Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
In a world of profit driven organizations, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a difficult dream to achieve. CSR generally means integrating social values and mission statements of organizations within business decision-making in order to achieve positive and sustainable outcomes towards business, environment and the community at large. Easier said than done as we all know that money makes the world go round, especially during these trying global recession periods. So it is remarkable whenever certain organizations go the extra mile and make the extra effort to make this dream a reality.
Elitebilingual Pte Ltd's Managing Director, Ms Hong Yinyin has such a compassionate heart that is evident in some of the little known acts of charity which were carried out. Of most notable mention of all the translations that were carried out were for the organizations as follows; the Singapore Children's Society, United Nations World Food Programme, Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports (MCYS) and Fei Yue Community Services (FCYS).
The Singapore Children's Society is a non-profit organisation that helps protect and nurture children as well as youths of all races and religion, especially those who were abused, neglected and/or from dysfunctional families. So when Elite was approached by them to translate an article about *Maria (*Maria is a pseudonym used to protect the identity of the child) we felt dearly for the children and that we should give back to society and decided to do this project for free.
An example of the translation is as follows below.
This is Maria.
这是玛丽亚的故事
She is struggling with her studies, while nursing her paralysed mother.
Her elder sister, aged 17, works part-time to provide for the family.
Her father has abandoned the family.
You can help Maria…
她除了要应付繁重的功课，还得照顾瘫痪的母亲。
她的姐姐今年17岁，需要在外兼职才能养家糊口。
她的父亲抛弃了家庭，从此不见踪影。
玛丽亚需要您的帮助 …
Thus began a series of more translations that we felt that were for a viable cause and would be able to contribute to society.
The Miele Guide Restaurant Month was a charity initiative, carried out by Ate Media, that would specifically benefit the United Nations World Food Programme. Elite carried out the Japanese, Korean and Chinese translations continuously for a whole month pro bono. A link with both our organisations' websites was also placed free of charge to provide additional awareness on the programme. As the United Nations World Food Programme focuses on fighting hunger, reaching over 102 million people worldwide alone in 2008 with beneficiaries in 78 countries, we felt that it's definitely more than just; a cause worth fighting for.
Next is the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports Singapore (MCYS). Their mission is to build a cohesive and resilient society by fostering socially responsible individuals, inspired and committed youths, strong and stable families, a caring, active community and a sporting people. We carried out a 4,000 word English to Mandarin translation service for them, focusing on stopping family violence, again free of charge. As Elite firmly believes in a balanced lifestyle and strong family values, these goals are aligned with our business goals and vision. Sometimes, it not just about profit, but about living as socially responsible individuals.
Last but not least, the latest project was for Fei Yue Community Services Singapore (FCYS), whose agenda was in effecting life transformation in people to lead them to a truly fulfilling life within an integrated community network. Over 16,000 words were edited by Elite for this project on "52 Steps to a Happy Marriage".
‘….To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness or in health, to love and to cherish 'till death do us part. And hereto I pledge you my faithfulness.’
Hopefully all these translations would be put to good use for the public and ultimately contribute to society in one way or another. The effects may be minimal and may not be immediately felt. However, the seeds of these had been sown and the way paved for future corporate social responsible actions to be tied in with organizational goals for Elite.
By Vincent Guee
Operations Manager, Elite
"We cannot tell what may happen to us in life. But we can decide what happens within us— how we can take it, what we do with it— and that is what really counts in the end. ~Joseph Fort Newton"
Showing posts with label translation services. Show all posts
Showing posts with label translation services. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Monday, November 16, 2009
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
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.
Chinese Translator / Editor | 中文翻译与编辑
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Translation Prices: Cost of Translation and Localization Services
by: Argos Multilingual
No, it doesn’t start with an "S” or an "F” and there is no "Q” in it. This word in our industry is ‘cena’ and it is the Polish word for"price”. Translation prices is exactly what we’ll be examining here. Price is usually, as anyone and everyone knows, the defining factor for customers on whether to purchase, and the defining factor for producers on how to target their products to the client base.
What horrible secrets about Eastern European translation pricing will be revealed in this article? Probably nothing too revolutionary. Hopefully this article will expose some common sense responses to issues with pricing, and probably address several universal problems shared by all translation companies and localization service providers in the rest of the world.
1. ROI – ‘Don’t bother localizing if you can’t make a profit’
There is plenty of talk about localization ROI and how it affects pricing. The decision of whether it pays to localize something before you decide to enter a market sounds obvious. Why then do we see companies complaining about localization costs in the context of their ROI?
The underlying issue here is that companies are complaining about their products’ lack of competitiveness. It happens, there’s no shame in that. No matter how you slice it, it comes down to money. And if there is not enough demand backed by money for a product, then localization, in the eyes of management, doesn’t seem to pay off. If an application is designed for Eastern European end users, then it either has to be relatively inexpensive or should be tailored to a specific niche market where lower sales volumes give an acceptable return. The Eastern European software market will not usually generate huge sales based on its size alone anyway.
As such, localization decisions are often put on a back burner, and investment decisions are based on poor information about the market. The result - a company finds itself in Eastern Europe before it has properly estimated sales potential. Then, normal business processes come into play; managers are pressed to make a profit, and we see the localization problem handed over to the local distributor.
All of a sudden, a company that specializes in software distribution is responsible for the software publisher’s image and quality in the local market. Local distributors are often very small, with little infrastructure, inadequate resources and small translation budgets (coming out of their own small pockets). Nonetheless, localization responsibility for the product is suddenly literally dumped upon them. This imposes additional problems on the distributors not only associated with added incurred translation costs, but also the problem with answering questions such as: ‘how to localize’, ‘what agency to hire’, ‘how to go about adapting the product to this region’…
It all boils down to one simple fact, distributors usually lack the experience in localization, and that lack of experience will further result in declining sales numbers and added costs.
Software publishers fool themselves into thinking that it is so much in the distributor’s interest to do a great job localizing the product (ergo, the distributor will have an easier time selling the product) that they, themselves, don’t need to worry about it. However, distributors usually don’t understand the complex issues connected with localization. Even if a distributor does recognize what’s involved, the "simple, low-value added service” attitude toward localization services prevails. The real world consequences are poor-quality localization and serious harm to the software publisher’s image and brand.
2. What’s going on among the bigger buyers of translation/localization services?
What are the organizational structures of larger buyers of localization services, and how do they affect the price of translation? It seems as if Microsoft is getting its act together by limiting the number of vendors and giving the remaining more work. IBM and Oracle also seem to be well-organized in this respect. Unfortunately, there are other large buyers of translation and localization services that have not addressed the issue of centralizing or streamlining costs.
It is quite remarkable how some large buyers deal with this problem. Our translation company, Argos Translations, works with one particular client directly through two different offices and indirectly through three other localization companies. Of course, we are paid different rates, negotiated completely independently with each of these channels. And now the punch line: the rates we receive working through one localization company are 50% higher than what we receive working directly for the client. So where are the client savings? Where is the streamlining? What about consistent terminology? The value of working through a limited number of MLVs is understandable, but what is the point of doing it a little this way and a little that way?
How the biggest clients deal with their translation and localization is only one issue. Another question is how far these companies are willing to go to lower localization costs. Last year, our company was in negotiations with a very large global company to take over a large portion of their Slovak localization work. I am not going to name any names here, but suffice it to say that this is one of the elite, with over $50 billion in annual global sales. Since this was a large, long-term client, and there were significant volumes involved (mostly documentation), we decided to quote this client the extraordinary attractive localization / translation price (at that time) of Euro 0.12 per source word.
The company got back in touch with us to tell us that they really liked our experience and wanted to choose us, but they had an issue: price. We asked whether it was a question of 1 or 2 Euro cents, and they made it clear that the price would have to be "significantly” lower. It was obvious that we weren’t even close to their price expectations. They were looking for Euro 0.07-0.08! How is it possible that the rates being paid by this particular global giant were so low? How does this reflect upon our industry? The only answer I can offer is that such clients receive low translation prices at the expense of similarly low level of quality that they obtain.
3. Quality: does anybody really care?
I was recently dozing through a translation conference as one of the speakers, a professor of linguistics, was discussing the ethical importance of a high-quality translation. I was suddenly jolted awake by a statement he made along the lines of "it is the translation vendor’s ethical responsibility to ensure the highest-quality translation.” When question time arrived, I duly asked what we should do if our client does not give us enough time to do the job in an "ethically responsible” manner. The gentleman told me that it was our moral responsibility to ask for more time.
As good and applicable as his reasoning is, unfortunately it almost never applies in the real world. I tried to imagine the response that I’d receive if I were to call my client and suggest, "Listen, I know this is a 1.2 million-word project, but you really should have met your development schedule. And I know that your priority was to ship FIGS first, but this was delayed. And now, on top of all that, you want us to use this outdated TM software because this is what your previous version was in, yet the TM database we have received is full of inconsistencies that need to be removed before we start translating the new version. What it really comes down to is that we are only going to have time to do the translation and have it reviewed independently TWICE. This won’t be enough to maintain our ethical language standards.”
Unfortunately, the truth is (maybe I shouldn’t be saying this too loudly) that our business is full of concessions. It is a humorous concept, really, when you take into consideration that we are supposed to offer incredibly high-quality, incredibly fast turnaround times at incredibly low rates. Obviously, something has to give here, and I believe that the way localization services providers handle this contradiction is by diminishing the definition of excellence in our industry.
The best companies in our industry are the ones that have the best systems in place to provide the highest quality possible while trying to maintain costs at a level that does not hinder such quality, according to "real world” business conditions. Otherwise, we’re all familiar with the concept of ‘garbage in, garbage out’. It is that simple, really.
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
No, it doesn’t start with an "S” or an "F” and there is no "Q” in it. This word in our industry is ‘cena’ and it is the Polish word for"price”. Translation prices is exactly what we’ll be examining here. Price is usually, as anyone and everyone knows, the defining factor for customers on whether to purchase, and the defining factor for producers on how to target their products to the client base.
What horrible secrets about Eastern European translation pricing will be revealed in this article? Probably nothing too revolutionary. Hopefully this article will expose some common sense responses to issues with pricing, and probably address several universal problems shared by all translation companies and localization service providers in the rest of the world.
1. ROI – ‘Don’t bother localizing if you can’t make a profit’
There is plenty of talk about localization ROI and how it affects pricing. The decision of whether it pays to localize something before you decide to enter a market sounds obvious. Why then do we see companies complaining about localization costs in the context of their ROI?
The underlying issue here is that companies are complaining about their products’ lack of competitiveness. It happens, there’s no shame in that. No matter how you slice it, it comes down to money. And if there is not enough demand backed by money for a product, then localization, in the eyes of management, doesn’t seem to pay off. If an application is designed for Eastern European end users, then it either has to be relatively inexpensive or should be tailored to a specific niche market where lower sales volumes give an acceptable return. The Eastern European software market will not usually generate huge sales based on its size alone anyway.
As such, localization decisions are often put on a back burner, and investment decisions are based on poor information about the market. The result - a company finds itself in Eastern Europe before it has properly estimated sales potential. Then, normal business processes come into play; managers are pressed to make a profit, and we see the localization problem handed over to the local distributor.
All of a sudden, a company that specializes in software distribution is responsible for the software publisher’s image and quality in the local market. Local distributors are often very small, with little infrastructure, inadequate resources and small translation budgets (coming out of their own small pockets). Nonetheless, localization responsibility for the product is suddenly literally dumped upon them. This imposes additional problems on the distributors not only associated with added incurred translation costs, but also the problem with answering questions such as: ‘how to localize’, ‘what agency to hire’, ‘how to go about adapting the product to this region’…
It all boils down to one simple fact, distributors usually lack the experience in localization, and that lack of experience will further result in declining sales numbers and added costs.
Software publishers fool themselves into thinking that it is so much in the distributor’s interest to do a great job localizing the product (ergo, the distributor will have an easier time selling the product) that they, themselves, don’t need to worry about it. However, distributors usually don’t understand the complex issues connected with localization. Even if a distributor does recognize what’s involved, the "simple, low-value added service” attitude toward localization services prevails. The real world consequences are poor-quality localization and serious harm to the software publisher’s image and brand.
2. What’s going on among the bigger buyers of translation/localization services?
What are the organizational structures of larger buyers of localization services, and how do they affect the price of translation? It seems as if Microsoft is getting its act together by limiting the number of vendors and giving the remaining more work. IBM and Oracle also seem to be well-organized in this respect. Unfortunately, there are other large buyers of translation and localization services that have not addressed the issue of centralizing or streamlining costs.
It is quite remarkable how some large buyers deal with this problem. Our translation company, Argos Translations, works with one particular client directly through two different offices and indirectly through three other localization companies. Of course, we are paid different rates, negotiated completely independently with each of these channels. And now the punch line: the rates we receive working through one localization company are 50% higher than what we receive working directly for the client. So where are the client savings? Where is the streamlining? What about consistent terminology? The value of working through a limited number of MLVs is understandable, but what is the point of doing it a little this way and a little that way?
How the biggest clients deal with their translation and localization is only one issue. Another question is how far these companies are willing to go to lower localization costs. Last year, our company was in negotiations with a very large global company to take over a large portion of their Slovak localization work. I am not going to name any names here, but suffice it to say that this is one of the elite, with over $50 billion in annual global sales. Since this was a large, long-term client, and there were significant volumes involved (mostly documentation), we decided to quote this client the extraordinary attractive localization / translation price (at that time) of Euro 0.12 per source word.
The company got back in touch with us to tell us that they really liked our experience and wanted to choose us, but they had an issue: price. We asked whether it was a question of 1 or 2 Euro cents, and they made it clear that the price would have to be "significantly” lower. It was obvious that we weren’t even close to their price expectations. They were looking for Euro 0.07-0.08! How is it possible that the rates being paid by this particular global giant were so low? How does this reflect upon our industry? The only answer I can offer is that such clients receive low translation prices at the expense of similarly low level of quality that they obtain.
3. Quality: does anybody really care?
I was recently dozing through a translation conference as one of the speakers, a professor of linguistics, was discussing the ethical importance of a high-quality translation. I was suddenly jolted awake by a statement he made along the lines of "it is the translation vendor’s ethical responsibility to ensure the highest-quality translation.” When question time arrived, I duly asked what we should do if our client does not give us enough time to do the job in an "ethically responsible” manner. The gentleman told me that it was our moral responsibility to ask for more time.
As good and applicable as his reasoning is, unfortunately it almost never applies in the real world. I tried to imagine the response that I’d receive if I were to call my client and suggest, "Listen, I know this is a 1.2 million-word project, but you really should have met your development schedule. And I know that your priority was to ship FIGS first, but this was delayed. And now, on top of all that, you want us to use this outdated TM software because this is what your previous version was in, yet the TM database we have received is full of inconsistencies that need to be removed before we start translating the new version. What it really comes down to is that we are only going to have time to do the translation and have it reviewed independently TWICE. This won’t be enough to maintain our ethical language standards.”
Unfortunately, the truth is (maybe I shouldn’t be saying this too loudly) that our business is full of concessions. It is a humorous concept, really, when you take into consideration that we are supposed to offer incredibly high-quality, incredibly fast turnaround times at incredibly low rates. Obviously, something has to give here, and I believe that the way localization services providers handle this contradiction is by diminishing the definition of excellence in our industry.
The best companies in our industry are the ones that have the best systems in place to provide the highest quality possible while trying to maintain costs at a level that does not hinder such quality, according to "real world” business conditions. Otherwise, we’re all familiar with the concept of ‘garbage in, garbage out’. It is that simple, really.
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
Monday, June 15, 2009
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
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
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
The language of business – how fluent are you?
By Karen Elwis
14th November, 2004
Translation Company in London: Lingo24
In an increasingly global marketplace, it's high time that UK exporters realised the importance of translating or localising their sales websites into foreign languages. Karen Elwis has found a quick test to ascertain readers' current level of expertise in European "commercial-speak".
Foreign languages and business culture can be major headaches for British exporters, yet surprisingly few companies employ in-house linguists and many have no system in place to deal with commercial enquiries in a foreign language. Of course, many British export managers claim that most business is conducted in English anyway. However, in the current global market such a myopic approach to international trade could cost them more than they think. For today the power of the Internet can allow exporters to reach previously unattainable customers in far-flung parts of the globe, and businesses who have had the foresight to have their website translated into the languages spoken in their target marketplaces or ' better still ' "localized" (translated AND culturally adapted), are reaping the benefits big-time.
To see how you measure up when it comes to foreign languages, why not have a go at the following quick multi-lingual quiz, first published in an edition of Director magazine.
FRENCH
Donnez-moi vos coordonnés et je vous l'envoie tout de suite.
1. Tell me your address and I will send you a whole set.
2. Give me your details and I will get it to you at once.
3. Give me your tailor's address: I envy you your suit.
4. Let's co-ordinate this and I'll send you the whole suite.
Nous respectons toujours les délais de livraison.
1. We always respect delivery delays.
2. We carry out our deliveries by relay.
3. We always meet our delivery dates.
4. We have late deliveries every day.
GERMAN
Wir liefern frei Haus innerhalb Englands.
1. We deliver free houses in England.
2. We run free houses in England.
3. We ran free around England.
4. We do free delivery within England.
Bei dieser Menge kann ich Ihnen einen guten Rabatt anbieten.
1. I can offer a good discount on that quantity.
2. In a place like that you can always find your way.
3. Would you like some good rabbit in that mixture?
4. I can get you a good rebate.
SPANISH
Les presento un equipo muy competente.
1. Let me present you with a very competitive piece of equipment.
2. I'd like to give you a very competent piece of equipment.
3. I'd like to introduce a very fine piece of equipment.
4. Let me introduce you to a very competent team.
Vamos a aprobar el acta de la reunión anterior.
1. We approve of the actions of the previous board.
2. Let us approve the minutes of the last meeting.
3. We are going to test the actions of the last meeting.
4. Let's go and act out the previous reunion.
ANSWERS: French 2,3 German 4,1 Spanish 4,2
© Lingo24 Ltd
Translation services - Lingo24 is a leading provider of translation services between all major world languages. Based in the UK, the company also has full-time operations in China, Romania and New Zealand.
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
14th November, 2004
Translation Company in London: Lingo24
In an increasingly global marketplace, it's high time that UK exporters realised the importance of translating or localising their sales websites into foreign languages. Karen Elwis has found a quick test to ascertain readers' current level of expertise in European "commercial-speak".
Foreign languages and business culture can be major headaches for British exporters, yet surprisingly few companies employ in-house linguists and many have no system in place to deal with commercial enquiries in a foreign language. Of course, many British export managers claim that most business is conducted in English anyway. However, in the current global market such a myopic approach to international trade could cost them more than they think. For today the power of the Internet can allow exporters to reach previously unattainable customers in far-flung parts of the globe, and businesses who have had the foresight to have their website translated into the languages spoken in their target marketplaces or ' better still ' "localized" (translated AND culturally adapted), are reaping the benefits big-time.
To see how you measure up when it comes to foreign languages, why not have a go at the following quick multi-lingual quiz, first published in an edition of Director magazine.
FRENCH
Donnez-moi vos coordonnés et je vous l'envoie tout de suite.
1. Tell me your address and I will send you a whole set.
2. Give me your details and I will get it to you at once.
3. Give me your tailor's address: I envy you your suit.
4. Let's co-ordinate this and I'll send you the whole suite.
Nous respectons toujours les délais de livraison.
1. We always respect delivery delays.
2. We carry out our deliveries by relay.
3. We always meet our delivery dates.
4. We have late deliveries every day.
GERMAN
Wir liefern frei Haus innerhalb Englands.
1. We deliver free houses in England.
2. We run free houses in England.
3. We ran free around England.
4. We do free delivery within England.
Bei dieser Menge kann ich Ihnen einen guten Rabatt anbieten.
1. I can offer a good discount on that quantity.
2. In a place like that you can always find your way.
3. Would you like some good rabbit in that mixture?
4. I can get you a good rebate.
SPANISH
Les presento un equipo muy competente.
1. Let me present you with a very competitive piece of equipment.
2. I'd like to give you a very competent piece of equipment.
3. I'd like to introduce a very fine piece of equipment.
4. Let me introduce you to a very competent team.
Vamos a aprobar el acta de la reunión anterior.
1. We approve of the actions of the previous board.
2. Let us approve the minutes of the last meeting.
3. We are going to test the actions of the last meeting.
4. Let's go and act out the previous reunion.
ANSWERS: French 2,3 German 4,1 Spanish 4,2
© Lingo24 Ltd
Translation services - Lingo24 is a leading provider of translation services between all major world languages. Based in the UK, the company also has full-time operations in China, Romania and New Zealand.
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
Friday, May 29, 2009
The Need for Translation Services In a Global Economy
By Shohreh Fleming
The pace of economic migration in the global economy is quickening and the voice of the world is becoming more cosmopolitan. As businesses, corporations and government bodies expand, the requirement for them to communicate with their evolving populous in a meaningful way becomes all the more pertinent, not to mention challenging and exciting.
If a country is to prosper it needs to engage with its population. Where a system for dialogue exists to serve a multi-cultural society, there will also exist a harmony of expression and application.
The birth of the internet has made a seemingly endless stream of information available to anyone who has access to a computer with a web connection. The internet is also vital for business. It creates a new arena where companies are able to showcase their particular products and services in fresh and innovative ways to new and diverse audiences.
From launching an ad campaign in Polish to translating an e-mail from a client in Moscow; the challenge of utilising the internet to widen the appeal of your company must be met, if growth and success are to form any part of an organisations agenda.
The presence of translation service providers on the net is yet another boon to the global economy; giving voice to ideas, plans and proposals the world over providing a much needed platform for far-reaching and meaningful communications with the rest of the planet. Aiming to create a bridge upon which ideas and communications can cross without obstruction, to pave the way for free, open and creative communications without boundaries or obstacles.
The advantages of language services on the broader global economy are perhaps not immediately apparent. But if a company, whether large or small, is to get involved with it's public in a meaningful way it needs to approach them in a manner that is conducive to them, not to marginalise them and therein reduce their presence in the world economy.
Companies express their cultural sensitivity by providing their diversifying customer base with materials tailored to suit their own languages. Indeed, for a company not to offer this kind of information would be short-sighted and not make good business sense.
The aim of any company or corporation is to offer the same high quality product or service to its expanding customer base. If that base consists largely of individuals from many different countries, then a solution needs to be found.
For example, a company sees a gap in a potential market for a new or existing product; the problem presented to them is simple; extending the message that their company wishes to express in a culturally sensitive and appropriate manner.
It would not simply be enough to translate an ad campaign into Albanian, Bambara or Chechen without an understanding of the kind of world your message is going to be heard in. Enter the translation services provider.
With the advent of the global economy the role of the translator is an almost indispensable one. The need for businesses to communicate with their client base means that there will always be a requirement for a translator.
This means a lot of work for professional language services: a company setting up a South-East Asian headquarters would need to overhaul the bulk of its commercial as well as training materials without losing any of its corporate timbre. Such an undertaking is costly and important to execute correctly from beginning to end.
Simply translating material would not be sufficient; a translator would need to know what kind of message the company is anxious to convey to their new client base and set the tone for the promotion or corporate identity. Certain symbols or ideas that are seen as the norm to one country may be highly offensive to another. In this manner, cultural sensitivity is extremely important.
So, the role of a translation services provider is not simply to transpose a set of texts or materials from one language to the next, but also to engage with the culture who speaks that language. In partnership with the business or government body, this creates an invaluable link to its population in order that it may speak openly and clearly to all.
About the author:
Shohreh Fleming is CEO and co-founder of Prestige Network Ltd., and Translation Services-UK.com.
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
The pace of economic migration in the global economy is quickening and the voice of the world is becoming more cosmopolitan. As businesses, corporations and government bodies expand, the requirement for them to communicate with their evolving populous in a meaningful way becomes all the more pertinent, not to mention challenging and exciting.
If a country is to prosper it needs to engage with its population. Where a system for dialogue exists to serve a multi-cultural society, there will also exist a harmony of expression and application.
The birth of the internet has made a seemingly endless stream of information available to anyone who has access to a computer with a web connection. The internet is also vital for business. It creates a new arena where companies are able to showcase their particular products and services in fresh and innovative ways to new and diverse audiences.
From launching an ad campaign in Polish to translating an e-mail from a client in Moscow; the challenge of utilising the internet to widen the appeal of your company must be met, if growth and success are to form any part of an organisations agenda.
The presence of translation service providers on the net is yet another boon to the global economy; giving voice to ideas, plans and proposals the world over providing a much needed platform for far-reaching and meaningful communications with the rest of the planet. Aiming to create a bridge upon which ideas and communications can cross without obstruction, to pave the way for free, open and creative communications without boundaries or obstacles.
The advantages of language services on the broader global economy are perhaps not immediately apparent. But if a company, whether large or small, is to get involved with it's public in a meaningful way it needs to approach them in a manner that is conducive to them, not to marginalise them and therein reduce their presence in the world economy.
Companies express their cultural sensitivity by providing their diversifying customer base with materials tailored to suit their own languages. Indeed, for a company not to offer this kind of information would be short-sighted and not make good business sense.
The aim of any company or corporation is to offer the same high quality product or service to its expanding customer base. If that base consists largely of individuals from many different countries, then a solution needs to be found.
For example, a company sees a gap in a potential market for a new or existing product; the problem presented to them is simple; extending the message that their company wishes to express in a culturally sensitive and appropriate manner.
It would not simply be enough to translate an ad campaign into Albanian, Bambara or Chechen without an understanding of the kind of world your message is going to be heard in. Enter the translation services provider.
With the advent of the global economy the role of the translator is an almost indispensable one. The need for businesses to communicate with their client base means that there will always be a requirement for a translator.
This means a lot of work for professional language services: a company setting up a South-East Asian headquarters would need to overhaul the bulk of its commercial as well as training materials without losing any of its corporate timbre. Such an undertaking is costly and important to execute correctly from beginning to end.
Simply translating material would not be sufficient; a translator would need to know what kind of message the company is anxious to convey to their new client base and set the tone for the promotion or corporate identity. Certain symbols or ideas that are seen as the norm to one country may be highly offensive to another. In this manner, cultural sensitivity is extremely important.
So, the role of a translation services provider is not simply to transpose a set of texts or materials from one language to the next, but also to engage with the culture who speaks that language. In partnership with the business or government body, this creates an invaluable link to its population in order that it may speak openly and clearly to all.
About the author:
Shohreh Fleming is CEO and co-founder of Prestige Network Ltd., and Translation Services-UK.com.
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
Friday, May 8, 2009
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
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
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
The pros and cons of personnel in the translation business
By Fester Leenstra,
Metamorfose Vertalingen,
Catharijnesingel 85,
3511 GP UTRECHT,
THE NETHERLANDS
metamorfose.vertalingen@gmail.com
www.metamorfosevertalingen.nl
To be or not to be: operate as a freelancer or as an employer?
Are you planning to set up a translation business? Then there are two or three fundamental questions you will need to consider if you want your business to be a success. One of these, and in fact the most obvious one, is how to attract clients. However, the marketing effort and insight needed to tackle the issue of client acquisition is the subject of another article. In this specific issue I would like to concentrate on a fundamental dilemma that many self-employed translators will face: to work as a freelancer or to take staff on board.
The answer to this question depends in part on you ambitions as a translator. If translation is a job on the side for you, if you are able to combine your translation work with a host of related business concerns, from technical to administrative, and if you don’t mind working in solitary confinement, then it is probably a good idea for you to set up shop as a freelancer. From that position you will be able to work for translation agencies and specific clients alike, decide for yourself how much work to take on and when to take days off. One drawback is that you will not always be able to satisfy your clients, especially in terms of volume, forcing them to also engage the services of other translators who may be more specialised or have more capacity. Another drawback is that you will generally be working on your own, without the company of colleagues to chat with or consult. Most of the people you do get in contact with will probably never be known to you other than as a person at the other end of the telephone line. In addition, you will always be responsible for all the aspects of your business, without having the possibility to delegate tasks to people who may be more suitable for them than yourself. This means, for example, that you will have to generate your own business and find ways of attracting clients. On the upside, however, if your translation work is of good quality and you acquire a reputation as a reliable partner, even among a few clients, then you may soon find that business generates itself.
If a freelance existence does not appeal to you, one alternative is to hire people – translators or other specialists – and to become an employer, rather than principally a translator. This strategy offers a number of obvious and significant benefits. The most important advantage is that by setting up a team you will be able to generate far more turnover than as a freelancer – provided that you generate sufficient business to keep the team running. By multiplying your translation capacity you will be in a much better position to land large-scale orders. If you also manage to find high-quality marketing & sales specialists, moreover, you will be able to convince bigger, high-profile companies of your professional approach and ensure them of the continuity of your business, even when you are not there yourself.
There is an adage that says that big companies prefer to do business with big partners, and even if there are many exceptions to that rule, there is no denying that highly reputed global businesses will obviously tend to select high-profile suppliers for whatever it is they might want to purchase. Even so, you don’t need to be a mega-employer to provide translation services to major industry names. In the commercial translation business, individual agencies with five employees already count and those with twenty or more are the major players.
Of course, employees are a mixed blessing. They will need to be seen to. Employees need attention, encouragement, and guidance. Even if no problems occur, you may find that you are spending more time sorting out employee-related administrative matters than working as a translator – unless of course you hire other employees who can look after employee issues. As long as business is booming – which it may well be if your agency is run effectively, because demand for translation services is immense – there is a risk of ending up in an employment spiral. The dialectics of progress rule that the more you grow, the less benefit your growth will bring, so clearly this is a situation you want to avoid. Carefully controlled expansion is crucial.
In summary, a freelance business offers a great deal of personal freedom but imposes clear and inevitable limits to the scope of your work. Another downside is that it condemns you to a solitary and essentially domestic career. If you prefer a more dynamic business environment and do not fear employee issues or serious competition, you might consider setting up an agency and taking on people to work for you. The size and success of your business will ultimately depend on your professional and commercial ambitions.
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
Metamorfose Vertalingen,
Catharijnesingel 85,
3511 GP UTRECHT,
THE NETHERLANDS
metamorfose.vertalingen@gmail.com
www.metamorfosevertalingen.nl
To be or not to be: operate as a freelancer or as an employer?
Are you planning to set up a translation business? Then there are two or three fundamental questions you will need to consider if you want your business to be a success. One of these, and in fact the most obvious one, is how to attract clients. However, the marketing effort and insight needed to tackle the issue of client acquisition is the subject of another article. In this specific issue I would like to concentrate on a fundamental dilemma that many self-employed translators will face: to work as a freelancer or to take staff on board.
The answer to this question depends in part on you ambitions as a translator. If translation is a job on the side for you, if you are able to combine your translation work with a host of related business concerns, from technical to administrative, and if you don’t mind working in solitary confinement, then it is probably a good idea for you to set up shop as a freelancer. From that position you will be able to work for translation agencies and specific clients alike, decide for yourself how much work to take on and when to take days off. One drawback is that you will not always be able to satisfy your clients, especially in terms of volume, forcing them to also engage the services of other translators who may be more specialised or have more capacity. Another drawback is that you will generally be working on your own, without the company of colleagues to chat with or consult. Most of the people you do get in contact with will probably never be known to you other than as a person at the other end of the telephone line. In addition, you will always be responsible for all the aspects of your business, without having the possibility to delegate tasks to people who may be more suitable for them than yourself. This means, for example, that you will have to generate your own business and find ways of attracting clients. On the upside, however, if your translation work is of good quality and you acquire a reputation as a reliable partner, even among a few clients, then you may soon find that business generates itself.
If a freelance existence does not appeal to you, one alternative is to hire people – translators or other specialists – and to become an employer, rather than principally a translator. This strategy offers a number of obvious and significant benefits. The most important advantage is that by setting up a team you will be able to generate far more turnover than as a freelancer – provided that you generate sufficient business to keep the team running. By multiplying your translation capacity you will be in a much better position to land large-scale orders. If you also manage to find high-quality marketing & sales specialists, moreover, you will be able to convince bigger, high-profile companies of your professional approach and ensure them of the continuity of your business, even when you are not there yourself.
There is an adage that says that big companies prefer to do business with big partners, and even if there are many exceptions to that rule, there is no denying that highly reputed global businesses will obviously tend to select high-profile suppliers for whatever it is they might want to purchase. Even so, you don’t need to be a mega-employer to provide translation services to major industry names. In the commercial translation business, individual agencies with five employees already count and those with twenty or more are the major players.
Of course, employees are a mixed blessing. They will need to be seen to. Employees need attention, encouragement, and guidance. Even if no problems occur, you may find that you are spending more time sorting out employee-related administrative matters than working as a translator – unless of course you hire other employees who can look after employee issues. As long as business is booming – which it may well be if your agency is run effectively, because demand for translation services is immense – there is a risk of ending up in an employment spiral. The dialectics of progress rule that the more you grow, the less benefit your growth will bring, so clearly this is a situation you want to avoid. Carefully controlled expansion is crucial.
In summary, a freelance business offers a great deal of personal freedom but imposes clear and inevitable limits to the scope of your work. Another downside is that it condemns you to a solitary and essentially domestic career. If you prefer a more dynamic business environment and do not fear employee issues or serious competition, you might consider setting up an agency and taking on people to work for you. The size and success of your business will ultimately depend on your professional and commercial ambitions.
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
Monday, May 4, 2009
Ethical Implications of Translation Technologies
By Érika Nogueira de Andrade Stupiello,
São Paulo State University, Brazil
www.traducao-interpretacao.com.br
Introduction
Technology has been reshaping the concept and practice of translation in many aspects. Until some time ago, translators were expected to be able to work solely on definite source texts with the exclusive aid of dictionaries. Specialists were called upon where research references failed or left holes, but, even in such cases, translators had the chance to develop familiarity with their source texts, becoming, in many cases, experts themselves in some fields. Textual material to be translated was basically conceptualized as having a beginning and an end, thus making contextualization of meaning easier.
The process of globalization and the technological revolution that came along with it have dramatically changed the way information is conceived and produced. According to Craciunescu et al. (2004), advances in communication have brought about a "screen culture" that increasingly tends to replace the use of printed materials, since digital information can be easily accessed and relayed through computers and allows greater flexibility for processing.
In addition to the growing tendency to adopt the digital format for textual production, a large part of the material translators deal with in their daily routines consists of large translation projects, whether web-based or not. Such work is usually carried out with the use of computerized tools, such as automatic translation systems and translation memory databases. These applications require the development of a new range of technical competences, from learning how to manipulate different software programs to being able to manage the translated content, whether to achieve terminological consistence (machine translation databases) or to reuse solutions to translation problems in subsequent projects (translation memory databases). As Biau Gil and Pym (2006:6) explain, in today's world,
Our translations might thus be expected to move away from the ideal of equivalence between fixed texts, becoming more like one set of revisions among many. In the fields of electronic technologies, translators are less commonly employed to translate whole texts, as one did for the books with concordances. Translation, like general text production, becomes more like work with databases, glossaries, and a set of electronic tools, rather than on complete definitive source texts.
Translation memory tools are being employed also by translators working with definitive texts, that is, materials that might be translated just once, mainly as a way to increase their database. There are many translators who work basically with web-based materials, so most part of their work might involve updating and adaptation of previously translated texts to other contexts (a common practice in localization). Whatever the situation technology might be employed, there is no denial that translators have been able to reap great benefits by achieving greater work speed and efficiency.
Nonetheless, the same tools designed to assist translators are also affecting many aspects of how their work is regarded. This is mainly due to the fact that the design of these applications seems to be based on some of the traditionally-held concepts of translation as a transfer operation of pre-established contents stored in the source text and of the translator as the one in charge of retrieving the contents the machine has failed to recover.
While seeking to investigate the basis of machine translation and translation memory programs, this work aims to analyze both the contributions and transformations arising from the contemporary concept of the translation profession through the use of those tools. The ideas presented are divided into two sections. In section one I shall examine the concept of the original text and the translation in the domain of machine translation. My attention will then turn towards the extension of the translator's responsibility in producing the final text, by examining the translator's role in the translation post-editing process. Section two looks into the application of translation memories, with focus on the extension of the translator's responsibility in creating translation databases and re-using identical or similar segments from previous translations stored in memory programs. Ultimately, I shall conclude by attempting to draw attention to the scenario posed by these technologies which, in my view, seems to raise urgent ethical questions regarding the translator's image as re-creator or editor of the final translated material.
Machine translation: the illusion of access to the source
The pace of the contemporary world calls for translators to deliver their work in shorter and shorter turnaround cycles. This fact, coupled with the search for cost reduction, seems to be one of the strongest reasons supporting the use of machines in translation. Through the perspective of the current demand for readily-done translations, the applications of machine translation programs are not seen as a break with the tradition, but as an inevitable further step in the development of the practice.
However, the growing demand for application of machine translation programs as a means to speed up translation and reduce its costs is changing the way texts are read and conceived. As Cronin (2003:22) aptly observes, "if the pressure in an informational and global economy is to get information as rapidly as possible, then the 'gisting' function becomes paramount in translation, a tendency which can be encouraged by the 'weightlessness' of the words on the screen with their evanescent existence." The generally low threshold of translation acceptability shown by many users is often justified by the argument that getting access to the informational content of a text is all that matters and that some translation, however poor, is better than no translation at all.
The prevailing idea among users is that meaning may be transported from one language to another and that machine translation programs never fail to convey a general and stable content, even though such operation may result in a roughly intelligible text. The current urgency to communicate seems endorse the notion that the content of a textual material is solidified in the source and that machine translation may provide access to the origin. As Hutchins (1999:4) claims, machine translation represents an "ideal solution" for the translation of texts for assimilation of information, that is, direct and quick access to the source, since
human translators are not prepared (and resent being asked) to produce 'rough' translations of scientific and technical documents that may be read by only one person who wants to merely find out the general content and information and is unconcerned whether everything is intelligible or not, and who is certainly not deterred by stylistic awkwardness or grammatical errors (Hutchins, 1999, p. 4).
According to this view, if the machine is in charge of recovering the content, although "awkward" and imperfect, the translator's role would be restricted to editing and stylistically adapting the translated material. As often quoted by machine translation scholars, automation should not be seen as a replacement for human translators, but as way to magnify human productivity (Kay, 1997), to supplement human translation (Melby, 1997) or even create more work for human translators (Biau Gil & Pym, 2006).
The issues regarding machine translation seem always to revolve around the descriptive views of its possible uses and the constant reminder that its applications can never supersede the abilities of human translators. However, nothing seems to be said about the extent of the translator's function in the construction of the final text that was initially translated by machine. Since original meaning recovery by the machine is often taken for granted by users, the translator's work is limited to filling out some gaps left out by the machine and stylistically adapting the translated text to the target language.
Even if the message seems to be incoherent in the "draft version" automatically prepared, there is a strong belief that the source has been recovered and adjustments are all that are left for the human translator to do.
The source-target correspondence has been a debatable issue for many years and the realization that it is at the very basis of machine translation concept brings into question the role the translator is supposed to play. If we accept the notion that the source is thus recoverable by the machine, we might have to be willing to accept that, in the post-editing job usually entrusted to human translators, the task to be carried out will be less of interpreting and reconstructing meaning in the target language, and more of allowing the automatically recovered meaning to be comprehensible through revision and adaptation.
Through this view, there is always the risk that the translator's work may remain concealed behind that of the machine, at least in most clients' eyes. Through the postmodern perspective, as the work of Brazilian Translation Studies scholar Arrojo (1997) has emphatically pointed out, "no reading can ever aspire to repeat or protect someone else's text"; therefore,
The visible translator who is conscious of his or her role and who makes the motivations, allegiances, and compromises of his or her interpretation as explicit as possible is also the translator who must take responsibility for the text he or she produces, as it is impossible to hide behind the anonymity of the ideal 'invisibility' which has allegedly been given up. (Arrojo, 1997:18)
Embracing visibility, as well as the sense of responsibility for the construction of the translated text, may be one of the most powerful ways for translators to value their work. As translators avail themselves of machine translation capabilities, whether by choice or by their client's imposition, they should likewise consider whether the speed and terminological consistence provided by the machine are worth the price of having their work downgraded as being merely of a copy editor and not as the one responsible for bringing meaning forth.
Translation memory programs: transferring translators' past solutions to present contexts
Just as machine translation, translation memories have also been imposing changes in the way translators work, many of which with further ethical implications than they might appear to have at first sight.
The basis of translation memory programs lies in accumulating and storing translation solutions that are recycled as needed through the automated use of this terminology. In addition to the investment required in the acquisition of these programs and the training needed to use them properly, time is also another factor that directly influences their performance. Far from being immediate time-savers, translation memory programs are built up as they are used; therefore, the more frequently the translator employs them, the larger the database and, consequently the more useful it will be.
Although the literature on translation memories, which basically comprises descriptive and comparative analysis of the efficiency of the programs available in the market, highlights the remarkable gains in productivity translators have been able to achieve, especially in the realm of localization (e.g. Microsoft Windows-based software localization project), little consideration has been given to the controversial ethical issues arising once a terminological database is created (Zetzsche, 2000).
Once a translator has compiled terminological options into a database as a result of previous work commissioned directly by clients or through translation agencies, it is usually expected that such database be provided along with the final translation, a usual procedure as these programs become widespread. When that database is incorporated into a larger one held by clients or translation agencies, this data will often be used as input to be provided to the same translator or other professionals working in future projects. As Biau Gil and Pym (2006) explain, whenever a translator is provided with a memory database, clients expect compliance with the terminology and phraseology of the segment pairs included in that database. Moreover, always concerned with reducing costs, companies encourage translators to seek as many matches as possible and feel disappointed when the level of text re-use reported by translators is much lower than expected (Murphy, 2000).
Just as in translation machine applications, the way translation memory programs are being designed by the industry, in a effort to achieve cost and time reductions to produce a translation, calls into mind the concept of translation as "a word-replacement activity" as Biau Gil and Pym argue, since most of the time, translators "are invited to forget about the other elements configuring the text" and concentrate on segments that might be recovered from translation databases or added to the latter. (2006:12).
The translator's interpretation of the source material and personal choices made in the formulation of the translated text might interfere with content management and consistency, even though the translator's option may at times be more appropriate for some specific context than the pre-selected options offered by the database. By reusing stored translation segments, translators might be giving the first step to relinquish the outcome of their research work as well, since clients may also require that the memory generated through a translation be provided along with the translated material.
The second step towards giving up the authorship of translation takes place whenever translators accept being paid only for what clients deem as translation per se, that is, segments that have not been translated yet. This is the result of the idea that 100% matches will keep the same meaning they had in previous texts and, for that, revision and adaptation of these words or segments are not worth being remunerated for. This situation has been met with criticism by some translators who defend that consistency does not guarantee comprehension since a text may have perfect terminological coherence, but it altogether may not make any sense to the target audience.
On the other hand, clients may not readily accept the idea that 100% matches cannot be used in a new context or even that segments that may be used inevitably gain new meaning and may still require careful revision and adjustments into the new context. For that reason, it is uncommon to remunerate the translator for corrections or adjustments in the terminological database, since it would mean accepting that previous translation work was faulty, and so unduly charged.
From that commonly adopted practice in the work with translation memories, we find an approach rather similar to that applied to machine translation. Just as there seems to be a consensus that a text translated by machine will require not much more than review and post-editing by a human translator, in the work with translation memories, reviewing also frequently includes maintaining previously translated segments. Despite the fact that segments stored in the memory may have inadequacies, they may just as well lull the translator into a false sense of belief that meaning is fixed and will not change or lead to new associations in the new contexts they have become part of.
As I hope the discussion on commonly used approaches to machine translation and translation memories have led us to consider, for the translator's role to become more, rather than less, important in the informational age, it is paramount that these professionals do not be regarded as mere content transporters or text reviewers, but as communicators fully responsible for the meanings they confer to translated texts.
Final considerations: Co-existence but on what terms?
If there is no denial translation practice has to evolve and conform to new modes of communication and work (Cronin, 2003), translators should ponder how they wish to be regarded by those who hire their services.
By conferring priority to discussions about time and cost reductions through the application of technological tools in the practice of translation, translators might be oblivious to what such tools really represent to the public in general and what consequences such representations might have in the way the profession is conceived.
The general idea, as I have argued, is that, when applying technological tools such as machine translation programs, all that is left for the translator to do is give the text the final touches to make it coherent in the translated language. The impression is that the machine is the one that does the translation work and the translator is in charge of editing the final text. As for translation memories, the widespread reuse of already translated segments, in a way, also contributes to the idea that the translator is not solely responsible for the translated text.
The illusion that the machine is able to translate may affect the way translators will be seen in the future, an impression that should be given careful consideration, mainly when we remind ourselves of the multiplicity of texts, languages and cultures that are inevitably intertwined in translation.
References
ARROJO, Rosemary. Asymmetrical relations of power and the ethics of translation. TextconText, v. 11, p. 5-24, 1997.
BIAU GIL, José Ramón; PYM, Anthony. Technology and Translation: a pedagogical overview. In: PYM, A., PEREKRESTENKO, A., STARINK, B. (Org.) (2006). Translation technology and its teaching. Tarragona, Spain. Available at. Access on June 22, 2006.
CRACIUNESCU, Olivia; GERDING-SALAS, Constanza; STRINGER-O'KEEFFE, Susan. Machine translation and computer-assisted translation: a new way of translating? Translation Journal. v. 8, n. 3, jul. 2004. Available at:. Access on: May 15, 2006.
CRONIN, Michael. Translation and globalization. London: Routledge, 2003.
HUTCHINS, John. Translation Technology and the Translator. Proceedings of the Eleventh Conference of the Institute of Translation and Interpreting, London, May. 1997. Available at:. Access on May 10, 2006.
______. The development and use of machine translation systems and computer-based translation tools. Proceedings of the International Symposium on Computer Language Information Processing. Xangai, June, 1999. Available at:. Access on May 10, 2006.
KAY, Martin. The proper place of men and machines in language translation. In: Machine Translation. n. 12, p. 3-23, 1997.
MELBY, Alan. Some notes on 'The Proper Place of Men and Machines in Language Translation'. In: Machine Translation. n. 12, p. 3-23, 1997.
MURPHY, Dawn. Keeping Translation Technology under Control. Machine Translation Review, n. 11, Dec. 2000, p. 7-10. Available at http://www.bcs-mt.org.uk/mtreview/11/mtr-11-7.htm. Access on Jan. 11, 2007.
ZETZSCHE, Jost. Translation memories: the discovery of assets. Multilingual Computing and Technology. v. 16 (4), n. 72, p. 43-45, 2005.
This article was originally published at Translation Journal (http://accurapid.com/journal).
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
São Paulo State University, Brazil
www.traducao-interpretacao.com.br
Introduction
Technology has been reshaping the concept and practice of translation in many aspects. Until some time ago, translators were expected to be able to work solely on definite source texts with the exclusive aid of dictionaries. Specialists were called upon where research references failed or left holes, but, even in such cases, translators had the chance to develop familiarity with their source texts, becoming, in many cases, experts themselves in some fields. Textual material to be translated was basically conceptualized as having a beginning and an end, thus making contextualization of meaning easier.
The process of globalization and the technological revolution that came along with it have dramatically changed the way information is conceived and produced. According to Craciunescu et al. (2004), advances in communication have brought about a "screen culture" that increasingly tends to replace the use of printed materials, since digital information can be easily accessed and relayed through computers and allows greater flexibility for processing.
In addition to the growing tendency to adopt the digital format for textual production, a large part of the material translators deal with in their daily routines consists of large translation projects, whether web-based or not. Such work is usually carried out with the use of computerized tools, such as automatic translation systems and translation memory databases. These applications require the development of a new range of technical competences, from learning how to manipulate different software programs to being able to manage the translated content, whether to achieve terminological consistence (machine translation databases) or to reuse solutions to translation problems in subsequent projects (translation memory databases). As Biau Gil and Pym (2006:6) explain, in today's world,
Our translations might thus be expected to move away from the ideal of equivalence between fixed texts, becoming more like one set of revisions among many. In the fields of electronic technologies, translators are less commonly employed to translate whole texts, as one did for the books with concordances. Translation, like general text production, becomes more like work with databases, glossaries, and a set of electronic tools, rather than on complete definitive source texts.
Translation memory tools are being employed also by translators working with definitive texts, that is, materials that might be translated just once, mainly as a way to increase their database. There are many translators who work basically with web-based materials, so most part of their work might involve updating and adaptation of previously translated texts to other contexts (a common practice in localization). Whatever the situation technology might be employed, there is no denial that translators have been able to reap great benefits by achieving greater work speed and efficiency.
Nonetheless, the same tools designed to assist translators are also affecting many aspects of how their work is regarded. This is mainly due to the fact that the design of these applications seems to be based on some of the traditionally-held concepts of translation as a transfer operation of pre-established contents stored in the source text and of the translator as the one in charge of retrieving the contents the machine has failed to recover.
While seeking to investigate the basis of machine translation and translation memory programs, this work aims to analyze both the contributions and transformations arising from the contemporary concept of the translation profession through the use of those tools. The ideas presented are divided into two sections. In section one I shall examine the concept of the original text and the translation in the domain of machine translation. My attention will then turn towards the extension of the translator's responsibility in producing the final text, by examining the translator's role in the translation post-editing process. Section two looks into the application of translation memories, with focus on the extension of the translator's responsibility in creating translation databases and re-using identical or similar segments from previous translations stored in memory programs. Ultimately, I shall conclude by attempting to draw attention to the scenario posed by these technologies which, in my view, seems to raise urgent ethical questions regarding the translator's image as re-creator or editor of the final translated material.
Machine translation: the illusion of access to the source
The pace of the contemporary world calls for translators to deliver their work in shorter and shorter turnaround cycles. This fact, coupled with the search for cost reduction, seems to be one of the strongest reasons supporting the use of machines in translation. Through the perspective of the current demand for readily-done translations, the applications of machine translation programs are not seen as a break with the tradition, but as an inevitable further step in the development of the practice.
However, the growing demand for application of machine translation programs as a means to speed up translation and reduce its costs is changing the way texts are read and conceived. As Cronin (2003:22) aptly observes, "if the pressure in an informational and global economy is to get information as rapidly as possible, then the 'gisting' function becomes paramount in translation, a tendency which can be encouraged by the 'weightlessness' of the words on the screen with their evanescent existence." The generally low threshold of translation acceptability shown by many users is often justified by the argument that getting access to the informational content of a text is all that matters and that some translation, however poor, is better than no translation at all.
The prevailing idea among users is that meaning may be transported from one language to another and that machine translation programs never fail to convey a general and stable content, even though such operation may result in a roughly intelligible text. The current urgency to communicate seems endorse the notion that the content of a textual material is solidified in the source and that machine translation may provide access to the origin. As Hutchins (1999:4) claims, machine translation represents an "ideal solution" for the translation of texts for assimilation of information, that is, direct and quick access to the source, since
human translators are not prepared (and resent being asked) to produce 'rough' translations of scientific and technical documents that may be read by only one person who wants to merely find out the general content and information and is unconcerned whether everything is intelligible or not, and who is certainly not deterred by stylistic awkwardness or grammatical errors (Hutchins, 1999, p. 4).
According to this view, if the machine is in charge of recovering the content, although "awkward" and imperfect, the translator's role would be restricted to editing and stylistically adapting the translated material. As often quoted by machine translation scholars, automation should not be seen as a replacement for human translators, but as way to magnify human productivity (Kay, 1997), to supplement human translation (Melby, 1997) or even create more work for human translators (Biau Gil & Pym, 2006).
The issues regarding machine translation seem always to revolve around the descriptive views of its possible uses and the constant reminder that its applications can never supersede the abilities of human translators. However, nothing seems to be said about the extent of the translator's function in the construction of the final text that was initially translated by machine. Since original meaning recovery by the machine is often taken for granted by users, the translator's work is limited to filling out some gaps left out by the machine and stylistically adapting the translated text to the target language.
Even if the message seems to be incoherent in the "draft version" automatically prepared, there is a strong belief that the source has been recovered and adjustments are all that are left for the human translator to do.
The source-target correspondence has been a debatable issue for many years and the realization that it is at the very basis of machine translation concept brings into question the role the translator is supposed to play. If we accept the notion that the source is thus recoverable by the machine, we might have to be willing to accept that, in the post-editing job usually entrusted to human translators, the task to be carried out will be less of interpreting and reconstructing meaning in the target language, and more of allowing the automatically recovered meaning to be comprehensible through revision and adaptation.
Through this view, there is always the risk that the translator's work may remain concealed behind that of the machine, at least in most clients' eyes. Through the postmodern perspective, as the work of Brazilian Translation Studies scholar Arrojo (1997) has emphatically pointed out, "no reading can ever aspire to repeat or protect someone else's text"; therefore,
The visible translator who is conscious of his or her role and who makes the motivations, allegiances, and compromises of his or her interpretation as explicit as possible is also the translator who must take responsibility for the text he or she produces, as it is impossible to hide behind the anonymity of the ideal 'invisibility' which has allegedly been given up. (Arrojo, 1997:18)
Embracing visibility, as well as the sense of responsibility for the construction of the translated text, may be one of the most powerful ways for translators to value their work. As translators avail themselves of machine translation capabilities, whether by choice or by their client's imposition, they should likewise consider whether the speed and terminological consistence provided by the machine are worth the price of having their work downgraded as being merely of a copy editor and not as the one responsible for bringing meaning forth.
Translation memory programs: transferring translators' past solutions to present contexts
Just as machine translation, translation memories have also been imposing changes in the way translators work, many of which with further ethical implications than they might appear to have at first sight.
The basis of translation memory programs lies in accumulating and storing translation solutions that are recycled as needed through the automated use of this terminology. In addition to the investment required in the acquisition of these programs and the training needed to use them properly, time is also another factor that directly influences their performance. Far from being immediate time-savers, translation memory programs are built up as they are used; therefore, the more frequently the translator employs them, the larger the database and, consequently the more useful it will be.
Although the literature on translation memories, which basically comprises descriptive and comparative analysis of the efficiency of the programs available in the market, highlights the remarkable gains in productivity translators have been able to achieve, especially in the realm of localization (e.g. Microsoft Windows-based software localization project), little consideration has been given to the controversial ethical issues arising once a terminological database is created (Zetzsche, 2000).
Once a translator has compiled terminological options into a database as a result of previous work commissioned directly by clients or through translation agencies, it is usually expected that such database be provided along with the final translation, a usual procedure as these programs become widespread. When that database is incorporated into a larger one held by clients or translation agencies, this data will often be used as input to be provided to the same translator or other professionals working in future projects. As Biau Gil and Pym (2006) explain, whenever a translator is provided with a memory database, clients expect compliance with the terminology and phraseology of the segment pairs included in that database. Moreover, always concerned with reducing costs, companies encourage translators to seek as many matches as possible and feel disappointed when the level of text re-use reported by translators is much lower than expected (Murphy, 2000).
Just as in translation machine applications, the way translation memory programs are being designed by the industry, in a effort to achieve cost and time reductions to produce a translation, calls into mind the concept of translation as "a word-replacement activity" as Biau Gil and Pym argue, since most of the time, translators "are invited to forget about the other elements configuring the text" and concentrate on segments that might be recovered from translation databases or added to the latter. (2006:12).
The translator's interpretation of the source material and personal choices made in the formulation of the translated text might interfere with content management and consistency, even though the translator's option may at times be more appropriate for some specific context than the pre-selected options offered by the database. By reusing stored translation segments, translators might be giving the first step to relinquish the outcome of their research work as well, since clients may also require that the memory generated through a translation be provided along with the translated material.
The second step towards giving up the authorship of translation takes place whenever translators accept being paid only for what clients deem as translation per se, that is, segments that have not been translated yet. This is the result of the idea that 100% matches will keep the same meaning they had in previous texts and, for that, revision and adaptation of these words or segments are not worth being remunerated for. This situation has been met with criticism by some translators who defend that consistency does not guarantee comprehension since a text may have perfect terminological coherence, but it altogether may not make any sense to the target audience.
On the other hand, clients may not readily accept the idea that 100% matches cannot be used in a new context or even that segments that may be used inevitably gain new meaning and may still require careful revision and adjustments into the new context. For that reason, it is uncommon to remunerate the translator for corrections or adjustments in the terminological database, since it would mean accepting that previous translation work was faulty, and so unduly charged.
From that commonly adopted practice in the work with translation memories, we find an approach rather similar to that applied to machine translation. Just as there seems to be a consensus that a text translated by machine will require not much more than review and post-editing by a human translator, in the work with translation memories, reviewing also frequently includes maintaining previously translated segments. Despite the fact that segments stored in the memory may have inadequacies, they may just as well lull the translator into a false sense of belief that meaning is fixed and will not change or lead to new associations in the new contexts they have become part of.
As I hope the discussion on commonly used approaches to machine translation and translation memories have led us to consider, for the translator's role to become more, rather than less, important in the informational age, it is paramount that these professionals do not be regarded as mere content transporters or text reviewers, but as communicators fully responsible for the meanings they confer to translated texts.
Final considerations: Co-existence but on what terms?
If there is no denial translation practice has to evolve and conform to new modes of communication and work (Cronin, 2003), translators should ponder how they wish to be regarded by those who hire their services.
By conferring priority to discussions about time and cost reductions through the application of technological tools in the practice of translation, translators might be oblivious to what such tools really represent to the public in general and what consequences such representations might have in the way the profession is conceived.
The general idea, as I have argued, is that, when applying technological tools such as machine translation programs, all that is left for the translator to do is give the text the final touches to make it coherent in the translated language. The impression is that the machine is the one that does the translation work and the translator is in charge of editing the final text. As for translation memories, the widespread reuse of already translated segments, in a way, also contributes to the idea that the translator is not solely responsible for the translated text.
The illusion that the machine is able to translate may affect the way translators will be seen in the future, an impression that should be given careful consideration, mainly when we remind ourselves of the multiplicity of texts, languages and cultures that are inevitably intertwined in translation.
References
ARROJO, Rosemary. Asymmetrical relations of power and the ethics of translation. TextconText, v. 11, p. 5-24, 1997.
BIAU GIL, José Ramón; PYM, Anthony. Technology and Translation: a pedagogical overview. In: PYM, A., PEREKRESTENKO, A., STARINK, B. (Org.) (2006). Translation technology and its teaching. Tarragona, Spain. Available at
CRACIUNESCU, Olivia; GERDING-SALAS, Constanza; STRINGER-O'KEEFFE, Susan. Machine translation and computer-assisted translation: a new way of translating? Translation Journal. v. 8, n. 3, jul. 2004. Available at:
CRONIN, Michael. Translation and globalization. London: Routledge, 2003.
HUTCHINS, John. Translation Technology and the Translator. Proceedings of the Eleventh Conference of the Institute of Translation and Interpreting, London, May. 1997. Available at:
______. The development and use of machine translation systems and computer-based translation tools. Proceedings of the International Symposium on Computer Language Information Processing. Xangai, June, 1999. Available at:
KAY, Martin. The proper place of men and machines in language translation. In: Machine Translation. n. 12, p. 3-23, 1997.
MELBY, Alan. Some notes on 'The Proper Place of Men and Machines in Language Translation'. In: Machine Translation. n. 12, p. 3-23, 1997.
MURPHY, Dawn. Keeping Translation Technology under Control. Machine Translation Review, n. 11, Dec. 2000, p. 7-10. Available at http://www.bcs-mt.org.uk/mtreview/11/mtr-11-7.htm. Access on Jan. 11, 2007.
ZETZSCHE, Jost. Translation memories: the discovery of assets. Multilingual Computing and Technology. v. 16 (4), n. 72, p. 43-45, 2005.
This article was originally published at Translation Journal (http://accurapid.com/journal).
Corporate Blog of Elite - Professional Translation Services serving ASEAN & East Asia
Sunday, May 3, 2009
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
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
Friday, May 1, 2009
Tips to help you start your own all-round translation business
By Fester Leenstra,
Metamorfose Vertalingen,
Catharijnesingel 85,
3511 GP UTRECHT,
THE NETHERLANDS
metamorfose.vertalingen@gmail.com
www.metamorfosevertalingen.nl
There is no shortage of translators who take the plunge and set up shop as self-employed freelancers, but few have the ambition or the spirit to start up their own all-round translation agency. This is not surprising, of course, as the establishment of a full- scale translation agency is a quantum leap compared with what it takes to launch a viable freelance practice. Nevertheless, the intellectual and financial rewards of business ownership can be substantial. Below I will discuss various aspects you will have to take into account should you consider beginning your own professional and all-round translation business.
All-round translations
First of all, what is meant, in this particular context, by the term ‘all-round’? Basically, it refers to the scope of your product. As a freelancer your output would be confined to your own language combination and degree of specialisation; as an agency owner you will be able to supply your clients with translations across a whole range of source and target languages and disciplines, including commercial, technical, medical and legal documents. In theory, your range would be limited only by the number of staff you would be prepare to contract.
Internal organisation
If you want to establish your own translation company, you would be well advised to find a competent partner first – unless you are willing to hire staff right from the start (which, in most cases, is not a recommendable procedure). Ideally, your business partner should be a person whose qualities are complementary to your own, if only because in such cases the division of tasks is usually quite obvious (and a potential source of conflict is removed). There are good reasons to separate responsibility for product quality (i.e., the quality of the translations) from organisational responsibilities (order processing, account management, etc.). These two roles do not go together very well in practice, and the associated skills are not usually combined within one and the same person anyway.
Find suitable office accommodation that includes at least two rooms: one library-style room where you can work in peace, and one nerve centre where the business is done. Make sure you have at least three computer workstations (one spare station is no luxury) and an office printer, a telephone switchboard with at least two external lines and a fax. Get yourself a straightforward high-quality accounting programme with a CRM module and document your working methods in detailed systematic procedures.
Don’t forget to lay down and formalise a number of essential agreements on tasks and responsibilities with your business partner, so as to prevent any misunderstandings.
Business Plan
Once you have gathered all the information you need, you should draw up a Business Plan. Examples of such plans are available at your local Chamber of Commerce, or can be downloaded (for a fee) from the Internet. These specimen copies are structured in such a way that they will assist you in each step of your own Business Plan. One of the main advantages of having a reliable Business Plan is that it will present you with a realistic estimate of the money you will need to get your agency off the ground. If your capital requirements exceed your private budget (and it is quite likely that they will), you will have to present a thorough Business Plan to the bank in order to persuade them that your plans will pay off.
High-quality freelance translator network
The main asset of any translation agency is obviously its network of reliable translators. Incidentally, you need not be a networking freak to build up such a freelance network. Many freelancers will present themselves to you spontaneously as soon as they get wind of your existence; alternatively, you can actively recruit them and check out CVs on a variety of collective freelance websites, such as Translators Café or GoTranslators. The snag is that you will be hard put to appraise a freelancer’s skills if you do not master the language concerned. CV assessment is important, but by no means sufficient: you will need to be able to judge the quality of a freelancer’s actual output before entrusting him or her to your clients!
To obviate this problem, check your own network of colleagues or friends for highly-educated native speakers of the language concerned, ask several freelancers to submit (free) trial translations, have them assessed and select the two or three most promising freelancers for each language combination you intend to offer. Carefully document the strengths and weaknesses of each selected freelancer and list the specialisations. Note that you won’t get a truly reliable picture of a freelancer’s capacity and skills until he/she has had the opportunity to do several translation jobs for you.
Once you have a pool of reliable freelance translators for each language combination, you can obviously also ask them to check and assess trial translations submitted by other candidates.
Another point to bear in mind is that the freelancers you decide to work with should comply with all the requirements imposed by your country’s Tax & Customs Administration. Each freelancer should be able to produce a formal statement, issued by the tax authorities, attesting to his/her status as an independent translator.
Reliable network of suppliers
Your freelance translators are obviously your most important suppliers, but the supply network comprises other parties as well that will need to be carefully selected as you will need to use their services on an ongoing basis. These include the bank, the accountant, the printer and the graphic designer.
Marketing
Once the internal set-up of your agency is in place, your first priority should be to recruit clients in a systematic manner. For many start-ups in the translation business, this is the most difficult hurdle. Obviously there is a multitude of strategies that can help you attract clients in the business-to-business segment (which accounts for most of the turnover of any self-sufficient translation agency). One very helpful tool, if used correctly, is Direct Marketing. In principle, two different Direct Marketing strategies are available:
1. Internet marketing
One effective and relatively cheap method of generating business in the short term is Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), a term that refers to a variety of techniques to help you strengthen your presence on the Internet, and to help prospective clients find you there. A strong position in Internet search engines will increase the number of times you are invited to submit a quote for a translation job, for the simple reason that you will be more likely to be selected if you are easy to find on the Internet.
Some Internet facility agencies have specialised in Search Engine Optimisation and will be able to improve your search engine rating within a couple of months. Most of these companies charge annual subscription fees. If you want immediate results, ask for an AdWords campaign.
2. Database marketing
This is a rather more expensive client acquisition technique. Call large international corporations and government agencies likely to produce texts for translation on a regular basis, and ask for the name of the person who is responsible for translation services (usually an official at the Director’s Office, Communications or the Marketing Department). Gather the information in a database and mail the contact persons four or five times a year. The mailing could comprise your company brochure, a letter of recommendation, flyers, a magazine for business relations or any other item that will help remind the reader of your name and the level of quality that you offer.
An effective database contains at least 1,000 companies or other organisations, and should also contain the names of the contact persons. It goes without saying that you will also have to invest in continually updating your database.
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
Metamorfose Vertalingen,
Catharijnesingel 85,
3511 GP UTRECHT,
THE NETHERLANDS
metamorfose.vertalingen@gmail.com
www.metamorfosevertalingen.nl
There is no shortage of translators who take the plunge and set up shop as self-employed freelancers, but few have the ambition or the spirit to start up their own all-round translation agency. This is not surprising, of course, as the establishment of a full- scale translation agency is a quantum leap compared with what it takes to launch a viable freelance practice. Nevertheless, the intellectual and financial rewards of business ownership can be substantial. Below I will discuss various aspects you will have to take into account should you consider beginning your own professional and all-round translation business.
All-round translations
First of all, what is meant, in this particular context, by the term ‘all-round’? Basically, it refers to the scope of your product. As a freelancer your output would be confined to your own language combination and degree of specialisation; as an agency owner you will be able to supply your clients with translations across a whole range of source and target languages and disciplines, including commercial, technical, medical and legal documents. In theory, your range would be limited only by the number of staff you would be prepare to contract.
Internal organisation
If you want to establish your own translation company, you would be well advised to find a competent partner first – unless you are willing to hire staff right from the start (which, in most cases, is not a recommendable procedure). Ideally, your business partner should be a person whose qualities are complementary to your own, if only because in such cases the division of tasks is usually quite obvious (and a potential source of conflict is removed). There are good reasons to separate responsibility for product quality (i.e., the quality of the translations) from organisational responsibilities (order processing, account management, etc.). These two roles do not go together very well in practice, and the associated skills are not usually combined within one and the same person anyway.
Find suitable office accommodation that includes at least two rooms: one library-style room where you can work in peace, and one nerve centre where the business is done. Make sure you have at least three computer workstations (one spare station is no luxury) and an office printer, a telephone switchboard with at least two external lines and a fax. Get yourself a straightforward high-quality accounting programme with a CRM module and document your working methods in detailed systematic procedures.
Don’t forget to lay down and formalise a number of essential agreements on tasks and responsibilities with your business partner, so as to prevent any misunderstandings.
Business Plan
Once you have gathered all the information you need, you should draw up a Business Plan. Examples of such plans are available at your local Chamber of Commerce, or can be downloaded (for a fee) from the Internet. These specimen copies are structured in such a way that they will assist you in each step of your own Business Plan. One of the main advantages of having a reliable Business Plan is that it will present you with a realistic estimate of the money you will need to get your agency off the ground. If your capital requirements exceed your private budget (and it is quite likely that they will), you will have to present a thorough Business Plan to the bank in order to persuade them that your plans will pay off.
High-quality freelance translator network
The main asset of any translation agency is obviously its network of reliable translators. Incidentally, you need not be a networking freak to build up such a freelance network. Many freelancers will present themselves to you spontaneously as soon as they get wind of your existence; alternatively, you can actively recruit them and check out CVs on a variety of collective freelance websites, such as Translators Café or GoTranslators. The snag is that you will be hard put to appraise a freelancer’s skills if you do not master the language concerned. CV assessment is important, but by no means sufficient: you will need to be able to judge the quality of a freelancer’s actual output before entrusting him or her to your clients!
To obviate this problem, check your own network of colleagues or friends for highly-educated native speakers of the language concerned, ask several freelancers to submit (free) trial translations, have them assessed and select the two or three most promising freelancers for each language combination you intend to offer. Carefully document the strengths and weaknesses of each selected freelancer and list the specialisations. Note that you won’t get a truly reliable picture of a freelancer’s capacity and skills until he/she has had the opportunity to do several translation jobs for you.
Once you have a pool of reliable freelance translators for each language combination, you can obviously also ask them to check and assess trial translations submitted by other candidates.
Another point to bear in mind is that the freelancers you decide to work with should comply with all the requirements imposed by your country’s Tax & Customs Administration. Each freelancer should be able to produce a formal statement, issued by the tax authorities, attesting to his/her status as an independent translator.
Reliable network of suppliers
Your freelance translators are obviously your most important suppliers, but the supply network comprises other parties as well that will need to be carefully selected as you will need to use their services on an ongoing basis. These include the bank, the accountant, the printer and the graphic designer.
Marketing
Once the internal set-up of your agency is in place, your first priority should be to recruit clients in a systematic manner. For many start-ups in the translation business, this is the most difficult hurdle. Obviously there is a multitude of strategies that can help you attract clients in the business-to-business segment (which accounts for most of the turnover of any self-sufficient translation agency). One very helpful tool, if used correctly, is Direct Marketing. In principle, two different Direct Marketing strategies are available:
1. Internet marketing
One effective and relatively cheap method of generating business in the short term is Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), a term that refers to a variety of techniques to help you strengthen your presence on the Internet, and to help prospective clients find you there. A strong position in Internet search engines will increase the number of times you are invited to submit a quote for a translation job, for the simple reason that you will be more likely to be selected if you are easy to find on the Internet.
Some Internet facility agencies have specialised in Search Engine Optimisation and will be able to improve your search engine rating within a couple of months. Most of these companies charge annual subscription fees. If you want immediate results, ask for an AdWords campaign.
2. Database marketing
This is a rather more expensive client acquisition technique. Call large international corporations and government agencies likely to produce texts for translation on a regular basis, and ask for the name of the person who is responsible for translation services (usually an official at the Director’s Office, Communications or the Marketing Department). Gather the information in a database and mail the contact persons four or five times a year. The mailing could comprise your company brochure, a letter of recommendation, flyers, a magazine for business relations or any other item that will help remind the reader of your name and the level of quality that you offer.
An effective database contains at least 1,000 companies or other organisations, and should also contain the names of the contact persons. It goes without saying that you will also have to invest in continually updating your database.
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
Thursday, April 30, 2009
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
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
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
