| Pages in topic: < [1 2] | Poll: What are the typical errors you find when you proofread a translation for the first time? Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
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| Mistranslations | May 14, 2008 |
When I get a text for proofreading after someone else's translation, most frequent mistakes are mistranslations. The texts are generally OK in terms of spelling, grammar, style, etc., but when the customer comes to me it is because they need to be sure about some material they received from the customer, i.e. an old translation. Frequently the terms used are not correct for the context.
Internationalisation and mechanical problems (adapting figures, dates, units of measurement corre... See more When I get a text for proofreading after someone else's translation, most frequent mistakes are mistranslations. The texts are generally OK in terms of spelling, grammar, style, etc., but when the customer comes to me it is because they need to be sure about some material they received from the customer, i.e. an old translation. Frequently the terms used are not correct for the context.
Internationalisation and mechanical problems (adapting figures, dates, units of measurement correctly only in some places but not everywhere, unnecessary or missing spaces, missing dots at the end of sentences, etc.) are also very frequent. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | 41% of typos?? | May 14, 2008 |
Don't people run their spellcheckers? Yes, there can be some typos that are not detected by the spelling and grammar checker, but it puzzles me that 41% of the mistakes are spelling problems today.
| | | | Joan Berglund 
United States
Local time: 00:08
Member (2008)
French to English
I do my first proofread of my own stuff in Wordfast before I run the spell check, so I see plenty of typos on my own rough drafts. I think my rough drafts may be rougher than usual, I tend to go through them very fast and then proof and rewrite more slowly afterward, I seem to have a touch of blank page/screen phobia. I write original papers the same way - get it down on paper even if it's crap and then rewrite. In other people's translatons I mostly see mistranslations and just plain bad sty... See more I do my first proofread of my own stuff in Wordfast before I run the spell check, so I see plenty of typos on my own rough drafts. I think my rough drafts may be rougher than usual, I tend to go through them very fast and then proof and rewrite more slowly afterward, I seem to have a touch of blank page/screen phobia. I write original papers the same way - get it down on paper even if it's crap and then rewrite. In other people's translatons I mostly see mistranslations and just plain bad style, especially in the sense of retaining too much French syntax. Usually they are pretty good about spell and number checking. ▲ Collapse
| | | | lillkakan
Local time: 06:08
English to Swedish
| Ambiguous question | May 14, 2008 |
Proofreading my own translations I most often do stylistic changes. Not exactly error fixing, but improving the fluency of the text.
Proofreading others, it can be anything from mistranslations to grammar errors. I actually turn down most offered proofreadings these days because the translations are usually so bad (and obviously not done by native speakers) that it's a waste of time to 'proofread' when it really needs a retranslation.
As for typos, spellchecking softwar... See more Proofreading my own translations I most often do stylistic changes. Not exactly error fixing, but improving the fluency of the text.
Proofreading others, it can be anything from mistranslations to grammar errors. I actually turn down most offered proofreadings these days because the translations are usually so bad (and obviously not done by native speakers) that it's a waste of time to 'proofread' when it really needs a retranslation.
As for typos, spellchecking software can catch all the obvious typos, the missng letter or the mispalced letter, but to find the kind of typos that creates a new word (e.g. 'loaf' instead of 'load', where 'd' and 'f' are placed next to each other on the keyboard) you need a human proofreader. You can't rely solely on software there. ▲ Collapse
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| Typos and spellcheckers | May 14, 2008 |
Alexander Kondorsky wrote:
Spellchecker takes care of typos...
I think it depends on the language. I know nothing about Russian, can't even read Cyrillic chars, but I know a bit of Polish. A spellchecker should work hard and sort out if a "rzscz"should be "rzcz", or things of the sort.
In Portuguese, for instance, several words change meaning with minor mistakes that no spellchecker will spot.
The most typical is "coco" (= coconut); when it has a circumflex accent on the second "O", "cocô", it becomes the universal popular (among children too) noun for feces. Years ago the coconut had a circumflex accent on the first "O" but it was abolished.
A friend and FR-EN-PT translator tells about a former secretary of his who typed very fast, but instead of "administrador de pedidos" (order processing manager), she often skipped one "D" and wrote "administrador de peidos", which means "fart administrator".
I remember my first spellchecker, guess it was Word 2.0, it would not accept "nuvens" (= clouds), but would suggest inserting a space to change it it to "nu vens" (= you come naked).
"Acontecera" stands for something that took place in the past, it happened. By addng just one acute accent on the last "A", we get "acontecerá", future tense, for something that will happen.
Two one-letter words are unusually common: "e" (= and) and "é" (w/ acute accent = is). So "Antonio e um burro" means "Anthony and a donkey"; while "Antonio é um burro" means that poor Anthony is a stupid person.
So there are some languages where it might be deadly to trust a spellchecker; a magnifying glass is a must.
| | | | Amy Duncan (X)
Brazil
Local time: 01:08
Portuguese to English
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A friend and FR-EN-PT translator tells about a former secretary of his who typed very fast, but instead of "administrador de pedidos" (order processing manager), she often skipped one "D" and wrote "administrador de peidos", which means "fart administrator".
Ha ha! I got a good laugh out of this after a long day of translating! And speaking of coco vs. cocô, I remember when a relative came to visit me when I was living in Rio, and when I took her to the beach to one of the kiosks, she wanted to try her Portuguese and asked for an "água de cocô".
Amy
| | | | Anthony Baldwin
United States
Local time: 00:08
Portuguese to English
+ ...
I thought you were talking about revising work from other translators.
Their aren't ever any errors in my work, of coarse...
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I check the text by CAT's spellcheck, than by Open Office spellcheck, but sometimes there are misspells not found by spellcheck, as such words exist too (eg. different grammar form of a word), so they're not underlines in red.
Anni
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| In my case... | May 15, 2008 |
Alexander Kondorsky wrote:
Spellchecker takes care of typos, wordfast takes care of omissions and overtranslations, but every time I prooofread a translated text I'm tempted to edit it to put it into a better style.
I hardly ever accept proofing in my mother tongue. My primary clients in this area are Mexican scientists who ask for "style correction" of English papers prepared by themselves, and they give me full permission to edit, which I really love to do
I think proof-reading is a separate specialization.
Enjoy your jobs, guys!
| | | | | Awkwardnesses | May 15, 2008 |
For me, the biggest reason for re-reading is to smooth out awkward passages.
| | | | Miranda Joubioux (X)
Local time: 06:08
French to English
| Other - depends on whether I'm proofreading my own work or not | May 15, 2008 |
If I'm proofreading someone else's work then it's got to be punctuation, followed by misinterpretations and occasional rephrasing to get rid of French sounding sentences!
If I'm proofreading my own work, it's for typos not seen by spell check & grammar correction (Word misses an awful lot!). Sometimes I rephrase to make the English simpler and therefore easier to read. Occasionally, I miss the odd space before a colon or the "points de suspension" and "guillemets" in French (sometim... See more If I'm proofreading someone else's work then it's got to be punctuation, followed by misinterpretations and occasional rephrasing to get rid of French sounding sentences!
If I'm proofreading my own work, it's for typos not seen by spell check & grammar correction (Word misses an awful lot!). Sometimes I rephrase to make the English simpler and therefore easier to read. Occasionally, I miss the odd space before a colon or the "points de suspension" and "guillemets" in French (sometimes punctuation gets missed in my CAT tool).
If I'm proofreading my own work before it goes to print, it's to check whether the customer has got the layout and punctuation (for some reason spaces before colons, etc. get left unchanged despite my hard work) right. It's also to make sure that someone doesn't knock an "s" off a noun, or some such, because they think they know better, and things like that (I'm proofreading at the moment, and this is exactly what has happened). ▲ Collapse
| | | | neilmac
Spain
Local time: 06:08
Spanish to English
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| Spellchecker takes care of MOST typos | May 15, 2008 |
Alexander Kondorsky wrote:
Spellchecker takes care of typos ... but every time I prooofread a translated text I'm tempted to edit it to put it into a better style.
I myself am loathe to trust spellcheckers, especially the MS Word versions. As for Wordfast... maybe I just haven't gotten round to using properly but I'm a bit wary of it too.
By producing quality initial drafts, I aim to proof my texts as little as possible, mainly to avoid the temptation to edit it into a better style, which is too time consuming for me given my low rates and quick turnover times. If it's good to go, it's good to go, especially if the client is in a hurry.
And as for stopping to categorise the bloopers, I'm afraid I'd rather smell the roses.
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