| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4] > | Thinking of "denouncing" a colleague (whose work is really bad) Thread poster: Michail Strijov
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Baran Keki 
Türkiye
Local time: 12:50
Member
English to Turkish
| How about a translator analogy? | Jan 28, 2022 |
It appears that the majority of the people on these forums are native English speakers translating into English. I don't think many of you have any idea what a badly composed English text (either written by a non-native English speaker or translated from another language into English by a non-native English speaker or by an incompetent native English speaker) looks like and what a painful process it is to translate such texts into another language. You may get such texts from time to time in you... See more It appears that the majority of the people on these forums are native English speakers translating into English. I don't think many of you have any idea what a badly composed English text (either written by a non-native English speaker or translated from another language into English by a non-native English speaker or by an incompetent native English speaker) looks like and what a painful process it is to translate such texts into another language. You may get such texts from time to time in your source languages, but I really don't think you do that as often as we (us, those who translate from English) do. We have to deal with such texts on a regular basis, trying to understand what the Dutch, German, Italian, Chinese translator had in mind when rendering the text into English.
I don't care about a bad translator's livelihood when it directly affects mine (i.e. when I'm forced/made to deliver a bad translation, trying to make sense of the rubbish they put into English). ▲ Collapse
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Kay Denney wrote: Gerard Barry wrote:
Reading all the above posts, I'm reminded what a "misfit" I am in the translation industry. How can people "tell tales" like this about a colleague? It's the proofreader's job to correct errors in the translation, is it not? If you really feel strongly about it, then just don't proofread that particular translator's work anymore, but I would never squeal on a colleague like that. It's his livelihood we're talking about here and if the agency that pays him for his work is happy, let him be. We're not at primary school, and we're not "squealing" or "telling tales". We're providing the agency with valuable information. I mean, giving work to a bad translator and hoping that the good proof-reader will catch all the mistakes is not a feasible business plan. The more mistakes there are, the less likely it is that you catch them all. Suppose you call on a plumber to mend your loo. The firm sends a guy along who doesn't understand how water flows and puts pipes that go up instead of down. Then they send another guy who checks the work, sees it's wrong and redoes it. Do you seriously think the first guy deserves to be paid for his time? He's wasted time money and resources! Let's remember that mistakes in translation can have serious consequences. There was that case of a manual for a some kind of hospital scanner where the translator put the decimal point in the wrong place and doctors were using ten times as much product as necessary. It took several deaths before they realised that all the unexpected deaths were patients who'd had that type of scan. The same kind of error could have horrible consequences in engineering too. If the guy is that lousy a translator, he might need extra training, or to be told that he should stick to translating into English. Otherwise, he would probably be better off doing some other job that suits him more. Most people who are bad at their job are unhappy in it. And I'm not sure how you could refuse to proofread a particular translator without saying why? I mean you could lie saying you're too busy but then you risk missing out on some lucrative job if the PM believes you. [Edited at 2022-01-28 13:53 GMT]
Without seeing the work of the translator in question, it's very hard for any of us to judge the quality for ourselves. But I have to say that the elitist, perfectionist know-it-all attitude of many translators has always annoyed the hell out of me. It's almost like they enjoy talking about how other translators - it's always the other ones, never themselves - are so incompetent and terrible to work with. I suppose there may be situations where it's appropriate to complain about a colleague's work but it's not something that would come naturally to me.
| | | | Baran Keki
Türkiye
Local time: 12:50
Member
English to Turkish
| A cynical in-house translator's view | Jan 29, 2022 |
Gerard Barry wrote:
Without seeing the work of the translator in question, it's very hard for any of us to judge the quality for ourselves. But I have to say that the elitist, perfectionist know-it-all attitude of many translators has always annoyed the hell out of me. It's almost like they enjoy talking about how other translators - it's always the other ones, never themselves - are so incompetent and terrible to work with. I suppose there may be situations where it's appropriate to complain about a colleague's work but it's not something that would come naturally to me.
Of course it wouldn't come naturally to you (why should it?), because you work as an in-house translator for one agency and probably don't have to proofread others' translations and be appalled by gross mistranslations and stylistic mistakes.
There is a reason this guy opened this thread. It's not elitist to be appalled by the work of a translator who translated an English sentence that goes something like "My key takeaway from this discussion is..." as "My most important food delivery service from this debate is..." into Turkish. It's not being perfectionist to have enough of having to proofread rubbish like that week in, week out because the guy doing the translation works something like 0.04 USD per word and the agency expects you to make something decent out of that mess because they can't afford your translation rate.
Every Tom, Dick and Harry here (Turkey) who's able to watch American series on Netflix without subtitles seems to think they know super English and would like to earn a few bob by clicking on the "Join Us" button on agencies' websites. 0.03 USD per word is like manna from heaven for them (considering the current economy here). No, it's not elitist, perfectionist to call what these people are and voice your opinion about them.
In this guy's case it's so painfully simple to resolve the issue that it literally makes me want to bang my head against the wall. All they (German PMs) have to do is read (not compare) that translator's work in German (in their own bloody language!) and decide for themselves whether it's good or bad!
I, or anybody translating from English into an 'exotic' language, on the other hand, am unable to point out/explain the gross mistranslations, glaring stylistic errors, lack of grasp of source and/or target language, word-for-word, almost MT-like translations into Turkish to a Danish or British PM because they don't speak a word of Turkish and it's beyond their paygrade to have the translation assessed by an external assessor (there are no external Turkish assessors) and they're generally happy to pay the Netflix-watcher-turned-freelance translator 0.03 EUR per word for as long as they don't get any complaints from their clients.
Of course, being an in-house translator and translating into English you have no such problems. I do understand your perspective because I worked as an in-house for 10 years, and what's more I'm hailing from a country where concepts like 'quality', 'assurance', 'QC' are utterly foreign. Back at the agency I'd just deliver my translation without bothering to check if there were any typos, misspellings (forget about mistranslations) and it would go directly to the client (not to a proofreader or an editor first).
Of course, comparing the understanding of quality between Turkish and German translation agencies is a bit like comparing apples and oranges, just like your views as an in-house translator on this thread.
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I would think an in-house translator is generally better placed to know just how bad some translations can be, simply through greater exposure...
I do understand the chip on your shoulder, but it's not as though translating into English is without its problems. For example, you won't ever have to deal with Swedish clients who pick your work apart because they think they know English better than you. You won't have almost everything you ever translate ruined by last-minute adjustment... See more I would think an in-house translator is generally better placed to know just how bad some translations can be, simply through greater exposure...
I do understand the chip on your shoulder, but it's not as though translating into English is without its problems. For example, you won't ever have to deal with Swedish clients who pick your work apart because they think they know English better than you. You won't have almost everything you ever translate ruined by last-minute adjustments and updates by overconfident non-natives.
I also edit quite a lot of English texts, many of them written by non-natives. To be fair, if I can turn those into good English, you can translate them into Turkish or whatever just as easily. If you want to avoid badly written texts, go for those written for publication and avoid internal communications.
If you don't want to be rescuing cheap low-quality translations, don't accept that work. Your excellent English on this site indicates that you are an intelligent, conscientious and talented linguist, so my assumption would be that you are a very good translator into Turkish. So don't sell yourself short. Not all clients are undiscerning penny-pinchers.
And as for the OP: Go for it. Back when I did a bit of review work, I pulled no punches.
[Edited at 2022-01-29 10:55 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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Adieu
Ukrainian to English
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| Well... it's not quite "mana from heaven" | Jan 29, 2022 |
But it CAN be house/apartment without a mortgage money in several months and compound money in a year or two in poorer countries.
There's a definite trend where people learn about such opportunities and may or may not take their "main" one seriously, but then, instead of bettering their skills and raising their rates, proceed to apply to jobs everywhere... and accept everything else from anyone else to just submit as much trash MT as they can get away with, for as long as they can g... See more But it CAN be house/apartment without a mortgage money in several months and compound money in a year or two in poorer countries.
There's a definite trend where people learn about such opportunities and may or may not take their "main" one seriously, but then, instead of bettering their skills and raising their rates, proceed to apply to jobs everywhere... and accept everything else from anyone else to just submit as much trash MT as they can get away with, for as long as they can get away with it.
The overt two-stage translation+revision process further spoils them, because they can not do much of anything on translation and hope the reviewer takes care of it, and DEFINITELY not do anything at all on the revision role, hoping that the translator was more honest than they were.
And for a good long while, it WORKS when people don't speak up out of collective solidarity, because the end result that PMs/clients see is more often than not the product of 1 absolute slacker + 1 person doing all the work.
[Edited at 2022-01-29 12:09 GMT]
[Edited at 2022-01-29 12:12 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Kay Denney
France
Local time: 11:50
French to English
Baran Keki wrote:
It appears that the majority of the people on these forums are native English speakers translating into English. I don't think many of you have any idea what a badly composed English text (either written by a non-native English speaker or translated from another language into English by a non-native English speaker or by an incompetent native English speaker) looks like and what a painful process it is to translate such texts into another language.
When I worked in-house, nine times out of ten if one of the translators working out of English came to ask me a question about their source text, I was unable to help because it was ... not English but Globish, written by a Korean or an Italian or whatever. I really felt for the translators.
| | | | Kay Denney
France
Local time: 11:50
French to English
Gerard Barry wrote:
Without seeing the work of the translator in question, it's very hard for any of us to judge the quality for ourselves. But I have to say that the elitist, perfectionist know-it-all attitude of many translators has always annoyed the hell out of me. It's almost like they enjoy talking about how other translators - it's always the other ones, never themselves - are so incompetent and terrible to work with. I suppose there may be situations where it's appropriate to complain about a colleague's work but it's not something that would come naturally to me.
I think that if the OP was annoyed enough to write here, we can take them at their word, that the translator is sloppy. There are plenty of sloppy translators out there after all.
While there are plenty here that are quick to criticise everyone but themselves, I haven't noticed OP doing that.
And remember that any time you insult someone, you say more about yourself than about them.
Signed, a perfectionist and proud.
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We all make mistakes. What's important is how we handle them and what we do next. Mistakes are learning experiences, but how can you learn from past mistakes if no one tells you which mistakes and how many mistakes you’ve made?
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Kay Denney wrote: Gerard Barry wrote:
Without seeing the work of the translator in question, it's very hard for any of us to judge the quality for ourselves. But I have to say that the elitist, perfectionist know-it-all attitude of many translators has always annoyed the hell out of me. It's almost like they enjoy talking about how other translators - it's always the other ones, never themselves - are so incompetent and terrible to work with. I suppose there may be situations where it's appropriate to complain about a colleague's work but it's not something that would come naturally to me. And remember that any time you insult someone, you say more about yourself than about them.
That may well be true. So what does that tell us about translators who like to criticise other translators' work? Are they trying to give themselves an ego boost by saying that their colleagues' work is inferior? And no, I'm not talking about the OP here.
| | | | Kay Denney
France
Local time: 11:50
French to English
Teresa Borges wrote:
We all make mistakes. What's important is how we handle them and what we do next. Mistakes are learning experiences, but how can you learn from past mistakes if no one tells you which mistakes and how many mistakes you’ve made?
Yes! At the agency I worked at, all translations were proofread, and then if it was translated in-house, the proofreader would go over the corrections with the translator. It was a great learning experience for everyone.
| | | | | The sad truth | Jan 31, 2022 |
Gerard Barry wrote:
So what does that tell us about translators who like to criticise other translators' work? Are they trying to give themselves an ego boost by saying that their colleagues' work is inferior? And no, I'm not talking about the OP here.
I'm happy to go on record saying that 95% of the translations I see are poor and that mine aren't.
It's up to you whether you view that as arrogance or just telling it how it is.
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Ice Scream wrote: Gerard Barry wrote:
So what does that tell us about translators who like to criticise other translators' work? Are they trying to give themselves an ego boost by saying that their colleagues' work is inferior? And no, I'm not talking about the OP here.
I'm happy to go on record saying that 95% of the translations I see are poor and that mine aren't. It's up to you whether you view that as arrogance or just telling it how it is.
It may well be true but I'll always find it inappropriate and arrogant for good translators to judge those who are - supposedly - not as good as themselves. Nobody's perfect!
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TonyTK
German to English
+ ...
| Plumbers need not apply | Jan 31, 2022 |
It would be interesting to hear the OP’s take on what’s been said so far. The fact that he’s concerned about the livelihood of his colleague certainly speaks to his character.
We’ve all seen crappy translations over the years; editing them is obviously a nightmare. In my experience, it’s not uncommon for agencies with a high volume of work to save the good translators for the really difficult jobs and for editing the work of the less capable translators. Nevertheless, we s... See more It would be interesting to hear the OP’s take on what’s been said so far. The fact that he’s concerned about the livelihood of his colleague certainly speaks to his character.
We’ve all seen crappy translations over the years; editing them is obviously a nightmare. In my experience, it’s not uncommon for agencies with a high volume of work to save the good translators for the really difficult jobs and for editing the work of the less capable translators. Nevertheless, we still can’t really gauge the quality of the stuff that the OP has to deal with. Moreover, he himself says that he likes working with the agency and that he doesn’t have to edit his colleague’s translations all that often. There might even be a whole gang of other people editing the same person’s work even more frequently.
There are quite a few moving parts here, so I think the bathroom analogies are all off the mark. And while I’m sure (in all sincerity) that Chris’ work is top-notch, for example, it’s still difficult to rank ourselves in the pantheon of translators. I occasionally see translations of a quality that is way out of my league, and some of the best translators I know steer clear of the mainstream online platforms. Having said that, I agree that most of us can recognise a poor or lazy translation when we see one.
Given that the OP would like to continue working with the agency, my preference is for baby steps, as suggested by others. Let’s also assume (possibly wrongly) that the fact that the OP has edited the substandard translations without complaint in the past means that neither the agency nor the colleague in question is even aware of the problem – so dropping it on them like a ton of bricks might not be the best strategy. But the OP evidently has to do something. Perhaps consider breaking it to the agency gently that he’s finding it very time-consuming and financially less than rewarding to edit his colleague’s work because he has to make so many changes. See how they respond.
Apropos plumbers: do yourself a favour and watch this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qd8oX5NJt84 ▲ Collapse
| | | | Niina Lahokoski
Finland
Local time: 12:50
Member (2008)
English to Finnish
+ ...
| And here I always thought... | Jan 31, 2022 |
that it is one of the duties of a proofreader (or reviewer, or editor, or...) to point out to the client if the translation is particularly bad! Like others have said, how would the client know otherwise?
When proofreading, I am almost always asked to give some sort of feedback of the quality of the translation. Sometimes it's a full evaluation, filling out a form (choosing from error categories, severities, etc.), sometimes just a generic comment with or without examples. Even if... See more that it is one of the duties of a proofreader (or reviewer, or editor, or...) to point out to the client if the translation is particularly bad! Like others have said, how would the client know otherwise?
When proofreading, I am almost always asked to give some sort of feedback of the quality of the translation. Sometimes it's a full evaluation, filling out a form (choosing from error categories, severities, etc.), sometimes just a generic comment with or without examples. Even if I'm not asked, I usually still say something. If the translation is really bad, I inform the client even before starting or accepting any work. In that case I'm either not willing to take the job on at all, or will need more time than originally estimated. There's no way I'm going to retranslate someone else's shoddy work while charging just for proofreading! Nothing elitist about that, it's just common sense.
[Edited at 2022-01-31 16:53 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Kay Denney
France
Local time: 11:50
French to English
Gerard Barry wrote:
That may well be true. So what does that tell us about translators who like to criticise other translators' work? Are they trying to give themselves an ego boost by saying that their colleagues' work is inferior? And no, I'm not talking about the OP here.
Oh there are plenty of arrogant translators.
When I call a translation sloppy, it generally means that the spell check wasn't run, I'm sure you'll agree that that's setting the bar pretty low?
I mean, as an in-house translator, I was given loads of tests to evaluate. At one point I was getting about 50 a week when they'd managed to secure a huge account. I don't remember how much time I was supposed to allot to assessing each translation. But I had noticed that if I started by running the spell check, and saw that the translator had already done it, then the translation had potential, so I would dutifully assess it. When the spell check immediately went to a stupid typo, I would almost inevitably run up against worse problems.
So to save time, I simply eliminated all those who didn't bother to run the spell check.
Call me a pedant if you will, I'm willing to own my pedantry since my clients are obviously happy with my work and I'm happy working for them.
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