Thursday, February 16, 2012

A Translator's Education Never Ends

I had a couple of very interesting meetings with translator colleagues -- some of whom also function as very small translation agencies -- here in Vienna. Our e-mail communications are usually limited to exchanges about a specific project or topic. That is certainly appropriate for the medium and the fact that such conversations tend to take place in the middle of our workdays. A (very) occasional after-hours face-to-face meeting, on the other hand, affords us the opportunity for much wider-ranging chats.


One of the things I learned in these meetings is that the Austrian translators association, Universitas, holds summer courses on terminology at the University of Vienna. Something to bear in mind for Summer 2013, when I'll be back in Vienna for my father's 80th birthday anyway. Spending a summer in Austria would also be a good immersion course in contemporary German. Like most translators, I do try to read regularly in my "other" language(s) (i.e., the one(s) in which I'm not living), but actually living in that linguistic environment 24/7 is different.


I consider trips back to Europe part of my continuing education as a translator. So is the class in green building/alternative energy that I will attend in New York starting in early March. It should help me better understand how solar energy and similar technologies work. I have translated a few documents on photovoltaics, but wound up resorting to Wikipedia to help me understand the technical concepts behind the text I was translating. That understanding (and credentials, since the class prepares for a certification exam as an LEED associate) should pave the way for more work in the alternative energy sector.


But a translator's continuing education isn't limited to source and target languages, as well as subject matter. It should also include changing technologies both in our field and for general use. This means keeping abreast of new CAT (Computer Assisted Translation) tools, terminology databases and social media networks, as well as administrative software, such as CRM (customer relationship management), project management and invoicing programs. Another thing I learned in my meetings here is that the CAT tool memoQ is becoming rather popular in Europe and is apparently more flexible than Trados, which I use. I'm not sure I want to spend money (and time) on two tools, but I'll certainly investigate the program after I get back.


PS: I will be on vacation the next two weeks, so won't post again until my return in early March.

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Will Controlled English Take Over Technical Communication?

The Society for Technical Communication organizes regular web seminars (webinars) on a variety of communications-related topics. I attended last night's webinar on "Controlled Language", presented by language service provider TedoPres.  Controlled English -- also called Simplified English -- is used to standardize technical texts, as well as to make them more concise. It limits writers to a list of approved terms and imposes a set of grammar and style rules in addition to general English grammar. The vocabulary list and rules differ from company to company, so that there is no one single "Simplified English" standard. However, there are specifications, such as Simplified Technical English (used in the aerospace and defense industries), which can be adapted to a specific company's needs.


Using such controlled vocabulary and grammar ensures consistent use of terminology. It also guards against ambiguities and needlessly complex sentences. That, in turn, makes translation easier and more efficient. Consistent terminology allows me to use my translation memory tool more effectively. Clearer source text helps to avoid mistranslations due to erroneous interpretation of the original. The same is true of simpler sentence structures.


All this streamlining usually also reduces the amount of text to be translated. According to the webinar, use of controlled language reduces translation cost by 20-30%. However, too concise a text can become ambiguous when the intended audience is not considered. The presenter cited one example from an airport in Canada where the instructions included the phrase "clear runway". Everyone working there left the area in question, except for the snowplow driver, who entered the runway to clear away leftover snow.


In addition to reducing translation cost, controlled language also makes the text easier to understand for speakers of English as a second language. While writing in English for global audiences does not require the use of a specific controlled language, many of the rules for simplified English apply in this situation, as well.


So does the proliferation of English-language documents read by global audiences, as well as the drive to reduce the expenses associated with expanding a business internationally mean that in the future most technical text will be written in a controlled language? The trend seems to point in that direction, although marketing considerations probably pull the other way. I'll look at the relationship between technical information and marketing tactics in a future post.


PS: I am leaving for Austria this Friday, Feb. 10, for three weeks. I will try to post at least once during that time, but possibly not more often than that.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Language Learners as Translators?

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?


Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Copyright for Translations

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?

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Why Aren't eBooks Global?

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 ...

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Colleague or Competitor?

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!


Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Are Translators Becoming Employees Without Benefits?

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.