements (but the translation was not wrong, only the proposed change was better) and 2 were actually correctly pointed out (a punctuation error and something else minor). The funny thing is - I always try to quote sources, dictionaries, corpora when justifying my choices and I did the same this time. Only the QA person would reply "yeah, well the ISO standard and corpora is one thing, but in fact people say it like this in the UK". How can I argue with that? Oh well!
I'm all for defending your good name and perception of quality. Even if it takes a bit more time. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Denise DeVries
United States
Local time: 17:01
Spanish to English
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| Tree-column table - very helpful | Feb 8, 2011 |
[quote]FarkasAndras wrote:
Write up a tree-column table of the first fifty sentences that the proofreader made changes in. Source text, your translation, the proofreader's version. Then analyse each and see how many errors the proofreader corrected, how many errors they introduced (this happens surprisingly often in my experience), how many sentences they made more elegant and smoother etc. Make comments in the fourth column.
If your analysis shows that all the proofreader did was mess up your text, then send your results to the client, including the table of course.
This suggestion is very helpful and is a great way of organizing comments.
| | | | | I've seen that too | Feb 9, 2011 |
IPtranslate wrote:
As to "corrections" that are in fact instances in which the proofer shows that he or she hasn't got the slightest grasp of the subject matter (which happens a lot in the fields I mostly work in: engineering and intellectual property) and/or hasn't got a clue what the "acceptable register" of these texts is, I VERY clearly and meticulously report these to my clients. If you (the proofer) can't stand the heat, (he or she has to) stay out of the kitchen!
I've seen all kinds of nonsense that you can't readily explain to clients.
Sometimes there are duplicate-language treaties that are legally valid in both languages. In that case, anything other than citing the EXACT LANGUAGE of the other respective treaty would be a serious error. Sometimes I spend a lot of time tracking down the other treaty version.
But proofreaders still mark it up with red pen. It sounds awkward. They don't really like the stilted language.
They have no friggin' idea what they are doing, and they make my life difficult.
Same with "proofreaders" with regard to patents. They don't have the faintest clue about the use of phrases like "said lever".
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| Why not believe the Thai in Thailand? | Feb 9, 2011 |
Kerati, your profile shows that you live in Thailand. How can the client believe the proofreader more than you, on the grounds that she lives in the same country as the client? Surely, for a translation into a language, living in the country where the language is spoken is better than living abroad?
| | | | Laurent KRAULAND (X)
France
Local time: 23:01
French to German
+ ...
| Any proofreader WILL NOT do... | Feb 9, 2011 |
MSBerlin wrote:
They have no friggin' idea what they are doing, and they make my life difficult.
Same with "proofreaders" with regard to patents. They don't have the faintest clue about the use of phrases like "said lever".
I take this as cautionary examples against the widespread opinion that any proofreader can "correct" any kind of text.
Thank you!
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Dr. Matthias Schauen wrote:
Kerati, your profile shows that you live in Thailand. How can the client believe the proofreader more than you, on the grounds that she lives in the same country as the client? Surely, for a translation into a language, living in the country where the language is spoken is better than living abroad?
The proofreader is Thai who live in USA.
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