| Pages in topic: < [1 2] | Translation companies outsourcing their proofreading Thread poster: philgoddard
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When the quality of the translation to be proofread is so poor that you need to retranslate it all over again, you should charge the full translation rate, not a proofreading rate, because you have to do the same amount of work or even more.
I agree there is an increasing tendency to reduce costs by paying only an average proofreading rate and nothing or too little translation, and this is having a detrimental effect on the translation market for all of us.
By proofreading too low q... See more When the quality of the translation to be proofread is so poor that you need to retranslate it all over again, you should charge the full translation rate, not a proofreading rate, because you have to do the same amount of work or even more.
I agree there is an increasing tendency to reduce costs by paying only an average proofreading rate and nothing or too little translation, and this is having a detrimental effect on the translation market for all of us.
By proofreading too low quality translations at the regular PR rate we are being part of this problem. Let's not do it, please. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | We are talking about proofreading, but.... | Jun 8, 2016 |
philgoddard wrote: Robert Rietvelt wrote:
Sorry, but I sometimes receive translations of a quality, for which the right word still has to be invented, and I absolutely don't know how long they are going to take me, and if an agency isn't interested in my calculation, well they can look for somebody else. You should be able to look at the job and estimate the cost. If you wanted someone to paint your house and they said "I charge $50 an hour but I can't tell you how long it will take," there's no way you'd give them the work. Sometimes you overestimate the time, sometimes you underestimate. But it all evens out in the long run. [Edited at 2016-06-08 16:37 GMT]
... is it only me, or is the quality of the source texts we receive also declining? Last 2 weeks I translated for a company which name flows with the stream of the biggest river in South America, and another one for which I had to translate the terms and conditions.
In both cases the source text was MUD! Totally incomprehensible in all areas. Thank god I have fantasy. Is there a connection?
@Phil
My house don't have 'pitfalls', what you see is what you get, but a (bad) translation can be a minefield, only you notice it when you are in the middle of it = too late.
[Edited at 2016-06-08 20:28 GMT]
| | | | telefpro
Local time: 23:45
Portuguese to English
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| proof reading | Jun 9, 2016 |
It often turns out to be a machine type translation, sometimes atrocious. I do not do proof reading of such translations
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philgoddard wrote:
The translations are rarely very good, and often by non-native speakers. Apparently it's cheaper to use these and get them edited than to use a reasonably proficient native speaker in the first place.
Exactly the reason why I avoid proofreading every time I can. Much too often, I feel that the translators chosen to work before me shift the burden of research and attention to detail to the proofreader.
Revisers, reviewers, and proofreaders should receive texts that are already fairly good and require only an extra touch of quality or a higher level of specialised knowledge. All the rest of the work corresponds to the tranlator. When the text, as you describe, is only half-good and requires a lot of work, we are clearly making a mistake about the different roles in our profession.
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| about Russian translation | Jun 9, 2016 |
Sofia Gutkin wrote:
Russian companies seem to do this a lot - get a crappy non-native translator to "translate" it and then get me to proofread it, which often takes ages. Do other language combinations have this problem too?
I work for Russian (and Ukrainian) companies too. The same here. It must be a global trend.
And one more thing - there is a real drop in Russian translation demand because of international sanctions against Russia. We are waiting reduction of them very impatiently here - do not laugh at me - here, in Ukraine.
| | | | Lingua 5B 
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Local time: 20:15
Member (2009)
English to Croatian
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| Good or not so good. | Jun 9, 2016 |
Rarely have I seen "very" good translations even by native speakers. They usually range around good or good enough/average. Haven't seen "excellent" or "brilliant" so much. And I am talking about native speakers of the target language.
When I used to do proofreading tasks, the translations were mostly of acceptable or average quality with some blunders here and there.
I can remember one specific case, an agency from Australia. A flyer for local Serbo-Croatian community ... See more Rarely have I seen "very" good translations even by native speakers. They usually range around good or good enough/average. Haven't seen "excellent" or "brilliant" so much. And I am talking about native speakers of the target language.
When I used to do proofreading tasks, the translations were mostly of acceptable or average quality with some blunders here and there.
I can remember one specific case, an agency from Australia. A flyer for local Serbo-Croatian community talking about garbage disposal, how to behave in the neighborhood and such stuff, just guidelines for them to be translated in S-C. So I get this "work" that was evidently translated by someone who had been living in Australia for a long time and can speak "some" Serbo-Croatian being of that origin. The agency sent me that sheet for revision twice for double check. In the text there was a line like "if you find ants, collect them in a container and call the service XYZ immediately to pick it up". Since "container" is a tricky false friend between S-C and English, the translator basically invited the citizens to collect their ants into this:
http://www.strojarstvo-branilovic.hr/wp-content/uploads/kontejneri/kontejner-za-smece-1100-v.jpg
instead of this:
http://www.cater4you.co.uk/acatalog/16oz-round-take-away-container-l.jpg
I laughed so hard. There were other blunders in this text, but this one was so memorable.
: )
[Edited at 2016-06-09 10:05 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Time constraint... | Jun 9, 2016 |
very often I can tell that the translation has been done in 15 minutes... silly deadlines, time constraints, wanted yesterday... the translation is never going to be any good... also, if you are paid peanuts, you have to turn around an awful lot of words to make ends meet... quality is the first out of the window...
| | | | Lingua 5B
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Local time: 20:15
Member (2009)
English to Croatian
+ ...
| Yes, a lot of things related. | Jun 9, 2016 |
Giovanni Guarnieri MITI, MIL wrote: very often I can tell that the translation has been done in 15 minutes... silly deadlines, time constraints, wanted yesterday... the translation is never going to be any good... also, if you are paid peanuts, you have to turn around an awful lot of words to make ends meet... quality is the first out of the window...
Cause and consequence scenario. The thing is a trained translator will certainly work faster and make a much lower number of mistakes or zero mistakes even with short deadlines. A trained translator is also capable of creating a nice reading flow in real time as they translate. The problem is a trained translator will not work for peanut rates.
[Edited at 2016-06-09 12:03 GMT]
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Lingua 5B wrote:
Cause and consequence scenario. The thing is a trained translator will certainly work faster and make a much lower number of mistakes or zero mistakes even with short deadlines. A trained translator is also capable of creating a nice reading flow in real time as they translate. The problem is a trained translator will not work for peanut rates.
[Edited at 2016-06-09 12:03 GMT]
This is true... but if you are pressed for time, you are more likely to make mistakes... even if you are a professional... and then it's your fault...
[Edited at 2016-06-10 08:08 GMT]
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