English native required for a translation into Italian?
Thread poster: Angie Garbarino
Angie Garbarino
Angie Garbarino  Identity Verified
Local time: 15:50
Member (2003)
French to Italian
+ ...
May 4, 2007

Dear All

I was checking a job posted recently, wanted submit a bid but... I cannot because they require an English native for a translation FROM English into Italian and FROM English into Spanish
Isn't it a bit weird?

What you think?
Have nice week end

Angioletta

[Edited at 2007-05-04 14:24]


 
sarahjeanne (X)
sarahjeanne (X)
Brazil
Local time: 11:50
Portuguese to English
+ ...
it happens all the time.... May 4, 2007

at least from Portuguese to English. i've seen innumerous jobs that request a portuguese native speaker to translate to english, and some were jobs posted by other translators, not agencies! i guess i just chalked it up to they thought the source was so complicated that only a native could translate? i would guess that then they just get someone to do the revision later (i hope!).

 
megane_wang
megane_wang  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 15:50
Member (2007)
English to Spanish
+ ...
... and into Spanish May 4, 2007

Hello Angio,

Maybe there's been an error. It would not be the first time it happens. The problem is that, in this case, ProZ does not allow you to bid.

I have e-mailed them to ask: We'll see...

Some time ago, though, an agency requested a portuguese native and brazilian resident to translate into both portuguese and european Spanish. They found it so reasonable because it was going to be cheaper... they almost called me i***t.... See more
Hello Angio,

Maybe there's been an error. It would not be the first time it happens. The problem is that, in this case, ProZ does not allow you to bid.

I have e-mailed them to ask: We'll see...

Some time ago, though, an agency requested a portuguese native and brazilian resident to translate into both portuguese and european Spanish. They found it so reasonable because it was going to be cheaper... they almost called me i***t.

You live, you see, you learn!!!

Ruth @ MW
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ulla2608
ulla2608  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 15:50
German to Spanish
+ ...
Too much importance on "native" May 4, 2007

High, Angio,

may be it was just en error. But, besides this, I sometimes think that people are attaching too much importance to that story of the "native speaker". I am "german native" and often I have german source texts which make me think that I'm fortunate to be a german native, otherwise I would not be able to understand this text! So, it always depends from which side you're looking..... I think it is much more important to render the real meaning of a text (and therefore it
... See more
High, Angio,

may be it was just en error. But, besides this, I sometimes think that people are attaching too much importance to that story of the "native speaker". I am "german native" and often I have german source texts which make me think that I'm fortunate to be a german native, otherwise I would not be able to understand this text! So, it always depends from which side you're looking..... I think it is much more important to render the real meaning of a text (and therefore it is indispensable to understand it) than to regive it in grammatically correct form.
Kind regards
Ulla
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Deschant
Deschant
Local time: 14:50
Reply May 4, 2007

Could easily be a mistake. I once tried to apply for a job German > Spanish which was open only to bidders who were native speakers of... Russian. The person posting the job had obviously made a mistake (I think it was a multilingual project, with German > Russian being one of the pairs involved) and finally added a note to the job post to clarify the situation.

Also, it depends on who has posted the job. Agencies usually specify that they prefer natives of the target language, but
... See more
Could easily be a mistake. I once tried to apply for a job German > Spanish which was open only to bidders who were native speakers of... Russian. The person posting the job had obviously made a mistake (I think it was a multilingual project, with German > Russian being one of the pairs involved) and finally added a note to the job post to clarify the situation.

Also, it depends on who has posted the job. Agencies usually specify that they prefer natives of the target language, but some direct clients simply ignore the implications of the "native speaker principle" and they may think that translators work mainly from their native language and not to it. Some time ago, I tried to win direct clients in a particular sector, but my campaign was not very successful: most of them wanted me to translate from Spanish (my native tongue) to English, German or Italian, or even in pairs such as English > German, Italian > English or the like. So I had quite a lot of requests from them, but not many real projects, because I had to turn down most of them!
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María Teresa Taylor Oliver
María Teresa Taylor Oliver  Identity Verified
Panama
Local time: 09:50
Spanish to English
+ ...
My half-cent... ;) May 4, 2007

megane_wang wrote:

Some time ago, though, an agency requested a portuguese native and brazilian resident to translate into both portuguese and european Spanish. They found it so reasonable because it was going to be cheaper... they almost called me i***t.

You live, you see, you learn!!!

Ruth @ MW



Well, apart from the ongoing debate on whether a translator should only work from a second language into his or her own native language (in my opinion, all that talk about native and non-native is nonsense), Ruth does make a good point.


 
María Teresa Taylor Oliver
María Teresa Taylor Oliver  Identity Verified
Panama
Local time: 09:50
Spanish to English
+ ...
Too much importance indeed... May 4, 2007

But, besides this, I sometimes think that people are attaching too much importance to that story of the "native speaker". I am "german native" and often I have german source texts which make me think that I'm fortunate to be a german native, otherwise I would not be able to understand this text! So, it always depends from which side you're looking..... I think it is much more important to render the real meaning of a text (and therefore it is indispensable to understand it) than to regive it in grammatically correct form.


Precisely my point! I wrote my reply above before reading yours, Ulla. You make perfect sense

The occasional translations I do from Spanish into English are usually so badly written (and they're almost always legal translations, and you know how lawyers write, right?), that I'm glad my native language is Spanish, so I'm able to understand what the hell I'm translating!


 
Angie Garbarino
Angie Garbarino  Identity Verified
Local time: 15:50
Member (2003)
French to Italian
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
A clarification May 4, 2007

Just for clarifying that I never affirmed that one should translate in his/her mother tongue only,
Infact I agree with Maria Teresa and Ruth, and already had my problems in another forum for this matter

However I still found "strange" to require an English native for a translation FROM English.

I can agree with Ulla about German, b
... See more
Just for clarifying that I never affirmed that one should translate in his/her mother tongue only,
Infact I agree with Maria Teresa and Ruth, and already had my problems in another forum for this matter

However I still found "strange" to require an English native for a translation FROM English.

I can agree with Ulla about German, but please let me say that English structure/grammar has nothing to do with the German one,
so I still find at least strange that they need an English native for a translation FROM English

Bye bye to All!



[Edited at 2007-05-04 17:06]
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María Teresa Taylor Oliver
María Teresa Taylor Oliver  Identity Verified
Panama
Local time: 09:50
Spanish to English
+ ...
I apologize, Angio May 4, 2007

Angio wrote:


Just for clarifying that I never affirmed that one should translate in his/her mother tongue only,
Infact I agree with Maria Teresa and Ruth, and already had my problems in the Italian another forum for this matter



It's OK, I never took it to mean that was your opinion I just commented on a trend that is meaningless to me, but it is, in fact, a trend, a standard, even, and as such, I also find it a bit strange that a job posting goes against that standard...

Oh well, live and learn, like Ruth said...


 
Natalie
Natalie  Identity Verified
Poland
Local time: 15:50
Member (2002)
English to Russian
+ ...

MODERATOR
SITE LOCALIZER
Hi Angioletta May 4, 2007

Angio wrote:
I was checking a job posted recently, wanted submit a bid but... I cannot because they require an English native for a translation FROM English into Italian and FROM English into Spanish
Isn't it a bit weird?
What you think?


I think that:

1) It is weird, of course.

2) No doubts it was the outsourcer's mistake.

3) As soon as you noticed this you should click the link at the bottom of the page to call a jobs moderator who could promptly correct the situation. Discussing this mistake here does not help, unfortunately: if nobody corrects the mistake, nobody would be able to quote.

Such mistakes are rather often because outsourcers use previous job postings as templates for posting new jobs and sometimes forget to change previous settings, hence these weird requirements. Please also note that many jobs are posted directly, without being vetted by jobs mods. Thank you for notifying us in the future.

Natalia
P.S. I am moving this thread to the Jobs forum.
P.P.S. I found this job and contacted the outsourcer askim him to check the laguage pairs and the native language requirements.





[Edited at 2007-05-04 18:42]


 
writeaway
writeaway  Identity Verified
French to English
+ ...
Weird? According to whom? May 4, 2007

Angio wrote:

Dear All

I was checking a job posted recently, wanted submit a bid but... I cannot because they require an English native for a translation FROM English into Italian and FROM English into Spanish
Isn't it a bit weird?

What you think?
Have nice week end

Angioletta

[Edited at 2007-05-04 14:24]


Is it more weird than seeing an NL-En job requiring Dutch native speakers (such jobs have been posted)? Or seeing all the questions posted by Italian and even Spanish natives translating FROM Italian into English? I guess that like beauty, "weird" is in the eye of the beholder.

[Edited at 2007-05-05 00:04]


 
Gabi Ancarol (X)
Gabi Ancarol (X)
Italy
Italian to Spanish
+ ...
Yes, Angioletta... May 4, 2007

Angio wrote:

(...)and already had my problems in another forum for this matter (...)


You were not the only one!

xxx
Gabi



[Edited at 2007-05-04 22:24]


 
PRen (X)
PRen (X)  Identity Verified
Local time: 10:50
French to English
+ ...
And what's even more weird May 5, 2007

writeaway wrote:

Angio wrote:

Dear All

I was checking a job posted recently, wanted submit a bid but... I cannot because they require an English native for a translation FROM English into Italian and FROM English into Spanish
Isn't it a bit weird?

What you think?
Have nice week end

Angioletta

[Edited at 2007-05-04 14:24]


Is it more weird than seeing an NL-En job requiring Dutch native speakers (such jobs have been posted)? Or seeing all the questions posted by Italian and even Spanish natives translating FROM Italian into English? I guess that like beauty, "weird" is in the eye of the beholder.

[Edited at 2007-05-05 00:04]



.... are the people claiming fluency in English who consistently make rudimentary mistakes when they post in English in the fora... they think we can't telll?

[Edited at 2007-05-05 04:34]


 
Juliana Brown
Juliana Brown  Identity Verified
Israel
Local time: 10:50
Member (2007)
Spanish to English
+ ...
tests are even wierder May 8, 2007

Just today I bid on a job from Hebrew to Spanish which required a short test from ENGLISH to Spanish! Very strange...

 


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English native required for a translation into Italian?






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