On Language and Translation

Language Learners as Translators?

2012-02-01T21:14:00.000-05:00

The recent newsletter of the American Translators Society contained a summary of an article published by New Scientist (Great Britain) about a free language learning website called Duolingo (Learn a Language, Translate the Web. At this point, it only teaches German and Spanish. So far, so good.

But Duolingo not only teaches its users a new language, it has them translate from that language and check translations provided by other learners of that language. This is not just a learning exercise (incidentally, apparently not supervised by a teacher), but Duolingo uses these efforts to build paid-for translations of websites.

Not to disparage talented language learners, but I wouldn't dream of translating from a language I hadn't thoroughly mastered. Unless the website in question consists entirely of short subject-verb-object sentences, maybe with an occasional adjective thrown in, I doubt very much that such a translation would adequately grasp the subtleties inherent in the original.

Granted, the initial translation is reviewed by other amateurs before being accepted. But simply having several people who are just learning a language deem a particular translation correct does not make it so. I have edited text translated by professionals who had mistaken a subject for an object in a long German sentence. How much more likely is such a mistake for someone who is not fully fluent in the language?

Duolingo seems to be another step in the continuing decline of linguistic quality, both for translations and text written in the author's native language (to wit: typos, grammatical errors and repeated text in books printed by large publishers). Can we stop that decline? Is it even worth trying?

Copyright for Translations

2012-01-25T16:18:00.000-05:00

The New York Times recently reported on a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that returns works published abroad and previously not protected under U.S. copyright to protected status under U.S. copyright law. Since many such works were presumably originally published in languages other than English, it got me thinking about copyright for translations. According to the Copyright Advisory Network of the American Library Association, translators have a copyright to their translations, but need to obtain permission from the rights holder of the original work in order to publish that translation.

Technical text, such as computer documentation, is usually written as a "work for hire", i.e., the author either is an employee of the end client or relinquishes his/her copyright in the freelance contract. Most of my contracts with translation agencies also specify that I cannot claim copyright to my work. Since I translate mainly technical and legal documents that have little commercial value beyond their specific uses, such as documentation accompanying a certain device or a contract between two specific parties, this lack of copyright does not particularly concern me.

It did make me wonder, though, how contracts for literary translations are worded. Do they include the same language on copyright as most standard agency contracts? Given the relatively low rates most literary translations command, it would only seem fair that translators should be able to retain rights to their work. This is particularly true since the absence of such rights for the translator generally does not mean that the translation is in the public domain, but rather that a corporate entity (usually a publishing house) benefits from the translator's work.

An interesting perspective is provided by Lenita M. R. Esteves, who translated J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings into Brazilian Portuguese. She wrote about her experience with copyright issues after that book became a bestseller on the Translation Journal's blog, Translators Around the World.

If you translate literary works, what has your experience with copyright been?

Why Aren't eBooks Global?

2012-01-19T10:12:00.004-05:00

Joshua Bodwell writes in the current issue of Poets & Writers magazine about book lists ("You Are What You Read"). He calls the list of some of the books he read last year "Bodwell's Baker's Dozen". As translators we not only read for pleasure, but also to keep current on terminology and usage in the languages in which we work. As freelancers we also run our own businesses and may read up on business advice. All of this, then, should lead to a fairly eclectic reading list for most of us. Last year, mine included:

Global Communication by Thomas McPhail
The Social Media Survival Guide by Deltina Hay
Till Eulenspiegel by Christa and Gerhard Wolf (German)
The Entrepreneurial Linguist by Judy and Dagmar Jenner
Blue Collar, White Collar, No Collar edited by Richard Ford
New Stories by Southern Women edited by Mary Ellis Gibson
Los Mejores Narradores Jóvenes en Español from Granta en Español (Spanish)

Unfortunately, unless I am willing to pay outrageous shipping charges, I find it rather difficult to get a reasonable selection of physical books in German here in the U.S. The main branches of both the Brooklyn and Manhattan library systems do have German-language sections, but their holdings tend to be rather mixed, including quite a number of German translations of American books, and mostly relatively old. Bookstores carry, at best, annotated bilingual collections of short stories for students who are learning German.

Enter eBooks -- or so I thought. Just like the Internet finally let me read foreign newspapers without spending a fortune (and waiting 2 weeks for an issue to arrive), I thought I would now be able to download German-language books. But when I went to Amazon Germany, I found that I cannot download books from them to a Kindle registered with a U.S. address. So much for digital media as a means to access content from around the world ...

Colleague or Competitor?

2012-01-11T19:41:00.000-05:00

In about 5 weeks I'm going to Austria. This time, the trip is wrapped around my sister's 50th birthday and other family obligations. Another part of the trip, however, is dedicated to meeting with colleagues. Some of these colleagues work in the same language combination in which I work: German to English. In some ways that makes them competitors, I suppose.

I have encountered other translators who see anyone working in the same language combination and direction as they do as a potential competitor best to be avoided and/or trumped in the race for projects from translation agencies. I am fortunate to be working in a relatively large language combination and have health insurance through an employed spouse (not a minor point in the U.S.). Even so, it's not always easy to get enough projects.

But if we view each other as competition, rather than colleagues, each of us will struggle alone to get paid a living wage while upholding quality standards. Plus, there is something to be learned from -- and sometimes taught to -- colleagues working in our language pair.

The fear of competition seems to keep many of us from getting together to demand better conditions and pay. Yes, we are not unionized employees. But as I explained in my previous post, unless all of us demand to be treated as the independent business people we are, some agencies will use the age-old "divide and conquer" tactic and treat us as quasi-employees without benefits or rights.

I, for one, enjoy meeting with my colleagues in Austria and elsewhere to compare notes, talk about the industry, and maybe share some knowledge I may have gained during the last decade or so. This increasingly interconnected world needs translators. If we all talk with each other -- including about pricing -- and stick together we may be able to carve out a reasonable niche for our profession. If each goes it alone, we will simply be played against each other. So talk to your colleagues -- they are your colleagues, not your competitors!

Are Translators Becoming Employees Without Benefits?

2012-01-04T17:08:00.001-05:00

In his "GeekSpeak" column in the current issue of the ATA Chronicle Jost Zetsche notes that translation agencies increasingly ask translators to work with specific online tools. Some even require translators to pay for the agency's own tool. I have had several requests to use an agency's online tool myself last year, including from agencies with whom I had worked previously. As Mr. Zetsche points out, such a trend toward cloud computing erases the gains made in the ability to exchange data among different tools. In the still highly heterogeneous world of online tools we can rarely use a glossary we developed in one tool in another one, for example.

If we work with multiple agencies who use cloud computing, we also have to learn to use these tools, generally without being compensated for the time this takes. Once we have mastered the tools, we must constantly switch between different ones as we work on projects for different agencies. That makes it difficult to become thoroughly familiar with any one of them. We simply can't develop the necessary "muscle memory" for each tool. It also means that the agencies decide on the tools their independent contractors use. I tell agencies that I use a standard tool, Trados Studio 2009, and do not intend to switch.

Another trend I have observed during the last year is that translation agencies ask me to commit to specific periods of availability for them -- i.e., being "on call", but without compensation, except for whatever projects the agency might offer me for these times. My standard answer is that my availability varies depending on other projects I have accepted, but that I have always delivered any projects I do accept on time or early.

In addition, some agencies I have worked with in the past have asked me to accept lower rates, threatening that I would be unlikely to be offered projects from them in the future, if I refused. I refused anyway.

Taken together, these trends point towards agencies increasingly treating freelancers as if they were employees, but without any benefits or job security. Agencies require us to work with tools they specify, invest time in learning these tools, be available to them for specific periods of time, all with the promise -- not guarantee -- of projects to be assigned. We are only paid for the translation work assigned, and the rates we receive for that work are falling.

This reflects a trend in the larger U.S. economy to hire "consultants" to perform the work previously done by employees, often under substantially the same conditions, but without overtime pay or benefits. Unless all of us refuse such attempts at controlling our tools and time while being paid less, translators may end up becoming quasi-employees without benefits or rights.

Send End Clients a Checklist/Questionnaire Asking About Project Information

2011-12-21T20:41:00.004-05:00

Gina Wadley from the Society for Technical Communication mentioned in an online meeting yesterday that she sends a guide to language service providers (LSPs) who translate her company's documentation and other materials. In addition to basic information, such as a list of the files included that need to be translated, that guide also provides information about the documents' intended audience, what should not be translated (e.g., programming strings), and similar instructions. In addition, she provides the LSP with a glossary as an Excel spreadsheet.

During our conversation, Gina suggested I create a checklist/questionnaire for clients that asks for some of the information she provides to her LSPs, such as audience, intended use of the document, available glossaries, etc. This is an excellent idea I will try to work on after the holidays. If all of us request such specific information from our (end) clients, companies who contract for translation services will get used to providing this information up front.

So far, I think I would like to include questions asking for the following information:

What is the intended audience (programmers, end users, general public, ...)?
What is the intended use (online help, printed documentation, ...)?
Is there a Q&A process after the translation has been received? If so, what is that process and who is involved?
What is the final deadline for the translated product (compared to the deadline for the translation)?
Are there internal glossaries, company-specific abbreviations, existing product descriptions, websites, etc. in English? If so, please provide that supporting information.

What else do you think should be included in such a questionnaire/checklist?

I will be spending next week with my family and won't post. I will be back on January 4. Happy Holidays!

Are Translation Apps at All Useful?

2011-12-14T18:29:00.005-05:00

Machine translation has certainly come a long way since its infancy just a few years ago. So is it good enough to provide the basic idea of a message you have received in a language you don't speak? Not quite, it seems.

Several of my family members collaborated on my combined birthday/Christmas gift: an iPad. Having tried for some time now to come up with a justification for buying a tablet computer -- and failed to do so -- I was overjoyed. Browsing through its app store, I came upon a free translation utility, "Free Translator". Once I downloaded it, a small note in the corner said "powered by Google translate". While Google generally can't provide a polished translation, it is often good enough to get the gist of a text.

So I decided to test it with the German sentence from one of my clients giving me the go-ahead for a project and confirming its due date. The German sentence read "Der Auftrag ist erteilt, Lieferung Mitte nächster Woche OK!" The app returned "The order is issued, starting mid-next week OK!"

This does sound like an understandable English sentence, doesn't it? Well, yes, except for the fact that "Lieferung" means "delivery" (i.e., due date), not "starting". Were I to rely on the translated version of this order confirmation, I wouldn't be able to deliver on time (the project involves 6 PDFs of 2 pages each).

The purpose of small, free apps such as this one is precisely for a reader to understand the basic idea in an e-mail that was written in a language he or she doesn't speak. Good English grammar, let alone polished style, is not necessary in that context, but accuracy is. Even if terms are only "sort of" right (e.g., "udder" instead of "breast" in a sentence about a woman's cancer diagnosis), humans can often discern the actual meaning. However, if the translation is simply wrong (as in "starting" instead of "delivering"), there is no way for a person to know that he or she has have been given the wrong information.

If one cannot rely on such apps to provide even the basics of a message, there seems little point in using them. To answer the question in the title, then: apparently not.

Caveat: I did use Google Translate last year to render "Merry Christmas" into Tagalog for my son-in-law's card. He tells me that while the phrase wasn't idiomatic, it was understandable. So sometimes it does work. But how do I know when it does?

How I Plan to Target Swiss Direct Clients

2011-12-07T17:13:00.000-05:00

Yet another Swiss text to translate. I've never been to Switzerland (unless you count quickly passing through on the way to somewhere else in Europe), but as I wrote previously I'm becoming quite familiar with Swiss business German. With the Euro in crisis, maybe Switzerland is the place to find direct clients. So how would I go about this?

That's actually a good question, since directories of foreign companies are hard to find at my local business library here in Brooklyn, NY. The library does have a German company directory, but not a Swiss or Austrian one. So I tried to come up with a game plan for finding and then targeting potential Swiss clients:

Create a tri-fold brochure specifically geared towards Switzerland (based on my generic brochure) and have a small number printed by a low-cost online printer.
Use the Swiss version of Google (www.google.ch) to search for Swiss IT, transportation/logistics and other technology companies.
For each company found, check whether or not its website has an English version and note contact information for the person who is most likely to handle translations.
Search for these contact people, as well as their companies, on the LinkedIn and Xing professional networks, note additional details on their background and see whether I can invite them into my network.
Consider getting a paid subscription to either or both networks, so I can contact people "out of my network", then contact those I cannot invite into my network otherwise.
Follow up with an e-mail several weeks later detailing my experience in translating Swiss texts, as well as with relevant subject matter (IT, etc...). Offer a free short test translation. Mention LinkedIn/Xing connection and announce brochure mailing.
For any replies saying that they don't handle translations, ask who does and e-mail that person. Also find them on one or both professional networks and connect there.
Three weeks later, mail the brochure created in Step 1, with a cover letter detailing previous contacts.
A month later send follow-up e-mail inquiring whether they received the brochure and would like a free test translation.

I'm not sure what I will do after that last step, but this should keep me busy for a while with marketing.

How Intelligible is Your English to a Global Audience?

2011-11-30T19:39:00.000-05:00

Yesterday's Science supplement to the New York Times featured a profile of Steven Pinker, a psychologist and linguist who wrote The Language Instinct, among other books. The article included a sidebar of "Pinkerisms", quotes from some of his writings. Here is one I found particularly interesting: "Thanks to the redundancy of language, yxx cxn xndxrstxnd whxt x xm wrxtxng xvxn xf x rxplxcx xll thx vxwxls wxth xn “x” (t gts lttl hrdr f y dn’t vn kn whr th vwls r)." (from The Language Instinct).

Native English speakers can decode this relatively easily as "You can understand what I am writing even if I replace all the vowels with an 'x' (It gets a little harder if you don't even know where the vowels are)." But how would people who use English in their business lives, but aren't near-native speakers of the language, fare? I imagine my brother, who sells custom musical instruments around the world, calling: "I think this might be English, but I can't tell. Can you figure it out?"

To be sure, most business communication isn't that unintelligible to speakers of English as a foreign language. But convoluted sentences rife with jargon, augmented by misplaced words that spell check didn't catch, incomplete phrases and circular logic are all too common in technical, legal and business writing. That's as true for German (and, I suspect, other languages, as well) as it is for English. If it takes a native speaker two or more passes to understand a paragraph, how will someone with a more limited command of the language struggle through the text?

Since English is the global lingua franca, and professional texts are increasingly not translated into other languages, it behoves technical communicators to consider non-native-speaking audiences when they write. As translators who work with English, we are uniquely positioned to provide guidance on this topic. After all, we are at home in multiple languages and cultures, and interact regularly with business people from other countries. Many international translation agencies communicate with their freelancers in English, even if the project manager is, say, a native Spanish speaker, and the translator works into Russian. Maybe we can turn this experience into a sideline: editing English texts for a global audience.

PS: A plug for myself: I am giving a presentation on "Writing for Global Audiences" at the Society for Technical Communication's annual conference next May in Chicago.

Thanksgiving and Linguistic Diversity

2011-11-23T18:50:00.001-05:00

According to EyeWitness to History.com, two members of the Pawtuxet tribe spoke English when meeting the most recent immigrants to their shores, the Pilgrims, at Plymouth. Subsequent interactions between Native Americans and the new arrivals were also conducted in English, as was the first Thanksgiving in 1621. There is no record of the Pawtuxet requiring these immigrants to learn the local language. By contrast, staff at a recent United States Customs and Immigration Services appointment I had were rather dismissive of anybody there who spoke little English. More disturbing was a comment by a translator (not working in Spanish) during lunch at the recent ATA conference that "there is entirely too much Spanish in the U.S." and that this constitutes "a problem".

It seems to me that translators and interpreters should especially support the right of people to speak their own language -- if for nothing else, because our collective livelihood depends on it. Even if a particular translator does not speak the language in question, positing that one's own language combination is somehow superior to a different set of languages, is misguided, at best. As language professionals, if a specific language is prevalent in our environment, we should attempt to learn at least its rudiments.

Countries can have bi- or multilingual populations, as Switzerland, Belgium and many countries in Africa and Asia have demonstrated. When my children visited Southern Senegal a few years ago, they met a number of other teenagers who were fluent in three or four languages: the two main African languages in the region, Wolof and Mandinka, the former colonial language (which is still the official tongue), French, and English, which was taught in school as a foreign language.

So if you live in the U.S., learn at least a little Spanish. It not only facilitates your interaction with some of your neighbors, but you may even learn something about other traditions, including food. How about substituting platanos (mashed green bananas) for potatoes at Thanksgiving dinner?

If you are in the U.S., have a good holiday!

A LinkedIn Company Account

2011-11-16T21:36:00.000-05:00

Lindsey Pollak spoke this afternoon about LinkedIn and its use as a business tool. During the Social Media Business Forum at the New York Xpo for Business, Ms. Pollak explained that in addition to a personal profile page, members could also set up company pages on LinkedIn. She explained that these are similar to Facebook fan pages and could be used to market oneself as a business, rather than an individual.

When I got back home, I tried to set this up on my own LinkedIn page. So now I have a company page. The next step, of course, is using that page to market my services.

This raises the question of upgrading my LinkedIn account from the free "Basic" version to one of the paid ones. For me, the main difference would be that I could contact people on LinkedIn who are not already connected to me through a mutual acquaintance or shared group. I'm not sure, however, whether being able to do so 3 times per month is worth $25 a month. Another benefit is additional profile information about people who are not in my network. That might come in handy when research companies to target as potential direct clients.

Are you on LinkedIn? If so, what do you think?

ATA Conference Boston - Review of Sessions II

2011-11-09T12:57:00.002-05:00

This is the second part of my session summaries from the recent ATA conference. You can read Part I on sessions dealing with technical translations/terminology here.

"The Entrepreneurial Linguist: Lessons from Business School"
"Translating Digital Media: Marketing 2.0"

"The Entrepreneurial Linguist: Lessons from Business School" by Judy Jenner

Ms. Jenner emphasized that even a one-person translation business run out of one's home is a business that must be run professionally. This includes maintaining a well-designed website, a website-specific e-mail address, a separate business telephone number and marketing materials that advertise the value one's translation services add to a client's business instead of a resume that looks like a job application. Since networking and a personal connection are important in obtaining business, a professional photo of the translator is important on the website and other marketing materials. As sellers we set the price of our services; that price should include a minimum charge, as well as annual adjustments for inflation and surcharges for working on weekends and holidays, Ms. Jenner said.

"Translating Digital Media: Marketing 2.0" by Jon Ritzdorf

Mr. Ritzdorf spoke about translators who can market themselves to direct clients in ways that go beyond traditional translation and interpreting services. He focused on three areas: video subtitling, mobile applications and search engine marketing. Translating subtitles for marketing videos may require first timing and transcribing the original text and adjusting the translated text to fit the timing of the original video. The interface for mobile applications not only needs to be translated, but the application itself also must be tested in the target market. Translators here can act as in-country experts who ensure that the application functions as intended in the context of the local infrastructure and can communicate any problems in the language of the application's producer. Keywords used in search engine marketing not only must be translated, but also adapted for the target market, since customers in different markets may not search for the same terms, even in translation. As a user of local search engines, the translator again can act as the in-country reviewer/tester who can also communicate in the client's language.

These are just some of the sessions I attended. I may implement tips from a presentation on using speech-to-text software (specifically, Dragon Naturally Speaking) later (and blog about it).

One of the nice things about language-related conferences is that not all presentations are in English. This gave me a chance to attend lectures presented in German, as well as Spanish, which exposed me to current German business language and honed my Spanish comprehension skills in a dialect I was unfamiliar with (Argentinian, it turns out).

ATA Conference Boston - Review of Sessions I

2011-11-02T16:11:00.001-04:00

German-English translator Annette Cyrkel took this photo at one of the networking breakfasts at the recent ATA conference in Boston and graciously let me use it. Here are my summaries of three sessions on technical translations/terminology. I'll review two more sessions on the business/marketing end of our profession next week.

"A Dilemma for Language Service Providers and Translators: Subject Matter Expertise and Internet Style"
"Technical Writing for Into-English Translators"
"Search-fu! Finding Terminology on the Internet"

"A Dilemma for Language Service Providers and Translators: Subject Matter Expertise and Internet Style" by Manisha Mittal

Ms. Mittal works for Language Scientific, a translation agency specializing in technical and scientific documents. She explained how her agency analyzes incoming projects and matches translators, subject matter experts and editors with a specific project. Unlike more generalized language services providers, Language Scientific requests fairly detailed information from its end clients. This includes target audience, specific speciality within a subject, type of text, in-house style guides and glossaries. It then assembles a team of translators, editors and proofreaders, at least some of whom are also subject-matter experts in the given sub-speciality. The agency is looking for additional freelancers.

"Technical Writing for Into-English Translators" by Karen M. Tkaczyk

Ms. Tkaczyk defined technical writing as text that conveys informaton accurately, explains technical ideas and is focused on the user. For a technical writer a romantic poem simply becomes "John loves Jane." She then provided a number of specific tips for editing your translation into better technical writing, such as:

write concisely; if necessary, divide long sentences into multiple shorter ones
reorder thoughts to make them logically coherent or to present events in the correct order
turn nouns into strong, active verbs

Translators should pick a specific style guide to follow whenever a client doesn't specify a particular style guide, Ms. Tkaczyk suggested. The presentation concluded with a list of common stylistic errors, such as spacing between units of measure. An extensive list of resources was provided in a handout.

"Search-fu! Finding Terminology on the Internet" by Alex Lane

Mr. Lane focused on the ways in which Google searches can be customized to return the specific results a translator might need. One of the most useful, I think, is the fact that a search query can contain words in more than one language. Google will interpret the languages concerned and return bilingual texts that fit the query. Other ways to find terms include exploiting a site's URL structure to find the same document in a different language (e.g., if a search returns www.example.com/English/document1.html, replace "English" with "German" to see document1 in German) and restricting searches to specific sites or sites with a specific country code. Mr. Lane recommended keeping track of the searches performed, in case terminology choices are questioned later.

ATA Conference - German-English Translation in the Renewables Sector

2011-10-27T09:41:00.000-04:00

I arrived in Boston yesterday for a pre-conference seminar about German-English translation in the renewables sector. The conference in question is the 52nd annual conference of the American Translators Association. The seminar was a workshop led by Craig Morris, who, in addition to translating materials about this subject also gives presentations to energy industry executives and others. Before the seminar, he had e-mailed attendees a homework of sorts: a few texts to be translated in advance of the session.

We started by trying to translate a fourth text, a short interview about some of the policies in Germany that are designed to encourage development in the renewable energy industry. As a matter of fact, the texts we had been given in advance were also geared more toward the policy side, rather than the technical end of "alternative energy". In the course of discussing these translations, Mr. Morris provided some technical background, visualized in helpful diagrams.

Next was a short presentation on where and how to research terminology related to renewable energy. Mr. Morris particularly emphasized Wikipedia as a helpful tool. I also use parallel Wikipedia entries in German and English to research other technical terms. While Wikipedia can be unreliable on some topics, most of the basic technology and science articles seem to be quite well written by people who have a thorough understanding of the topic at hand.

After a brief break, the seminar concluded by going over the translations we had been asked to prepare in advance. All in all, I learned a number of useful facts about the technology involved, as well as German and U.S. policy regarding renewable energy. This being a translation conference, the focus on policy documents was probably warranted, but being the geek I am now I want to attend a session on renewable energy technology. Maybe I can find something back in New York...

Work-Life Balance: How Do You Achieve It?

2011-10-19T21:43:00.000-04:00

I just finished working on the project about which I blogged last week and I'm preparing to attend the annual conference of the American Translators Association in Boston next week, while (finally) applying for U.S. citizenship, so things have been a little busy around here lately.

Sitting at my computer until late night pretty much every day last week (plus a good part of the weekend) got me thinking about "work-life balance". Most of us do enjoy (at least some) of our work, but we also have lives beyond that work: families, partners, friends, hobbies or other interests. Many agencies expect translators to be "on" all the time. A few weeks ago, I received a phone call around 11 pm wanting to talk about a potential translation project. It turns out the caller was in my time zone, apparently oblivious to the fact that even though she was still working, most other people were not.

Since most of us work from home, we can't just "go home" at the end of the work day. Part of the advantage of working as a freelancer is that I can set my own schedule: run errands in the middle of the day when stores are relatively empty, deal with school emergencies without having to negotiate with a less-than-sympathetic boss, etc. The flipside, however, is that I sometimes have to work well into the night to make a deadline.

Doing this every once in a while seems a fair trade-off (assuming any urgent family/childcare responsibilities can be delegated to a partner). However, for many translators late-night work becomes a regular feature of their lives. That's when the work-life balance seriously tips to one side. I haven't quite figured out how to make that stop.

If I have some time off, I panic and take the first project I'm offered. Almost invariably, other, better paying or easier to work with, clients will then also want me. While I do reject projects, I frequently find myself either wishing I hadn't agreed to a project, so I could take the next one being offered, or taking them both and working crazy hours.

How do you handle the balance between work you enjoy and spare time?

Because I will be in Boston from Oct. 26-30 for the annual conference of the American Translators Association, I may not write a blog next Wednesday.

What Does a Translation Agency Do?

2011-10-12T20:47:00.002-04:00

I am editing the (British) translations for a large project - partly construction-related, partly business/legal documents. So far, so good. I have British translators edit my (American-inflected) translations for the British market and I'm happy to return the favor by "Americanizing" British translations. But this case doesn't just encompass various MS Word documents that have to be checked against the German originals and modified for a U.S.-based end client. This time, much of the original documents consists of scanned-in contracts, invoices, schedules, etc. -- some with handwritten annotations and crossed-out sections, some even with post-it notes containing handwritten comments still attached to printed matter when it was scanned. The scans were then converted to PDFs.

All the agency's technical department did, apparently, to convert these documents to something from which translators could work is to use "Save As Word document" in Acrobat. The resulting "originals" are of extremely poor quality, with much gibberish, missing sections and strange text boxes where items have been initialed or annotated.

This seems to me begs the question as to what exactly an agency's role is. Of course, part of a translation agency's job is to get end clients -- in particular, end clients who need translations into more than one or two languages -- and to match them with translators who will handle the end client's projects. But beyond that basic function, it seems to me agencies also should be educating end clients and evaluating the documents they receive for translation.

In this particular case, for example, I would have expected the agency to tell the end client that the quality of the "originals" they were sending (which included scans of entirely hand-written documents, by the way) was insufficient to provide a reasonable translation within a very tight time frame. I would also have expected the agency's "technical department" to assess the quality of the converted PDFs and, when it was insufficient, to use methods beyond "Save As" for producing decent-quality documents in the original language.

One such method might be to convert the PDF to image files (such as jpgs), then run these files through a multi-lingual OCR (character-recognition) program. For my own end clients, I use ABBY ScanToOffice and find that the quality (and translatability) of the Word documents generated by this process far surpasses that generated by simply using Adobe Acrobat. Any other process that produces originals which can be easily processed with standard CAT tools, such as Wordfast or Trados, would be equally welcome.

How do you handle low-quality "original" documents?

Working in a Construction Site

2011-10-05T21:21:00.001-04:00

Last week, my house resembled a construction site: an electrician and his assistant were drilling and hammering in the basement and a telephone repair person was fixing the wiring on the outside of my house. Add to this scheduling an exterminator and finding someone to repair my broken dryer, and I felt like I had suddenly become a general contractor. Meanwhile, however, there were translation and editing deadlines to meet.

Part of the trick to keeping my sanity were noise-cancelling headphones. I had bought these a year or so ago when the avenue near our house was being resurfaced and the noise from various construction machinery was rather deafening. They came in handy last week. Without music to drown out the residual noise, these earphones still cut out enough of the mayhem for me to concentrate on the work at hand. At the same time, because they don't work as well without a deliberate sound, I could still faintly hear the electrician or telephone repair person, if they needed something from me.

According to my children, noise-cancelling headphones work much better if you listen to music through them. So when I get some time (maybe after the ATA Conference later this month), I should load some of my CDs onto my computer. I find that it impedes my concentration if I understand the words to whatever music is playing. This means either instrumental only or songs in languages I don't understand. Unfortunately, much of our music is in German, English, Spanish, French or Scandinavian languages (I once lived in Stockholm).

There should be a home-office deduction for music, but since there isn't, I'll stick with our collection of classical, Arabic, Greek and Russian music. That should keep enough ambient noise drowned out to get me through the next two weeks of three rather large editing jobs arriving back to back.

International Translation Day - Bridging Cultures

2011-09-28T20:19:00.000-04:00

This Friday, Sept. 30, is International Translation Day. In celebration, ProZ.com, the online translator's community, is hosting a virtual conference on Friday, as well as "the great translation debate" tomorrow, Thursday. The International Federation of Translators (FIT) calls on local organizations to commemorate the day in some form.

Some national organizations, such as the British arm of PEN have heeded that call. Here in the U.S., the American Translators Association (ATA) lists the day on its calendar, but has nothing specific scheduled. In fact, that calendar entry simply links to the statement on the FIT website.

That statement encourages us to image a world without translators and asks how we would communicate with each other in such a world. It calls translators and interpreters "brokers of peace and mutual understanding". By contrast, the ATA homepage lists "Defense Secretary Leon Panetta says language training critical to U.S. interests, security" as an item in its Twitter feed.

I, for one, chose this profession to enhance global peace and mutual understanding among nations, not to aid U.S. (policy) interests. So I will celebrate the building of cultural bridges between peoples and ignore Mr. Panetta.

"Project Manage Your Life" Presentation at STC Meeting

2011-09-21T17:30:00.003-04:00

As promised in my tweet last week, here is a summary of the presentation "Project Manage Your Life" by Anita Dhir that I attended at the Society for Technical Communications' meeting (New York Chapter) last Thursday.

Ms. Dhir started with the phases in managing any project: proposal - planning - implementation - closing down. When managing professional projects, managers and/or participants sign off on each phase before moving on. In one's personal life, such sign-off may involve soliciting the help of family or friends or outlining specific tasks for the following phase. The projects a person undertakes in his/her private sphere should align with that person's life goals, whatever form they may take. Just as in professional circumstances, life goals should also be SMART: specific - measurable - applicable - realistic - time-bound.

Another aspect of successfully managing one's life is good communication, which includes visual aspects, such as clothing, as well as the tone of conversations. It takes only 7 seconds to make a first impression, but 21 repeats to change that impression. This statistic shows how important it is to make a good first impression.

In addition, today many families, as well as work teams, are dispersed geographically. This means that important visual clues in communication, such as body language, are frequently missing when we speak with/write to family members or friends who are located far away. Photos and videos can help bridge that visual gap, but the tone of any communication must be controlled even more carefully, since it cannot be counterbalanced by visual clues.

Finally, project managing one's life helps to better allocate one's time, so that activities support achievement of one's life goals. After all, time is the only absolutely non-renewable resource, Ms. Dhir emphasized. Once it has elapsed, it can never be brought back.

Follow reliable translations on Twitter: @reliabletran.

Integrating Social Media Accounts

2011-09-14T18:01:00.001-04:00

I finally took the plunge and signed up for Twitter (@reliabletran). My initial plan had been to ease into it slowly, mostly reading other people's tweets and tweeting infrequently myself. Next, I was going to sign up for a social media integration and scheduling tool to automate tweets at preset times. Es kommt immer anders als man denkt (It always works out differently from what one might have thought), as my mother would say.

During this start-up phase I tweeted about a blog post by Catherine Christaki that I had found helpful. As it turns out, Ms. Christaki is on Twitter (@LinguaGreca) and had been tweeting my blog posts for some time. She tweeted my existence on Twitter in her stream and now I have a number of Twitter followers. So now I have to tweet something to keep people interested.

As a result, I spent part of today trying to find an integration tool that would do the following:
1. Automatically post the title and a link to my blog posts to Twitter, LinkedIn, Skype and a box on my website's homepage
2. Let me schedule additional tweets to post only to Twitter at specific times
3. Allow me to post to the tool from my phone and netbook
4. Also automatically update specialized/non-US social networks, such as My STC, Xing and ProZ.

So I signed up for ping.fm, as well as TweetDeck and investigated HootSuite. I didn't sign up for that last one because they tweet paid ads in my Twitter stream unless I pay a monthly fee. Ping.fm allows automatic posting to Twitter, LinkedIn, my blog and a custom URL (i.e., my website), but does not support scheduling posts in advance. TweetDeck supports scheduling, but won't work with custom URLs. It will, however, send to ping.fm, among other accounts. Next, then, is piecing together a chain of different tools that will accomplish at least 1-3 above. (I haven't found anything that will let me do 4.) I am working on that ...

The next book I am reviewing for the Society for Technical Communication is "The Social Media Survival Guide" by Deltina Hay. Maybe it will shed some light on how to better handle this integration.

If you are on Twitter, let's follow each other. My handle: @reliabletran.

Good Client, Bad Client

2011-09-07T20:56:00.000-04:00

Last week, I received an e-mail from an agency I had not worked with before asking whether I'd be interested in a particular translation project. I do get such e-mails from time to time, but for the most part these notes emphasize that the agency is looking for "your absolutely best price" or some other way of saying "we're looking for cheap labor". This agency was different, not just in their initial e-mail. Here is why I like my interactions with them so far:

Even though their initial e-mail was clearly sent to many translators, it told me how they had found me, why they needed to contact a number of translators at once, and what exactly they knew about this project so far (including sample text). While they did bargain about the rate I quoted them, they proposed an only very slightly lower rate and apologized for having to do so on this particular project. They were also willing to work with me in terms of my availability and have kept me informed each step of the way about the status of the project. As it turns out, their client is late in sending the source flies. Rather than simply assuming the translators they had assembled would work on this project during a different time frame than originally agreed upon, they only asked to be informed about our availability later on.

This is quite a contrast from another agency with whom I sometimes work, who simply informed its translators that it was trying out a new system that would require all of us to perform additional editing, as well as quality assurance for its existing TMs (which we have to use remotely) without any additional compensation. In the past, the agency had asked about my availability before assigning work. On Monday, I received an e-mail about a project from one of their end clients for whom I had translated before. That e-mail simply assumed I would take the project and deliver the translation by the next morning. Since I receive e-mail on my smartphone, I was able decline even while I was baking a cake for my neighbor's Labor Day party.

Because of time constraints, I may not wind up working on that first agency's project, after all, but I do look forward to other projects with them. As for the second agency, I think I'll be too busy when their next project comes around ...

More Conferences to Attend - Why?

2011-08-31T20:57:00.002-04:00

Here I am, barely back from the International Translators Federation congress in San Francisco, and I just registered for my next conference. This time I'll be going to Boston for the American Translators Association conference.

Is all this jet-setting really worth it? Well, for one, I'm not exactly jet-setting. I try to find the cheapest way to get there (in the case of Boston that is a $15 or so ticket from a discount bus company), then find a cheap hotel that's accessible by public transportation. In Boston, this proved to be harder than it had been for other conferences, but I finally did find something cheaper than half a double room at the conference hotel. Telling from Google maps, it's even within walking distance of the conference - although a little bit of a hike. The conference fee itself is fixed, but I always register early enough to get the early-bird discount.

Despite the economizing, though, I do spend quite a bit of money on these trips. While I have only gotten work as a direct results of two conferences, establishing contacts with potential referrers and/or clients does seem useful to me. In addition, conferences do provide much more in-depth information on current trends and issues in the profession than magazines and online articles do.

Then again, maybe I'm just rationalizing these trips. I really like to travel and going to conferences gives me an excuse to do so. I always try to make room for at least a little exploration of the city in which I'm staying, even if that means staying up rather late or hauling my luggage with me while sightseeing just before the bus/plane back to New York.

I'd appreciate any suggestions on a. cheap accommodations in Boston (the reservation I made can still be cancelled) and/or b. things to see there on a Sunday (the conference ends late Saturday, so I'm staying over until Sunday).

Keeping Up With Your Field

2011-08-24T22:10:00.005-04:00

I specialize in technical translations, particularly IT, but I haven't actually been an IT manager or technical writer for more than a decade. (I was both of these things -- consecutively, not simultaneously -- before embarking on a translation career in 2000.) So while I still deal with any electronics- or wiring-related problems at home and for friends and family, I no longer spend my days immersed in computers. Since technology changes fairly rapidly in this field, I need to make a conscious effort to keep up with the latest terminology.

To do so, I subscribe to a couple of technology magazines, such as Wired, and regularly read online computer articles at sites such as CNet. I do own some specialized computer dictionaries, but by the time such a dictionary is printed, it is already outdated. On my trips to Europe, I pick up the latest issue of various computer magazines so I can keep up with the German terminology in the field -- although much of that is English anyway.

IT is probably extreme in terms of terminological change, but even in less rapidly-changing fields, such as finance, new terms develop, or at least enter the mainstream vocabulary. Before the recent economic crisis, for example, few people knew that a number of risky financial instruments even existed, let alone knew what they were called. Now everyone is familiar with subprime mortgages and various types of swaps, among other terms.

Specialized printed dictionaries rarely can keep up with these changes in a timely manner. That is why most of us rely on online resources in our terminology research. I use LEO, the online German-English dictionary originally developed by the computer science department at the Technical University of Munich, extensively, in addition to various other sites.

What are some of your favorite online resources?

Report From the FIT Congress -- Part II

2011-08-17T19:59:00.001-04:00

Last week, I summarized the first three of six sessions at the congress of the International Federation of Translators. Here are the remaining three summaries.

Nicholas Hartmann "The Beginning of Wisdom: Some Practical Aspects of Technical Translation"
Rosana Wolochwianski "Threat or Opportunity? The Emerging Role of Machine Translation Post-Editing"
David Rumsey "The End Game: Knowing Your End Client"

Nicholas Hartmann "The Beginning of Wisdom: Some Practical Aspects of Technical Translation"

As a service provider, the translator is not only expected to provide a quality product on time, but also needs to be flexible and adaptable in terms of the client's terminological preferences and deadlines. Technical translations into German are frequently reviewed at the client's by German-speaking professionals with very good English skills, but not native fluency in English. This sometimes gives rise to "educated German disease": the belief of German third-party reviewers that their English is superior to that of the native-speaking translator. Coupled with the tendency of large companies to develop their own in-house terminology/terminological preferences, this poses a challenge for the translator. When working through an agency, it may be difficult to have that terminology clarified, since access to the client and its subject-matter experts will be restricted, if not impossible. For this and other reasons, translators should aspire to work for direct clients, rather than agencies. However, such terminology discussions and potential evaluation/revision of source text, if that text is unclear, do take time for which the translator ought to be compensated. One way to do so is to charge a per-project fee. Another is to try to charge a higher per-word fee to incorporate that extra work.

Rosana Wolochwianski "Threat or Opportunity? The Emerging Role of Machine Translation Post-Editing"

Historically, machines have increasingly replaced repetitive human tasks, and machine translation is no exception here. However, machines cannot make ethical decisions, so a human post-editor is still required to ensure that the machine output is accurate. There are three types of post-editing of machine translated text: full editing fixes stylistic issues and makes the text read smoothly, minimal/partial editing renders the document understandable and rapid editing only removes the most blatant/significant errors. End users' expectations of the quality of the text are frequently lower than the expectations of experienced translators. Translators working as post editors must lower their quality standards, particularly when asked for partial or rapid editing. Such constant exposure to flawed language, however, may affect the post editor's linguistic development in the long term. I would add that minimally edited machine translation, among other issues, also promotes acceptance of lower-quality text in the general population who keeps reading/hearing ungrammatical or confusing language in various media.

David Rumsey "The End Game: Knowing Your End Client"

Freelance translators are at the end of the chain from end client via agency to the translator. But the agency's contact at the end client has his/her own supervisor, who also has a supervisor, ... Each person in that chain has his/her own needs and perceptions of the translation process. This means different players in this chain emphasize a different pillar in the service matrix: speed, quality or price. To meet these competing demands, the translator must remain flexible, particularly when dealing directly with end clients. By understanding the client's own system -- i.e., what steps precede the translation, how the completed translation will be used -- the translator can provide a better product and ensure smoother collaboration with the end client. Such information about the end client is, however, usually not available when working with agencies. Translators should therefore try to work directly with end clients as much as possible. In the ensuing discussion I also noted that there are also stakeholders beyond the end client, namely the audience for the completed translation, such as the readers of a manual for an electronic device. (See also my guest post about audiences on the ATA Science & Technology division's blog ).

Report From the FIT Congress -- Part I

2011-08-10T17:29:00.011-04:00

Last week, I listed six sessions as highlights of the congress of the International Federation of Translators, which I attended last week in San Francisco. Here are summaries of the first three of these sessions. I will summarize the remaining three next week.

Maggey Oplinger"Hybrid Careers: Atypical Translation Skills in the Workplace"
Nataly Kelly "Translation Market Trends: What Freelancers Need to Know"
Panel discussion "Creating a Lasting Partnership: Working with LSPs in the Age of Post-Editing"

Maggey Oplinger "Hybrid Careers: Atypical Translation Skills in the Workplace"

When working in such hybrid professions, the translator does not simply render the source text accurately in the target language, but rather re-writes it to better fit the target culture and customs. This means there is no complete source text against which to proofread the translated text. Johnson Controls, where Ms. Oplinger works, has an information storage system in multiple languages where text is tagged, so that information can be retrieved independent of the language in which the source text was written. Many of the hybrid jobs described are in-house positions, although some tasks (e.g., reviewing/editing) are sometimes outsourced. When managing an atypical workflow in house, it is important to plan all facets of the project (e.g., linguistic difficulties likely to be encountered in the target market), to clearly manage the project, to include all involved parties (e.g., monolingual subject-matter experts) in the project team, to clearly define the workflow and to plan for production (e.g., printing, shipping) after the translation/transcreation phase of the project has been completed. Monolingual teams must frequently also be educated about the need for translation/transcreation work on a specific project.

Nataly Kelly "Translation Market Trends: What Freelancers Need to Know"

There is a growing market for outsourced (i.e., provided by freelancers rather than staff, not necessarily outside the U.S.) language services, but most of that growth is in multimedia localization and similar work, rather than traditional translation. The U.S. market is fragmented into many language service providers and buyers. The buyers may even include different departments within the same large company. Most of these use multi-language vendors (i.e., translation agencies), but over half the large buyers of translation services use freelancers directly. Ms. Kelly's employer, Common Sense Advisory, publishes annual pricing surveys. In the U.S., end clients pay agencies US$0.26-US$0.28 per source word for German to English translations. Other trends include movement towards transcreation (i.e., re-writing, rather than translating, the source text), crowdsourcing (i.e., non-professional bilingual volunteers providing translations), machine translation, faster turnaround times and globalization of products and markets. Ms. Kelly noted that the buyers of crowd-sourced translations are generally not the same as those buying traditional translation services and that machine translation is often used to disseminate information internally or to provide fast customer support, rather than to update marketing materials or similar text. An audience member also noted that agencies increasingly use automated project management systems, where the translator and computerized system also take on aspects of the project manager's traditional role.

Panel discussion "Creating a Lasting Partnership: Working with LSPs in the Age of Post-Editing"

The panelists were Kåre Lindahl of venga corporation, Michel Lopez of e2f translations and Uwe Muegge of CSOFT. All three agencies work in the technology sector, with e2f translations specializing in post-editing of English<->French machine translations. At venga corporation, the translation tools are built into an Agile software development environment. Agile development means that individual portions of the overall product are being translated as the project moves along, rather than having the entire help system translated at the end of the software development cycle. While this guarantees a steady workflow for the translator, this setup requires translators to work remotely on the agency's own system. However, agencies using such a setup do not always provide training on their own specific tools. Since in an Agile environment source text is still being developed, translators can -- and are expected to -- provide feedback on that text. Either an hourly rate or a combination of hourly and word rates was proposed to compensate translators for the extra time required to provide feedback on the source text. It seems to me that that hourly rate should also be paid for the time it takes a translator to learn the agency-specific tools/environment, if no training is provided. During the discussion period, I noted that remote work on the client's servers can cause problems if that server is located in a different time zone and crashes during that time zone's off hours, but during the translator's working hours. I have encountered that problem before and found there was nothing I could do except to wait for the client's IT department to get into the office the next morning (while I was asleep in the U.S.).

A Brief Dispatch From the FIT Congress

2011-08-03T21:07:00.009-04:00

As noted last week, I am attending the congress of the International Federation of Translators (Federation Internationale des Traducteurs - FIT) in San Francisco. Despite a good number of cancelled sessions (some of which were offset by last-minute additions), I found at least one presentation to attend during each of the 5 one-hour slots per day over the last three days. Taking in that quantity of information in such a short time does get tiring after a while, however. Two more keynote speeches tomorrow and the congress will be over.
A few highlights so far:

Maggey Oplinger discussed "hybrid careers": jobs that include, but go well beyond, translation, such as bilingual writers, localization specialists or post-editors for machine-translated text.
Nataly Kelly spoke about trends in the translation market, noting that while the volume of translation services has declined over the last year, multimedia localization services have increased.
A panel discussion on translators' relationship with language service providers emphasized long-term relationships with freelancers willing to use the client's own tools remotely on the client's servers.
Nicholas Hartmann noted "educated German disease," the tendency of German third-party reviewers to believe that their English is superior to that of the translator.
Rosana Wolochwianski explained the various levels at which machine-translated text can be edited and what qualities are needed in a successful post-editor.
David Rumsey advocated that translators talk to end clients so as to better understand the client's own processes.

I will report more fully on these sessions next week.

"Sauregurkenzeit"

2011-07-27T17:38:00.006-04:00

Sauregurkenzeit (literally: pickle time) is what German-speaking business people and journalists call the summer months, particularly July and August. With Europe's customary 4+ weeks of vacation per year and school out, many businesses there operate on a greatly reduced staff. As a result, few new projects are scheduled during this time, so there is not much need for translation services. This would then be a great time for us translators to take a break, too.

Unfortunately, here in the U.S. vacation time for employees is usually much less generous. So while we might be able to take a month off, our partners often can only take a week or two. A couple of weeks ago, my husband and I spent a week vacationing in and around Washington, D.C. -- not exactly off the grid, but interesting all the same.

Since my return, projects have been slow to arrive. With the heat wave we have had here in New York, I found it difficult to concentrate in the middle of the day when the temperature in my office reached the mid-80s (Fahrenheit) or so. So using that time for relatively mindless filing and general organizing seemed like a good idea. I've also tried to use some of this slack time to increase my marketing efforts. On the other hand, with everyone to whom I am marketing myself away, that doesn't necessarily work so well, either.

I'm about to leave my office again for a while -- this time to attend the Congress of the International Translators Federation in San Francisco next week. I am taking my netbook and I will monitor my e-mail on my smartphone, but I am not accepting new projects for next week. I'll try to blog next Wednesday, but that's the night when the Congress holds an international dance party, so I may not get to it.

Have a relaxing summer!

Is Volume Pricing Appropriate for Translation Services?

2011-07-20T20:27:00.005-04:00

Freshly back from vacation, I received an inquiry about pricing for a rather large translation project. Some translators argue that because the same amount of work per word goes into a small project as does into a large one, we shouldn't offer volume discounts. "We sell a valuable service, not shoes," I've heard say.

While I certainly agree that selling a professional service is different from selling everyday items, a large project does lower our cost, as well. That cost reduction may not be as dramatic as it is for a retailer receiving a steep volume discount from the wholesaler, but it does exist. For one, I can spend the next two or more weeks just working on the project, instead of having to spend part of my time in unpaid attempts to get work.

Then there is the fact that the more familiar I am with a particular text and the way it is written, the faster I am translating it: much of my terminology research already occurred during the first twenty or thirty pages, I become accustomed to the writer's style and "get into the groove". So I do think that volume pricing has its place even in translation.

That said, beware of agencies requesting the lowest possible price with the promise of large quantities of future work. You don't know whether that work will actually materialize, you still have to negotiate each project separately with the agency, and if the work is from different agency clients, the time savings from working on a consistent piece evaporate.

Client Reviews and "Signing" Translations

2011-07-06T21:00:00.008-04:00

I recently edited a rather good, mostly idiomatic translation. A few days after I submitted my work, I received a note that the client had feedback on the translation and editing. When I looked at the file attached to the note, almost all of the changes turned what had been an idiomatic text into an almost literal translation that no longer sounded like it had been written in the target language (in this case, German), but rather like a German version of a U.S. text. I did point this fact out, but the end client has the final say ...

This was a translation for hire, so my name was not publicly associated with the end product. An article I read recently advocated that translators "sign" their work so they can get credit for their efforts. As I recall, the article further argued that such authorship declarations would counteract the proliferation of less-than-professional translators, who would not want to have their name associated with their work. I am not so sure that this argument would hold, but in any case what would I do in a case like the one described above?

I wouldn't want my name associated with that end product. In this case, I saw the changes made. Frequently, I hand a translation in and never hear from anyone again. Presumably someone is proofing/editing my work, but I generally do not know who that person is or what changes have been made. This situation is somewhat similar to that of a writer whose work is edited. However, a writer usually knows the editor (frequently the same person who assigned the article/bought the book) and may have a say in the changes being made.

The technical documents I translate usually don't even acknowledge the author(s) of the original text, much less the translator. Since such text does not require much poetic talent and was generally either written by employees or as a work for hire, that seems fine to me. Fiction -- and to some extent marketing material -- is a different story. Here the translator is more of a "transcreator" who is basically ghostwriting the original in a different language. And that effort should be acknowledged -- not only in the work of fiction, but also in any reviews thereof.

On an administrative note: Sorry for not posting last week, but we wound up having to deal with a bedbug infestation. I did get the translation I had promised out, but I had absolutely no time to do anything else besides dealing with those nasties. Next week will be missed again, I'm afraid, because I will be on vacation.

Feast or Famine: the Freelancer's Eternal Lament

2011-06-22T19:44:00.007-04:00

Last week, I wrote about trying to market myself. This week, I wish fewer clients wanted my services. Earlier this week I was working on three projects simultaneously while a fourth one was waiting in the wings. Now I'm down to two projects and had to decline two more because I can work only so many hours in a week. Besides, sometime this weekend I have to catch up on invoicing and following up with people I met lately at a couple of networking events.

That dilemma of too much work one week, none the other, is, of course, familiar to any freelancer. But the problem seems to be exacerbated in the translation industry where many projects have extremely tight deadlines. Even if a project were large enough to keep one translator busy for a few weeks, it usually needs to be done so quickly that it is divided up between different translators rather than spread out over time. Not only does this worsen each individual translator's uneven cycle of work, it opens a whole other host of problems in terms of different writing styles and terminology.

This brings me back to the fact that translation is frequently an afterthought at the end of a production cycle, rather than a planned step with appropriate deadlines. I have written about this before, but it bears repeating: end clients need to learn that the translator needs time to provide a quality product and that they therefore must build that time into their project plans. But as long as end clients can get 24-hour turnaround on translating 10,000 words, they won't learn. So language service providers -- agencies, but also translators -- must educate them about the time involved and refuse to do rushed, low-quality jobs.

That, unfortunately, does not appear to be where the profession is headed. I, for one, am looking for direct clients where I can negotiate terms and deadlines in advance. That, however, only works for the precious few companies that don't already have a contract with an agency and don't need their text in 20 different languages. It remains to be seen whether I can actually find -- and convince to hire me -- enough such clients so I can get out of the rat race translation has become. Stay tuned for updates ...

Writing Advertisements for Myself

2011-06-15T19:44:00.004-04:00

Does anyone remember Norman Mailer's "Advertisements for Myself"? Well, I'm sure Mailer was much better at advertising himself than I seem to be.

After receiving an invitation to join the New York German-American Chamber of Commerce, I started to research (smaller) German companies who just expanded into the U.S. or are in the process of doing so. It turns out there are a number of companies that fit this description, especially in the alternative energy sector. After beginning to compile a list of names and addresses, both at German headquarters and at the U.S. branch, I tried to write a letter I could send to them to introduce my services. Despite reading a few books about marketing per se, it quickly became apparent that I really don't know how to write my own sales letter.

So what does someone who works with words do when they have difficulty doing something? Find a book on the subject, of course. I am now reading Robert Bly's The Copywriter's Handbook, which is subtitled "A Step-by-Step Guide to Writing Copy That Sells". It's mostly meant for people who are selling other people's products, but I'm hoping I'll be able to extract enough information (and then act on that information) to write sales copy for my own business. So far, I've it's given me a few ideas on the letter's subject line and research I need to do before writing the actual body text.

After writing that sales letter in English the next challenge will then be to do so in German, as well -- this time aimed at the headquarter's staff rather than the branch office. So where in New York would I find a book about copywriting in German for the German market?

Office Away From Home

2011-06-08T22:52:00.005-04:00

I just returned from a Webgrrrls networking event at a co-working space in Manhattan called "WeCreate". The space is located in one of the old manufacturing buildings around Union Square with an industrial elevator staffed by an "elevator man" (why aren't there any elevator women?) who manually closes the metal gates enclosing the elevator as it rides through the shaft. The space itself features long wooden communal tables, a shared coffee machine and bathroom, as well as a conference room fashioned by partitioning off one end of the loft-like space. There is also a shared printer, WiFi and a (possibly staffed) receptionist's table.

So why would anyone pay between $50 and 200 a month for basic membership to work here in his/her own business? For people with absolutely no space for a desk at home, this is probably quieter and nicer than their local coffee shop. Given recent cuts to the public library system here, an open branch library -- especially one equipped with WiFi -- may not be available when needed. Plus one meets other entrepreneurs -- unlikely in one's own home.

I do have a good-sized home office (my grown daughter's old bedroom), so why would I be contemplating space elsewhere for which I have to pay? Mostly, I'm not really looking that much, but meeting others around the water cooler does have its advantages. Plus, I wouldn't want to meet potential clients in my own home. Is that really enough to justify the cost of such a space? I'm not sure it is, particularly for a space that offers absolutely no privacy, no way to store anything and very limited workspace beyond parking my laptop.

There are, however, part-time shared spaces that offer more of a "real" office. That may be worth exploring if I am marketing myself to end clients and need to present a more professional image than my converted bedroom with its home-made desk extension and 20-year-old filing cabinets. The space I saw tonight does rent the conference room to non-members on a one-time basis, and so do other spaces. So maybe that's the way to go ...

Are Conferences Worth the Price?

2011-06-01T19:32:00.005-04:00

In the past, I've attended conferences organized by professional organizations, such as the Society for Technical Communication (STC) and the American Translators Association (ATA), the online community ProZ.com, the German technical communications organization tekom and a Portuguese translation agency, Tradulinguas. Only one of these, the regional ProZ conference in Vienna in late 2009, directly led to actual translation jobs. On the other hand, I met a number of people at these events and eventually signed up with new agencies whose representatives I met at the conference.

With many conferences becoming ever pricier and the fact that I also have to cover airfare and lodging myself -- not to mention the time it takes away from potential translation assignments -- I have to carefully evaluate the potential benefits of attending out-of-town events. I decided against this year's STC conference because of its fairly steep admissions fee, but I kept vacillating about the conference hosted by the International Federation of Translators. It's only held every three years and this year it's in the U.S. -- in California, but that's still a lot cheaper for me than flying to, say, Shanghai. After looking at the conference program, I initially decided that there weren't enough sessions relating to my particular interests and specialization to be worth the money I'd have to spend.

But on Monday I did, in fact, register for the conference and book a flight and hotel, as well. The conference program hasn't really changed, but conferences are not just about the lectures, but also about meeting other attendees, presenters and exhibitors. I already received two responses to last week's post about a potential bilingual ghostwriters' network, so I reasoned that it would be helpful to meet other translators from around the world. And what better way to do that than at an international translation conference?

So I'll be out of the office (although possibly posting to this blog) from July 31 through August 5. I also plan to attend the ATA conference in Boston in late October, so that will be another 4 days or so not accepting translation jobs. And then there is my actual vacation, from July 9-16 in Harrisburg and York, PA; Baltimore, MD; and Washington, DC. Let's hope all these "out-of-office experiences" won't dent my workload (and income) for the year too much ...

Translators as Ghostwriters?

2011-05-25T23:25:00.004-04:00

Yesterday I attended an ASJA (American Society of Journalists and Authors) workshop on ghostwriting. It sounded interesting and it was free, so why not. Listening to the speakers on the panel, it occurred to me that American experts who are not good at writing aren't the only ones who need a ghostwriter. America has any number of scientists and other experts who came here to study and stayed on or arrived after completing their studies elsewhere and remained. Depending on the person's background and subject matter, they may or may not be highly proficient in well-written English.

There are famous fiction writers and journalists writing in English whose first language wasn't English -- but there are also scientists and other experts who grew up elsewhere, are highly proficient in the English vocabulary of their specialty, but not so great at communicating in English with a wider audience. It seems to me there is a niche here for bilingual (or multilingual) people who write well in English. When I asked about a market for that particular niche at the workshop, I was told that this was something to be explored. Later I was encouraged to put together a network of translators-ghostwriters for different languages.

One of my projects quite a while back was a combination translation/editing job, where an Austrian non-profit had run a project with high school classes in various countries. The students were communicating in English within the project and the teachers produced reports on their activities in English, as well. However, since this was a social studies project, some of the teachers involved had limited English skills. It fell to me to edit the English-language reports and to translate the ones from Austria (which had been written in German in the first place). The fact that I spoke Spanish and French turned out to be quite helpful when editing English-language reports from Latin America and francophone Africa. When the text was unclear I could basically "re-translate" it back into the writer's dominant language and thereby deduce the intended meaning.

It seems to me that ghostwriting in English for experts whose first language is not English, but who nonetheless know their subject matter mostly in English would be a similar process. For that reason, it would be helpful to such experts to have a ghostwriter who speaks their dominant language. I don't know how many German-speaking scientists or technicians might be interested in writing a memoir or popular science book on their specialty, but it does sound like an area worth exploring. Now if any other translators out there are interested in ghostwriting, maybe we can put together that network ...

Slang as Marketing Speak

2011-05-18T21:18:00.007-04:00

Back in April, the New York Times reviewed a 3-volume dictionary of English slang, Green's Dictionary of Slang. In the article, entitled "Slanguage", Ben Zimmer, a former On Language columnist for the the New York Times, compares Green's Dictionary to the first slang dictionary, Eric Partridge's Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, first published in 1937. While much of what used to be considered slang has either fallen into disuse or become part of accepted speech, Zimmer notes that the word "booze", for example, has existed as a slangy expression for liquor since the 1500s, yet is still in use -- and considered slang -- today.

This review got me thinking how useful a bilingual edition of a slang dictionary would be for translating marketing text. Some of the marketing texts I sometimes wind up translating rely heavily on "hip" language, i.e., modern German slang. Often that takes the form of pseudo-English words or English words and phrases used with a somewhat different meaning than they have here in the U.S., at least. Finding "real" English equivalents to some of these isn't so easy, particularly if I don't know exactly where and for whom the translation will be used. Slang is, after all, frequently rather local and specific to certain demographic groups.

A printed dictionary seems not the best way to capture the rapidly changing usage that slang represents. However, an online version (preferably free) with suggested equivalent expressions in other languages would be really helpful. I assume that many translators specializing in marketing materials keep their own glossaries of such slang terms and usage for their particular language combination. Now if all of these glossaries could be combined in a searchable database online, translators who only occasionally dabble in marketing speak would be helped immensely. Anyone willing to try to put that together?

Why Write for Free?

2011-05-11T21:40:00.000-04:00

A while ago I had offered to write about my work for the Society for Technical Communication's journal, Intercom. I was now asked to provide such an article this week. The column in question is called "My Job" and offers a first-person account of a particular technical communicator's work. The text is accompanied by a photo of that communicator at work. That photo request caused a super-fast office cleanup in the midst of deadlines and enlisting my son (an artist, but not a photographer) to take pictures of me at my desk. You can see one of the results at right.

This is the fourth (unpaid) piece I have written this year, and I just committed to writing another book review by the end of July. In addition, I am waiting to hear back on proposals I have submitted for writing 2 other articles. Except for the "My Job" column, none of these articles are about myself or my company. So why am I spending all that time to write for free? I studied journalism in college, so maybe I should just become a freelance writer ...

The object of this exercise is marketing my translation services, of course -- although if someone wanted to hire me to write original copy, I might be interested. (Any editors reading this?) All the articles I submit include a short biographical note with my name, company name, website and blog. If readers of the article (or blog post or book review) find my writing interesting and/or helpful, they will share it with others. And if they, their friends or acquaintances need translation services, I hope my name or company will come to mind.

I do list these articles on my website, but to get more mileage out of that work, I should ask about posting them in their entirety on my website, as well. So here's an item for my to-do list: Contact the persons to whom I submitted these pieces and ask about copyright. If I can post them, I'll note in a future post where they are all located.

Deadlines, deadlines ...

2011-05-04T19:08:00.003-04:00

Galina Kakhoun recently asked in the Translators Worldwide forum on LinkedIn whether deadlines had gotten shorter over the past 10 years. I do think that deadlines have gotten tighter.

In part that is because business (and private) life in general has accelerated, at least in the industrialized countries. Some of this is due to technology improvements, which have also enabled translators to work faster (think CAT tools). Part of the problem, however, is that clients have unrealistic expectations, coupled with disregard for quality.

I just saw a posting for an 8,800-word legal text to be translated literally overnight. Such speed is only possible if absolutely no terminology is researched, and the first draft is not edited/proofread at all. We translators need to educate clients about the time and effort it takes to produce a good translation and refuse jobs on too-tight deadlines. If the poster of this job is consistently told that the translation cannot be produced in that timeframe, he/she will change the deadline and, hopefully, learn to set a more realistic one next time.

We also need to get better at negotiating deadlines. Often the initial deadline is flexible -- the client just doesn't tell us so. Faced with a Friday 5pm deadline, for example, we can ask for Monday morning instead; the translation would likely simply sit in someone's inbox over the weekend, anyway. If a client asks for a certain deadline and I have already committed to other projects, I'll explain the situation (without specifics, of course) and ask whether the deadline can be moved by a couple of days. Often, it can.

Chief Cook and Bottlewasher

2011-04-27T22:12:00.004-04:00

As I sat down to another round of bill paying and client invoicing on Monday, then spent more than an hour inputting contacts into my database, generating cover letters and stuffing envelopes to mail brochures, I thought about how much time I spend on the mundane tasks that go with running a business. It being a holiday in most of Europe, there were no client requests to deal with, but I still could have spent that time more productively: finally take that Trados certification test, read the latest ATA journal or write new text for my website. None of these activities would be billable, either, but at least they would move my skills and business forward.

So today I picked up a few more books at the Brooklyn Public Library's business library, including Jeffrey A. Landers' The Home Office From Hell Cure. Landers advocates outsourcing many of these mundane tasks, including hiring a virtual assistant -- basically an off-site secretary/data input person/mail room clerk. I'm not sure how that would technically work with the client database that resides on my hard drive or how I would then sign the cover letters generated off-site, but I suppose these details could be worked out. The larger question is actually two-fold, I think: a. do I really want to manage someone else? and b. do I need to wait until I generate a higher income or will hiring a virtual assistant generate that income?

About a.: I was a middle manager once (in IT) and I hated it. On the other hand, here there is no boss above me telling me to push my assistant. So maybe it would be okay.

On b.: Hiring a virtual assistant would only generate higher income if I spent the time so gained by marketing myself. Since I'm not particularly good at marketing (and don't like it, either), I'm not sure such outsourcing would, in fact, generate more income.

So maybe the answer is not to hire a virtual assistant, but to outsource the marketing -- or at least parts thereof. The problem here is that marketing consultants tend to be expensive. Also, telling from the marketing books I've read, the industry doesn't seem particularly attuned to the special characteristics of marketing a one-person, relatively low-cost service internationally -- which is essentially what would be needed to market a translator. So where would I find someone who doesn't just give me cookie-cutter advice, but really understands how the translation industry works -- both here and in German-speaking Europe?

Catching Up on My Reading

2011-04-20T21:36:00.005-04:00

I found out today that the main Brooklyn Public Library's foreign language section just closed for renovations until mid-June. I guess that gives me time to catch up on the books I did take out, but didn't have time to read yet. So here are some books I recently read and found helpful (not all were from the library):

Make Your Contacts Count: Networking Know-How for Cash, Clients, and Career Success by Anne Baber and Lynne Waymon. Not all of their advice is applicable to one-person businesses selling a business-to-business service, such as translators, but there is useful advice, including how to best network at conferences and how to plan for networking events.

Los Mejores Narradores Jóvenes en Español from Granta. A collection of Spanish-language short stories, not necessarily easy, but good for brushing up my Spanish. As with all short story collections, some are more my taste than others (and a couple I just didn't finish).

The New Media Monopoly by Ben Bagdikian. I read a (much) earlier edition of this book back in college when I majored in Media Studies. It's quite interesting to see what has (and -- even more interesting -- what hasn't) changed since then.

I also enjoy reading Wired magazine -- as does the rest of my family, so we have to negotiate who gets to read it first. The May issue is devoted to exploring humor -- what makes us laugh and why. Did you know there is actually an academic field of "humor studies", complete with an International Society for Humor Studies? Now, I think that is funny in itself.

So what are you reading?

PS: The Science and Technology Division of the American Translators Association just published a post I wrote for the the divison's blog. It's about The Society for Technical Communication (STC).

Happy holidays to those of you who celebrate Easter or Passover!

A Translation Bloggers Community

2011-04-13T20:17:00.006-04:00

During my further reading on marketing strategies I came across the advice to create a two-tiered website: one section would be aimed at potential clients, the other would be for peers.That seems to me makes a lot of sense. On the one hand, we want to attract potential clients, on the other hand, we are also looking for referrals from other translators. Besides, working by ourselves in our home offices, we need the cross-fertilization that comes with talking to others in the same profession.

This blog is already mostly about working as a translator and seems to be mostly read by others in the profession, or entering the field. So it will become the "peer section" of my website. To that end, I've added on the right-hand side a list of links to other translators' blogs and compilations of blogs. My website, then, while retaining a link to this blog (and vice versa) will become even more of a(n attempted) client-acquisition vehicle.

There are, of course, any number of translators' blogs out there. The American Translators' Association lists some of these in its "Blog Trekker" section, but that is only a small number of the available blogs. To turn all of these individual blogs into a conversation we need a common platform on which to exchange our ideas. Sure, we can read and comment on some of the posts, maybe subscribe to several better-known blogs, but none of us has the time to read everything that's being posted by colleagues.

I'm not talking about Watercooler or some of the other fee-based groups that exist. I also don't think creating yet another proprietary platform would be helpful. Instead, we need to find a way to connect all our existing blogs into some sort of network-- preferably one that can be searched by topic, in combination with posting language(s). So, if I'm interested in how other translators have handled non-payment issues from agencies in Eastern Europe, for example, I can check one location rather than having to search various forums and blogs. Since by definition we all speak more than one language -- but none of us speak all the languages in which such information may be available -- it would be helpful if such a search could then be limited to certain languages.

Is this a pipe dream? Would it be helpful? Could it be done? What do you think?

Maybe this is not feasible.

English Only Threatens Our Livelihood

2011-04-06T21:27:00.003-04:00

Reading the review of "You Are What You Speak: Grammar Grouches, Language Laws, and the Politics of Identity" in last weekend's New York Times book review section and Steve Nunez article Language Law Requires Lawmakers to Speak English-Only on Kgun9.com, the Tucson, AZ, ABC affiliate, brought to mind a couple of incidents I encountered a number of years ago both in Austria and the U.S. Both times I was chastised by people not involved in the conversation for speaking the "wrong" language with my children -- English in Vienna and German in New York. Spanish-speaking friends have encountered such boorishness much more frequently.

Besides the obvious moral issues with English-only legislation, such attempts at reigning in the U.S.'s overall multilingualism and multiculturalism should be cause for concern to us language professionals. What does it mean for court interpreters if court proceedings are only conducted in English? How many translators make government documents and forms understandable for Spanish or Chinese speakers? This is not only a political issue, it is also an economic issue for an entire profession.

Professional organizations, such as the American Translators Association, as well as language professionals outside these organizations, should therefore vigorously protest Arizona's and other states' attempts to, in effect, outlaw foreign languages. Maybe it's time to take this issue out of states' hands and once and for all declare the U.S. a country of many languages, many cultures and many religions -- at least on the federal level, if not as an amendment to the constitution.

When Is a Hot Dog a Boiled Puppy?

2011-03-30T19:26:00.007-04:00

Going through back issues of Wired magazine to cull articles worth keeping, a pull-out quote in a March 2010 article on Google's search algorithm caught my eye. It read "The synonym system knew that a dog was similar to a puppy and that boiling water was hot. But it also thought that a hot dog was a boiling puppy."

To be sure, Google has long since fixed that particular search problem, but it does illustrate nicely why translators are unlikely to be supplanted by machines anytime soon. By the way, Google Translate correctly translates hot dog into German, showing both the anglicism "hot dog" and the German variation on a hot dog, "Würstchen" (little sausage). However, its translation of "boiled puppy" into German results in the ungrammatical -- albeit understandable -- "gekocht Welpen" (it should be "gekochter Welpe", since puppy is singular and Welpe is masculine).

All languages contain any number of expression that cannot be taken literally, although it seems to me that English has a greater share of these than some other languages. The IT field, in particular, is rife with expressions which were re-purposed from other contexts (the mouse on my desk is not grey and furry, and when I save this post I'm not rescuing it from drowning or spiriting it away in a vault).

On the other hand, technical instructions are a good candidate for standardized vocabulary, which in turn would be easier for a machine to process. As I have argued in a previous post, we technical translators may find ourselves increasingly editing machine-produced output. However, as I have also argued, this role is only a viable alternative if the way we are paid changes. A per-word rate simply does not take into account the varying amounts of time such editing may take -- independent of whether the text being edited was produced by a human or a machine.

The challenge now is to insist both on a change in the payment structure and a reasonable hourly rate. Unless all (or, at least, most) of us do so, the race to the bottom in terms of pricing will continue and translators producing quality copy will, indeed, be supplanted -- or will have to work for what amounts to minimum wage when viewed on an hourly basis.

To Tweet or Not to Tweet?

2011-03-23T19:49:00.007-04:00

Anthony Gottlieb's essay Montaigne's Moment in a recent edition of The New York Times book review section reports that Michel de Montaigne has been called the first blogger. This 16th century landowner and magistrate's ruminations on his thoughts included such "fascinating" tidbits as his wine preferences, as well as quotations from many classical works -- an early version of links, it could be argued.

The self-involved nature of Montaigne's musings calls to mind tweeters who feel compelled to announce to the world that they ran out of tea or are bored in class. (The mom in me makes me want to reply to the latter: Pay attention instead of tweeting and you might actually learn something.) Books and articles on business marketing now counsel regular tweeting (daily, not weekly or monthly). Okay, but does anyone have profound and interesting things to say that often? So if I'm supposed to send out 140-character missives on a daily basis -- if not more frequently -- I'll wind up tweeting about trivial things.

These articles advise tweeting about current projects, and doing so frequently to show that you are busy working. First of all, many of the non-disclosure agreements I sign would make it difficult to tweet anything other than shallow generalities, along the lines of "I'm translating a long technical guide from Switzerland." Then, if I'm really that busy working, I don't have time to tweet. And if I have time to tweet, then I don't have projects to write about.

Frankly, I have a hard enough time coming up with topics to blog about every week. I am willing to give tweeting a try if I can think about a large enough supply of ideas to write about. To that end: What topics would you, kind readers, like to hear about in this blog (and/or on Twitter)?

Here is one tweet I could have sent if had a Twitter account: My guest blog post on audience-focused documentation was just published on the ATA Science & Technology Division's blog.

Where Is Translation Aid for Japan Relief?

2011-03-16T19:58:00.007-04:00

The recent earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster in Japan bring to mind the translation community's response to the earthquake in Haiti more than a year ago. Numerous countries offered help and sent personnel to assist in search and rescue operations, relief efforts and medical treatment. Since Haiti's language, Haitian Creole, is not spoken widely outside the Haitian community, volunteer translators and programmers collaborated in putting together an English-Creole translation tool during one weekend to help aid workers communicate with the local population.

Googling "translators and aid to Japan" today yields some translation companies offering discounts and expedited service on Japanese language translations to organizations helping in the aftermath of the earthquake, as well as one company offering free 300-word translations to facilitate aid. One post on a Linkedin translation group list said Translators Without Borders was also helping the translation effort in Japan, but I could not find any information about such aid on the group's website.

Japanese is, of course, much more of a world language than Haitian Creole, so that many more professional translators, as well as translation tools are available for that language. In addition, many Japanese speak English fairly well, as do probably many of the foreign relief workers. This is one of the instances where a global lingua franca can be quite helpful -- if not life-saving. On the other hand, such foreign-language skills cannot be assumed of the entire population in the affected area, so that volunteer interpreters would still be quite helpful, I assume.

One way we non-Japanese speaking translators could help, I think, is by contributing to a fund that would reimburse Japanese-speaking volunteer interpreters for their lost income if they spend the next week or two assisting foreign aid workers in Japan instead of working on paid projects at home. If anyone knows of such an effort, please post information in the comments section (and otherwise disseminate widely, maybe through the American Translators Association or the International Federation of Translators.

Can I Add a New Specialization?

2011-03-09T21:07:00.006-05:00

Bette Frick and Liz Willis wrote about not specializing in their technical communications business in the latest issue of Intercom, the magazine of the Society for Technical Communication ("Focusing Your Business: Support for the Independent Consultant or Contractor"). Even though they are not specializing in any one technical area, they are focusing on providing only certain types of services that use their individual strengths.

My increased marketing seems to have paid off not only in more potential projects, but especially in more IT-related translation work. On the one hand, I appreciate that tendency, since I find such texts faster and easier to translate, with less terminology research required. While Ms. Frick and Ms. Willis state that as generalists they tend to learn more new things than specialists would, I found that most of the legal and business documents I receive for translation are pretty similar and, to me at least, not particularly interesting. After all, a contract is a contract, whether it's for selling a gadget, an assembly line or a cake.

On the other hand, a couple of times I worked on documents relating to clean energy technologies. While they required quite a bit of terminology research, I found they offered fascinating insights into, e.g., how wind turbines work. Since Germany is somewhat in the forefront of such technology, I am hoping to work on more documents relating to alternative energy.

While my non-translation background is in IT, not energy, a few more energy-related projects might launch me towards a new area of specialization ... Besides, pretty much all energy generation and distribution systems use some computer technology (as does just about anything else technical), so this could dove-tail nicely with my software background.

For the time being, at least, I do appreciate the relative ease and speed of IT projects, though. Keep them coming!

Too Much Marketing?

2011-03-02T16:19:00.007-05:00

In the wake of my attendance at the tekom conference late last year and as part of my New Year's resolutions, I've sent out quite a bit of marketing material lately. Now I seem to be finally reaping the benefits, in the form of translation projects. That's what I was aiming for, so that's good, right?

Well ... I did want to generate more business in the form of projects being offered. But now I find myself in the (some would say enviable) position of having to turn projects down because there are too many coming in at once. That state of affairs is, of course, fairly common to the freelancer's life and has happened in the past, as well. I have always made good on my promise of quality delivery on time and therefore won't take on more projects than I can successfully handle.

The difference is this: established clients understand that sometimes I have too much work and will need to turn them down. Occasionally they will even postpone a deadline and wait for me to catch up on on my workload. While new clients understand this, too, in principle, if I turn them down more than once, they'll wonder why I bothered marketing to them in the first place and stop offering me projects. Then the draught of work will set in and I will start marketing more, and ...

So how do I know when I have enough potential clients in the pipeline and should stop trying to acquire more? Frankly, I don't know how to determine that. Are there any rules of thumb? Do you have any experience with this? Your input is appreciated.

"Schwyzerdütsch" in IT

2011-02-23T22:57:00.008-05:00

Somehow I wound up with several IT-related translations from Swiss German this week. While written Swiss business German is much closer to standard German than one would expect when hearing the spoken language, it does have its peculiarities. Oddly, a number of Swiss words and phrases -- at least in the IT world -- seem much closer to their English equivalent than to the corresponding word or phrase used in Germany.

On the other hand, I sometimes have to resort to googling Swiss websites (via www.google.ch) to find out what a particular term means. So far I have always been able to find at least a website that uses the term in enough context and/or explains it so I can figure out what is meant, even if most of these websites do not appear to be bilingual. Come to think of it, many of the Swiss German websites I have encountered in this way not only didn't have an English version, but also didn't appear to have been translated into French or Italian, the other official Swiss languages. That seems a little odd, especially after browsing a number of Canadian website that all opened with a page to choose the English or French versions -- although admittedly these were websites in Quebec.

In any case, a couple of years back I had a spate of Swiss texts to translate and finally bought myself a Swiss German-English dictionary (the well-known German dictionary publisher Langenscheidt produces such a dictionary). While this helps with general business texts, it's a relatively small general-purpose dictionary that lacks many IT-specific terms. Does anyone know about a Swiss German-English IT dictionary?

Then again, I remember calling IT support in Switzerland when I was the network supervisor for a department in a Swiss bank in New York. Most of the people I spoke with weren't Swiss and spoke German (or French or Italian) as a second (or third) language. Since many of them were Indian (not an outsourced help desk, but Indians living in Zurich), we communicated much more easily in English than in German. So I wonder whether some of the more English-sounding IT terms I am encountering are indeed Swiss German or were coined by IT personnel who is more at home in English than in Swiss German.

It might be interesting to speak to people at IT-related companies in Switzerland about this, but I doubt I will have a chance to visit there any tiime soon...

Taking Stock

2011-02-17T10:43:00.010-05:00

Several of you commented on my Jan. 5 post about New Year's resolutions, so I thought I'd summarize how it's been going so far:

Marketing
I have submitted one article, committed to two more, and proposed two to three other articles for various newsletters and blogs. Posting to this blog is also on track, although I need to develop a list of topics to cover. I attended, or have signed up for, networking meetings through March. While I've been trying to keep to my schedule for posts to this blog, I need to develop a list of topics I can use when inspiration doesn't strike. My Achilles heel here are the "cold call" e-mails. I've only done 4 and have some trouble identifying enough contacts to whom to send such e-mails.
Client Tracking
The schedule I had set for myself is proving to be rather disruptive to my work flow. While I've tried to keep up with it so far, I'll switch to a fixed day of the week when I do that week's data entry and follow-up mailings.
Knowledge
I attended the Introduction to Trados webinar and am working through the handout to prepare for the certification exam, which I am planning on taking in March. In addition, I've attended a couple of informative lectures, but no hands-on training. I've also run out of Spanish books to read and need to get to the library for more such reading material.
Marketability
Besides working on learning Trados, I haven't done anything in this department yet. I am planning on taking the the certification exam at the American Translators Association's Oct. conference in Boston, but I need to start preparing for that exam.
Productivity
I started training Dragon Naturally Speaking, but need to spend more time on that before I can really use the program. I've tried to teach myself ACT! as I go along, but I'm having trouble getting customized automation for reminders & such to work. Will need to look for a book on that software ...

Thanks for all your comments and encouragement. I won't bore you with frequent updates on the status of things, but I am planning to post a 6-month evaluation of my plans and their implementation by this July.

Canada is Bilingual -- Why Not the U.S., Too?

2011-02-09T20:05:00.005-05:00

I just returned from a mini-vacation in Montreal and Quebec City, Canada. While I kept struggling to get directions or negotiate payments in French, Montrealers in particular seemed to effortlessly move in and out of English and French, depending on the situation and persons involved. That was even true for some American friends who had moved to Montreal a few years ago and were working in a French-speaking environment. Even in Quebec City, where French is much more prevalent than in Montreal, our elderly host at the Bed and Breakfast where we stayed easily switched to English when he saw me struggling to understand him.

Given that everyone in Quebec learns both languages starting in elementary school and not infrequently encounters situations where he/she needs to use his/her non-dominant language that is not surprising. Since fluency in multiple languages is becoming increasingly important in a ever more globalized world, one wonders why it is so rare outside special circumstances such as officially bi-lingual countries. It seems to me that a similar strategy of early immersion in a second language could be replicated relatively easily at least in large U.S. cities, most of which have a rather significant Spanish-speaking population.

If children here in New York, for example, were to learn Spanish intensively starting in, say, third grade, and then were encouraged to use that knowledge in day-to-day interactions with the city's Spanish-speaking population, we could raise a bilingual generation. That would, of course, also require expanding access to Latino cultural contributions to the mainstream, selling Spanish-speaking newspapers everywhere and increasing Spanish-language programming on TV and radio.

My only problem with that scenario is that if I went to Quebec then, my Spanish would intrude into my French even more than it does now.

Where Will Technological Change Lead Us?

2011-02-02T22:08:00.010-05:00

I recently attended Neil Perlin's presentation "Developing For the Unknown ..." at a a meeting by the Society for Technical Communications' New York chapter. While his talk centered on programming strategies for technical writers who prepare browser-based help systems, his basic point applies to translation as well: we don't know what technological changes will happen in our profession over the next few years, so we need to prepare for "the unknown".

While translating text does not depend as much on technology as coding online systems, changes in software and information sources do require us to change the way we work. When I started out more than 10 years ago, computer-assisted translation (CAT) tools were not all that common for freelance translators. Online terminology databases were also fairly limited. So back then most of my work involved using paper dictionaries and typing the translation into a word processing document, all the while keeping track of terminology choices on paper or in a separate spreadsheet. After I finished the translation, I had to go back and format the text to match the original.

Now I work with two computer screens: one contains the source and target text side-by-side in a CAT tool (Wordfast or Trados), the other screen holds a browser with each tab opening to a different online dictionary or terminology list. To keep track of terminology, I add terms to an online glossary integrated in the CAT tool. All this makes translating faster and ensures more uniform terminology, but it also means I can't really work reasonably efficiently on my laptop. So despite the technological advances, I'm now more tethered to my desk than I was before.

On the other hand, having most of the resources online does enable me to work from somewhere else without having to lug multiple heavy dictionaries, as well as printouts of source text, around. (I do still own -- and use -- a number of paper-based dictionaries, but far less than I used to).

But technological change not only influences our work habits, it may change the profession itself. Machine translation is getting better and becoming more widely used. Post-editing of machine translations appears more frequently on job boards for translators. So the big unknown in our profession is: where will that trend end in 2, or 5, or 10 years? Will we all be reduced to editing machine-generated translations or, worse yet, become redundant as machine translation is pronounced "good enough", at least for technical texts?

What Is the State of Language Education in the (U.S.) Union?

2011-01-26T20:08:00.004-05:00

In last night"s "State of the Union" address, U.S. President Barack Obama emphasized the need to improve education in the U.S. This blog is not the appropriate venue to discuss education policy per se, but while President Obama listed the teaching of science and math as lagging behind other countries, foreign language classes were not mentioned.

That seems curious, given that high school graduates in most industrialized countries have learned significantly more foreign languages at a higher level than even most U.S. college graduates. When I graduated high school in Austria ("Abitur") in the 1970s, I had studied English for 8 years and French for 4 years, for 3-5 classroom hours per week, per language. The only reason I didn't have to take a third language (Latin most likely) was that I attended a math and science high school. Nowadays, English instruction starts in elementary school.

This type of curriculum is rather typical of most of Europe, as well as other industrialized nations. Almost everywhere the first foreign language -- frequently English -- is started by 5th grade at the very latest, with at least one more foreign language required for high school graduation, except for specialized technical schools. In most public schools in the U.S., by contrast, instruction in a foreign language doesn't start until high school and then only encompasses one language for 3 years,taught 3-4 times per week.

Business books and articles here in the U.S. keep emphasizing that knowledge of other languages and cultures is key to breaking into foreign markets. Studies on language acquisition have proven time and again a foreign language is acquired much more easily at a young age. So if improvements in education are supposed to make the U.S. more competitive in the world market in the long term, as President Obama said yesterday, why is there no major investment in foreign language instruction?

And what can we, as language professionals, contribute to making foreign language instruction more of a centerpiece of U.S. education? Speaking another language, after all, not only makes communication easier, but it also opens the door to better understanding other people's cultures and views – and that seems to me is a worthwhile goal in and of itself.

Are Icons Really a Global Language?

2011-01-19T21:49:00.003-05:00

In "The Global Language: Using Symbols and Icons When Delivering Technical Content", Alan J. Porter writes in the December 2010 issue of Intercom, the journal of the Society for Technical Communication, that "many icons such as the ones on your computer screen are common enough that none of them require explanation". Well ...

This is certainly true for me, and probably for most of you, as well. But go back just one generation. How many such icons are familiar to your parents? Mine may recognize the MS Windows logo as something computer-related, but a diskette as a "Save" icon -- indeed, the very concept of saving data electronically instead of as a hard copy -- may well not be understood without an explanation. The same is likely true for many people in the developing world, or even members of marginalized groups in industrialized countries.

Simplified graphics can convey information across cultural and linguistic barriers more easily than words can. Hitchhiking across Europe in my youth, I found that gestures and improvised stick-figure images let me get by in countries where I didn't speak the local -- or the dominant foreign -- language. Computer and furniture manufacturers are also turning more and more to graphics for their setup and assembly instructions. Some have even dispensed with text altogether in these instructions.

While that design reduces or eliminates translation costs, it is not as fool-proof as one might think. Even well-designed pictoral instructions rely on certain cultural conventions -- reading sequences from left to right, one horizontal row at a time, for example. How would a user accustomed to a right-to-left language, such as Arabic or Hebrew, read these instructions?

Similarly, Western icons indicating danger, such as a red background color, may not mean the same thing somewhere else. How would someone in rural China -- where red is associated with luck, not danger -- interpret such a warning box? Might they think that the action depicted in the red box is to be preferred, rather than avoided?

I'd say, a picture can supplement, but not replace, a thousand words. And these words will still need to be translated...

So I'm Buying CRM Software, After All

2011-01-12T18:35:00.006-05:00

I promised in my last post that I'd explain why I am now getting customer relationship management software, when in December I had still thought I'd get by with Outlook Business Contact Manager and work-arounds.

For one thing, as I am adding more and more information to Outlook (and getting and keeping more e-mails), it has become rather sluggish. The only way I could find to group people in one company together in Outlook is to create a new account for each company, then add individual contact records. That was becoming quite tedious. The search function is also not as flexible as I need it to be and the work-around for creating letters, etc. just got to be too much of a problem. And Outlook interfaces for most programs seem to only look at the regular contact list, not the Business Contact Manager contacts (which are apparently in a separate database).

So I looked around the web some more and decided to give ACT! a try. I installed a trial version of their newest product, wound up importing my Outlook business contacts via a generic .csv file, and started to work with it. Most of my problems with Outlook seem to be addressed here, including options for more extensive customization than Microsoft products -- including Outlook -- generally provide. There is also a version for Windows mobile (the operating system on my Smartphone), which I may buy later.

Once I decided to spend the money on "real" CRM software, I found a deal where I could get more than half the purchase price back as a refund check. So I ordered the full version of the software.

Now, of course, another snowstorm hit in the Northeast, so who knows when it will actually be delivered ...

My New Year's Resolutions -- But Will They Last?

2011-01-05T19:04:00.011-05:00

T'is the season for good intentions. So here are my attempts at New Year's resolutions:

Rev up my marketing by:
- writing one outside article/guest blog post per month
- sending five marketing e-mails per month to new prospects or people contacting me for the first time
- keeping to a stricter blog schedule: every Wednesday night/Thursday morning
- attending one networking event a month
- adding one new page to my website (in both languages) each quarter

Better track clients by:
- purchasing and learning customer-relationship management software (contrary to my earlier post -- more on that later)
- entering potential clients in the software within one day of a new contact (e-mail, phone)
- mailing brochure to such potential clients within 2 days of a new contact

Enhance my knowledge by:
- learning Trados (now that I have the software)
- improving my Spanish by reading Spanish texts twice a week
- attending one training event/lecture a month on average

Increase my marketability by:
- getting ATA certified in German-English
- finding other translators to collaborate with
- getting Trados certified
- learning PowerPoint in detail

Increase my productivity by:
- training Dragon Naturally Speaking and actually using it
- learning to use software I own more efficiently (Trados, customer relationship, Dragon, ...)

I have started on a few of these already, but it will take quite a bit of time and energy to actually stick to them. Let's see how much of this I have accomplished by, say, June ...

Now I just have to find time to actually translate, too!

It's Not How Busy You Are, It's How Much You Make

2010-12-30T17:44:00.003-05:00

This seems to be the year of natural mini-disasters in New York City. A heat wave in July, a tornado ripping through Brooklyn in September, and now there's a blizzard that has stopped the city in its tracks. But I've already written enough this year about backups and disaster preparedness (How I Handled the Tornado and Other Service Problems, Backing Up Work, Backup Procedures & Disaster Preparedness), so I won't belabor the point. The advantage of a home office is that besides shoveling the sidewalk in front of my house, I didn't have to venture outside.

In 2010, a number of surveys on how the recession affected businesses were conducted, including some about the recession's impact on the translation industry. Many, if not most, translators who answered these surveys said that they had plenty of work. At the same time, though, translators in forums and discussion lists were talking about agencies and clients asking for price cuts. So while there was work, how well was it paid?

That seems to me to be the real question: not, did we have as much work as before, but did we earn as much as before per hour worked? I, for one, found that I needed to spend more time marketing myself than I had to before, so the same per-word rate had to cover more unpaid work. In addition, some smaller agencies went out of business, or at least stopped dealing with German translations, some agencies requested price cuts, and one (non-U.S.) agency simply stopped paying altogether.

So while I worked more hours in 2010 than I did in 2009, my net earnings were probably lower than they had been in the previous year, certainly if I divide them by the time I spent working. So how did 2010 treat you?

A happy -- and more prosperous -- New Year!

No Trial Version, No Sale

2010-12-23T13:46:00.004-05:00

A few weeks ago I detailed the time I spent following up with contacts I had made at the German tekom conference in November (Follow-Up Is Time-Consuming). In addition, I am also receiving unsolicited e-mails inquiring about my services. Some of these seem promising, so I send out my brochure and try to track these potential clients, as well.

Until now, I've input all that contact information in Outlook with Business Contact Manager and linked all e-mail exchanges with a particular prospect to that prospect's record. Outlook seems to have its limits, though, when dealing with multiple contacts at the same agency and when trying to customize the information recorded for each contact. I use 3 of the 4 user-defined fields to track language of communication (English or German), form of address (there are 2 different ones in German), and whether I've mailed them my brochure (checkbox). Also, there is no way to directly jump from a contact's record to MS Word in order to write a cover letter for the brochure mailing.

So I began to look at customer relationship management software for small businesses. Turns out, while there are a number of such programs, most are either web-based or don't seem to offer more useful functionality than the Outlook I already own. I don't want to entrust my customer data to the web and I don't need inventory management or salesperson assignments. All I really need is a better integration of Outlook and Word and a way to customize Outlook so that the data I need to track is easily accessible at a glance and tracking communications with the client can be automated.

Rooting around my copy of Outlook yielded a feature that allows me to design my own screens. That might let me track the data I need on each contact's main screen. While that doesn't solve the Word integration problem, it seems if I start from Word, I can create a one-record mail merge that will pull name and address from the Outlook record. That does seem the long way around, though.

There is one product I discovered that works within Outlook and might have been useful. It is called Prophet and also exists for various Smartphone platforms. While it appeared to be more sales-oriented than I need, it seemed worth a try. A major drawback, though: there is no free trial edition. I am not about to spend $150 on some software without knowing whether it will, in fact, do what I need it to do. The company does have a 30-day money-back guarantee, but do I really want the potential hassle and time I'd need to spend to actually get my money back?

For the time being, I'll therefore stick with my Outlook and try to customize it to work for my purposes. I'll keep you updated on that project after the New Year.

Happy holidays!

How Long Is Too Long?

2010-12-17T18:47:00.005-05:00

After sending out follow-up e-mails, as well as brochures and holiday cards to the vendors I initally contacted at the tekom conference in November, I've now seen some return on that investment in the form of requests for test translations and agency application forms to fill out. After reviewing my translation, these agencies then send agreements for me to sign.

A good portion of these contracts covers fairly standard subject matter and conditions:

Keep end client's information confidential
Don't contact the end client without approval from the agency
Adhere to deadlines
Invoice the agency
Fix the translation, if the quality is not up to par

None of these conditions are a problem, but the timeframes some agency attach to certain conditions do give me pause.

One agency, for example, wants to prohibit me from ever working with any of their end clients without their approval. I can understand such a prohibition for a year or two after ending work with the agency, but if I could never contact any of the end clients of the agencies with whom I work, I'd spend the rest of my career unable to even attempt to acquire end clients of my own.

Another agency wants me to agree to correct translations up to 2 years after submitting them. I can see an end client needing a month, or even two, to check all translation it receives for a large or complex project, but even my appliances don't have a two-year warranty.

What surprises me most is that apparently few translators object to such terms, otherwise they would likely have been stricken from standard agency contracts by now. Different translators will have different thresholds about what they're willing to sign, but we do need minimum standards below which we won't sign a contract. What's your standard?

Does Cutting Language Classes Foster Narrow Minds?

2010-12-08T11:09:00.005-05:00

A recent article in The New York Times described budget-cutting measures at a number of colleges that involved elminiating the teaching of certain languages, including cutting entire majors. Such measures primarily affect European languages, in particular German and French.

While a move away from traditionally euro-centric college curricula is laudable, such a broadening of horizons beyond Europe should be accomplished by extending, not contracting, the number of subjects offered. Given the economic and political power now wielded by some Asian countries, students should certainly be encouraged to study Mandarin or Japanese. But cutting German and French classes is unlikely to push students to become fluent in Mandarin instead. Rather, they will probably switch to another European language, such as Spanish, to fulfill their language requirement.

If that requirement still exists, that is. Part of this latest round of trimming expenses at colleges includes eliminating the need to learn a language altogether. Everyone else speaks English anyway, the argument goes, so why bother teaching American students another language?

Here's why: Language study is more than the acquisition of linguistic competence. It not only includes units about the culture(s) connected to the language in question, but also teaches students that -- and how -- the world can be expressed -- and by extension looked at -- in a different way. Growing up entirely monolingual, without ever delving into another language -- even to the limited extent offered by the American educational system -- only fosters even more of the "the rest of the world better behave our way, or else" mindset already way too prevalent in the U.S.

Ignorance is not bliss -- particularly when it comes to knowing other languages and cultures!

IT Department, Please!

2010-12-04T13:20:00.004-05:00

T'is the season for computer problem, it seems -- at least in my house. First, my cable modem's incoming signal went. Then the networking cable we had run between the 3rd-floor cable modem and the 2nd-floor router went bad. And now my desktop computer won't recognize half its memory. If I worked in a regular office, I'd have called the IT department each time. But, of course, being a freelancer there is no IT department.

So I first rebooted the various components of my home network and tested connections with my netbook before calling the cable company. After half an hour on the phone, the verdict was: no incoming signal. This was a Friday morning and the company offered to send a technician out on Saturday late morning. Meanwhile, I had work to do. So I packed up my netbook and took the subway to a cafe with free WiFi to complete a project that needed to get done that day.When I got home, the cable company apparently had fixed the problem from afar. Between the testing, phone calls and travel time to the cafe I had lost 2 hours or so an IT department would have saved me.

Two days later the internet connection on my desktop stopped working again. After more rebooting and testing connections I determined that the cable connecting my cable modem on the 3rd floor with the router in my office on the 2nd floor had apparently stopped working. Instead of calling the IT department, I moved the wireless router up to the 3rd floor, got on the subway and bought a wireless USB connector for my desktop. Then I had to reconfigure the printer to print through a USB connection to my desktop instead of through the network. Another 3 hours or so spent fixing computers instead of translating.

Then both my husband and son were home and using the wireless network, as well. My wireless connection began to slow to the point where I couldn't keep running the multiple applications and online dictionaries I normally use. Solved that problem by telling my son to get off the internet and my husband to work from his office instead of from home. Not really an IT department job, but they would probably have gotten me rewired by now. Looks like I'll have to do that rewiring myself. I'm just not sure how we'll accomplish that on the third floor, since our ladder is not that long (the cable ran on the outside of the building, underneath the new siding we had put on a couple of years ago).

Booting up my desktop this morning, the computer informed me that the amount of memory in my system had changed. Apparently it is no longer recognizing half my RAM. So I'll have to spend part of the weekend trying to address that problem. I'm hoping opening the computer and re-seating the memory will do the trick, but who knows ...

I love being able to set my own hours, decide which projects to take and not having to commute to work, but sometimes I do long for a "real" office with an IT department.

How to Deal With Disparate Holiday Schedules Across Continents

2010-11-26T09:39:00.006-05:00

Yesterday was a holiday here in the U.S. (Thanksgiving), and many people make a long weekend of it, hosting friends or family or visiting them. In Europe, however, where most of my clients are located, it was a regular workday, as is today. As a result, e-mails responding to my latest marketing effort and/or offering translation projects kept arriving while I was preparing for out-of-town guests and an elaborate dinner for 8+. That's the downside of working across borders, I guess.

While some holidays are pretty much standard across countries and cultures (New Years, for example), many are not. In addition, the earlier timezone in Central Europe means that e-mails from Germany, Austria, England, etc. have already poured in before I even get out of bed at 7 a.m. my time. One possible answer to this situation would be to limit my working hours -- and thus the hours during which I respond to e-mails -- to the standard work day in New York City, where I live. That would, however, likely cost me a number of projects, if not clients.

So instead I rely on technology to let me deal with business during off-hours in New York. Business e-mail is routed to my smartphone (in addition to MS Outlook on my desktop computer), and I can even write short MS Office documents (Word, Excel) on my phone. That means I can answer e-mails while setting up breakfast for my family or cooking dinner for guests. If the e-mail requires additional research or information I can at least respond that this is a holiday and that I'll reply more fully by a specific time or date.

Had we driven to visit my daughter and her husband in Philadelphia, instead of them coming to us, I would have taken my netbook to write this post, then used their internet connection to actually post it. Instead, I'm taking a quick break from hosting and cooking to write it from the desktop in my office. Mobile technology is great for staying in touch even when we're doing other things!

How do you deal with disparate holiday schedules and the demands of your own family and friends?

Follow-Up Is Time-Consuming

2010-11-19T08:26:00.008-05:00

No more blog-writing on the train. I'm back in New York and writing this one on my PC's large screen -- it is an improvement over the 10" screen on my netbook, I must say.

After attending the tekom conference in early November, I wrote follow-up e-mails to everyone I had met there, as well as to the people to whom my contacts had referred me. (Many of the exhibitors were sales persons and gave me the name of their vendor management person.) Since I didn't have direct internet access from my netbook, that meant writing them all in one large Word file, copying that file onto a USB stick, then using a gmail account I had set up from the browser on my uncle's computer to copy and send each of the e-mails separately. It took probably a couple of hours to write and send these 40 or so e-mails.

Later during my trip I started to receive the first replies to my e-mails, usually asking for more information. Using the same gmail account from my sister's desktop, I replied that I'd supply that information upon my return to the U.S. the following week. These e-mails came in small doses, but let's say another half hour or so for checking my e-mail and replying to these.

After returning to New York on Monday of this week, I followed up on these e-mails and supplied the information requested -- most frequently by filling in online vendors questionnaires. Since each questionnaire was in a different format and requested different information (including the version numbers of some of my software and similar items I had to look up), it took a while to complete them all. Another hour and a half for this, I'd say.

Wednesday I input the information from all the business cards I had collected at tekom into my Outlook Business Contact Manager, including a note on whether the person in question was a direct contact or someone I was referred to and a note on the language of communication (English or German). That process was quite time-consuming since all the phone numbers and such on each business card had to be input and checked on screen. I probably spent a couple of hours on Outlook.

Yesterday I created cover letters to send brochures to either the person I was referred to or, if no referral occured, the direct contact. Since the text was slightly different for referrals versus direct contacts and some letters were in English while others were in German, a mail merge operation didn't seem to make much sense. I therefore wrote sample letters, copied them into a Word document and then personalized each one by copying the address information from the Outlook record, then adding the salutation and, in the case of referrals, the name of the person who had referred me. Once that file was done, I could load my printer with letterhead and let the entire file print on its own. Let's say an hour total for this operation.

After that was done, I had to print an envelope for each contact. My all-in-one printer/copier/scanner/fax only prints one envelope at a time, and misfeeds if loaded with more than 6 or 7 envelopes at a time. So the envelope printing process took quite some time, although I was signing and folding the cover letters at the same time, then stuffing envelopes as they printed. That entire operation must have taken another 45 minutes or so.

Next, the trip to the post office. The lines at our local post office are usually fairly long, but they now have a nifty self-service machine. Except that machine only does 5 stamps at a time if you don't want standard U.S. postage. I mailed more than 20 letters, in 5-stamp intervals, so that took a little while, too, maybe 15 minutes.

After all this I've received the first requests for test translations. I won't include the time spent on these here, but just the "advertising" portion of this follow-up has taken me a full workday. Maybe its time to investigate customer relationship management software after all ...

Why Don’t People Read the Documentation?

2010-11-11T02:48:00.000-05:00

It looks like this is turning into a train blog. This time I'm sitting in the train back from Salzburg, Austria, where I visited an uncle who makes flight simulators and also supports them. He told me how customers don't read the documentation he wrote, but instead call him whenever they have trouble operating his equipment. That seems to be a universal problem for technical writers: customers don't bother to consult the help files or printed documentation, then complain if the equipment doesn't work the way they think it should work. They think, for example, that a specific action should be triggered by a particular button. When that button doesn't perform the action they expect, they call the customer service desk rather than consulting the documentation about the correct button to press.

On the other hand, how often have you and I attempted to decipher badly written, badly organized and/or badly translated documentation for some device we bought? Small wonder that customers give up on even trying to consult documentation after they have encountered a few such texts that were written in programmer speak, contained factual errors or were translated into garbled English. If customers are to get into the habit of consulting help files or booklets, they must consistently encounter files or booklets that actually help them solve problems with the devices they handle.

This, in turn, means that the documentation -- in whatever form -- must not only be accurate and well written, but also well-organized, with a device's particular audience in mind. A cell phone intended for senior citizens, for example, needs to be accompanied by an extensive printed booklet illustrating each step with large screen shots. A software developer kit that lets programmers write code for a certain computer platform, on the other hand, requires only very specific online information and can include acronyms and IT terminology.

While technical writers need to keep their audience in mind when writing the source text, we translators all too often forget -- or never know -- who might be reading our document. Just as the original writer's word choices depend on the target audience, so do ours. Sometimes we can glean from the source document who the likely readers might be, as in the examples cited above. But if that is not obvious and the client didn't tell us, we should ask. No need for extensive audience analysis, but the answer to "Will this document be provided to the consumer or to the technician servicing the device?" or a similar question should provide enough information so that we can gear our choice of vocabulary and sentence structure towards the target audience.

If we consistently ask this question, agencies and end clients will get into the habit of providing that information with the project. This will (hopefully) result in documentation that is useful to the end consumer, leading to them actually reading the documentation.

How Multilingual Are Europeans? Observations From tekom

2010-11-05T02:06:00.002-04:00

I wrote this on the train back to Vienna, Austria, after attending the tekom conference in Wiesbaden, Germany, for the past couple of days. A word about the trains here: I was sitting at a table in a high-speed train with WiFi internet access (unfortunately not free), travelling about the distance from New York to Montreal for around US$50. Quite a number of conference participants were at Wiesbaden’s main train station tonight -- even people from the surrounding towns who in the U.S. would probably have driven to the conference. Seems the Germans (and other Europeans) are on to something when it comes to reducing travel’s environmental impact ...

tekom is the technical communications conference in Germany, held twice a year -- in Berlin in the Spring and Wiesbaden in the Fall. It had quite a large translation component, including more than 60 translation agencies exhibiting at the fair held concurrently with the conference. As with most international events, the conference languages were the local language (i.e., German) and English. This lead to a panel composed entirely of German native speakers discussing the topic at hand with each other in English for the benefit of audience members who don’t speak German. Similarly, I overheard several informal conversations in English where clearly none of the participants were English native speakers.

English is not only the lingua franca at global events, it has become the official corporate language even at companies headquartered in non-English-speaking countries. A conference participant from Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche, for example, said that all documentation for company products is originally written in English and then translated into any number of languages, including German and French, the two major official Swiss languages. His colleague was Rumanian and the two conversed in English with each other during the dinner we attended. The other two women who joined our table were from the Czech Republic, so the rest of the dinner conversation was in English, as well.

Such an international mix makes sense at a global conference, but I found that at least within the technical communications field many companies have become much more mixed in terms of nationalities than they were until not that long ago. I spoke with a representative of the German multinational Bosch’s language division who was from India. That conversation took place in German since the representative is based near Stuttgart, Germany, and speaks excellent German. Another language services provider, OmniLingua, has offices in Germany and Greece, among other countries. I spoke to the company’s representative in German, but was asked to forward my information to the company’s vendor manager, who is Greek. That e-mail is to be in English (I asked).

I found time and again that linguistic preferences could not be assumed based on a person’s -- or his/her company’s -- name. As movement within the European Union increases, many companies are becoming more polyglot, including employees from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds. At least among the educated professionals who attend such conferences, fluency in the company’s corporate language, in addition to English and one’s native language, as well as knowledge of the language of the country/region where one lives, is assumed.

In addition, professionals are expected to understand English-language literature relating to their profession. That professional use of English, however, also has its drawbacks. My brother (who still lives in Austria) recently noticed at an international youth event that while his professional English vocabulary is fairly extensive, he lacks basic vocabulary for other areas of life. (In case you are curious, he produces precision brass instruments for professional musicians.)

Compare such assumptions with the fact that many U.S. professionals only speak English, with maybe a basic knowledge of whichever language they took in college for a couple of years (likely Spanish or French). On the other hand, if all English speakers learned German to the extent that German speakers learn English, nobody would bother to translate German documentation. Where would I find clients then?

What Services Can Translators "Upsell"?

2010-10-27T11:28:00.006-04:00

I've recently read up on marketing my services better. A few articles in a recent New York Enterprise report and elsewhere got me thinking that simply translating text may no longer be sufficient to get enough work at prices that let me live in New York City.

"Upselling" -- or adding products/services (for a fee) to consumer's core purchases -- seems to be the word of the day (or year). I can't seem even to shop for groceries anymore without the cashier trying to sell me something I don't want or need. Sometimes this can border on the ridiculous as when a toy store cashier tried to sell me batteries to go with a simple old-style board game.

While I will not subject my own (prospective) clients to the kinds of hard sell I experience in stores, I could be offering additional services on my website and in my marketing materials. So what services would it make sense to add?

Besides translating a website's text, I could update the source code pages with the new text, adjusting table width and similar code as necessary.
Besides translating a PowerPoint presentation's text, I could adjust the layout and text sizes to make everthing fit.
Besides translating a whitepaper's text, I could translate the flowcharts contained in the paper, resizing text as necessary.
In addition to accepting Adobe PDFs as source format (a necessary evil in our industry, it seems), I could provide the completed translation in that format, as well, with the original images intact and properly placed.

I could provide all these services with relatively little extra investment (except for buying MS Visio), although I would have to become more adept at some of the software involved. For example, I know basic PowerPoint features (and have created PowerPoints before), but I'd have to play around with the program some more to get up to speed on more advanced features. Similarly, I have used a previous version of MS Visio, but would need to teach myself the current version.

There are certainly other services translators could add to their core business, including working with other file formats (such as FrameMaker); writing the source text, as well; providing a country-appropriate layout for the text (probably more applicable for translations into right-to-left or top-to-bottom languages, such as Chinese or Arabic). I might explore some of these next year.

So what's your "upsell" -- or what could it be?

PS: I will be attending the tekom conference next week in Wiesbaden, Germany, and visiting family in Austria, so postings for the next few weeks may be more sporadic.

What in the World is Erse?

2010-10-21T20:12:00.004-04:00

Yesterday's New York Times crossword puzzle asked for a 4-letter "European tongue". Based on other words around it, my husband and I came up with E_SE. None of the lesser-known European languages we could think of -- Sami in Scandinavia, Romani and Sinti in Eastern Europe, Basque in Spain, Gaelic in Ireland, Alsatian in France, Romansch in Switzerland -- would fit that pattern. It turns out (we had to wait for the solution in today's paper) that it's Erse. So what language is that and who speaks it?

Well, googling "Erse" gets you a manufacturer of components for audio and video equipment in the top spot, but then a couple of definitions from Wikipedia and several dictionaries, including Merriam-Webster. According to them, it is an alternate word for Gaelic, based on the Middle English word for Irish, Erisch.

Aha, not a language/people I had never heard of. So what would other languages be called in Middle English? Again, enter the web. There is an online Middle English dictionary housed at the University of Michigan. So German was called Alemaine back then (presumably related to the French Allemand). Next question then: how did we get German from Alemaine?

Enter the Online Etymology Dictionary. Apparently, German doesn't come from the Middle English Alemaine, but rather is based on the Latin germanus. Caesar used the plural, germani, to designate tribes in northeastern Gaul, possibly based on the name of one of those tribes. There is also a Celtic word "garim" meaning to shout and speculation is that germanus may be derived from that. Anybody who has ever been to an Oktoberfest can attest to the noisy character of that occasion -- although that probably holds true for any celebration largely based on an alcoholic beverage, no matter the culture.

What one doesn't learn when doing crossword puzzles! They do help expand one's vocabulary, even if this particular word will likely be of little use. A large vocabulary helps anyone working with language -- writer, editor, translator. So solving crossword puzzles (in both source and target languages) is a useful pastime for a translator. To that end, I'll buy a couple of crossword puzzle books when I go to Austria late next week.

If this piqued your crossword interests, here are a couple of sites that offer free online crosswords:

In English:

Boatload Puzzles
WebCrosswords.com
Thinks.com (this one comes with a timer for the uber-competitive crowd)
Los Angeles Times daily puzzle

In German:

Freizeit Freunde
Nordbayern.de (this one features instant feedback on your entries)
Focus Online

Happy puzzling!

A 12-Step Program for Large Projects

2010-10-14T18:11:00.005-04:00

I just completed a 3-week-long translation project that consisted of one 700-page long source file (63,000 words plus screen shots). In the process, I learned a few lessons on how to handle such mega-projects more efficiently. Here are my 12 steps for working on such projects:

Read the text in its entirety (on screen to save trees) and note important/recurring terms in an Excel spreadsheet or Word table
Research the terms you noted above and fill in the spreadsheet/table. This is your own glossary.
Divide the source file into smaller files. When doing so, make both the table of contents and the index separate files.
Import the glossary spreadsheet into your translation memory software and translate the table of contents and index. Add all terms in these two files to your glossary.
Translate your first source file, revising your glossary terms, if necessary, and adding any new terms you encounter.
Edit that translation before going on to the other files. This way you will have a solid basis for recurring text in the other files.
Translate the other files, one by one. If you change your mind on a term, add it to a list of changes to make to previous files.
After translating all files, edit the translations one by one. Make the term changes you noted above while you are editing.
Now convert each of the translated files back to MS Word (or whichever format is used for the deliverable).
Check that the formatting isn't too egregiously off in the Word documents and nothing is garbled.
Combine the Word documents back into one large file, checking for missing/duplicate text at the points where the files are joined.
Send the completed translation off. You may need to use a service, such as You SendIt or Dropbox, to transfer the file back to the client, if it's too large for e-mail.

One more thing I learned from this project: electrical engineering is actually quite interesting. Maybe I'll pick up an "Electrical Engineering 101" book one of these days ...

Be Organized and Keep Your Translator Happy

2010-10-07T10:19:00.006-04:00

Quite a while back, I wrote about issues to note when writing for translation. During a recent large translation project, I realized that clients may also need to be educated on potential organizational issues related to translation. So here are some dos and don'ts for clients preparing for a translation:

If there is a glossary, provide it up front, not a week into the assignment. This means scheduling enough time to develop the glossary before assigning the translation.
If you want the translator(s) to develop a glossary in the course of the translation, tell him/her up front. Accept a format that can be exported from common translation (CAT) tools -- usually a tab- or comma-delimited file.
If you absolutely need a glossary in a different format, expect to compensate the translator for the extra time spent preparing it.
Proofread the original (source) text, paying particular attention to missing text, garbled sentences and similar problems that impede understanding.
Remember, the translator is not a member of your staff. He/she is therefore not familiar with company-internal acronyms, such as abbreviations for names of departments or specific jobs. If you use these, provide the translator with a list (incl. the meaning/full wording of each acronym).

If you are a translator, are there any other issues to be added to this list?

If you are a translation buyer, what else do you provide the translator to ensure a smooth project?

International Translation Day: Everyone Deserves Good Translations!

2010-09-30T08:58:00.006-04:00

September 30 is the International Translation Day. The day is organized, in part, by the French-based International Federation of Translators (Fédération Internationale des Traducteurs), which also determines a theme for each year. This year's theme is "Translation Quality for a Variety of Voices".

In a world where various immigrant groups are increasingly maligned, it seems particularly pertinent to remind us of the world's diversity and its need for quality translations. The more people move to different parts of the globe -- be it in search of economic opportunity, to escape repression, or for more personal reasons -- the more important translation and interpretation become. To be sure, many of these immigrants will learn the host country's language well, but not everyone has the educational background, facility with languages or age to do so.

Independent of their facility with a given language, everyone is entitled to understand pertinent information in the country in which they live. That's where we translators and interpreters come in: to provide quality translations for everyone, regardless of where they come from or how they came to live in an unfamiliar linguistic environment.

Happy International Translation Day to everyone!

How I Handled the Tornado and Other Service Problems

2010-09-22T11:33:00.007-04:00

On Monday mid-morning my internet service suddenly stopped working, apparently due to a neighborhood-wide problem, according to my cable company. Service was not restored until the evening. I have written before about how I back up my clients' data and work in progress, as well as how I prepare for disaster. This is how those backup plans worked out during the tornado last week and the service problems on Monday:

I continued to receive e-mail on my Blackberry and could also respond to inquiries using that device. In addition, I could open Word documents and PDFs to assess a potential project before replying. Internet browsing is possible, but cumbersome and most sites don't display properly, if at all. I am considering upgrading to a smartphone with a touch screen. My husband and son each have an LG Ally and their phones let them browse the internet much more efficiently. If I do upgrade, should I get an LG Ally, a Motorola Droid or a Blackberry Touch? Does anyone have advice on that?

The bar a few blocks from my house advertises free WiFi, but I couldn't get it to work on my netbook. The middle-aged bartender confided that he had just bought his first computer a couple of years ago and "wasn't a computer guy", so he couldn't help me. Fortunately, there are several cafes with free WiFi (that works) a few subway stops from my house, so I went there instead.

During the tornado last Thursday, lights in my office flickered and I briefly lost power. My uninterruptible power supply did keep my computer and network operating, so I could save my work to a USB drive and shut everything down in an orderly fashion. I then plugged the USB drive into my laptop and continued working on that, just in case there were more power problems. As it turned out, there weren't, so an hour later I just turned everything back on and copied my work back to my desktop.

What kind of emergency plans do you have?

What About Politically Objectionable Projects?

2010-09-16T11:45:00.003-04:00

I recently received an offer for a translation job from an existing client where the subject matter was simply "Politics". I don't normally need to see sample text for jobs from existing clients, since I already have a sense for what types of texts these agencies accept. I also have a standard price per word set up with such clients. Thus subject matter, size and deadline are generally sufficient for me to decide whether I can take the project. With my usual bread-and-butter technical texts, knowing whether the text is about IT or mechanical engineering is usually enough detail. However, politics is different, I think. While I do believe that everyone should be able to express any political opinion he/she desires, I will not aid political doctrines I find reprehensible by translating them.

Last month, the Tanslators Worldwide group on LinkedIn conducted an interesting poll on the topic ("Do you refuse translations on ethical, moral, political, or religious grounds?", accessible only to members). Comments ranged from "No, I never refuse," through "This hasn't come up for me," to "Yes, I have done so on several occasions". At some translator events, I have spoken to colleagues who say they don't understand why I won't work for the U.S. defense industry or U.S. spy agencies. These are organizations I oppose during my free time, so why would I work for them in my professional life?

Conversely, I will aid causes I strongly support by volunteering for them, occasionally even providing a translation pro bono. It seems to me that if we take a stance against certain organizations or doctrines by refusing to work for them, we should also take a stance for other organizations or causes by volunteering for them, either as translators or by performing other work. While that behavior should not be limited to our profession, it does have its limits: even the most reprehensible defendant is entitled to a lawyer, and everyone is entitled to medical help, no matter the patient's political views. However, in these cases we are talking about upholding individual persons' rights, not helping to disseminate a particular point of view. To paraphrase Voltaire, "If I disapprove of what you say, I'll defend your right to say it, but I won't help you do so."

As to the "politics" assignment: I asked for more information on the specific topic and end client, but was told the project had already been assigned to someone else.

How do you handle offers for projects from/about groups/causes you oppose?

How to Proceed With New Clients

2010-09-10T17:32:00.000-04:00

An e-mail I received recently made me think that it would be good to post a standardized procedure for handling requests from potential new clients. Some of my colleagues, such as Corinne McKay in her blog post "Responding to a request for quote", have written about their own procedures. To contribute to that debate, here is my approach:

I receive a general e-mail inquiry.
I check the background of the e-mail's sender (see my earlier blog post on Checking Out Potential Clients).
If the results of that search indicate a professional company without complaints about non-payment, I reply to the inquiry requesting the following information (unless already supplied in the initial inquiry):
1. Exact word count of source text
2. Field of specialization/type of text
3. Format of source text (Word doc, PDF, Excel spreadsheet, ...)
4. Deadline requested
5. Text sample
If the results of my search do not indicate a professional company, or I see repeated complaints about non-payment, I decline the project.
The client supplies the information requested.
I evaluate the text sample, source format, total length and deadline requested in light of other pending projects. If I can handle this project, I confirm the word count and deadline and state my standard per word rate, as well as the total price and payment terms:
1. A deposit of 50% of the total price prior to starting work on the project.
2. If the project is expected to take less than 2 weeks, I'll invoice the remainder of the total price at project completion and expect payment within 15 days of invoice date.
3. If the project is expected to take 2-6 weeks, 25% of the remaining total price is due after 2 weeks, with the final 25% again invoiced on project completion and due within 15 days of invoice date.
4. For long-term projects (more than 6 weeks), I propose a schedule of partial deliveries, with due dates for partial payments.
The client agrees to my price and terms, confirms the order and sends the entire source text.
I send an invoice for the deposit, including information on where/how to pay it. Depending on the timeframe involved and the client's location, this may be my PayPal account or a bank account.
The client pays the deposit and notifies me by e-mail or Skype, or I receive an e-mail from PayPal.
I confirm receipt of the deposit and start work on the translation, backing my work up as I go along (see my earlier post on Backup Procedures & Disaster Preparedness).
At the latest the night before the deadline I e-mail the completed translation to the client, asking for confirmation that the file was received.
The client confirms receipt of the translation.
During my next invoicing cycle (usually once a week), I generate an invoice for the remaining price of the project.
I receive payment of that remaining amount and mark this project closed.

Does Your Language Determine Your Sense of Orientation?

2010-09-03T10:17:00.001-04:00

Last weekend's New York Times magazine included an interesting article positing that our "mother tongue" may well shape our experience of the world -- not in terms of what we cannot perceive, but in terms of what we must perceive. In "You Are What You Speak: Does Your Language Shape How You Think?", Guy Deutscher uses the example of "geographic" languages, such as the Australian aboriginal language Guugu Yimithirr, and their influence on speaker's sense of orientation. Geographic languages described any location in terms of cardinal directions (e.g., "The ant is north of your foot."), while "egocentric" languages, such as most Western languages, generally describe location based on the speaker's or subject's position (e.g., "The ant is in front of your foot.")

Research performed with native speakers of such geographic languages shows them to have a superior sense of direction compared with the average speaker of an egocentric language. What this does not account for, however, is where native speakers of the respective types of languages grew up.

Take my husband, an English native speaker from a small town in Iowa. Even after living in New York City for 20 years, he generally gives directions in terms of cardinal directions (e.g., walk north on 7th Avenue, then turn East at 23rd Street) and can tell you which way a particular direction is, even in the midst of the city. Confronted with such directions, my New York City-born English speaking children say, "I have no idea what you're talking about. Am I supposed to turn left or right?" It seems to me that my husband's rural childhood is responsible for his sense of directions, not his native language.

Since known geographic languages are all indigenous, it stands to reason that native speakers of such languages would have grown up in rural settings. Many native speakers of Western languages, however, grew up in urban areas. So how much of someone's sense of orientation is related to the language they grew up speaking and how much is a result of the environment in which they grew up?

The Pitfalls of Using Gestures

2010-08-25T18:46:00.000-04:00

Ultan Ó Broin's blog post Natural User Interface Gestures. Are They Global? brought to mind a conversation I had many years ago with a Turkish-German court interpreter in Austria. He told me how judges in Vienna's court system kept misinterpreting Turkish defendants' body language. The gesture in question is the Turkish "no", which is expressed by jerking the head back, then bringing it forward; a gesture that looks very similar to a German nod of approval. The interpreter said that in one instance the judge had told him that his interpretation was incorrect, since "clearly the defendant is agreeing" with a statement the defendant had just vehemently denied.

Similarly, when I first moved to Mexico, I would walk away when my co-workers were gesturing for me to follow them because their gesture for coming (palm down, moving palm towards wrist) looked to me like I was being shushed away.

Just as gestures don't always mean the same thing in different cultures, so pictures and colors don't necessarily convey the same thing everywhere. In the West red is usually associated with danger, in Chinese culture it's the lucky color, certain body parts are considered rude in some cultures, ...

I understand how companies attempt to save money on instructions for their products by making them image-only. That way, the product -- such as the assembly-required chair I just bought for my home office -- can be sold anywhere in the world with the exact same package contents, including the instructions. All you need to do is slap a different label on the outside of the box and, presto, there is your Spanish, or Hindi, or Swedish, item. Besides, you don't need to have all these instructions translated into 20, or 50, or 100, different languages.

However, since images may have different meanings in other cultures, this approach may well backfire. I wonder how a pet-care company's all-image instructions would fare in an Arab country where dogs are considered unclean. Would the cute dalmatian licking the properly assembled pet-food station elicit the "oohs" it might in the West, or would it cause buyers in Cairo to return the product?

The moral of the story is, if a company decides to go the all-image route for their instructions (as Ikea does), it can't cut localization out altogether. Rather, localization professionals need to be involved in the design process for these instructions, so that potential pitfalls can be caught early on. No words doesn't mean no translation/localization required.

Always On, Even on Vacation

2010-08-06T10:53:00.000-04:00

On the subway to the airport for this vacation, I answered a query from a current client regarding a project due a week after my return. By the time my family and I arrived at the airport, I have negotiated the project and received the final files for it. I wrote this post on the plane to New Orleans. While waiting at the gate, I used my husband’s Smartphone to check that I had not only written, but also turned on, my out-of-office outgoing e-mail message.

Modern technology makes such seamless work out of the office possible. A recent article in the New York Times decried the fact that family members are so engrossed in their constantly-on devices and services that they do not talk to each other anymore. That was evident when we were waiting at the gate: my son was listening to music on his iPod, my husband was answering an e-mail on his Smartphone and I was reading posts from e-mail lists to which I subscribe on my Blackberry. A few years back, when we had one plain cell phone for the entire family, we sat at the gate each reading a different book – less technology, but not more communication.

Because the technology exists, many clients also expect us to be constantly available. As self-employed freelancers, we could choose to leave our cell phones and laptops at home, but we may well lose clients if we are unavailable even for 2 weeks – let alone the 4 weeks of vacation common in Europe. On the other hand, without paid vacations, I do enjoy knowing that there is paid work waiting for me when I get back. As long as I can answer e-mails at my leisure, rather than within an hour or two of receipt, I don’t mind much negotiating projects with existing clients during vacation.

I do draw the line, however, at actually translating during that time or acquiring new clients. It takes time to perform due diligence research on new clients, and working on projects would clearly subvert the vacation’s purpose of relaxing with my family and learning about a new city. I will be on vacation until August 18, and may not post anything until after my return to the office. Then again, if I find any interesting tidbits about French (or Spanish) in New Orleans, I may post.

Laissez les bon temps roule (let the good times roll), as they say in New Orleans …

GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out)

2010-07-28T17:39:00.001-04:00

As with software, if the data fed into the computer program (read source text) is bad, the program's results (read translation) will also be bad. I thought of this when reading ultan's recent post "Information Quality, MT and UX" on Multilingual Computing's Blogos blog. ultan notes that quality information not only makes machine translation easier, but simply is better information that is more easily understood by both humans and machines.

So what is quality information? I think quality information consistent and concise, but well-written text with an audience-appropriate level of technical terminology. In this context, well-written refers to grammatically correct, clear structures free of spelling and punctuation errors. Clearly the amount and complexity of subject-specific terminology used depends on the text's end users. Installation instructions for consumers will need to be practically jargon-free (and contain explanations of any unavoidable terms), while specifications for computer programmers can contain quite a few acronyms and still be easily understood.

While this last statement is generally true, I have had to deal with source text that was replete with abbreviations specific to a particular company, without having access to an internal list of these acronyms (if such a list even existed). Since the assignment was the usual rush job via a translation agency in another time zone, there was no way to ask for and receive such a list in a timely manner. I did my best guessing the meaning of many of the abbreviations from context and annotated the rest with translator's notes.

I was initially surprised at how frequently source text -- even fairly lengthy whitepapers and similar types of text -- appears not to have been proofread, let alone copy-edited. After reading a couple of books on technical and business matters recently, I am no longer surprised. Even books being printed and sold in bookstores don't seem to undergo much of a quality-assurance process any more. A case in point is Tamar Weinberg's "The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web", which I am in the process of reviewing for an upcoming issue of the Society for Technical Communication's magazine Intercom, which contains quite a few instances where sentences seem to have been hurriedly revised and fragments of the sentence's previous incarnation left behind or too much taken out. So if books aren't proofread any more, what can we expect from internal industry papers or instructions?

However, such poorly written source text not only hampers the flow of reading, it often also adds ambiguity to the text. After all, if there are two conjunctions when only one should be present, which of the two did the author intend to use? And if I pick the wrong one, the translation could be completely misleading. But never having seen the machine for which I am translating the instructions, how would I know whether the correct conjunction here was "and" or "or"?

Yes, we do need quality assurance for translations. But we also need quality assurance for the source text -- not only for the translator's sake, but also for the reader's sake. As programmers are fond of saying: Garbage In, Garbage Out -- GIGO.

Backing Up Work

2010-07-19T19:09:00.000-04:00

The recent heat wave (and resulting meltdown of my sister's computer) had me thinking about backup procedures. Introductions to becoming a translator do state the need to back up at least work in progress and recent projects, but they generally don't provide specifics. There does not appear to be a "best practices" standard stating how frequently (hourly, daily, weekly, ...) and where (on the same computer, an external hard drive on site, off-site media, online storage) work should be backed up. Similarly, a discussion of the merits vs. dangers of secure online storage seems largely absent from the larger translation community.

Some translators' blogs do talk about backup tools they use. For example, Céline Graciet extols the virtues of her online backup to dropbox in her naked Translations blog. She synchronizes that backup with multiple devices, updating them automatically with the latest version of her work. That is certainly one way to go, but not the only -- or even the best -- one. There were a number of comments to Ms. Graciet's post, including a reference to a post in another blog, the Blogging Translator by Philippa Hammond. Ms. Hammond uses multiple online backup solutions. Both blogs briefly state that online backups are sufficiently secure, but don't actually discuss the pros and cons of online storage.

I tend to be fairly obsessive about backing up data (daily to secure online storage, completed projects to separate CDs for each client, weekly entire hard drive to external hard drive, printouts of all client orders). After just moving my office from a converted attic to a (cooler) 2nd floor room and lugging all those file folders with printouts, I wonder whether that's not too much safekeeping. On the other hand, I find it much faster and easier to thumb through a folder of printouts than to open a number of different e-mails in order to find the one I'm looking for.

For quite some time I was concerned about the security of online storage, but I finally took the plunge a few months ago and began regularly backing up work to a secure online site (using Norton 360, which is already my Antivirus solution). In the end, I figured that this wasn't any less secure than sending documents via standard e-mail. I still wouldn't upload my own financial data to such a site, however (although I do use my bank's online payment and account access system).

What are your thoughts on online backup solutions? What other backup solutions do you use?

Training Volunteer Interpreters in Small Immigrant Communities

2010-07-07T11:13:00.000-04:00

Today's New York Times reports on a lawsuit challenging New York city agencies' compliance with Mayor Michael Bloomberg's order to provide translation and interpreting services to non-English speakers seeking city services. In "Language Help for New York Immigrants Using City Services Falls Short of Goals", Fernanda Santos quotes, among others, a woman from the Dominican Republic who said that workers at an upper Manhattan food stamp office ask volunteers in the waiting room to serve as Spanish-language interpreters.

For those of you outside New York, upper Manhattan is home to a rather large Spanish-speaking community. As a result, the chances that someone in the waiting room of this agency speaks both English and Spanish are rather good. However, the chances that this person is familiar with the specialized social services vocabulary in both languages and also possesses the other skills required for consecutive interpreting are quite low. Contrary to some people's beliefs, growing up with two languages provides a good foundation for becoming an interpreter and/or translator, but is not enough in and of itself.

If in a city where 24.5% of respondents in the 2000 census speak Spanish at home, providing Spanish-language services at an office that serves a large Latino neighborhood is such a problem, what does that mean for smaller immigrant communities? While the city -- and other large institutions dealing with the public on a regular basis -- needs to do better in providing translation and interpretation services for the major immigrant languages, it cannot be expected to do so for every language that might come up.

Which leads to the next question: how to ensure access to services for people from less-common linguistic backgrounds. Professional interpreters for these languages are clearly the preferred solution. If not enough (or no) such professionals exists for a particular language, using telephone interpreting services provided by an interpeter located elsewhere may be an option in some cases. But sometimes you need someone on site.

Professional translators' organizations, such as the American Translators Association, were organized to protect the interests of professional translators and interpreters. However, they are also in the best position to offer training in basic interpretation skills to members of underserved linguistic communities. Since there are not enough professional interpreters for these languages, such training will not take potential work away from existing interpreters. Rather, it will supplement existing interpretation services to ensure that non-English-speaking immigrants accessing vital services do not have to rely on the sometimes haphazard interpreting skills of children and other untrained volunteers.

The training I envison would focus on basic consecutive interpreting skills (note taking, breaking text into chunks, listening for key words, etc.), supplemented by medical and social services terminology in English, with English explanations of each term. It seems to me that it should be possible to get a philantropic organization to fund such an undertaking, so that the cost of the training could remain low, or the training could even be offered for free. And, who knows, some of the people so trained may decide to pursue this career and eventually become professional interpreters -- and ATA members.

Machine Translation Instead of Global English?

2010-06-30T14:14:00.000-04:00

I just read an interesting article in the July 2010 issue of Wired magazine. In "No Language Barrier", Clive Thompson talks about how automated machine translation could make the emergence of a lingua franca obsolete since people can interact with each other using their own dominant language, with the machine providing the linguistic, as well as technical, interface. Such an interface could halt the spread of English as the de-facto lingua franca across the world, he argues.

While this sounds like good news to those of us who are concerned about the increasing influx of English into the world's languages and consequently increasing homogenization of cultures, it may not be so. Language and culture are certainly intertwined, but an American movie in, say, Samoan, is still an American movie with American cultural references, values and view of the world. Being able to communicate in one's own language is certainly a step forward in letting people across the globe communicate with each other, whether they know English or not. (Although whether that will entice my non-English-speaking mother to finally learn how to use a computer is another question ...). Technical solutions, such as automatic machine translation, cannot curb the march of U.S. culture across the globe. That can only be achieved by political and economic means.

Mr. Thompson also cautions that "Certainly any activity requiring serious precision -- legal proceedings, business discussions, diplomatic negotiations -- will still need expert human translators." He is certainly right in this assessment, although judging from some of the translations I have encountered and/or been asked to "fix", not all potential translation clients seem to think so. The challenge for us translators now is to educate clients why machine translation may be fine for a chat on Facebook, but isn't sufficient for a contract to build a new factory in Romania (even if face-to-face negotiations for that factory were conducted in less-than-stellar English).

International Technical Translation Conference

2010-06-09T16:43:00.001-04:00

Last week was rather busy, what with all the work accumlating while I was in Portugal. Now that I'm (sort of) caught up, here is my take on the Tradulinguas Technical Translation Conference in Lisbon:

On Friday, I attended the following presentations:

Mathilde Fontanet's session on translating English technical texts

Suzanne Goujan's lecture on renewable energies terminology

DeAnn Cougler's presentation on terminology management

Jerzy Czopik's "Tagology for Dummies"

David Hardisty's talk on technical translations into English as "language B"

Mathilde Fontanet works for the translation department of CERN, the Swiss particle collider. I hadn't even known that CERN had such a department, but given the international collaboration this project requires, it makes sense to have a team of in-house translators. Ms. Fontanet spoke about some of the difficulties she and her colleagues encounter in their work. For one, English technical texts are often written by experts whose dominant language is not English. Having just finished a large software translation project myself, I can attest that this problem isn't limited to English, but can happen with German originals, as well. In addition, Ms. Fontanet said, U.S. technical texts frequently don't conform to European Union requirements in terms of the information that must be included (e.g., safety and environmental statements, ...). Translators aren't only transferring meaning from one language to another, they are also the original text's editors/proofreaders. Such functions distinguish human translators from machines, but that only becomes apparent if the human points potential problems in the source out to the client (and/or fixes them, if they're obvious errors).

Suzanne Goujan offered a number of (English) definitions for various terms used in the renewable energies sector. It had likely taken quite some time and effort to amass this information, but the lecture added little beyond what could be read in a book or handout. I had hoped for more discussion and examples in an in-person session.

DeAnn Cougler offered some helpful suggestions on managing terminology as a freelancer, as well in-house. She recommended scheduling a daily time slot for terminology work so that one's own database remained well maintained, making work easier and faster in the future. I should really do that, since I tend to stop working on terms once I complete a project. Over time, this leads to a jumble of terminology files that could use an organizational overhaul. Ms. Cougler also suggested tracking time spent on terminology research and offering such work as a separate service to clients, invoiced either by the hour or by the term. While that sounds like a good idea, I am not sure how many clients would be willing to pay for it. As far as they are concerned, such (sometimes time-consuming) work is part of what they pay for -- even if that pay is relatively low.

I had heard Jerzy Czopik speak at the ProZ conference in Vienna. This time, he talked about the tags inserted by many CAT tools into the text. While the talk was informative, much was familiar to me from my work coding HTML and XML/XSL. However, he recommended a tool, CodeZapper, that removes unnecessary formatting in MS Word. I'll have to try that one out (sounds like there is another follow-up post to be written...).

David Hardisty teaches technical translation into English at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, where most students' dominant language is Portuguese. Many of his students will end up translating into their non-dominant language. Mr. Hardisty highly recommended Brian Mossop's book "Revising and Editing for Translators", which I'll have to check out. It does sound like a useful resource. He also thought that it would be helpful if technical translators took a class in technical writing. Having been a technical writer myself before becoming a translator, I very much agree.

The conference was held at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa. During lunch, another translator and I got lost and ended up in the student cafeteria. Fortunately, my companion spoke Portuguese, and we had quite an interesting lunch amid a crowd at least 20 years younger than either of us. Made me feel a little like I was back during my own student days ...

Advertising in Lisbon and Vienna

2010-05-29T05:47:00.000-04:00

Walking around Lisbon, Portugal before the start of the International Translation Conference yesterday morning, I noticed how little English there is on the signs on stores, ads on bus stops, etc. In Vienna at the ProZ conference last year, there seemed to be a lot more ads overall, and it seemed that every other one included at least some English or pseudo-English word or phrase. By contrast, Lisbon (at least outside the tourist areas) seems to have few ads beyond those on bus station shelters and shop windows. Most of the ads I saw were entirely in Portuguese, without any attempt at appearing "hip" or "global" by incorporating English or pseudo-English phrases. Even the "take away" signs so ubiquitous in Vienna food establishments are usually rendered in Portuguese.

So far I've also only come across two U.S. fast food chain restaurants and even these don't seem to display the gaudy visual clutter common in the windows of U.S. fast food restaurants. U.S. culture and commerce has certainly intruded in Portugal as well, including hamburgers sold in some otherwise Portuguese eateries. Refreshingly, though, that U.S. cultural influence seems much more restrained than in other European capitals, including Hamburg and Vienna.

Why is this so?

Are there laws or local ordinances regulating the use of language in public settings, similar to the Academie Française?

Does the Portuguese public resist the introduction of foreign phrases more than other cultures? If so, how is such resistance determined?

Is English taught less frequently in Portuguese schools and advertisers therefore cannot assume that English phrases will be understood by the general public?

Is the Portuguese market simply too small for many non-Portuguese companies to bother advertising here?

As best as I can tell, English is commonly taught as a foreign language here and the Portuguese-speaking market includes Brazil, which is certainly large enough to warrant advertisers' attention.

It would be interesting to find out:

Whether my impression of relatively mono-lingual advertising is, in fact, correct

If so, what forces are at work to inhibit the intrusion of English -- or other languages, in fact

Whether some of these forces could be replicated to stem the tide of English or pseudo-English encroaching on other languages.

Following Up on Some Promises

2010-05-19T20:02:00.000-04:00

In some previous blogs I noted that I would later post on some issue that I only mentioned in passing in the original post. Some of these I haven't seemed to get around to. So here are brief updates on the items I promised:

April 8, 2010 - "Language Swapping Site"

I signed up with lingomatch on the day of that post, but I haven't yet received a single e-mail in response to my listing at that site. It appears that the site's user base is still too limited to find someone to swap my German/English knowledge for their Spanish knowledge.

February 12, 2010 - "Wordfast Professional Training"

I installed and have used the new release of Wordfast Pro, but I can't detect much difference from the old version. One improvement I did notice, though: a setting now lets you determine which part of a word's glossary entry is displayed in the target language area when you pre-fill that segment (e.g., by using "copy source"). In the old version, both the source and target term for the word would display in the target language area, requiring rather annoying clean-up. I configured the new version to display only the target term, although for some reason that's still not the default.

December 23, 2009 - "ProZ Conference Vienna - Part II"

I signed up with Xing, but I have had few useful contacts so far besides connecting with translators I already knew from other venues. There is a job watch feature, though, where I set up the type of job, industry, etc., I'm interested in. I have received a few e-mails as a result. None have worked out so far, but at least they were specific enough to fit within my relatively narrow industry and specialization -- not bad for a non-translation-specific site.

I also downloaded a trial version of Anycount, which seems to work quite nicely, especially with PDFs. In addition to supporting a variety of file formats, it lets me add an entire list of files, so I don't have to open each of a set of Word files separately to get the count.

And I installed a trial version of Trados Studio, but haven't really had time to actually work with it. Since others have meanwhile written about both Trados and Wordfast, I won't bother with my two cents on this topic.

International Technical Translation Conference

Speaking of conferences: I will be heading to Lisbon, Portugal for the International Technical Translation Conference next week and will report back on it in early June.

Ideal Workflow

2010-05-07T11:27:00.000-04:00

I recently received an e-mail requesting permission to reprint my April 1 blog post on client education in an upcoming issue of the American Translators Association's Chronicle. In that post, I promised to blog on my ideal translation process. So here is what I'd like that process to look like, from start to finish:

I receive an e-mail from a new potential end client requesting quote on translating documents attached to the e-mail.

I check the client on the web (more on that in another post) and evaluate the documents directly in my e-mail application. I decide I'm interested in the project.

I open a project mgmt/invoicing/translation memory application and input the client's basic information (name, address, etc., as well as language of communication) and flag him/her as a potential client, as a new client, and as an end client (as opposed to an agency), then attach the e-mail I received to that record.

I download the documents attached to the e-mail.

The software automatically creates a directory for them (based on a directory structure I previously specified) and assigns a project number clearly identifying this as only a potential project.

I initiate creation of a quote by selecting a couple of parameters (currency, price level, due date). At this time, I also specify the documents' subject matter(s), as well as source and target language variations (Austrian German, German German, U.S. English, etc.).

The software counts the number of words in the source documents (even if they're in PowerPoint, PDF or similar formats) and displays a quote based on previously defined conditions (surcharge for PDF format, deposit requirement for new clients, ...) in the communication language I specified for the client. It also creates an e-mail message to go with the quote (based on boilerplate text I have previously input).

I review the quote and click "send".

The software sends the e-mail, attaches it to the client record and automatically enters a reminder to follow up after a previously specified number of days into my electronic task list, with a link to a follow-up e-mail.

On that follow-up date, that task is displayed in my to-do list. I click a link in the task and the software displays a follow-up e-mail based on previously input boilerplate text and personalized with the client's name, date of initial contact/request, date and number of proposal, etc. Since my availability changed in the meantime, I edit the e-mail to propose a later due date. I am really interested in this project, so I decide that a second follow-up may be necessary. I select that option, as well as the form of communication for it, in the software, then click "send".

The software sends the e-mail, attaches it to the client record and enters the second reminder in my task list. Since I selected telephone follow-up for this one, the task includes a link to Skype.

The second reminder date arrives. I click the Skype link in the task, which dials the client's phone number in Skype.

I reach the client and he agrees to the project over the phone. I ask for a written confirmation, which the client agrees to provide by e-mail.

The client's confirmation e-mail arrives.

The software links that e-mail to the client's record. I flag the e-mail as confirmation of the proposal and change the due date. The software removes the "potential client" flag from the client record, and changes the project number from a potential project to a "current" one. It also enters a task in my task list with the due date and project number, as well as a link to the directory for the documents to be translated. If the due date is more than a specified number of days in the future, it also adds a second task a specified number of days before the due date to remind me to start the project, again with a link to the project directory

When that start date arrives, I click the link in the task, which takes me to the first of the source documents opened in the translation memory software. Based on the subject matter and language variations I specified earlier, the software selects the appropriate glossaries in the TM software. Since this is a new end client, it also creates a new translation memory with that client's name (I previously specified that each end client gets his/her own translation memory). If this had been an agency, the software would display a list of existing end clients where I could either pick one or add a new end client. The software also adds the TM and glossaries selected to the record for this project.

Since the source files are PDFs, I direct the software to convert them to MS Word. The software uses Acrobat and a multi-lingual OCR program to provide an MS Word document with all images removed, but formatting intact and image captions preserved; text flows throughout the entire document rather than being corralled in text boxes, except for very special cases.

I translate the text using the translation memory and glossaries set up above. During that work the software automatically saves a copy of the files on which I am working in a specified interval.

In the course of the translation, I decide that a separate glossary for a new subject matter would be helpful.

I create that new glossary by adding a term and specifying "new" rather than picking an existing glossary. In addition to creating the new glossary on the fly, the software adds that new subject matter to the list of subject matters from which I can pick when initially adding a project. It also adds the glossary to the record of glossaries/TMs used for this project.

When I am finished with the translation, I can preview the translated document as it will appear to the client. Any changes I make in this preview are automatically also made to the TM.

Each day at a preset time, the software backs up any projects I worked on during that day to an external hard drive attached to my home network. It also tracks the time I spent on each project.

When I am finished translating and editing a project, I tell the translation memory portion of the software that I'm done. It saves the translated files in the appropriate format (MS Word for Word files and PDFs, Excel and PowerPoint files in their original formats) and displays these final files.

I briefly review the final translated files to make sure formatting didn't go astray or caption text, etc. is missing, then click "project completed" in the main software.

The software creates an e-mail to the client with boilerplate text and the final files attached.

I review that e-mail, adding a note to wish him a good trip later that week and click "send".

The software sends the e-mail to the client, attaches it and the project files to the client record, backs up all project files to the external hard drive, marks the project as completed and enters a task in my to-do list for the next day to follow up on whether the files were received.

The next day, the client e-mails back that the files arrived safely.

I open the follow-up task and click the "files received Ok" option in the task (the other options being "send follow-up e-mail" and "resend files").

The software flags the project record as ready for invoicing.

During the next weekly invoicing cycle, the software automatically invoices this client, based on the parameters I had set during the creation of the quote (language, price level, etc) and using my standard terms.

I review and approve the invoice, changing the standard terms to accommodate the client's billing cycle (which he had explained in my phone call). I can also edit the standard e-mail the software created to go with the invoice.

The software sends the e-mail and creates a task in my to-do list to follow up on payment a specified number of days after the invoice's due date.

The client does not pay by the due date.

A link in the follow-up task that appears on my to-do list goes to a boiler-plate follow-up e-mail. I review and send that e-mail.

The client pays my bank account electronically, which triggers an automatic e-mail from my bank with a standard subject line, format and e-mail address.

After initial setup to specify these bank parameters, the software recognizes this as a bank e-mail and retrieves the pertinent details from it. During the next invoicing cycle, the software notifies me that this invoice has been paid.

I approve the payment receipt and the software marks the invoice as paid and enters the payment in the accounting portion of the software, including crediting it to the appropriate bank account.

I know that this kind of seamless integration of various disparate softwares and level of customization for my particular workflow is probably a pipe dream. The challenge now is to see how much of it can be implemented with existing commercial software at a reasonable price ...

Backup Procedures & Disaster Preparedness

2010-04-30T09:05:00.000-04:00

In a previous post I talked about trying out online backups. I have since set up such backups and put together a comprehensive backup plan. Here is what I do to keep files safe and continue working should disaster strike:

I keep the client's original files both in a separate directory for the project on my hard drive and in the original e-mail with which the client assigned the project. In addition, I keep a hard copy of the assignment e-mail and/or PO, as well as any special instructions the client might have sent. On that copy I also note the translation memory and glossar(ies) used for that project, as well as its due date and the date and time I sent the completed work to the client. This gives me a physical reference of the scope of work and resources used, which is also useful if a follow-up assignment arrives. A quick look at the client's file and I can ensure that I use the same glossaries and translation memory as I did for the prior project, which in turn ensures consistent use of terminology.

After stopping work on a project for longer than a brief break, I back all project files up to a CD specific to the client. I also back up the completed project there. Over time, this provides me with a complete collection of all projects completed for this client during the calendar year. Since I keep these CDs and the associated hard copy of instructions, etc., for 5 years, I can refer back to prior projects should a follow-up assignment arrive years later.

In addition, my entire client directory is backed up to a secure online storage site every night. Every Friday, all files that changed on my hard drive during the week are backed up to a network-attached external hard drive. Both these measures ensure easy access to all information -- both pending work and invoicing/payment data, as well as translation memories and glossaries -- should my primary computer crash. Since I also have a laptop, and other members of my family also have computers, a potential computer failure should cause only a short disruption in work on my current projects (long-term, of course, it would be a big headache).

My laptop includes a second, swappable battery, so I can continue work for up to 6 hours, even if power fails. Other safety measures for such outages include uninterruptible power supplies for my computer, printer and business telephone line, as well as for the network router and cable modem. These power supplies permit orderly shutdown of systems in the event of an abrupt power failure, minimizing the chances of corrupted files or damage to equipment.

Should my broadband internet connection fail, I can take my laptop to several cafes with free wireless internet access which are located within a few subway stops and are open until 1 am. And there's also my Blackberry, where I can communicate with clients by e-mail or phone (Skype mobile), even if I am not in the office or there is no power. That Blackberry can even be used as a modem for e-mailing files, if none of the Wi-Fi cafes were available or open.

Of course, if half of the United States is without power for several days, all of these measures will be of limited use. But short of that, I should be able to complete any outstanding projects on time, even if disaster strikes. Which, however, leaves the question of backing myself up, not just the equipment. I haven't solved that one yet, but I'm working on it ...

Checking Out Potential Clients

2010-04-21T17:35:00.000-04:00

A recent question in the Translators Worldwide group on LinkedIn prompted me to write this post. An English-Spanish translator was describing a potential job offer she received by e-mail which raised a few flags for her. She wanted to know whether that e-mail might be a scam, rather than a real translation project.

As small-scale businesses providing services to far-flung (sometimes international) clients, we face this situation not infrequently. How do we know that a potential client will, in fact, pay us after we deliver the translation? Worse yet, how do we make sure the bank account information we may provide on our invoice for purposes of direct payment is not abused to hack into our account digitally and syphon off our money?

The short answer is: we can't make sure. But we can take a few precautions. When I get a request from a new client, I check a few things:

I google their company name and look for:
1. a professional-looking company website with physical address information (i.e., a house number and street, not just a PO box)
2. other websites/forums referencing this company
For U.S. companies, I use whitepages.com's reverse lookup function to check the name and address connected to the phone number. If the phone number is unlisted, it's probably not a real company.

For agencies I also:

check the ProZ.com blue board for other translators' experiences with that company.
check paymentpractices.net for other translators' experiences with that company's payment practices.

If there are no references at all on the web to this company and/or the company has no website, I assume it's not a real company -- at least not one that would work internationally and therefore need translation services.

I have sometimes taken calculated risks with jobs for which I wasn't sure I'd get paid, but I generally only do that with small jobs.

If the client looks like a potential payment problem, I ask for 50% of the estimated cost up front by PayPal. That way the potential client has no bank information. I transfer incoming PayPal payments to my bank account, so if anyone could get at my PayPal account, I wouldn't lose much money.

Granted, there are legitimate potential clients out there who are just not good at marketing their business -- or don't need to market it on the web, e.g., because they have enough word-of-mouth referrals. My brother's niche business manufacturing high-end musical instruments is such a case, for example. But how do I know this is not just someone who thinks they have a great idea the world will pay for, but then finds out that the world is not interested and consequently has no money to pay their suppliers (including me)?

In the end, I generally trust my instincts. If it looks fishy, it probably is. I may have lost out on some potential assignments, but in the end I have gotten paid most of the time -- even by private individuals in Australia.

Language Swapping Site

2010-04-08T10:08:00.000-04:00

A blog posting featured in MultiLingual News' weekly newsletter alerted me to an interesting website, called lingomatch. It is intended to help people who want to learn a foreign language find a speaker of that language to practice with. In exchange, they'd teach their partner their own language. My daughter used a similar system run by the University of Leipzig's (Germany) foreign language department for its students to learn rudimentary French while studying there.

The site seems to be still fairly small, with fewer than 50 ads listed in New York City, for example. As the blogger noted, it's also currently limited to large cities. While this service may not be necessary in very small towns where people know each other, it would be particularly helpful in smaller cities, where there may not be as many bilingual people as, say, in New York City.

Such a swap of linguistic knowledge is, of course, no substitute for an actual language teacher, who not only speaks the language in question, but also knows how to teach it (not to mention being familiar with its grammatical structure, rather than simply taking grammatical constructs as given). It is, however, a great supplement to a language course or a good way to practice a language that was once learned formally, but has remained dormant since.

The ads list only one "speaks" language, presumably the person's dominant language -- which, however, raises the question of how truly bilingual people could list both languages as options for teaching others. Particularly in places like New York City, where many people do grow up with English plus one or two other languages, such a situation is easily imaginable. Note to lingomatch's developers: please allow multiple selections (limited to two or three maximum, however) in the "Language I Speak" drop-down menu of the "Post Ad" screen.

I just posted an ad to find someone to help me revive my Spanish skills. (I used to live in Mexico City, but that was a long time ago.) I'll report in future posts on how that search works out. (Some of my friends are Spanish speakers, but having a dedicated time, place and person for learning a language seems a better way to stay on track.)

Client Education & Translation Processes

2010-04-01T15:20:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I went to the Barnes & Nobles text book store on 5th Ave. and 18th Street in Manhattan (New York City). The store bills itself as "the largest bookstore in the world" on some of its windows facing 18th Street. Not finding any books on translation theory or practice in likely sections (Foreign Language, Linguistics, Reference), I asked a store clerk. After looking my request up on a computer, he announced that the store didn't carry a single book on translation.

In the March 2010 ATA Chronicle (the American Translators Association's magazine), Howard Clark calls the U.S. "an immigrant-based, yet largely language-ignorant society" in his opinion piece "Clients, Freelancers & Translation Agencies: Productive Partnership or Missed Opportunities?" It seems to me his assessment is spot-on. Mr. Clark then continues that, given this fact, "client education is critical".

Right again, but how do we, as translators, educate an end client whose identity we may not even know? This should be the translation agency's responsibility, but in my experience in the real world of short deadlines and tough competition for large projects that education is frequently given short shrift. If we work directly for end clients, our chances of explaining how translation works and what is required for a sucessful, high-quality product, are much better.

One resource for doing so is the American Translators Association's Client Outreach Kit. Another is a page on our workflow, either posted on our website or sent to prospective clients along with other promotional literature. The advantage of such a page (which agencies sometimes already have) is not only client education, but also a way for translators to learn best practices from each other. Maybe another translator has already found a solution to an issue I am still struggling with. If he/she has posted his/her translation process, I can profit from his/her experience, rather than having to re-invent the solution.

While each of us works a little differently, much of the process is likely the same -- or at least very similar -- for all of us. Through sharing our own workflows, we may be able to define a relatively standard process for non-agency projects. Such a standard process would, in turn, simplify client education. End clients would have a better idea what to expect when hiring a translator and may therefore be more likely to actually provide the resources and time we need to produce a high-quality translation.

Based on Linda L. Gaus's "Top 10 Pet Peeves of a Technical Translator" (ATA Chronicle, February 2009), here are some items to be incorporated in educating clients about translation processes:

Provide context
Provide reference materials
Provide specialized terminology
Have time for questions
Don't assume you speak the target language better than the translator
Proofread/edit the source documents
Finalize the text before translation begins
Provide diagrams/illustrations where appropriate
Empower one person to decide translation questions
Schedule sufficient time for the translation

Look for a future post on my own workflow and ideal translation process.

The Translation Industry's Fee Structure

2010-03-29T18:07:00.000-04:00

One of the comments about my last post on machine translation (The Changing Role of the Translator) was that while post-editing machine translations pays less, it also takes less time. That's true -- if the machine translation was a reasonable understandable rendering of the source text in the target language. This is sometimes the case, but not always. I have worked on some translations (even ones purportedly performed by humans) where the effort to "fix" an incoherent -- or just plain wrong -- translation didn't take significantly less time than translating the document from scratch.

That's why, in the context of becoming post-editors of machine-translated texts, we need to change the current fee structure in the translation industry. We should be charging by the hour, not by the word -- at least for editing work. This would be fairer to both sides. If the translation being edited is in reasonably good shape to begin with, the client pays a lower rate than he/she would if paying per word. And if the translation performed by the machine (or another human) is really bad, the translator doesn't lose money by spending hours fixing it and being paid only for a fraction of that time.

Many other service professionals charge by the hour - lawyers and accountants, for example. If I hand my accountant a well-organized set of records already in digital form, he/she spends less time producing my tax return and I pay less for that service. If I hand him/her a shoe box full of receipts, I have to pay for the time it takes the accountant to sort through the mess -- at accountant rates. This should provide an incentive for me to keep decent records in the first place. (For the record: I use accounting software compatible with my accountant's and send her the digital file at the end of the year.)

Similarly, a per-hour charge for post-editing would provide an incentive for end clients to use translation software that may not be free, but will produce reasonable-quality results, rather than using rules-based online freeware. And if the end client insists on using the free online service, the translator at least gets paid for the extra time he/she has to spend to fix that translation.

Look, for example, at Joanne Moss Design's Bloopers page for bad translations. The shoe tag she shows needs to be re-written from scratch to be comprehensible. The text about Ludwigshafen, on the other hand, doesn't need much work to make it flow smoothly in English. On a per-word basis, however, editing the Ludwigshafen text would cost the client much more then the shorter shoe label, while taking the post-editor much less time. If post-editing per-word rates were based on the time it took to "fix" the Ludwigshafen text, the translator/editor would lose money when confronted with the shoe tag. If the rates were based on the time required to edit the shoe tag (we should be so lucky!), the client would overpay for the Ludwigshafen text. A per-hour fee, on the other hand, would do justice to both types of text.

The Changing Role of the Translator

2010-03-23T20:43:00.000-04:00

I just read an interesting op-ed by David Bellos in last weekend's New York Times. In "I, Translator", the director of the Princeton translation program offers a brief overview of machine translation, from its infancy in the U.S. at the start of the Cold War to its current Google Translate iteration and concludes that machine translation cannot replace human literary translation.

A point well taken, but literary translators constitute a fraction of the translation community. Most of us don't work on War and Peace but on such prosaic texts as legal contracts, medical documents or technical manuals. Quite a bit of these documents consist of "boilerplate" or otherwise at least semi-standard text -- that's why translation memory tools have become so useful to human translators. Because of this standardization and repetition, such technical text does lend itself to machine translation, just as the original text is a prime candidate for standard content management systems. This move towards further automation may put both translators and technical writers out of business -- unless we adapt.

As Google Translate and similar systems parse ever-increasing quantities of multi-lingual web content -- including my own bilingual website -- their translation engines approximate human translation ever more closely, at least in relatively common language combinations, such as German-English. But while a business contract doesn't need to be good prose, it does need to be extremely accurate -- approximation just isn't good enough. That's also true for medical and technical texts. So while Google Translate can provide a basic idea of what the parties to a contract agreed upon or how to operate a particular piece of machinery, humans still need to ensure that nothing has been mistranslated and that the end result flows smoothly and is easy to understand.

That's where we human translators come in: as editors to verify and refine the somewhat crude machine translation. To some extent we are already performing this role when we edit the "fuzzy matches" provided by our translation memory tools. Post-editing machine-translated text would be similar, just with a much larger translation memory. The question now becomes: how do we come up with a compensation model where we can still make a living, even though this editing will garner a much lower per-word rate than traditional translation?

Native Language vs. Dominant Language

2010-03-01T21:13:00.000-05:00

Your native language - that's the language(s) you grew up with, of course, you might say. That's also what most translation agencies and sites mean when they ask about a translator's native language(s). Frequently, more than once choice is permitted in the "native language" field, acknowledging bi-lingual childhoods. But what about bi-lingual adulthoods?

The German word for native language is "Muttersprache" -- mother's tongue. I have met German translators who insist that one's native language is, indeed, one's mother's language, even when one grows up in a household where the father speaks a different language. That seems to me only true if the mother provides most -- if not all -- childcare during a child's first 2 or 3 years of life. While that is still relatively common in many German-speaking countries (where maternity leave is generally longer), in the U.S. it's often the nanny or daycare provider who teaches a child his or her first words. Some parents even deliberately hire a caregiver speaking a different language, so that their children can grow up bilingual, even if both parents are monolingual.

A friend of mine was born in Argentina, spent his toddler/preschool years in Israel and started school in Austria, where he remained until adulthood. Through all these moves, the language at home was German. He did attend preschool in Israel and hence learned Hebrew as his second native language, but didn't use that language again after age 5. When he returned to Israel as an adult, he found that some of his forgotten Hebrew came back, but with the vocabulary of a 4-year-old.

I, on the other hand, grew up in an entirely monolingual family (albeit with the more ex- and intensive foreign language study required in Austrian public schools). Many agencies and translator sites would therefore consider German to be my native language. However, my entire professional education and most of my adult life were conducted in English, and that continues to be my language of daily discourse. I therefore find it much easier to translate into English, and the results tend to be more idiomatic, as well.

This is particularly true in my specialization, IT. When I left Austria more than 25 years ago, I had never actually used a personal computer. Here in the U.S., I learned not only to use computers, but also to repair, maintain and document them. While I can understand computer texts written in German, I am much more fluent in English "computerese", and therefore translate from German to English, rather than the other way around.

There are any number of circumstances in which someone might initially grow up with a particular language, but be immersed in an entirely different language community as an adult, eventually acquiring a better facility with that new language than he/she had with their initial one. This happens to native peoples and migrants around the globe, if they move to a place where their childhood language is not spoken.

It seems to me a much better term would be "dominant language", meaning the language one is most fluent in. "Native language" suggests something one is born with -- a fact that doesn't change later in life. "Dominant language" acknowledges that for some people the language in which they are most fluent may change during their lifetime.

Translators, in particular, frequently end up in that profession precisely because their linguistic environment changed over the course of their lives. Some people continue to conduct their daily lives in their language of origin, and feel more comfortable in that language. But some switch languages more thoroughly, even writing literature in that new language. (Full disclosure: I write children's and young adult stories in English.) If one can be a novelist in a language one didn't initially grow up with, one can surely translate into such a language, as well.

Wordfast Professional Training

2010-02-12T10:07:00.001-05:00

Last week I attended a training for Wordfast Pro, the newest version of the Wordfast translation support software. The training was arranged by the New York Circle of Translators (the New York branch of the American Translators Association) and held by Wordfast, whose Director of Sales & Marketing, Kristyna Marrero, also attended. The trainer was John Di Rico of Apex Traduction. Wordfast Pro is basically the Wordfast version of the new Trados Studio, whereas Wordfast Classic is the Wordfast version of the old Trados.

For those of you new to translation, translation support software automatically stores the translated sentences in memory as you work and shows you previously translated sentences or sentence fragments if they are similar to the current sentence/fragment. In addition, such software lets you create and re-use custom glossaries and shows the translator if a word in the source text is fund in such a custom glossary. Depending on the specific software and version used, other features -- such as project management options, text analysis in terms of word count and repetitions, online dictionary searches, etc. -- may be available.

Wordfast Pro works very differently from the previous version of the software, Wordfast Classic. Classic was an add-in to MS Word, while Pro has its own separate interface. The obvious advantage is that Pro can be used with many more file formats, such as Excel spreadsheets, HTML files, Powerpoint presentations, InDesign files, etc. On the other hand, the learning curve is steeper since the translator must get used to an entirely new interface.

This is the initial, rather new, version of WF Pro. While I normally avoid getting version 1.0 of any software, I did so here because: a. I can run both the old and new versions concurrently on my computer, b. the new version is free if you have a license for the old version (which I do), and c. it does PowerPoint and Excel, both formats I had to translate without the aid of a translation memory in the past. Excel files for IT projects often contain the text strings displayed on screen when a software is run. As you might imagine, many of these strings are fairly repetitive, so being able to use translation-support software on these files can be quite a time-saver.

One of the main disadvantages of WF Pro for me is the fact that after I have completed a translation I cannot turn off the source text and only see the target text. I used to do this routinely to make sure the translated version flowed smoothly. In WF Pro's interface, the two languages are shown either side-by-side (in table view) or -- similar to WF Classic -- one below the other (in text view). Unlike WF Classic, however, the source text cannot be hidden, so it distracts when trying to edit only the translated text. Ms. Marrero said that this capability of hiding source text would be added in future version of the software.

Another annoyance is the fact that "placeables" need to be copied manually from the source to the target text unless you copy the entire source text segment to the target text area and then overwrite it with the translation. Placeables are codes Wordfast adds to hold formatting information, so that the software can then format the translated text as similar to the original as possible. Compared to the old version, there seem to be rather a lot of these codes even in fairly straightforward text. While that means WF Pro can, for example, make part of a segment bold and leave the rest regular (which didn't work in WF Classic), it does make for a lot more copying of these codes. Out of the box, the software warns you every time you go to a new segment, if any of these placeables weren't copied. I'll need to experiment with turning that warning off and adding the codes in later during a second pass. But what I'd really like to see is a feature where WF Pro could be set to only copy the codes as I move to a segment, so that I can then fill in the translated text between them.

Still, there are a number of additional features here that WF Classic didn't provide, such as the ability to use multiple translation memories (and even write to all of them, if you so choose) and to save the set of translation memories and glossaries used for each project, rather than having to re-create that setup each time you switch projects. At this point, I am still running both versions and, depending on what version of Wordfast or Trados the client has, use one or the other. A new release of WF Pro is supposed to be issued soon, so we'll see what improvements that brings ...

Until next time,

Barbara

ProZ Conference Vienna - Part IV

2010-01-28T18:22:00.000-05:00

The last set of presentations at the recent ProZ Regionalkonferenz in Vienna was related to language and translation itself:

"Übersetzen für die Wiener Börse" by Edith Vanghelof

"Übersetzen aus dem Deutschen -- Wortstellungsprobleme" by David Wright

"Deutsche Rechtschreibung" by Dagmar Jenner

Edith Vanghelof spoke mostly about different types of markets and the terminology related to them, as well as to other financial instruments. Translating for the Vienna stock exchange (Wiener Börse) involves mostly rendering legal texts into non-country-specific English. It is not clear to me, however, how such English is arrived at, since financial products, as well as the specifics of a given economic system, differ among countries. Since stock exchanges are highly regulated environments, I'd imagine that the different legal systems producing such regulations would also play a role in how a particular term is rendered into English. Thus, it seems to me that translating such texts without reference to any one country would, at best, be difficult and frequently impossible.

David Wright showed examples of how text is easier to understand if the sentence starts with information already known to the reader. He said that German was more flexible with regard to word order than English, but that in German a particular word order also carried a certain connotation. While Mr. Wright is certainly right that some German word orders are simply ungrammatical in English, keeping the original word order does make text comparison easier. That seems particularly important with legal texts, where some clients may lay the two versions of the text side by side to ensure nothing was skipped or added during translation. With marketing texts, on the other hand, both word order and the actual words (or even phrases) may need to be changed to convey the same mood in another culture. To change word order, or not to change it: it all depends.

Dagmar Jenner had participants complete a short exercise filling in blanks on a business letter with the correct post-reform spelling. [The German-speaking countries changed how things are spelled a couple of times during the last decade or so.] Having left Austria before these spelling reforms, I find that much modern German text looks "misspelled" to me. That's one of the reasons why I prefer to translate into English, rather than into German. After this workshop (and while still in Austria), I did go out and buy the latest standard German spelling dictionary -- the brand-new version of the Duden's "Die neue deutsche Rechtschreibung". Now let's just hope the powers that be won't change things on me again ...

That concludes my notes on this conference.

Until next time,

Barbara

ProZ Conference Vienna - Part III

2010-01-04T16:26:00.000-05:00

In my last post I grouped the presentations I attended at the Proz Regional Conference in Vienna by topic. I then summarized the presentations in topic (group) 1. This post will be devoted to the presentations in Group 2 (marketing your services/getting (more) business). These were:

"Modding Your ProZ.com Profile" by Siegfried Armbruster

"EN 15038 -- ein Erfahrungsbericht" by Dr. Leopold Decloedt of Connect-Sprachenservice GmbH

Siegfried Armbruster uses his ProZ profile page instead of maintaining a separate website for his services. While it is certainly possible to do so -- and apparently a number of translators do this -- I appreciate the flexibility my own website affords me. The ProZ profile can apparently be customized quite a bit, but it can't be designed from scratch, the way I did with my own website. Mr. Armbruster spoke mostly about the ways in which he has customized his profile to illustrate what could be done.

Some of his ideas can be applied to freestanding websites, as well. One suggestion I may implement is a sustained attempt at increase the Google ranking of my website. While that would certainly increase my visibility, it remains to be seen how many of the hits so obtained are actually serious potential end clients and how many are low-cost overseas agencies trying to find translators willing to work for very little money (more about that in a later post).

Another idea I'll pursue is the creation of a central MS Word document containing all relevant information for updating my profiles on ProZ, LinkedIn, Translators Cafe, my own website, and, possibly, Xing (the European equivalent to LinkedIn I touched upon in my previous post). I'd like to find a way to automate profile updates across all these sites, but I'm not sure that can be done -- at least not without spending money.

Leopold Decloedt's presentation focused on an Austrian certification process, which, however, also exists elsewhere in the European Union. It is meant primarily for certifying translation agencies, but individual translators can be certified, as well. More and more European agencies are becoming certified according to this norm, which regulates work flow, as well as freelance translators' qualifications.

While standardization can be a good thing -- and should make it easier to convince end clients that the translation services purchased are, in fact, valuable -- it presents a problem for many translators. The norm prefers freelancers with a formal translation degree who work into their native language. Having come to translation through living and working in a language other than the one I grew up with -- a circumstance common to many translators, at least on this side of the Atlantic -- I don't have a degree in translation. I have translated professionally for the last 9 years, and have done so informally for much longer. I do hold a B.A., but it's in Media Studies, not translation.

Also, technically my "native" language is German, since that's what I grew up speaking. However, by now I have lived and worked in an English-speaking environment for a longer time than I have lived in Austria. Most of my technical knowledge was acquired in English -- personal computers were in their infancy when I left Austria 25 years ago. As a result, I am better at translating technical documents into, rather than from, English. At this point I consider both German and English my native languages. I will address the question of what constitutes a native language more fully in a later post.

One thing I noticed during this presentation was that I already follow many of the procedures required by this norm, e.g., I use translation memory; I systematically archive client orders, as well as work performed; I have a transparent invoicing system; I have a system for tracking client orders, their completion, invoicing and payment, etc. So rather than actually getting certified according to EN 15038 (which would be costly for an individual), I will get the regulations for the certification, see which portions apply to my business and then list on my website which of the requirements I follow, and how I do so.

Until next time,

Barbara

ProZ Conference Vienna - Part II

2009-12-23T12:09:00.000-05:00

This is the first of 3 posts on the presentations I attended at the ProZ Regional Conference in Vienna at the end of November. These presentations can be grouped roughly as follows:

the business side of freelance translating
marketing your services/getting (more) business
language and translation itself

Group 1 included the following presentations:

"ProZ oder Amateure? Der Übersetzer als Unternehmer -- Erfahrungen aus dem Büroalltag" by Dr. Michael Bolten of Newspeak-Sprachlösungen
"Project administration -- the financial side of a translator's job" by Angela Starkmann
"The 21st century translator" by Dipl.-Ing. Jerzy Czopik of TransDocu

Note: All presentations I attended were given in German, although the slide presentations were sometimes in English.

Michael Bolten's presentation was an interesting exchange between the translators/interpreters in the audience and translation agencies as personified by Mr. Bolten. I learned a number of things about German/Austrian industry practices from this discussion:

Standard payment terms appear to be 30 days from invoice. This stands in marked contrast with the common U.S. practice of "pay-when-paid", where agencies delay payment to their translators until they receive their money from the end client. This often leads to a delay of two or more months until the translator is paid.

Pricing is by target language word/line count. Here, generally source language word counts are used to determine the price of a given translation. For translators from German, with its concatenated extra-long nouns, this practice means a lower income for the same amount of work.

While LinkedIn includes many members based in Europe, the professional networking site of choice in Europe appears to be Xing. One of my New Year's resolutions, therefore, is to join that network, as well.

Angela Starkman presented her own survey on the business practices/background of freelance translators. Much of her presentation was unfortunatley not applicable here in the U.S., where things like multi-currency invoicing software (or even non-U.S.-dollar denominated checking accounts) don't exist. A number of practices she suggested I had already implemented in my home office before this presentation. I did, however, learn about two tools I intend to try out in 2010:

Anycount apparently is a shareware tool that lets you quickly analyze documents in terms of text length. This allows translators to prepare estimates for clients without having to convert each file into MS Word format to see word/character counts.

A dashboard on the computer's desktop that includes the day's appointments, to dos, etc. This is an interesting idea, although I am not sure how to implement it on my Windows XP-based desktop. (Given the bugs in Vista, I paid extra last Spring to buy a desktop computer still running XP).

Jerzy Czopik spoke about the definition of quality. Quality is meeting a customer's expectations, Mr. Czopik said, not what the translator perceives as quality. I have seen this first-hand when on one occasion an end client -- through the agency -- demanded that every single "the" and "a" in a text for their website be translated, even though definite articles are used much more frequently in German than in English. I had delivered a translation that read like a text originally written in English, but on the customer's request, added in all the extra articles, making for a rather clunky English version.

This presentation also emphasized the need for translators to use computer tools, including CAT tools. In this and other conferences I attended, the most commonly used CAT tool appears to be SDL Trados. I purchased Wordfast a while back and have held off on switching to Trados, both because of its price and the time (and money) required to learn it. Another of my New Year's resolutions is to download a trial version of Trados Studio and try out both Trados and the Wordfast Professional. Look for a future post on that experience.

My next couple of posts will be devoted to the presentations in Groups 2 and 3 above. Meanwhile, have a happy holiday and all the best for the new year!

Barbara

Vienna ProZ Conference

2009-11-30T03:12:00.000-05:00

The ProZ conference just ended last night with a dinner near one of Vienna's (semi-)traditional Christmas markets. I met quite a few interesting colleagues, including one who had come all the way from Chile.

What struck me here, compared to U.S. conferences, is how many of the attendees weren't just bilingual, but spoke multiple foreign languages fluently -- and in some cases translated from/to quite a number of languages. As is common with international conferences, the lingua franca was English, although, this being a regional conference, many -- if not most -- attendees also spoke German. I found myself constantly asking people I met which language they spoke/preferred.

Maybe a variation of the Quebecois greeting should be developed for such conferences. In Montreal, when I bought groceries the cashier would greet me with "Bonjour, Hello". I was then expected to reply either "Bonjour" or "Hello" to indicate my preference for French or English. The remainder of the transaction was then conducted in that language. I could see participants in international gatherings greeting each other with "Hi, Guten Tag, Bonjour", for example, to indicate the languages in which the conversation could be carried out. For some people -- particularly in our profession -- that might become a rather lengthy greeting, though.

Most sessions were in the end conducted in German, even though some of the session titles were in English, and some speakers had expected to give their presentations in English. So the PowerPoint slides projected behind the speaker might be in English, but the speaker's commentary on them would be in German. I generally try to take notes in the language in which the talk is given (or the book is written), but I found myself using English, English abbreviations, German and German shorthand all in my notes for the same presentation. Not a problem, unless someone else wants to see these notes, or I need to remember the language in which the talk was originally given, but potentially confusing.

Being back in Vienna makes me a little homesick for this city, although I don't think I could move back here permanently. I am too much of a New Yorker by now to live with the slower pace, smaller city and relative homogeneity of the population here. Participants at this conference were talking about having attended, or planning to attend, conferences in various other European cities. There is definitely an advantage to living in the center of Europe. Maybe some day I'll come back for a little while ...

I got to go to visit my parents -- another advantage of being in Vienna: they are just a subway ride away, instead of an ocean away.

Barbara

Off to Vienna! + Backup Security

2009-11-25T20:35:00.001-05:00

Hi all,

I am getting ready to leave for Vienna, Austria, to attend the ProZ Regional Conference there this weekend. Next week I am meeting a few business contacts and will also visit my family. I'll return to the U.S. December 8.

The conference sounds interesting -- not surprisingly, I seem to be the only U.S.-based translator who signed up for it. Frankly, I probably wouldn't have signed up, either, if I didn't have family in Vienna. A number of people from various European countries (not just German-speaking) are attending, though, so that should be fun. Plus conference attendees were apparently invited to a fancy "Heurigen", a Viennese-style wine bar cum restaurant, by the mayor of Vienna.

I spent part of today backing up information & transferring files to my laptop, so I'll not only have everything I could possibly need with me, but the information will also be stored on CDs and on an external hard drive. I am rather over-conscious when it comes to backing up digital information -- particularly business- or client-related items. Every night, each project I am working on is copied to a CD for that client (which is stored in the client's folder, along with print-outs of work orders & e-mails with instructions from that client). When a project is completed, it is again backed up to CD. Once a week, both my desktop and laptop automatically back up to an external hard drive attached to my home network. Similarly, accounting information (kept in QuickBooks Pro) is backed up regularly on CDs (one for the business, one for home/family accounts), and contact information and e-mails (kept in Outlook with Business Contact Manager) are included in the weekly backup to an external hard drive.

I am considering adding a layer of online backup every other week or so, in case something *really* bad happens to my house. The question is, how secure is such a backup (especially when it comes to client and/or financial information)? Anything on the internet can be hacked, including "secure" online storage. Houses can be broken into, as well, but at least I'd notice if someone broke into my home office and made off with my files (not sure why anyone would do so or what they would do with the files, but ...). If someone hacked my online backup space, I wouldn't necessarily know that the data had been compromised. On the other hand, online storage seems the only viable option for securing data if my home office is physically destroyed or severely damaged (e.g., a fire -- it's on the third floor, so flooding is unlikely to be a problem).

Do you have any experience using online backup solutions? If so, I'd love to hear from you.

Until next time,

Barbara

PS (April 2010): I have since set up online backup. Read about my entire backup/disaster preparedness system.

ATA Conference + Translation Industry Study

2009-11-16T10:34:00.000-05:00

As a child I had always admired the hotel concierges in old movies who dispensed advice and critical information along with mail and phone messages. At the recent American Translators Association conference here in New York I got to be something of a concierge. I, along with a number of other members, volunteered at the hospitality desk set up by ATA's New York chapter, the New York Circle of Translators. We could even use a "real" receptionist's area, complete with chest-high countertop and little cubicles behind the countertop. We volunteers not only helped out-of-towners find their way around New York City, but in the process we met conference attendees from a number of different places. This being a conference of language professionals, the information could even be offered in a number of different languages (although the printed materials - some of which came from the New York City tourist office - were only in English).

The most valuable part of the conference for me were the contacts I made with both other translators and purchasers of translation services, such as translation agencies and organizations with translation departments. I am heading for Vienna in the end of the month and will meet with some of these contacts there. ProZ, one of the larger translation websites, is holding a regional conference in Vienna, which I will be attending before visiting family and meeting with some business contacts in early December.

The ATA conference also included a number of interesting presentations. One of these was a study from Common Sense Advisory suggesting that the translation industry in the U.S. is poised for significant growth, particularly in the national security, international affairs, public work and public safety sectors. That's great news for translators working in Middle Eastern, Eastern European or Southeast Asian languages who are willing to work for the U.S. government. Not so great news, though, for those of us who work with Western European languages and won't work for the U.S. military or "homeland security". According to this study, the next-biggest industry in terms of translation and localization potential is IT. That would be great for me, since I specialize in IT documents, but the language most needed in that sector is Chinese. Since I don't speak Chinese, that doesn't really help so much ...

How have you translators of Western European languages who do not work for the U.S. government fared in terms of assignments received during the last 6-9 months? Has the volume decreased, increased or stayed the same? Have any of your regular clients cut back or stopped assigning translations altogether?

Either post a comment here or write to me at blog@reliable-translations.com.

Until next time,
Barbara

What Qualifications Does a Translator Need?

2009-05-19T11:36:00.000-04:00

Some believe that translators' qualifications are demonstrated by a degree in translation, "preferably at the master's level". However, depending on the language combination in question, such a degree may not be readily obtainable in the U.S., especially for immigrants who arrive here as adults. For example, none of the many universities in New York City offer an M.A. in German-English translation. New York University offers a certificate in translation for this language combination, which, however, is not even equivalent to a B.A., let alone a more advanced degree. And German is one of the more common languages in American academia.

Translation is a practical skill, not just an academic discipline. While the academic study of translation can be useful, it is not a prerequisite for successfully practicing the profession. As a matter of fact, a number of professionals in the field, including trainer Jon Ritzdorf, state that in the U.S. proven subject matter expertise is more important than a translation degree. A bi-lingual computer programmer, for example, will be more familiar with computer terminology and concepts in both languages than someone with a translation degree in these languages, but a background in sociology.

To ensure an effective translation of your source documents,choose translators with experience in your field (e.g., computer software), no matter whether they have an M.A. in translation or not.

What Translation Management Software Does

2009-04-28T17:59:00.000-04:00

Translation management software (TM) use during the initial translation not only helps translators (including myself) work more efficiently, but also ensures a more consistent translation. However, the potential of TM software can only be fully leveraged if the original (source) text's terminology and structure are consistent, as well.

Translation management software matches text fragments (sentences, strings or entire paragraphs) with previously translated text. Unlike the search functionality in standard word processing programs, however, TM software allows for small variations in the text (different word endings, one or two different words in a sentence, etc.) Consider this example:

Sentence 1: "The dog in the house is brown and small."
Sentence 2a: "The cat in the house is brown and small."
Sentence 2b: "There is a small, brown cat in the house."

TM software will record sentence 1. If it later encounters sentence 2a, it will present sentence 1 as a "fuzzy" (inexact) match. The translator then only has to change "dog" to "cat" and can skip the rest of the sentence. But if sentence 2b is used instead , the software will not know that the two sentences are similar and will therefore not present the first sentence as a possible option. The translator must now translate the entire sentence over again.

This is particularly important if various documents relating to the same product are translated at different points in time. If sentence 1 occurs in document 1, and sentence 2a or 2b occurs in document 2, the translator may not remember sentence 1 when he or she translates sentence 2 weeks after working on document 1. While TM software permits the creation of custom glossaries, these will usually only contain key terms, not variations on minor word choices. While the translator may not remember sentence 1, the software will if sentence 2a is used, no matter how long ago document 1 was translated. The translator can then ensure a consistent translation for sentence 2.

Such use of TM software only works, however, if the translation memory from document 1 is used when document 2 is translated. If the same person translates both documents, he or she will likely re-use the translation memory. If a different person handles document 2, he or she may not have access to the translation memory used for document 1 -- indeed he or she may not even know it exists. This requires the same translator to be available for both documents. The best way to ensure that is to let your translator know that document 2 will exist and when to expect the source text. The translator then can schedule his or her other projects accordingly and ensure they are available to work on document 2.

To ensure an effective, consistent translation of your source documents, therefore, ensure consistency in both translators and source text.

Longer schedule

2009-03-31T21:55:00.000-04:00

Because of a large volume of work and apparent lack of readership for this blog, I'll be publishing on a more extended schedule for the time being.

Until later,
Barbara

A Free Glossary for the Hospitality Industry?

2009-03-24T20:23:00.000-04:00

Being Austrian myself I found this sign from an Austrian ski hotel reported in Richard Lederer's "Anguished English" particularly amusing: "Not to perambulate the corridors in the hours of repose in the boots of ascension."

A cultural note: In Austria, certain hours of the night -- usually from about 10pm to 6am or so -- are designated "quiet hours" ("hours of repose") during which one is not supposed to make noise, including running vacuum cleaners and similar activities. This seems a rather foreign concept in my Brooklyn neighborhood, where private garbage services routinely pick up large metal containers for debris around 1 am, people shout boisterously on the street when returning from Saturday night activities at 2 am, and drivers frequently honk their horns repeatedly at midnight when they pick up their dates to go to a club.

Back to our example: how did a simple sentence such as "Don't walk in the corridors in hiking boots during quiet hours" become so convoluted? Someone probably took a dictionary to the German original and decided that verbs such as "walk" were simply too pedestrian (pun intended) for a hotel sign. We can further assume, I think, that the person doing so was not a professional translator and probably had never actually spent time in an English-speaking country.

Clearly, a small ski hotel in the Austrian alps won't hire a professional translator to produce a couple of signs which were likely created on the spot as guests' conduct seemed to warrant them. After all, the sign is understandable and not offensive, so its purpose is served. On the other hand, there are probably a very limited number of such signs needed in the hospitality industry.

So, rather than having each hotel, restaurant and similar establishment do their own -- frequently non-professional -- translation, it might be helpful to post a list of such notices in various languages on a website. Managers of small establishments in the hospitality industry could then get professional translations for their signs, making communication between guests and establishments easier.

Since most of these establishments wouldn't bother hiring a translator for such signs anyway, we translators wouldn't lose any business either. Googling for such a site resulted mostly in translation service providers' sites, as well as a Hotel Industry Blog at a site called bookassist, which is a website on technology & online marketing for hotels. It seems to me that such a site is a little to technological for small hotels and restaurants to frequent.

If any of you are either in the hospitality industry or familiar with it, I'd be happy to compile such a list on my own website, http://www.reliable-translations.com/, at least in German and English.

Until next week,

Barbara