Proofreading/editing non-native translations
Thread poster: Roni_S
Roni_S
Roni_S  Identity Verified
Slovakia
Local time: 09:22
Slovak to English
Dec 3, 2017

Hi everyone working on this Sunday,

I tend not to do much ‘proofreading’, as in my language pair this typically involves massive rewriting and in many cases, if I don’t have access to the source document I’m unable to decipher much of the meaning of the target (although I can sometimes back-translate into the source language and come up with the intended meaning). Last month, however, I foolishly took on 10 proofreading jobs that at first glance seemed to be more or less not
... See more
Hi everyone working on this Sunday,

I tend not to do much ‘proofreading’, as in my language pair this typically involves massive rewriting and in many cases, if I don’t have access to the source document I’m unable to decipher much of the meaning of the target (although I can sometimes back-translate into the source language and come up with the intended meaning). Last month, however, I foolishly took on 10 proofreading jobs that at first glance seemed to be more or less not too awful. Based on the ultimate quality of those translations, however, I would say that 9 of the 10 translators whose work I edited should not be translating out of their native language, and the 10th one should never ever turn in any work without revision by a native speaker. Not to mention the translations that were simply wrong, such as in one document where a video poker machine was translated as a 'vending machine' (the topic was addiction). Now, my question is this: if I rewrite a sentence to make it sound like real English, even if the sentence was for the most part intelligible but not something any native English speaker would ever say, is that considered a ‘preferential’ edit? Let me just say that to me, if it’s not natural, idiomatic English I reject it as being wrong even if I do understand what’s being said. Is there some proofreading rule or ideal that says if you can more or less understand what’s being said, it doesn’t need to sound idiomatic, and therefore edits are unwarranted? Am I doing wrong by these translators by expecting more competence in their work? Is there ever a time when it's ok for written English (or any language for that matter) to not be up to snuff?
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Carole Wolfe
Carole Wolfe  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 03:22
Member (2006)
Russian to English
+ ...
Ask the project manager Dec 3, 2017

You make a good point. Sadly, I do not know of any "rule" or "ideal" to guide you on how extensively a document should be proofread.

You could send the project manager an example of a sentence that has not been translated very well but its meaning is intelligible. Ask him/her if you should leave it untouched or rewrite it so it is in idiomatic, natural, fluent English.
Then, proceed (and charge) accordingly. If the agency wants you to convert sows' ears into silk purses, ... See more
You make a good point. Sadly, I do not know of any "rule" or "ideal" to guide you on how extensively a document should be proofread.

You could send the project manager an example of a sentence that has not been translated very well but its meaning is intelligible. Ask him/her if you should leave it untouched or rewrite it so it is in idiomatic, natural, fluent English.
Then, proceed (and charge) accordingly. If the agency wants you to convert sows' ears into silk purses,
then they have to pay accordingly.

For me, proofreading means checking the punctuation, spelling, and grammar and occasionally changing the order of the words in a sentence so that it reads more smoothly. However, for a lot of agencies, proofreading amounts to rewriting. That's also what they expect when they send you machine-translated texts for "proofreading."

I once received a scientific document for "proofreading." It was written in English by a Chinese graduate student. Since I don't know Chinese, I could only guess what the sentences meant. I refused the assignment.
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Michele Fauble
Michele Fauble  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 01:22
Member (2006)
Norwegian to English
+ ...
Book suggestion Dec 3, 2017

This book is a good guide to revising/editing/proofreading.

Revising and Editing for Translators (Translation Practices Explained)
Brian Mossop

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Revising-Translators-Translation-Practices-Explained/dp/1909485012


 
Kay Denney
Kay Denney  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 09:22
French to English
Tricky call Dec 4, 2017

When you have a sentence that makes sense but just doesn't sound natural, and the file needs to be translated so that native speakers can read it and learn something from it, you're not doing the future readers a favour by leaving it as it is. A lot of sloppy translators in my language pair don't work very hard on sentence structure. A well-crafted French sentence can make sense when the words are translated in more or less the same order, however it's harder for native English-speakers to get t... See more
When you have a sentence that makes sense but just doesn't sound natural, and the file needs to be translated so that native speakers can read it and learn something from it, you're not doing the future readers a favour by leaving it as it is. A lot of sloppy translators in my language pair don't work very hard on sentence structure. A well-crafted French sentence can make sense when the words are translated in more or less the same order, however it's harder for native English-speakers to get their heads round it, and the information may accordingly not be deemed as important. I chop lots of sentences up, and join the bits up differently afterwards, very often reorganising entire paragraphs into what I consider a more logical order.

When I was working in-house, I was the only native English-speaker there for several years. So whatever I said was natural, was natural and I changed things without even bothering to think whether it was really necessary or just a subjective thing.

Then, with the agency getting much more work into English (proving that I can't have been doing too bad a job), we had to hire somebody to help me out. We would systematically proofread each others' work and weren't always in total agreement with each other as to what would be more natural. It was quite an eye-opener for both of us. She had previously worked with a guy who had dinned various things into her which were clearly his own preferences, and had taken his foibles as gospel truth, to the point of even referring to the glossary he had given her, and I spent quite a bit of time proving to her that he had been wrong. I would google turns of phrase quite extensively to see how much they were being used compared to others, and read things out loud to see how easy it was to get your tongue round it...
Nowadays I'll often simply imagine that colleague has proofread my translation and is questioning my choice of words, and usually that's enough for me to make my decision. There are several people who regularly send me proofreading jobs, often ending up paying me as much as the translator when I end up spending a lot of time on them.
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Roni_S
Roni_S  Identity Verified
Slovakia
Local time: 09:22
Slovak to English
TOPIC STARTER
Thanks Dec 4, 2017

Thanks for your input. I have looked at the Mossop book and am thinking about buying it.

It's like the Proz advert on the main page - 'Are you gettting left behind'. Am I the only one who sees the extra 't'?


 
Sheila Wilson
Sheila Wilson  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 08:22
Member (2007)
English
+ ...
Member advantage Dec 4, 2017

Roni_S wrote:
It's like the Proz advert on the main page - 'Are you gettting left behind'. Am I the only one who sees the extra 't'?

Oh dear, how embarrassing of them . Fortunately those of us who are paying members don't get to see that particular boob.

I specialise in revising non-native texts and I always ask the client what they want to achieve. Most will ask you to make it natural, so some preferential changes are perfectly permissible. If you were to stick rigidly to errors that could be backed up by grammar and spelling references, the revised texts still wouldn't leave a good impression on the reader. But I do tend to leave quite a few comments as well as changes and I make it known to agency clients if I think that a text was really quite acceptable - notwithstanding all my red marks - or whether the English was really very poor. I also make it clear to direct clients that some of my changes are just suggestions, to help them to improve their English, as all the red does look a bit harsh when they've spent hours doing their best work .

There are monolingual jobs that simply need to be refused, of course. We aren't mind readers, after all! Even in fairly good texts there are often ambiguities that can only be flagged, with suggestions for alternative solutions. And it isn't uncommon for me to highlight an entire sentence for rephrasing and re-checking if I simply don't understand it. If there are too many of those it becomes a nightmare that needs to be handed back asap before the bill gets so ridiculous that the client will (try to) refuse to pay it. And if it's clearly the product of automated software then I personally refuse it. There's nothing more soul-destroying than working on something like that in its bilingual form, and just getting the target text to "tidy" is just crazy. They've cut the professional translator out of the loop; well, I cut myself - the professional editor - out of the loop too .


 
Mikhail Kropotov
Mikhail Kropotov  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 09:22
English to Russian
+ ...
Get used to it Dec 5, 2017

Hi Roni,

Your language pair is not too dissimilar from mine (Russian into English).

The prevalent school of thought in many Slavic countries is that their local language is more complex than many other foreign languages, English being the primary target. This somehow gives many translators a 'license' to translate out of their L1 into their L2 (usually English) without proper qualifications.

In my 13 years in the industry, only 1% of all Russian-English tra
... See more
Hi Roni,

Your language pair is not too dissimilar from mine (Russian into English).

The prevalent school of thought in many Slavic countries is that their local language is more complex than many other foreign languages, English being the primary target. This somehow gives many translators a 'license' to translate out of their L1 into their L2 (usually English) without proper qualifications.

In my 13 years in the industry, only 1% of all Russian-English translations (combining specialized and non-specialized topics) I've come across that were done by native speakers of Russian were acceptable for delivery to the end client without any substantial editing. For comparison, among the translations done by native speakers of English, the rate was around 10%. If we up the criteria to 'fit for revision,' the figure rises to about 10% for non-native translations and 30% for native translations, respectively.

As a newcomer to the industry, you will continue to see subpar translations. You will need to set your revision rates accordingly. Eventually you will learn to pre-judge translation quality based on the way translation agencies approach you with their offers, and you will be able to accept only those offers that are worth your time.

I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors.
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Robert Forstag
Robert Forstag  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 04:22
Spanish to English
+ ...
A wolf in sheep's clothing Dec 5, 2017

First off, let's call the review work involved in a translation that requires substantial editing by its proper name: revision.

"Proofreading" implies the review of a solidly composed piece of writing containing few errors or omissions.

Many translation agencies prefer using the term "proofreading" because it implies that there really no major problems in the text in question (and thus warrants offering less money for the work). In many cases, the project manager is w
... See more
First off, let's call the review work involved in a translation that requires substantial editing by its proper name: revision.

"Proofreading" implies the review of a solidly composed piece of writing containing few errors or omissions.

Many translation agencies prefer using the term "proofreading" because it implies that there really no major problems in the text in question (and thus warrants offering less money for the work). In many cases, the project manager is well aware that the work in question will require a level of editing that goes far beyond "proofreading."

(Note to avoid unnecessary digression: I am not saying that this is *invariably* the case, only that I have in my experience found it to often be the case - often enough to warrant suspicion whenever such jobs are on offer.)

So beware.



[Edited at 2017-12-05 19:36 GMT]
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Proofreading/editing non-native translations







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