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Colleagues... or not?
Thread poster: Ligia Dias Costa
Ligia Dias Costa
Ligia Dias Costa  Identity Verified
Portugal
Local time: 10:26
English to Portuguese
+ ...
SITE LOCALIZER
May 23, 2011

Dear all,

I write this still without believing what I have just read. (Moderator: please move this into an appropriate forum if I have missed out its placement).

I was contacted today, on a social network by someone who claims went to the same scholl I was in primary school.

I cannot remember her at all. But that's not the important part. The thing is she told me she was also a translator and that her languages are: English-Portuguese, Portuguese-English;
... See more
Dear all,

I write this still without believing what I have just read. (Moderator: please move this into an appropriate forum if I have missed out its placement).

I was contacted today, on a social network by someone who claims went to the same scholl I was in primary school.

I cannot remember her at all. But that's not the important part. The thing is she told me she was also a translator and that her languages are: English-Portuguese, Portuguese-English; French- Portuguese and Portuguese-French. And her speciality is medicine!

When I said: Really? Do you do it both ways in French and English?? She told me it was very easy. As long as you have a translation programme. And I said: Like trados? She answered: No, Google translate! I run the document in Google translate (medical documents) and the clients think it takes a month to translate it and then I go to the beach the whole time!

To my surprise, she also said she had no University studies whatsoever. She just did high school.

Any comments on this?

I confess that I am still with my mouth open with surprise...

Lígia

[Editado em 2011-05-23 18:03 GMT]
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Karolina Blachucka
Karolina Blachucka  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 11:26
Spanish to Polish
+ ...
joke May 23, 2011

I think it must be a joke...

 
Lingua 5B
Lingua 5B  Identity Verified
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Local time: 11:26
Member (2009)
English to Croatian
+ ...
Why am I not surprised? May 23, 2011

The Internet market is flooded with such people.

 
Sara Negro
Sara Negro
Italy
Local time: 11:26
English to Italian
+ ...
It could be true... May 23, 2011

Hi Lígia,

it could be true since many people like the one who contacted you are around together with their very poor works, spoiling the market and giving a bad impression of the real professional translators.(

Ciao!
Sara

[Edited at 2011-05-23 14:01 GMT]


 
Jean Lachaud
Jean Lachaud  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 06:26
English to French
+ ...
Famous quote May 23, 2011

Abraham Lincoln said: "You can fool some of the people all the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all the time."

 
Laura Bissio CT
Laura Bissio CT  Identity Verified
Uruguay
Local time: 07:26
English to Spanish
+ ...
the good, the bad and the ugly May 23, 2011

There are all kinds of people in the world, the translation market is no exception.

 
Marianela Melleda
Marianela Melleda  Identity Verified
Chile
Local time: 07:26
English to Spanish
+ ...
Unscrupulous!!! May 23, 2011

I know that there are such unscrupulous people who pretend to have a degree, studies or experience they do not have, but what I am not able to understand is how clients (which I assume are agencies) do not detect such a fraud.

 
Ligia Dias Costa
Ligia Dias Costa  Identity Verified
Portugal
Local time: 10:26
English to Portuguese
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
SITE LOCALIZER
She does not even pretend... May 23, 2011

Marianela Melleda wrote:

I know that there are such unscrupulous people who pretend to have a degree, studies or experience they do not have, but what I am not able to understand is how clients (which I assume are agencies) do not detect such a fraud.


... at least to me!


 
Walter Moura
Walter Moura  Identity Verified
Brazil
Local time: 07:26
English to Portuguese
Criminal May 23, 2011

I think this person is a criminal, in that she put lives at risk with her googled translations of medical texts, and reputations, not only of translators, but of medical practictioners as well. Medicine translation is too delicate an issue to be treated with such levity, and agencies should be more alert to this.
Apart from that, she obviously faked her credentials as a translator, to receive medical texts to translante.

[Edited at 2011-05-23 15:59 GMT]


 
Post removed: This post was hidden by a moderator or staff member for the following reason: Empty post.
keshab
keshab  Identity Verified
Local time: 15:56
English to Bengali
+ ...
SITE LOCALIZER
'Some of the people some of the time' is enough for a fraud May 23, 2011

JL01 wrote:

Abraham Lincoln said: "You can fool some of the people all the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all the time."



Okay. But she will make hundreds of dollars at the cost of hundreds of lives! Medical translation with Google Translate! God save the poor people!!

[Edited at 2011-05-23 16:48 GMT]

[Edited at 2011-05-23 18:20 GMT]


 
Patricia Lane
Patricia Lane  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 11:26
French to English
+ ...
Changing the title May 23, 2011

Ligia,

Would you mind changing the title of your thread?

In this instance, I hardly think "colleague" fits...

Thanks


 
Bilanda Ban
Bilanda Ban  Identity Verified
Croatia
Local time: 11:26
English to Croatian
+ ...
I agree with Walter May 23, 2011

Your 'colleague' is a criminal, fair and square.
This is by far the worst example of irresponsible behavior in translation business that I have heard of.
And if the results of her 'work' put someone's life in danger, I really hope both her and the stupid agency that hired her face serious consequences.


 
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 11:26
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
A real agency would pick this up May 23, 2011

Ligia Dias Costa wrote:
[She] run[s] the document in Google translate (medical documents) and the clients think it takes a month to translate it and then [she] go[es] to the beach the whole time!


She might get away with this for a while, but as soon as she hits a translation agency with any kind of quality control system in place, she'll fail.

Here's a question for you: if you do this (run the text through GT) and correct only grammar errors (without reference to the source text or to the general cohesion of the text), would a client with a quality control system (e.g. back-translation, double-translation, etc) be able to pick it up?


 
Theo Bernards (X)
Theo Bernards (X)  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 11:26
English to Dutch
+ ...
I don't think it is easy to spot for the unsuspecting client in good faith... May 23, 2011

Samuel Murray wrote:

...

Here's a question for you: if you do this (run the text through GT) and correct only grammar errors (without reference to the source text or to the general cohesion of the text), would a client with a quality control system (e.g. back-translation, double-translation, etc) be able to pick it up?


Samuel, in two words: most probably, but I am not sure if back- or double-translation would spot it. The easiest way to spot such behavior is probably by running the same text through two or three well-known machines such as Google Translate and Bing Translate. and compare the output statistically with the translation handed in as genuine. I dare say, that if the statistical deviations are within a narrow bandwidth, you can imho safely assume that the translator is not what he or she claims to be. I am by no means an expert on such things, but a bandwidth of 5% brought me once to suspect such practices and when pushing for explanations, my suspicions hit a raw nerve (and as many of us would know, when being confronted about his/her dishonesty, playing the integrity card is often the first response of such fraudsters: "I can't believe you think I would do such things!").

Medical translations with Google Translate: it doesn't even border on criminal, it is criminal! What's next: a nuclear power station user manual with MT?!?


 
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