译者—戴着镣铐的舞者

Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia

翻译真的是一门独特的艺术，是的，这里我把翻译称为一种艺术。艺术就需要创作，但是翻译这种创作又不是不受限制、信马由缰。所谓的镣铐就是原文，如果挣脱了这幅枷锁去自由发挥，那就不能称其为翻译了。所以，把翻译比喻成戴着镣铐跳舞是再合适不过了。这种情况下，翻译者自然就是戴着镣铐的舞者。戴着镣铐就是指在翻译过程中要受到原文的种种束缚。

还是把翻译比为舞蹈。舞蹈是通过音乐、形体、运动、表情及姿态来表达感情的一门艺术。优秀的舞者，一定具备两个层面的素质：一是舞蹈功底。没有技巧，内心再丰富的情感也会因缺少表达途径而无人理解。因此，这个难度和技巧就要靠平时的勤学苦练和点滴积累。技巧是展现的手段和工具。第二个层次，就是两个字：“精神”。有了过硬的基本功和高难度的技巧。该如何把这些和舞蹈的内在精神结合在一起。音乐响起时，肢体语言要感动的不只是自己，还有观众。感染力不是技巧的堆砌，是发自内心的对生活对生命的感悟，就像有人说过，高手是跳情而不是跳舞。

那翻译究竟是什么？美国著名的翻译理论家 Eugene A.Nida 给翻译下的定义是：Translating consists in reproducing in the receptor language the closest natural equivalent of the source language message, first in terms of meaning, and second in terms of style. 首先是 meaning （意思），第二就是 style（风格）。这两个方面正是我要用来类比舞蹈的两个层次：翻译既是语言活动，又是思维活动。语言活动是指使用完全不同于原文形式的译文来传达原文信息，所以“准确无误”是最基本的要求，这要求翻译者有深厚的语言功底，对源语言和目标语言都有正确的理解和纯熟的运用能力。同时，翻译也是再创作，原文和译文的等值，也只能是相对的等值，是信息等值或语境等值，而不是字词等值。中国贯通中西的著名文学家钱钟书说过一句话，“译者驱使本国文字，其功夫或非作者驱使原文所能及．故译笔正无妨出原著头地”。这句话可以理解成：翻译是两种文字的一种竞赛。从创作的角度去理解，译者和原作者都属于作者，两个作者表达的是相同的或者是相近的思想，同处在创作这个层面上，译者除了“求真（准确翻译）”还要“求美（用符合目标语言的审美观及价值观表现出译者和译文的风格及特点”。因此，从某种意义上说，翻译就是解释，是带有主观色彩的剖析和理解。翻译中求真和求美的矛盾随着创作和翻译之间界限的消失也得到了调和。

诚然，对于翻译究竟是一门科学还是一门艺术，长期以来诸子百家各执一词。也许是因为我无法改变自己内心对浪漫主义的向往，所以仍坚守：翻译就是艺术。就像英文有artist和artisian一样，华文里也有艺术家和工匠这两个貌似相近，实则内涵迥异的词。即使戴着镣铐跳舞，译者也应该跳得精彩、跳得漂亮！希望我可以做一个富于创作的艺术家，而不仅仅是一个工匠。不妨用文学翻译大家郭沫若的一句话做为本文的结语吧，“翻译家不是鹦鹉，应该在翻译过程中涌起创作的冲动”。

By

Jean Zhang | 张小锦
Chinese Translator / Editor | 中文翻译与编辑

Elite Bilingual Services Pte. Ltd.

To Be a Good Translator

By Leila Razmjou
BA in English Translation
MA in Applied Linguistics (TEFL )
Iran
leilarazmjou@yahoo.com

Source: Translation Directory

Paper presented at the Second International Conference on "Critical Discourse Analysis: the Message of the Medium" in Yemen, Hodeidah University, October, 2003

In addition to being a member of our country, we are members of the world community, and this gives us a global identity. Therefore, it is quite natural for us to think about world affairs and cooperate in solving the world's problems. To do so, the first and most important tool is "language," which is socially determined. Our beliefs and ideologies are always reflected in our way of talking, although the connections are hidden and only "critical language study" reveals these hidden connections in discourse.

Furthermore, we know that a nation's culture flourishes by interacting with other cultures. Cultural variety opens our eyes to human rights, but cultural variety can only be recognized through discussions, which leads us back to the major tool for discussion: "language."

The role of language in the developing world is materialized through "translating," and since critical language study is concerned with the processes of producing and interpreting texts and with the way these cognitive processes are socially shaped, it can be considered as an alternative approach to translation studies.

The world is becoming smaller and smaller as the systems of communication and information are developing and becoming more and more sophisticated. In the process of such a rapid exchange of information and for the purpose of improving cultural contacts, one thing is inevitable, and that is "translating." This is why there is a need for competent translators and interpreters.

As mentioned earlier, the whole world is undergoing complex changes in different areas such as technology and education. These changes necessarily have an important bearing on systems of higher education, including translator training programs.

According to Shahvali (1997), theoretical knowledge and practical skills alone are not adequate to prepare students to face the developments in the field. There is a need for ability to adapt; therefore, it is necessary to focus on students' self-updating and to develop their relevant mental, communicative, and planning skills.

Training translators is an important task which should be given a high priority. The service that translators render to enhance cultures and nurture languages has been significant throughout history. Translators are the agents for transferring messages from one language to another, while preserving the underlying cultural and discoursal ideas and values (Azabdaftary, 1996).

The translator's task is to create conditions under which the source language author and the target language reader can interact with one another (Lotfipour, 1997). The translator uses the core meaning present in the source text to create a new whole, namely, the target text (Farahzad, 1998).

Bearing these facts in mind, the question is: what skills are needed to promote translating ability? And how can one become a good translator?

The first step is extensive reading of different translations of different kinds of texts, since translating requires active knowledge, while analyzing and evaluating different translations requires passive knowledge. Therefore, receptive skills should be developed before the productive ones; i.e. by reinforcing their passive knowledge, students will eventually improve their active knowledge. Receptive skills improve the students' language intuition and make them ready for actual translating.

A good translator is someone who has a comprehensive knowledge of both source and target languages. Students should read different genres in both source and target languages including modern literature, contemporary prose, newspapers, magazines, advertisements, announcements, instructions, etc. Being familiar with all these genres is important, since they implicitly transfer culture-specific aspects of a language. Specialized readings are also suggested: reading recently published articles and journals on theoretical and practical aspects of translation. The articles will not only improve the students' reading skill in general, but also give them insights which will subconsciously be applied when actually translating.

"Writing" skills, i.e. the ability to write smoothly and correctly in both source and target languages, are also important. Writing is in fact the main job of a translator. Students should become familiar with different styles of writing and techniques and principles of editing and punctuation in both source and target languages. Editing and punctuation improve the quality and readability of the translation (Razmjou, 2002).

Moreover, translation trainees should have a good ear for both source and target languages; i.e. they should be alert to pick up various expressions, idioms, and specific vocabulary and their uses, and store them in their minds to be used later. This is in fact what we call improving one's "intuition." Intuition is not something to be developed in a vacuum; rather, it needs practice and a solid background. It needs both the support of theory and the experience of practice. Language intuition is a must for a competent translator.

One of the most important points to consider in the act of translating is understanding the value of the source text within the framework of the source-language discourse. To develop this understanding, the translator must be aware of the cultural differences and the various discoursal strategies in the source and target languages. Therefore, the hidden structure of the source text should be discovered through the use of various discoursal strategies by the translator.

A good translator should be familiar with the culture, customs, and social settings of the source and target language speakers. She should also be familiar with different registers, styles of speaking, and social stratification of both languages. This socio-cultural awareness, can improve the quality of the students' translations to a great extent. According to Hatim and Mason (1990), the social context in translating a text is probably a more important variable than its genre. The act of translating takes place in the socio-cultural context. Consequently, it is important to judge translating activity only within a social context.

After developing a good competence in both source and target languages, actual translating may begin. But there is a middle stage between the competence-developing stage and actual translating: becoming aware of various information-providing sources and learning how to use them. These sources include: different monolingual and bilingual dictionaries, encyclopedias, and the Internet.

Using dictionaries is a technical skill in itself. Not all students know how to use dictionaries appropriately. Words have different meanings in different contexts, and usually monolingual dictionaries are of utmost value in this regard. Students need a great deal of practice to find the intended meaning of words in a particular context, using monolingual dictionaries.

Translation trainees also need to be familiar with the syntax of indirect speech and various figures of speech in the source language such as hyperbole, irony, meiosis, and implicatures. Awareness of these figures of speech will reinforce students' creativity and change their passive knowledge into active skill.

While there is a strong emphasis on developing source and target language competencies, the ways in which students can develop them should not be neglected. Group work and cooperation with peers can always lead the translating process to better results. Students who practice translation with their peers will be able to solve problems more easily and will also more rapidly develop self-confidence and decision-making techniques (Razmjou, 2002). Although there is a possibility of making mistakes during group work, the experience of making, detecting, and correcting mistakes will make the students' minds open and alert.

Another important point is that successful translators usually choose one specific kind of texts for translating and continue to work only in that area; for example a translator might translate only literary works, scientific books, or journalistic texts. Even while translating literary works, some translators might choose only to translate poetry, short stories, or novels. Even more specific than that, some translators choose a particular author and translate only her or his works. The reason is that the more they translate the works of a particular author, the more they will become familiar with her or his mind, way of thinking, and style of writing. And the more familiar is the translator with the style of a writer, the better the translation will be.

Translation needs to be practiced in an academic environment in which trainees work on both practical tasks under the supervision of their teachers and theoretical aspects to enhance their knowledge. In an academic environment, recently published articles, journals and books on translation are available to the trainees, who thus become familiar with good translators and their work by reading them and then comparing them with the original texts. In this way, trainees will develop their power of observation, insight, and decision-making, which in turn will lead them to enhance their motivation and improve their translating skills.

Therefore, translation studies has now been recognized as an important discipline and has become an independent major, separate from foreign-language studies, in universities. This reflects the recognition of the fact that not everybody who knows a foreign language can be a translator, as it is commonly and mistakenly believed. Translation is the key to international understanding. So in this vast world of communication and information overload, we need competent translators who have both the theoretical knowledge and practical skills to do their jobs well. The importance of theoretical knowledge lies in the fact that it helps translators acquire an understanding of how linguistic choices in texts reflect other relationships between senders and receivers, such as power relationships, and how texts are sometimes used to maintain or create social inequalities (Fairclough, 1989).

Finally, it is important to know that it takes much more than a dictionary to be a good translator, and translators are not made overnight. To be a good translator requires a sizeable investment in both source and target languages. It is one of the most challenging tasks to switch safely and faithfully between two universes of discourse. Only a sophisticated and systematic treatment of translation education can lead to the development of successful translators. And the most arduous part of the journey starts when translation trainees leave their universities.

Works cited

Azabdaftari, B. 1997. Psychological Analysis of Translation Process. Motarjem Journal, Mashhad, Iran. 21 & 22: 7-12 (Translation).

Fariclough,N. 1989. Language and Power. London, Longman.

Farahzad, F. 1998. A Gestalt Approach to Manipulation in Translation. Perspectives: Studies in Translatology, 6 (2): 153-233.

Hatim, B. & I. Mason. 1990. Discourse and the Translator. London: Longman.

Lotfipour, S.K. 1985. Lexical Cohesion and Translation Equivalence. Meta, XLII, 1, 185-92.

Razmjou, L. 2002. Developing Guidelines for a New Curriculum for the English Translation BA Program in Iranian Universities. Online Translation Journal, V. 6, No.2 http://accurapid.com/journal/20edu1.htm

Shahvali, M. 1997. Adaptation Knowledge, the Passage of Success and Creativity (Translation).

This article was originally published at Translation Journal (http://accurapid.com/journal).

Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia

GMS Spotlight. Staying ahead of the curve

By Eric Richard,

VP, Engineering,
Idiom Technologies, Inc.,
Waltham, Massachusetts, U.S.A.

www.idiominc.com

Working in the translation and localization industry is like constantly working in a pressure cooker. Customers want to get more content translated into more languages with higher quality on faster schedules. And, while the volume of content is scaling up, the costs of translating that content cannot scale up at the same rates.

What makes this problem even more challenging is that this isn’t a short term issue; the amount of content that is going to be translated is going to increase again next year and the year after that and the year after that, for the foreseeable future.

Because of this, translation providers are constantly under pressure to find ways of eking that next round of efficiency out of their processes and cost out of their suppliers to meet the never-ending demands for more, more, more.

The first year a customer asks for a rate cut, it might be possible to squeeze your suppliers to get a better rate from them. But, you can only go back to that well so often before there is nothing left to squeeze.

The next year, you might be able to squeeze some efficiency out of your internal operations. Maybe you can cut a corner here or there to stay ahead of the curve. But, again, there are only so many corners to cut before you are really hurting your ability to deliver quality results.

So, what happens when you run out of corners to cut and low-hanging fruit to pick? How do you deal with the never-ending demands to do more for less? How can you get a non-linear improvement in your efficiencies to help get ahead of the curve?

THE ANSWER IS TECHNOLOGY.

In the 80’s, the technology solution of choice was translation memory (TM). By deploying TM solutions, translators could reuse their previous work and could suddenly process a higher volume of work than before.

Over the past years, translation memory has spread throughout the entire localization supply chain. Translators and LSP’s now use client-side TM in their translation workbenches to improve their efficiencies. And more and more enterprises are realizing that if they own their own TM, they can cut down on their costs and increase the quality and consistency in their translations.

The great news in all of this is that efficiency across the board has increased.

The tough part is that most of the low-hanging fruit in terms of gaining efficiencies may already be behind some early adopter companies. The reason? TM-based solutions are becoming more and more ubiquitous throughout the translation and localization supply chain. That said, however, there are still many companies out there who are ready to drive even more efficiency from the supply chain and, in some cases, start looking for ways to increase top line revenue opportunities.

Once early leaders recognized the value of TM, the search was on for the next big technology solution that could help them stay ahead of the curve. And the solution came in the form of applying workflow to the localization process; by automating previously manual steps, companies could achieve major increases in productivity and quality. Steps previously performed by a human could be performed by machines, reducing the likelihood of errors and freeing up those people to work on the hard problems that computers can’t solve.

Companies who have deployed workflow solutions into their localization processes regularly see immediate improvements. This rarely means reducing staff. Instead, it often means pushing through more content into more languages faster than before with the same staff.

For many organizations that have not yet deployed workflow solutions, this is a great opportunity to improve their efficiencies. Like TM, however, workflow has already crossed the chasm and is moving into the mainstream. Large localization organizations have already deployed workflow solutions and many have even gone through second round refinements to their systems to get most of the big wins already.

For those customers who have already deployed a workflow solution, the real question is "What’s next?" What is the next generation solution that is going to help them deal with the increases in content and keep their advantage in the market?

It is my belief that the next big wave is going to come by combining together the previous two solutions – translation memory and workflow – with another emerging technology: machine translation (MT).

Creating an integrated solution that provides the benefits of both translation memory and machine translation in the context of a workflow solution will provide companies with the ability to make headway into the content stack and start translating more and more content that was previously not even considered for translation.

There are many models in which these technologies can be mixed together.

The simplest, and least disruptive, model is to flow machine translation results into the exact same process that is used today. The result is a process that has been dubbed "machine assisted human translation". The process starts just as it would today with the content being leveraged against a translation memory and resulting in a variety of different types of matches (exact, fuzzy, etc.). But, before providing these results to the translator, this new process takes the most expensive segments – those that do not have a suitable fuzzy match from TM – and runs those segments through machine translation. The end result is that there is never a segment that needs to be translated from scratch; the translator will always have content to start from.

Obviously the devil is in the details here, and the real success of this model will be tied directly to the quality of the results from machine translation. If the machine translation engine results can provide a good starting point for translation, this approach has the ability to increase the productivity of translators.

On the flip side, the most radical model would be to combine machine translation and translation memory together but without any human translator or reviewer involved. The key to this approach is to take a serious look at an issue that is traditionally treated as sacrosanct: translation quality.

"It is my belief that the next big wave is going to come by combining together the previous two solutions-translation memory and workflow-with another emerging technology: machine translation"

In traditional translation processes, quality is non-negotiable. It is simply a non-starter to talk about translating your website, product documentation, software UI, or marketing collateral in anything other than a high quality process.

However, does this same requirement hold true of all of the content that you want to translate? Are there specific types of content for which the quality level is slightly less critical?

Specifically, are there types of content you would not normally translate, but for which the value of having a usable translation is more valuable than having no translation? For example, there may be types of content for which time-to-market of a reasonable translation is more important than taking the time to produce a high quality translation.

For content that fits into these categories, you might consider an approach like the one described above to produce what Jaap van der Meer of TAUS calls "fully automatic useful translation (FAUT)."

It is absolutely critical to understand that this is not proposing that we replace humans with machines for translation. Instead, this is looking at how we can use technology to solve a problem that is too expensive to have humans even try to solve today; this is digging into the enormous mass of content that isn’t even considered for translation today because it would be cost prohibitive to do using traditional means.

The best part of combining machine translation and translation memory with workflow is that the workflow can be used to determine which content should use which processes. The traditional content for which high quality is imperative can go down one path while content that has other requirements can go down another path.

"Translation memory and workflow are by no means mainstream at this point"

You might think that this is science fiction or years from reality, but the visionary companies in the localization industry are already deploying solutions just like this to help them deal with their translation problems today. They see this approach as a fundamental part of how they will address the issue of the volume of content that needs to be translated.

This solution is in the midst of crossing the chasm from the early adopters to the mainstream market. While translation memory and workflow are by no means mainstream at this point, some of the early adopters of content globalization and localization technologies are already looking for the next advantage, a way to keep up with steadily increasing demands. Clearly, these companies should strongly consider integrating machine translation into the mix.

ABOUT IDIOM® TECHNOLOGIES, INC.

Idiom® Technologies is the leading independent supplier of SaaS and on-premise software solutions that enable our customers and partners to accelerate the translation and localization process so content rapidly reaches markets worldwide. Unlike other companies serving this market, Idiom offers freedom of choice by embracing relevant industry standards, supporting popular content lifecycle solutions and partnering with the industry’s leading language service providers.

As a result, WorldServer™ GMS solutions are fast becoming an industry standard, allowing customers to expand their international market reach while reducing costs and improving quality. WorldServer is used every day by organizations possessing many of the most recognizable global brands to more efficiently create and manage multilingual websites (e.g., AOL, eBay and Continental), localize software applications (e.g., Adobe, Beckman Coulter and Motorola) and streamline translation and localization of corporate and product documentation (e.g., Autodesk, Cisco and Business Objects).

Idiom is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts, with offices throughout North America and in Europe. WorldServer solutions are also available through the company’s Global Partner Network™. For more information, please visit www.idiominc.com.

ABOUT ERIC RICHARD - VP, ENGINEERING, IDIOM TECHNOLOGIES

Eric Richard joined Idiom from Chicago-based SPSS, where he served as Chief Architect. Previously, he wore several hats as co-founder, Vice President of Engineering, and Chief Technology Officer at NetGenesis (acquired by SPSS), where he directed the company's technology development.

In 2001, Eric was a finalist in the Ernst & Young New England Entrepreneur of the Year Awards. He is a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

ClientSide News Magazine - www.clientsidenews.com

Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia

Translation Of Personal Documents – A Window Into Our Strange World

By Steve Vitek,
Technical Translator,
Virginia, U.S.A.

stevevitek[at]patenttranslators.com
www.PatentTranslators.com

"Think of your fellow man
Lend him a helping hand
Put a little love in your heart!
I know, when you decide
Kindness will be your guide
Put a little love in your heart!"

[From a nearly forgotten song from the sixties by Jackie De Shannon]

(This article was originally published in Translorial, a quarterly journal published by the Northern California Translators Association (http://www.ncta.org), a chapter of the American Translators Association (http://atanet.org/).

This article is about translation of personal documents. Birth certificates, college transcripts, marriage certificates, divorce certificates, death certificates. They are called personal documents because they often have all kinds of personal things in them. Your birth certificate, for instance, has your (original) gender in it, it tells the whole world your age, the name, address, status and occupation of your parents, and depending on your country of birth even what kind of child you were and whether you had an identifying mark. Czech birth certificates also have an entry that says "remark", which is always empty. I keep waiting for some interesting descriptive remark, such as "has two heads", or "born in the form of three Siamese twins". No luck so far. But I often find a lot interesting things in boring old certificates. For instance, the old Czech term for an "out of wedlock" child would translate as "not [produced] in the spousal bed". Pretty graphic, you could say, but perhaps more accurate than "illegitimate". How can a child be illegitimate? Aren't all children legitimate, possibly unlike some of the actions of their parents?

Personal documents of people that I never met from Czech and Slovak Republic, France, Germany, Bulgaria, Poland, Japan, Russia, Algeria and other countries have been chasing me on a mad chase around the world for the last twenty five years. They always seem to find me everywhere I go. Some are already translated, for instance birth certificates from Ukraine used to be and maybe still are in Ukrainian and Russian, and from Algeria in Arabic and French. A translation agency in Tokyo called me once about a Czech birth certificate when I was traveling in Hokkaido, checking out the hot springs and fish markets of this exotic island for a couple of weeks. I'm sorry I missed that one, and I wonder who translated it.

Every now and then, my fax machine, e-mail or snail mail spits out a birth, marriage, divorce, or death certificate from a town in Bohemia that I will suddenly recall from some long forgotten episode in my carefree childhood or careless youth. It often ruins my concentration and I have to go for a cup of coffee to Cafe Aroma on Railroad Square or for a long walk through downtown Santa Rosa. (But I usually take my cell phone with me in case some other personal documents require my personal attention).

The death certificates are often more memorable than the other ones. Don't be shy to ask for more money for death certificates, even simple ones, because people usually need a translation when money is involved. I remember how once I asked for a hundred dollars for a very simple German death certificate, just a few words, really. I was very busy, translating a stack of Japanese patents and kind of hoping that the lady who called would go somewhere else. They often do when you ask for more than $90, which is what I ask for when I need some walk around money, which is to say most of the time. But she said O.K., so I did it. I will do just about anything for a hundred dollars. The young lady in question, who in fact seemed to be at least 30 years younger than her recently deceased German husband, forgot her checkbook in my office after she paid me with a check, possibly because she was still in shock. So naturally, I had to take a look at the checkbook to find her phone number, not that I am a nosy person, not in the least. But I could not help noticing that the balance in her checking account was fifty thousand dollars. That would pay the rent on my office and a lot of groceries too. Next time I must ask for a hundred and fifty, I thought. That is not all I thought, but let's leave it at that.

Often, the people who need a translation are recent immigrants as I was a quarter century ago. Some of them speak broken English, some are rude, and some are very pleasant, polite and obviously intelligent. Sometime I end up talking to them and we share our insights on life in America and other countries. There was a young German woman in the Bay Area who was thinking of immigrating to Australia because neither she nor her husband could obtain a green card in this country. I was trying to talk her out of it. I was thinking of emigrating to Australia at one point, and I am glad I went to California instead. It's just too far and too different over there. A young German furniture maker who lives in a small town not far from Santa Rosa was audited by the Internal Revenue Service because he showed no profit on his tax return during his first year in this country (his father gave him nine thousand dollars to live on until he establishes himself). He has a new accountant now. An Austrian woman died recently (of mitral valve failure) in a little town in Southern Bohemia where my sister used to live. This Austrian woman had a Croatian first name and a Hungarian last name, and she was visiting Bohemia when she died. She was cremated in the town of Budejovice, (called Budweis in German, unbeknownst to most Americans, home of the original Budweiser beer). She was one year younger than me when she died. The town where she died is on a pretty lake where I used to go swimming in summer, taking in the sun rays and trying to memorize a couple of thousand Japanese characters that I used to scribble on pieces of paper and stuff in the pocket of my jeans. Those were the good times. I wonder in what kind of place will my last failure find me and which valve will it be.

The people who call usually want to know whether my translations are legally valid. They often don't know how to say it in English and ask me whether I can "legalize" their marriage or divorce and other hilarious things. Usually, the thicker their accent, the more worried they are about my capability to make their documents official enough to be acceptable to U.S. government agencies, mortgage lenders, etc. If I don't like the way they sound, I just tell them that unfortunately, no official power has been vested in me (which is true) and wait for them to hang up. But in fact, they need not worry. I can make my translations look very official. They are printed on my stationary, which has some Japanese characters on it. Japanese or Chinese characters always make every document look very official, especially if you cannot read them. And I provide my expert translations with a short certifying statement in which I slyly promise accuracy (but only to the best of my ability, which is admittedly limited), and stamp them with a round embossing stamp which says OFFICIAL TRANSLATION on it in large letters. Office Depot will make a stamp like that for you for $25. If you staple several pages together, put an embossing, official sounding stamp on every page and add a solemn statement at the end, the result is usually more official looking than the original document (except for German affidavits, of course, because nothing is more official looking than German affidavits). Since I never got a single call from the Immigration and Naturalization Service or other institutions that devour personal documents on a daily basis in the twenty some years that I have been providing my expert services to the general public, this leads me to believe that the mistakes that I make when I "legalize" other people's marriages, divorces, diplomas, births and deaths are relatively infrequent and/or minor, unlike the mistakes that these people do on their own.

Sometime these personal documents come through a law firm or an agency, usually as a part of a legal case or an insurance investigation. Once I translated a handwritten report of a Japanese private investigator about a young American man who went to Tokyo to study Japanese, took out a very high life insurance policy on his life, and then suddenly died in his early thirties - of AIDS. The report included photographs of his apartment and interviews with his neighbors. Or there was a series of reports, handwritten again, from a Japanese headhunter who was evaluating (from an interestingly Japanese viewpoint) Russian researchers at an institute in Moscow where a Japanese company was hiring top research talent for rock bottom prices. Or a few gay love letters which a jealous American man just had to have translated because he could not read them. Or a series of letters and cards covering several decades from a Czech couple that emigrated to America about 170 years ago to their relatives in Austria-Hungary. The language was not very different from modern Czech, but the writing of these handwritten letters was very hard to read because back then they were using a special German writing style similar to Schwabach (also known as Blackletter, a script used in Western Europe approximately from 1150 to 1500, but well into the twentieth century in German speaking countries).

But usually, personal documents come through my small add in the Yellow Pages, and most of the time they are very short. Unless I have nothing else to do, I usually ask for a hundred dollars, not matter how short the document, One customer paid a hundred dollars for something scribbled in French on the back of a postcard that was given to her by a Buddhist monk. He died and she wanted to know what was it that he was trying to say to her. So I delivered a message from the deceased monk. Another customer paid a hundred dollars for a translation of three sentences into French. It was for her son who was trying to make sure that the French girl who he wanted to propose to in French would say oui to him. I wonder if he was kneeling when he was giving her his ring. I bet he was. He was so comme il faut (which is called chanto in Japanese  there is really no proper translation for this kind of thing in American English, possibly because so few people bother to speak American English properly). I wondered if she married him and they are still together.

Most people think that they don't really need translators. And they don't. Except when somebody is born, or gets married, goes to school, dies .... and then, all of a sudden they do need us, just like they need doctors or midwives, caterers, teachers, and undertakers. I am glad I picked this particular profession of mine of all the other ones that I probably could have chosen when I was young. Where else would they pay me for sticking my nose into other people's business? As my trainer in the gym where I go on my lunch hour told me, "Where else would I get paid for torturing people?" (Which prompted me to suggest to her that she could be a dominatrix). Maybe she could be a dominatrix, but what else could I do for a living and make enough to keep the wolves away, I wonder. Let's face it, I don't really know anything about anything, except for a few languages which I can fake well enough to get paid for it. So, by default, I became a translator. It's better than being a toll taker on Golden Gate Bridge, the only other profession that I can think of as being fully qualified for.

My translations may not always be perfect. Few things in life, if any, are perfect. But just like the trainers in my gym, I am a fanatic about my work, and I believe in my job's importance every bit as much as they believe in the importance of their job. Because if you are not a fanatic about what you do for a living, you are probably not doing a very good job, and you should probably do something else. The job of the trainers in my gym is to save the lives of their clients - by reversing the aging process. And thanks to their somewhat foolish American optimism, so obviously visible to the eyes of a foreigner such as myself, they just might be able to do that. For a while, anyway. But just in case they fail, and ultimately, they can hardly win, it is my job to make sure that the name of the town in Germany, France, Japan, Poland, Russia or Bohemia where their client was born is spelled correctly in his obituary. If that is not an important job, I don't know what is.

You would not want to have the name of your hometown spelled incorrectly in your obituary either, would you?

Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia

Walk The Dog, Round The World, Or Sleep?

By Steve Vitek,
Technical Translator,
Virginia, U.S.A.

stevevitek[at]patenttranslators.com
www.PatentTranslators.com

"What is it that makes it so hard sometimes to determine whither we will walk? I believe that there is a subtile magnetism in Nature, which, if we unconsciously yield to it, will direct us aright. It is not indifferent to us which way we walk. There is a right way; but we are very liable from heedlessness and stupidity to take the wrong one. We would fain to take that walk, never yet taken by us through this actual world, which is perfectly symbolical of the path which we love to travel in the interior and ideal world; and sometimes we doubt, we find it difficult to choose our direction, because it does not yet exist distinctly in our mind."

Henry David Thoreau, "Walking" (1817-1862).

(This article was originally published in Translorial, a quarterly journal published by the Northern California Translators Association (http://www.ncta.org), a chapter of the American Translators Association (http://atanet.org/).

Some people think that your run-of-the-mill business gurus provide a great insight on how to and how not to run a business. I will listen with interest to what these management prophets have to say. But I think that I can learn at least as much, if not more, about the Zen of running a translation business from watching my two kids, a second grader and a fourth grader, playing with a cool yo-yo or throwing a neat, bouncy slinky.

There are three basic techniques for playing with a yo-yo. If you have forgotten or never really mastered the ancient art of throwing a cool yo-yo, they make up the title of my article. The trick is to make the yo-yo come back to you in defiance of the force of gravity. You kind of have to make it do something that it does not really want to do, just like you have to make your customers come back to you with their next translation, although they really hate spending good money on something as basic and overpriced as translation. Let's face it, they all hate spending their money on us, no matter how much or how little we ask for.

WALK THE DOG

The walk-the-dog technique is your basic yo-yo throwing gig. As far as I can tell, you throw the yo-yo slowly and carefully and when it is all the way down a few inches above the ground, you apply your invisible pulling powers so that the yo-yo will obediently slowly make its way back into the waiting palm of your hand, just like a dog that comes back to its master. No sudden, flashy moves, no obvious drama. This is your basic translation job in a field that you have been doing for years, at moderate rates to ensure repeat business. All you have to do is concentrate on the subject, make sure that you don't skip a line, don't change a number (watch out for those subscripts!) and don't use too many Gallicisms, Germanism, Czechisms, Nipponisms, or whatever -ism is applicable to your language. And for best results, always proofread even the simplest job the next morning after a good night's sleep unless it is a super-rush. If you do it right, the customer will come obediently back to you, which is the main purpose of the exercise, just like a yo-yo comes back right into the waiting hand of a youthful yo-yo master.

ROUND THE WORLD

The round-the-world technique is more demanding and quite a bit more dramatic. The yo-yo seems to start flying, all of a sudden and without warning, pulled by sheer will power and absolute concentration so apparent on the faces of children when they switch from the boring pedestrian-canine routine to enjoy the finer points of this exquisite game. In the game that freelance translators play, the round-the-world technique is usually announced by an unexpected call from a customer or an agency, often just before 5 PM or after normal business hours. The person on the other end of the phone line sounds excited and a little bit nervous and perhaps even desperate. They have a sizeable job which must be done in a couple of days, probably because some lawyer was sitting on it for two months, reluctant to waste money on a simple translation which, unlike legal advice, should be really free or no more expensive then making a Xerox copy. How do these translators dare to charge so much for "retyping" something in another language? That sort of thing should be made illegal! At this point, however, the company will be facing a serious problem unless the translation is finished by such and such deadline. Whenever I receive a call like this from an agency that is calling "round the world" (they can be in US, Europe or Japan) trying to find an available translator, or a set of PDF files in my e-mail or a thick envelope by Federal Express from a law firm with an urgent request to quote a price and turnaround time, I take a deep breath and try to concentrate on the job at hand at least as much as my children are concentrated on that little wooden or plastic yo-yo in the palm of their hand. One should not forget that the characters that are used for one of the words that mean crisis in Japanese are the same characters that are used for the word opportunity. Actually, the characters in the word "kiki", one of the words for crisis in Japanese, can be literally translated as "dangerous opportunity". Opportunity usually brings along also a danger. This is our opportunity to take on a relatively large chunk of a job at a higher rate to finally pay off that credit card bill, tax bill, or save some money for a new computer or vacation. You have to be careful not to ask for a rate that is too low or too high. Your will make your customer happy if you do the work at your usual rate, but why should you work overtime without getting paid a little more? Often, you can take on as much work as you like for a few days, but make sure that you don't bite off more than you can chew. If you do that, your opportunity will turn into a crisis not only for your customer, but also for you. A crisis is an opportunity, but an opportunity that is fraught with danger. The kids in agencies who are parceling out the job to translators "round the world" don't really know what is in the original because they usually don't speak the language, so don't take their word for the subject of the job, or the estimated word count, or just about anything. They may be nice kids, but they don't really know what they're doing. They just work there. It is a good idea not to accept (except tentatively) any job and any deadline until they send you the document.

SLEEP

The third technique, "sleep", comes in handy when business slows down and the phone all of a sudden stops ringing. This should be a restful period for translators, who now have some free time after all those impossible deadlines and illegible faxes. But the thing is, the bills still keep coming in when there is no work and one look at meager receivables will put quite a damper on what could be a peaceful day in your office. How can you "sleep" if you don't know where is the money going to come from? You have to make the checks stretch from one week to the next until the end of the month, just like my kids have to make the slinky slink itself from one step to the next until it reaches the bottom of the stairs. Ah, the victorious feeling I can clearly see radiating from their faces when the slinky makes it all the way down the stairs! Ah, the satisfaction of having another job lined up and another check deposited before the balance in the bank shrinks to zero!

How much sleep I get during the "sleep" period depends on how much money is still coming in from old jobs and how long the hibernation period lasts. If it is just a few days, I can still enjoy myself. I go to bookstores, sit in a café and look at those cute girls who always hang around downtown cafés (I only look, OK?), read another mystery novel, or go for a walk, trying to think deep thoughts as Henry David Thoreau did 150 years ago. But even with the lofty thoughts on my mind, now that the cute downtown girls are all but forgotten, I am always mindful of the fact that somebody has to mind the shop, nine to five at least, rain or shine, work or no work. That is why I almost always transfer my voice number to my cell phone when I go for a walk or to a café or bookstore during business hours. I have to be ready to spring into action at the first ring of my cell phone, my trusty digital friend. It is also the only way how I can make those girls in cafés notice me anyway, when the cell phone rings and I answer, especially if I start speaking Japanese. I try to find a quite corner or step outside of the shop not to disturb the customers too much, off course. After twenty years in the freelance business, the sleep period usually lasts only a few days before it is replaced by another onslaught of work and deadlines that come rushing in with a vengeance. I try to take it easy if the "sleep" takes only a week or so, even when other translators start calling me, complaining about lack of work and bills that pile up, with a familiar tinge of anxiety in their voice. I do my best to calm them down because as Bob, my tax accountant, says: "When you don't make any money, you don't owe any money to Uncle Sam." There is a good side to everything. I used to mail out packages of information that I call "propaganda" to prospective customers during slow times, but I have not done so recently since it never really got slow for a long time for me recently. But it will happen again, I am sure, one of these days. And when it does, I know what to do to wake up my sleeping customers - or at least keep myself busy with marketing so that I don't have time to worry too much.

MESS UP

There is also a fourth yo-yo technique, called "mess-up", I am told. Mess-up is when you try one technique, but since you do it the wrong way it ends up being a different thing altogether than what you meant it to be. As Thoreau would put it, the problem is that the idea of what you wanted to do did not exist distinctly in your mind before you started doing it. What you have to do when you mess up, of course, is start over and do it right the next time without losing too much sleep over it. We all mess up sometime. Well, maybe you never mess up anything, especially things having to do with your business and livelihood, but I sometime do. On the other hand, given that this publication has only a limited amount of space for contributors, perhaps I should not launch into a detailed description of my mess-ups. Maybe some other time.

***

I never told my children that the games they play are a constant source of inspiration for the games that I play when I try to run a business in this dog-eat-dog world. If I did, they would probably laugh anyway. You know, kids these days. They take nothing seriously. Like the other day when I tried to impress them with my military career in the old country and Casey, my older son, stopped playing with his yo-yo and said to me with a mischievous glint in his eye: "Hey, tata, (tata is Czech for "dad"), you had to "surf" in the Czech army for two years? That's great! That must be one cool army, tata!"

I get no respect in my own house. All they do is make fun of my accent. Oh, and by the way, Casey, it was a cool army. You have no idea.

Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia

Globalizing Communication

By Sarah Hyde

shyde@ccaps.net

With so many career options out there, why is it that some of us decide on translation? Is it a love for language or writing? A desire to help the world communicate? Sheer madness?

Recently my career took a step in the right direction when I was hired by Ccaps Translation and Localization. With a degree in Mass Communication, and a specialization in International and Cross-Cultural Communication, it really was a fitting move. And I can honestly say that I love what I do. The transformation of written text from one language to another is a delightful, challenging puzzle. And what is more, there is a crucial purpose to our work as translators. In the process, we fulfill a fundamental role by breaking down language barriers in a world that is increasingly interlinked, at a time when “globalized” communication is fundamental for both international business and social relations. Here at Ccaps, we have translated everything from business proposals to children’s games, and each new project is a chance to eliminate yet another barrier.

But why do we endure those grueling “all-nighters,” those messy legal contracts and those hours of pain-staking research? Most definitely because of a love for our profession. During my life, I have worked as everything from a waitress to a journalist, and I have never seen professionals more dedicated to their work than translators. A colleague of mine once said it was like a healthy addiction: it makes you feel great, you can’t get enough and the side effect is a pay check. Furthermore, if you think of all of the professions of the world, which is more exciting than this one? In this line of work, we have the opportunity to open doors, bringing people, cultures and countries together.

September 30 is recognized internationally as Translator’s Day. Remember to give yourself a pat on the back, go out and celebrate. You deserve it!

In commemoration of this day, I decided to ask some experienced translators what drove them to choose this profession. Here are their stories:

Translation found me as part of a group of engineers trying to deal with extremely complicated agreements and manuals and searching for the best way to transform those rocky English sentences into smooth Portuguese. Only then was I convinced that translation was a trade for professionals! I decided to complete a Translation and Interpretation course at the State University of Rio de Janeiro. After the course, which was taught by Astrid de Figueiredo (who later became a friend), I never stopped studying. Changing from the exact sciences to the human sciences was such a positive experience that I managed to keep both: translating both technical and not so technical texts is equally pleasant. I find it delightful to learn something new with every new job, rewarding to help the less experienced and thrilling to know that every day I will have to go that extra mile. I love being part of a community that gathers such smart and interesting people.

Vagner Fracassi
President of the Brazilian
Translator’s Association (ABRATES)

I am proud of belong to a trade of professionals that is inherently pacifist and concerns itself with promoting good international understanding. Even as we watch translation programs getting better and better, I think good translators, like good artisans, will always be needed and appreciated.

Isa Mara Lando
Translator and Author of Vocabulando,
A Practical English-Portuguese Vocabulary

I translate to transport ideas and events through time and space. I translate to make something understood, to accomplish, to prove. I translate to communicate, transform, and revert. I translate to touch. Through translation, we gather what human beings think, feel and do. By translating, we make ourselves understood and come closer to together.

Tamara Barile
Public Translator

I happen to be fascinated by human interaction. My role as a bridge for human communication gives me a natural “high” whenever I interpret or translate. Every time I look at the faces around me in offices, auditoriums, courtrooms or any other one of my thousand workplaces, I feel powerful. As I struggle to find the right word or idiomatic expression, I witness human beings otherwise unable to understand each other suddenly able, because of me, to reach an agreement, resolve a conflict, render a fair verdict, sign a contract that will give jobs to thousands, understand a diagnosis and plan a course of treatment, applaud a great speech or broadcast an inspiring message. There is no better job in the world.

Tereza d’Ávila Braga
Translator and Administrator
of the ATA Portuguese Language Division

To see what we have prepared for you translator, click here. Don’t forget to turn the speakers on!

This article was originally published in Сcaps Newsletter (http://www.ccaps.net)

Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia

Buzzword or Bonanza?

A Translator Reflects on Best Practice

By Ann C. Sherwin,
Translator and Editor,
Raleigh, NC, U.S.A.

translate@asherwin.com
www.asherwin.com

There's no doubt that "best practice" is a hot topic today. The exact phrase brings nearly 40 million hits with Google, including 16 sponsored links related to sales and marketing, education, research, manufacturing, information science, health care, and more. Amazon.com lists over 2300 books with "best practice" as a keyword. To me it was pretty much just a buzzword. It sounded good, and I assumed it was an apt description of the way I ran my business.

According to the Wikipedia, the term "best practice" was popularized in professional and business management books starting in the late 1980s and generally refers to the best possible way of doing something. While the term is relatively new, the concept is as old as the human race. Enterprising people have always looked for better ways to perform tasks and reach goals. If vast numbers of people in similar circumstances have the same goal and can agree on the best way to achieve it, the procedure could be labeled a "best practice."

With the advent of the Internet, it became easier than ever to share experience and learn what practices others considered best. Translators, who once worked in relative isolation, quickly embraced this medium, and now we can pick the brains of colleagues worldwide through online forums, newsgroups, mailing lists, blogs, and virtual communities. If we aren't careful, these can distract us from our daily work, but they are a handy and seemingly inexhaustible source of fact, opinion, and advice about best practice.

My husband worked for a company that was taken over by Dow Chemical just before he retired. Suddenly his work routines were subject to new dictates from above. Dow had a prescribed procedure for every piece of equipment and every step of every corporate activity, it seemed, which its experts had determined to be "best practice." I mention this only to illustrate the complexity of the concept and its application in industry and commerce.

By whose standards is "best practice" determined in the language service industry? Surely most of us would agree that what's best for the buyer is best for the provider in the long run. Organizations like the Better Business Bureau are founded on this principle, and discussions in various ATA forums and elsewhere testify that we, too, know on which side our bread is buttered, at least in theory.

When I invited input for this article from the ATA Business Practices e-group, ATA President Marian Greenfield put hers in a nutshell: "Don't accept any job you can't do in an excellent fashion and on time." Jutta Diel-Dominique put it even more succinctly: "Dare to say No." Viewed as best practice, rather than as the only permissible practice, this is good advice. My qualifier merely acknowledges what all of us have faced or can at least envision: those desperate situations where we are the only help available and less-than-excellent is quite acceptable.

The Dow model would have us define the concrete steps by which we determine whether a job we are considering meets Greenfield's criteria. What does "on time" mean? (Don't laugh! Any project manager will tell you that many translators don't know. Or they count on a grace period.) Just how good is "excellent," and in whose eyes? How do I calculate the time it will take to achieve excellence, with the entire source text, the client's specifications, and my calendar of other commitments before me? Surely it is "best practice" to have a plan, so that when the phone rings or the request for a bid lands in your inbox you're ready.

A widely accepted "best practice" in our industry is for translators and interpreters to work only into their native or dominant language. Unsavvy clients often assume that if you can translate from a language, you can also translate into it. Bolstered by unwarranted client confidence, some translators make the same assumption without ever putting it to the test. But most of us know that we are more efficient and produce higher quality when working into our A-language; and that if we must work into our B- or C-language, the best practice is to have a qualified native speaker edit our work.

In the ATA brochure "Translation: Getting it Right,"1 author Chris Durban makes this point to translation buyers as well. "OK, there are exceptions," she adds. "But not many." After advising buyers how to recognize the exceptions, Chris puts their doubts to rest with this observation: "Do translators living outside their home country lose touch with their native tongue? At the bottom end of the market, perhaps. But expert linguists make a point of keeping their language skills up to par wherever they are."

The Translation Journal blog (http://translationjournal.blogspot.com/) contains an interesting discussion of this surprisingly controversial issue under the heading "Native Language." There an anonymous translator who goes by "Yamishogun" says, "Sadly, many Japanese feel that a foreigner can't fully grasp their language." He cites an agency in Japan that refuses to hire native speakers of English because they make too many errors and another agency in which two-thirds of the translators are Japanese who translate into English. But he adds that most of their translations are edited by native speakers of English.

Russian linguist Carol Flath, speaking on her experience interpreting for the US Department of State at the arms-reduction talks in Geneva in the early 1990s, said that interpreters in these settings normally worked from their A-language into their B-language because of the sensitive nature of negotiation. The assumption was that the original speech could be better understood and conveyed in all its nuances by a native speaker of the source language. Do deviations from the usual view of best practice invalidate the latter?

Editing

A second pair of eyes can invariably find ways to improve even the most brilliantly written prose, whether original or translated. Freelancers working for an intermediary or direct client with its own editors may feel they are covered, but even these buyers prefer translators who self-edit and proofread carefully. When asked to provide the end product for a direct client, do you routinely factor the cost of an editor into your quote? I rarely do unless the client requests it. Far be it from me to claim that this is best practice. I'm comfortable with it only because of the nature of my clientele and market niche. But even self-editors need a set procedure or checklist. Tomorrow I will write my self-editing checklist in a sticky note on my computer desktop. There! I'm the first person to be inspired by my article :-).

What is your self-editing routine? Surely it includes a spell-check. But when do you run it—as the first, last, or dare I say only step? Do you edit and proofread on screen or print out drafts? How many passes do you make through your work? Do you look for all types of errors at once or concentrate on one at a time, such as omissions, numbers, consistency?

Deadlines

It seems odd to call honoring deadlines "best practice," as if any other practice in this regard were also acceptable to a degree. Jutta wrote of a client who had recently expressed gratitude that she always met deadlines. "I was surprised that this could even be an issue," she said. "In my opinion, any deadline should be written in stone for the translator until the client gives the green light to hold the file." Of course it is best to get all terms of an agreement in writing, but oral contracts are also binding, including any deadline agreed upon. And do clarify the expected hour of delivery, not just the day. If a client asks for something by noon, you cannot assume that end of the business day is soon enough. You have no idea what a domino effect in the production process a late delivery might trigger. Best practice is to negotiate an ample lead time, but when a deadline is tight there is usually a reason. When the unexpected occurs, next-best practices may come into play, but they must always be linked with one best practice: communication with the client. Ignoring or unilaterally extending a deadline is not an option.

Virginia Pérez Santalla brings up another area of best practice:

In my opinion, keeping up to date in current events and current slang, in our field and beyond, is something we must do. Often, we find new expressions in the texts we translate that have just crept into the language from everyday occurrences and, if we don't pay attention to what's happening around us, they catch us by surprise. Whether it's 'bling' or something else, new terms have a way of showing up where we least expect them.

How do you keep up with your fields of specialization and with the language in general? This becomes more difficult, but all the more critical, if you live outside the country where your target language is spoken. How many unbillable hours a week do you spend keeping current that you would not have spent, were it not for your business? Do you take them into account when setting rates for your billable time? As Diel-Dominique reminds us: "Do not sell yourself cheaply. Stick to your guns regarding rates and payment expectations. If you don't, you are hurting yourself, your colleagues and our profession as a whole."

Dorothee Racette reminds us that running an effective business is part of 'best practice' for translators. "This includes keeping track of orders, maintaining an accounting system and assessing clients before entering into a business relationship," she says. "Good business habits can't be established overnight but are frequently overlooked, even by very accomplished translators."

The systems we use depend to some extent on the size and nature of our business. Do you maintain a client database? How do you track quotes and pending jobs? Do you put expiration dates on your offers? I have quoted on jobs and had the client accept it up to six months later, but some never reply. How long should quotes be kept on file? If you bill by the word or line, how do you define "word" or "line" and do you base it on the source or target language? What types of work do you bill by the hour? When do you quote a flat fee? Do you know what your normal hourly or daily output is for a given document type? How do you organize receipts? My biggest headache is keeping track of acquisitions and removals of office equipment, reference books, etc., for business property tax purposes. If anyone has a simple system for that or knows how to do it with Quicken, I'd like to hear from you.

You probably began reading this article expecting to find answers, but instead I kept piling on questions. That's because I discovered, in fulfilling this assignment, that I have much to learn about best practice even in the autumn of my career. But I can at least say that "best practice" is no longer just a buzzword to me. I'd now venture to say that it could even become what Webster defines as a "source of great wealth or profits"—a bonanza.2 But then you probably knew that all along.

1 "Translation: Getting it Right," a guide to buying translations, originally developed for the Institute of Translating and Interpreting (UK) and now published by the American Translators Association in slightly modified form for use in the US.

2 as defined in Webster's New World College Dictionary, 4th Ed.

This article first appeared in the CATI Quarterly, newsletter of the Carolina Association of Translators and Interpreters; the present version was originally published in the Translation Journal (http://accurapid.com/journal).

Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia

A Day in the Life of a GPM (Global Project Management)

By Cassius Figueiredo,
a Senior Project Manager,
Brazil

The latest addition to the Ccaps team, Cassius Figueiredo shares his industry experience in this interview-style article.

CCAPS: How would you define Global Project Management (GPM)? How does it differ from Local Project Management?

CASSIUS: The GPM’s work in project management involves production centers in different countries. One of the main differences between the work of a GPM and that of an LPM is that the GPM is in direct contact with the end client. Therefore, it is his or her responsibility to define all procedures, ensuring that the client’s needs and expectations are fully met upon project finalization. He or she is also responsible for sharing project information with all the parties involved, serving as the focal point for communication and guaranteeing the consistency of the information used for all languages.

CCAPS: What is involved in a classic GPM process and what are the pitfalls that one should avoid?

CASSIUS: Participating in global project management means having knowledge of several areas of project management. From the assessment of client needs to project completion, the process involves time, cost and risk planning, understanding of quality requirements, procurement and communication. This is true for each of the projects managed – and don’t forget the manager is frequently managing several projects at the same time!

I believe that the main pitfalls are related to communication and direct contact with the client. In a project like this, there is daily contact with people of cultures far different from your own, and this requires a certain degree of adaptability on the manager’s behalf. When it comes to contacting the client, besides the culturally motivated adaptation, one must take extra care because the manager is responsible for representing the company -- and he or she must represent it well! What also makes communication and organization extremely important is that any mistake made by the GPM quickly contaminates the work of the LPMs in charge of production, and this may lead to serious time and money losses.

CCAPS: We understand that you started working with localization back in 1994. Tell us a bit about your background as an engineer and how it influenced your management skills.

CASSIUS: I began working with localization in 1994 as a “Software Engineer,” which was what this position was called at the time. Today, it is known as “Localization Engineer.” Between 1994 and 1998, I worked on several highly interesting projects, including two versions of Microsoft Office — for the MS Office 95 and 97 versions, I was always the engineer in charge of MS Word —, Lotus Notes, Microsoft Encarta [that’s right, the Microsoft encyclopedia], to mention just a few. At that time, we did not have access to any of the translation tools that exist today, and the entire localization process was essentially manual. After working for some time in the Engineering Department, I left Bowne Global Solutions (BGS) to work for the US Library of Congress Office at the American Consulate in Rio de Janeiro, where I was responsible for the whole IT department. I worked there for two years. In 2000, I returned to BGS as a Project Manager until 2006. Then Lionbridge acquired BGS and the office in Rio de Janeiro was closed. I was invited to come and work for Ccaps and here I am now.

All the experience I gained as an engineer has helped me immensely in the daily management of projects because it facilitates the identification of risks inherent to the process and makes communication with clients more effective.

CCAPS: How was your first experience as a GPM?

CASSIUS: It was with small-scale projects at BGS. Basically, minor Microsoft projects for languages such as German, French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, and Simplified and Traditional Chinese.

CCAPS: In this edition of the Ccaps Newsletter, we are publishing an article by Andre Barcaui. He believes that project management is both art and discipline. Would you agree with him and if so, how do you apply this concept to your daily work?

CASSIUS: I most certainly agree. Perhaps the most difficult thing is identifying the proper balance between art and discipline that should be applied to each project. Project managers work with people and that makes my activity one of the most challenging in terms of personal and professional growth. Besides, a project is a unique effort that demands maximum creativity and the use of techniques suited for the different project phases. This leads me to the conclusion that, among other things, a project manager must combine his or her interpersonal abilities (the ART) with knowledge of project management techniques (the DISCIPLINE).

CCAPS: As a GPM, you interact with people from all over the world and from a range of different cultures. Can you recall a humorous or challenging experience that resulted from cultural or language barriers?

CASSIUS: I can remember mainly the complicated ones. Working with Easterners, for example, is always challenging for us in the West, requiring a high level of adaptation. The cultural differences are enormous, and Easterners’ way of handling problems is very different from ours. I always avoid sending feedback on a particular job when there are people in the Cc field of a message. This is because Easterners are very sensitive to criticism being shared with people who they consider “strangers.”

CCAPS: Between you and me, are localization-savvy clients more demanding than those who have less knowledge of how the industry works?

CASSIUS: Well now... Clients are always demanding, whether or not they know what they are buying. It is our job to define the limits as to what is possible and what is not in order to reach an agreement that meets their expectations. Perhaps the big difference between localization-savvy clients and those who are not is the fact that the former often have projects that are more realistic. Those clients who are not knowledgeable about our processes create virtually impossible challenges, so it is up to us to mold or “educate” them so that they accept something more realistic, using our experience in the area.

CCAPS: Any special tips to share with our readers, a group that includes project managers like you and those interested in starting a career?

CASSIUS: Learn to deal with people because they are the most valuable asset of a project. Study hard and keep up with existing techniques because, as familiar as it may seem, you never know how messy the next project can be. As I said earlier, projects are UNIQUE by definition. I always like to use a metaphor to explain that even though project management is not a box of chocolates, “you never know what you’re gonna get.”

CCAPS: Finally, in a few words, how is a day in the life of a GPM like?

CASSIUS: Good question! The day starts with massive e-mails, and almost all of them contain issues to solve. When you get close to lunchtime, you’ve probably solved half of the issues, yet accumulated another bunch that arrived that very same morning. Closer to the end of the day, you will have solved many issues, but some remain pending. These will be transferred to the following day, when the process starts all over again.

Whether this is a joke or the truth, I leave it for the reader’s imagination – or to an experienced project manager to discover. A day in the life of a GPM (or project manager of any kind) is an immense challenge, one that turns your career into an object of hate or passion. I always say that, like many other colleagues, I became a project manager by chance, but now I love my profession and what I learn from it on a daily basis is simply priceless.

Cassius Figueiredo is a Senior Project Manager and has been working in the localization industry for 11 years. He also worked at the US Library of Congress for two years as head of the IT department. Currently, he manages localization projects at Ccaps. Juggling with the daily work and the studies for the PMI exam, Cassius sometimes has to play with his kids until late for them to fall asleep.

This article was also published in Сcaps Newsletter (http://www.ccaps.net)

Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia

Offshoring considerations

By Willem Stoeller,
PMP and VP for Globalization at WeLocalize

willem.stoeller@Welocalize.com

There is an ongoing debate about the benefits of offshoring services to lower-cost countries. Myself, I believe that offshoring of localization can produce cost benefits, but more importantly, it can provide scalability of localization services.

However, before you start sending your localization to a vendor in India, Russia, or China, it is important to recognize that this will have little impact on one of the largest cost components of your project: translation.

Virtually all of the localization industry uses freelance or in-house professionally trained translators. And typically, a localization vendor will only find local translators for the languages of the vendor’s own region. For all other languages, vendors look for professional translators in their respective countries. Indeed, one of the axioms of professional translation is that you always translate into your mother tongue.

Thus, do not expect lower translation costs from your India vendor for any languages other than the Indic ones. The same goes for a China vendor: do not expect lower translation costs for any languages other than Chinese (all dialects), and maybe Korean.

Sure, Indian and Chinese companies might offer attractive pricing

for translation into, say, French, but in such cases, you are now comparing apples with oranges. Indian or Chinese non-native speakers who have learned French as a second language are used for such low-cost translation.

IMPACTS TO OTHER LOCALIZATION COMPONENTS

How are the other major cost components of localization impacted in these particular offshore scenarios?

* Project Management – There is quite a shortage of project management talent in India and China. The profession is growing rapidly in those countries, but mainly in IT and software development.

* Localization engineering – Staff with only a basic understanding of the target languages can do this well. Native speakers are not essential.

* DTP and multimedia – Staff with a basic under standing of the target languages can do this well. Native speakers are not essential.

* Internationalization and functional testing – Staff with a basic understanding of the target languages can do this well. Native speakers are not essential.

* Localization testing – This requires native speakers for each target language.

From this list, we see that potential cost benefits can be had for localization engineering, DTP, and internationalization and functional testing. I use the term “potential” here because such benefits can be offset from other costs that are inherent in such offshore scenarios: there is a frequent need to audit these services, plus there is still a need for a just-in-time localization solution. This refers to a quick turnaround of last-minute changes and defects. For example, a US company might need last minutes changes turned around quicker than it can be done by a vendor in a time zone 14 hours away.

OFFSHORE MODELS

Cost benefits to offshoring might seem less apparent, but with the right model, the use of offshore resources in a reduced-cost localization effort can still be accomplished. Consider the dynamics among the following types of vendors:

* Global localization vendors – These are typically US or Western European vendors with substantial production offices in China or India or both.

* Regional vendors – These are companies in China or India that focus only on their respective regional languages.

* Local multi-language vendors (MLVs): These are localization companies in China or India that offer localization into languages other than their own.

Global localization vendors

Several large Western localization providers, such as SDL, Moravia, Lionbridge, Welocalize, etc., have obtained sizable production facilities in India or China. These offshore facilities can be used for the bulk of localization engineering, DTP, multimedia engineering, or functional and internationalization testing. However, small local teams are still needed to audit (sample) the in-country work or to provide quick, last-minute turnaround for US and European clients.

When you combine the costs for these needed local teams with the overhead of distributed project management, you do realize an increase in total cost for offshore localization engineering and other offshore services, but there is still potential for savings, depending on the type and size of the project and the number of hours required for offshore services.

“When you combine the costs for these needed local teams with the overhead of distributed project management, you do realize an increase in total cost...”

Localization testing requires the use of native speakers for the linguistic aspects of localization testing. It is possible to use a distributed team approach for localization testing, where the production facilities in China or India handle the technical aspects of localization testing, and remote native speakers handle the linguistic aspects. For example, capturing screenshots can be done in China or India, but the actual screenshot reviews are done by the remote native speakers.

Localization vendors in India and China

These are also known as regional single language vendors (SLVs). In India, SLVs are a good source for localization into the Indic languages and Urdu. SLVs in China are a good source for localization into Chinese for PRC, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore.

A drawback of using regional vendors directly is that you, as a buyer, need to interface with a number of different regional vendors; this implies different contacts, different work processes, and different technologies. This is typically only feasible for large localization buyers with their own in-house staff of localization specialists and project managers.

Multi-language localization vendors

India and, to a lesser degree, China have a number of MLVs that offer localization into many non-local languages. These companies typically do not have the experience of the larger Western MLVs, however. And there are no substantial cost benefits to using these regional MLVs as long as they use in-country, native-speaking, professionally trained translators.

SUMMARY

For your larger projects, you can obtain cost savings on localization line items, services such as localization engineering, testing, and DTP, if you use one of the larger Western MLVs that have substantial production facilities in lower-cost areas such as Russia, China, or India. But for smaller localization projects, the overhead of distributed project management outweighs the potential gains.

There is no possibility to offshore professional translation with the goal of reducing translation costs. This can only be done in country (or possibly in North America, where there is a regular influx of immigrants).

Regional SLVs in China and India are a feasible solution for mature buyers with seasoned in-house localization staff. But I hesitate to recommend the MLVs in those regions.

To get the best quality translation, Welocalize works only with professional translators in country. One exception to this rule is Spanish, which is spoken in Spain and most of South and Central America. It is possible to get lower cost translations in the Americas by native speaking, professional translators, as long as pure European (Castilian) Spanish is not a requirement.

About the author

A frequent contributor to CSN Magazine, Willem Stoeller is a former professor of localization principles. Currently a VP at Welocalize, Willem still teaches localization topics at industry conferences. CSN recommends Willem’s previous articles regarding the “path of localization.” See the September 2005, January 2006, and May 2006 issues of CSN Magazine.

ClientSide News Magazine - www.clientsidenews.com

Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia

Three Myths About The Translation Business

By Fester Leenstra,
Metamorfose Vertalingen,
Catharijnesingel 85,
3511 GP UTRECHT,
THE NETHERLANDS

metamorfose.vertalingen@gmail.com
http://www.metamorfosevertalingen.nl/

The native speaker principle is overrated, and the academic concept of ‘quality’ means little in a business context. Statements such as these may sound offensive to translators and clients alike. Yet those who plan to start up a translation business should be aware that the received views of the translation establishment may have little to do with reality.

There are countless languages in the world, most of which have many thousands and some even billions of monolingual or bilingual speakers. The laws of statistics would seem to dictate, therefore, that any attempt to set up a translation business is futile, if only because the number of potential competitors is overwhelming. However, once you have begun your translation business you will realise that serious competition – i.e., from rivals with business acumen and the nerve to question translation myths – is in fact comparatively scarce.

Native speakers are generally held to be indisputable authorities on translation issues. This leads us to the first myth about the translation business: the native speaker is infallible. When you start up your own translation business you will soon discover that most customers, especially the more knowledgeable ones, will demand that the translation be done by a native speaker, on the assumption that a native speaker is automatically a good writer. Not so. While there may be over a billion native speakers of English worldwide, only a fraction of them can be relied upon to possess the judgement it takes to decide whether a translation is linguistically sound in a given business context. We should not automatically assume that a native speaker is a good writer in his own language, and even less that he is a good translator. For one thing, translation requires thorough insight into the source language as well as the target language. When you hire translators for your business, you should never forget that while a good translator is usually a native speaker of the target language, not all native speakers are good translators.

The second myth about the translation business has to do with client priorities, and the assumption that more than anything else, clients want quality. People can be excused for taking this myth seriously. Anyone in his right mind would expect that the client’s main concern when engaging a professional translation agency is to get a high-quality translation. Not so. Studies have shown that most clients are in fact more interested in speed than in quality. This is not to say that your client will be pleased to accept any trash as long as he gets it fast; the point is that quality standards in a business context are different from those in an academic context, and may be overshadowed by practical concerns. University students are trained to achieve linguistic perfection, to produce translations formulated in impeccable grammar and a superbly neutral style. Yet the fruits of such training may not be quite to the business client’s taste. In fact, there are probably as many tastes as there are clients. A lawyer will expect you first and foremost to build unambiguous clauses and use appropriate legalese; a machine builder requires technical insight and authentic technical jargon; and the publisher of a general interest magazine needs articles that are simply a good read. What all clients tend to have in common, however, is a reverence for deadlines. After all, when a foreign client has arrived to sign a contract, there should be something to sign; when a magazine has been advertised to appear, it should be available when the market expects it. In a business environment, many different parties may be involved in the production of a single document, which means that delays will accumulate fast and may have grave financial consequences. So, starters should be aware that ‘quality’ equals adaptability to the client’s register and jargon, and that short deadlines are as likely to attract business as quality assurance procedures.

And if you manage to attract business, you will find that the translation industry can be quite profitable, even for business starters. The third myth we would like to negate is that translation is essentially an ad hoc business with very low margins. Not so. Various successful ventures in recent years, for example in the Netherlands and in Eastern Europe, have belied the traditional image of the translator slaving away from dawn till dusk in an underheated attic and still barely managing to make ends meet. It is true that the translation process is extremely labour intensive, and despite all the computerisation efforts, the signs are that it will essentially remain a manual affair for many years to come. Nevertheless, if you are capable of providing high-quality translations, geared to your client’s requirements and within the set deadlines, you will find that you will be taken seriously as a partner and rewarded by very decent bottom line profits.

About the author

Fester Leenstra is co-owner of Metamorfose Vertalingen, a translation agency in Utrecht (The Netherlands). After having worked for several translation firms in paid employment, he took the plunge in 2004 and incorporated his own company.

For further details about Metamorfose Vertalingen, visit:

http://www.metamorfosevertalingen.nl/

http://www.beedigd-vertaalbureau.nl/

http://www.vertaalbureau-engels.nl/

http://www.vertaalsite.eu/

http://www.oost-europavertalingen.nl/

http://www.scandinavie-vertalingen.nl/

http://www.medisch-vertaalbureau.nl/

http://www.technisch-vertaalbureau.nl/

http://www.juridisch-vertaalbureau.nl/

Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia

Does Sending Source Files Make That Much Difference?

By Susan Andrus,
Production Department,
and
Lisa Siciliani,
Localization and Marketing Manager,

McElroy Translation,
Austin, Texas 78701 USA

quotes[at]mcelroytranslation.com
http://www.mcelroytranslation.com/

The Short Answer

It just may. You should consider certain factors when deciding how much effort to spend finding source files that aren’t readily available. You may save translation turn time and/or money by providing electronic source files if you have:

1. Complex document formats, such as forms, brochures, indexed manuals
   
2. Web site or other online files
   
3. Editable text-containing graphics files
   
4. Duplication benefiting from use of a translation memory tool

A little background will help you understand how the situation has changed significantly for most translation and localization vendors. Just five years ago, most client document files that were to be translated into English were sent to agencies in hardcopy or PDF only. With the limited ability of scanning software at the time, these files were either provided to the translators in the original format or a considerable amount of time was spent to create accurate electronic source files.
Complex Document Formats

If your project consists of 1) just a few documents that are 2) primarily straight text with little formatting and 3) few graphics and 4) you don’t care about the format of the translated file, skip to the next section. If, on the other hand, any of the above apply to your project, stick around.

1. Saving even one hour of formatting time per document multiplied times dozens of documents can save hundreds or thousands of dollars.
   
   
2. Although our Production Department loves desktop publishing (they really do), recreating forms, complex manuals or marketing material from scratch does take time. When a PDF is converted to an editable file all of the formatting is lost.
   
   
3. See the section on editable graphics.
   
   
4. Sometimes a document needs to be formatted like the original because it will be published or because the content requires formatting in order to be used—imagine an unformatted form.

Web Site or Other Online Files

To start with, sending organized source files can make a huge difference in how accurate the estimates are that you receive from various vendors. Unless your web site is small and very simple, there is information affecting the localization turn time and cost that can not be ascertained just from viewing the source code available online to the public. If you send extraneous or disorganized files, or don’t send source files, the estimates you receive from vendors may vary. You won’t be able to compare apples to apples, because each vendor will have to guess at what you want and what work will be involved.

Once assigned to a vendor, the original web developer who is familiar with the details of the site can organize the files to be sent for localization much more quickly than those new to it. When you have the option to involve your developer the following can be minimized or eliminated:

1. Incomplete set of files sent to vendor
2. Multiple versions of files
3. Extraneous files sent causing it to be unclear what you want translated
4. Proprietary file formats that can not be readily accessed by a vendor
5. Unclear instructions regarding which content is to be localized

Files Containing Graphics with Editable Text

An editable graphic contains text that can be modified within the program that created it or another graphics program, or within a graphics feature of a document program. There are many different types of graphics programs, such as PhotoShop, Corel Draw, Ulead and Illustrator. You can save a file in one of those file formats, but usually graphics are exported to one of a few common graphics file types, such as JPG, GIF, TIF or BMP. These are not readily editable.

Using this example, let’s say your graphics were created in Illustrator, exported to JPG format, then inserted into a formatted document. For your translation vendor to quickly recreate translated graphics, they will need the original EPS or AI (Illustrator) files. Even if you outsourced the development of this document, your developer will probably send you the original graphics files if they still have them.

We can recreate text-containing graphics without editable graphics files, although there could be a multifold difference in the amount of time it takes. This is another one of those things that our desktop publishers love to do, but time is money so if there is a chance that someone can find and send those original files, it might be worth it to try.
Adapting To “Translation Memory”

Projects with significant content duplication are excellent candidates for the use of translation memory tools, reducing the cost of translation. Use of translation memory requires electronic source files. Some of the possible cost savings are lost when your vendor has to create editable electronic source files. The translation memory tool we use, TRADOS™, is able to create translated files retaining the format of the original in most major file formats.
Some evolution of our own common receivables and deliverables

5 years ago:

• We received few editable source files
• Most document custom format was done in MS Word
• Many clients requested hardcopy only as deliverable
• Graphics were often physically pasted into the hardcopy
• Production staff were needed to prepare many files for translation

Today:

• Most custom format deliverables arrive in editable source files
• We receive more files in formats such as FrameMaker, Quark and HTML
• Most clients receive electronic files only, complete with translated graphics
• Graphics can now be rapidly extracted from PDFs and cleaned of source text
• Fewer staff are required to produce more complex document and online files

Summary: How Sending Your Vendor Source Files Benefits You

• Get faster, more accurate estimates
• Take advantage of translation memory
• Receive desktop published deliverables
• Reduce project turn time
• SAVE MONEY

Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia