| Pages in topic: < [1 2] | Quality: How do you define it? Thread poster: Jonathan Downie (X)
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Jonathan Downie (X) 
United Kingdom
Local time: 07:14
French to English
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TOPIC STARTER | A great definition | Apr 12, 2008 |
When the operator reads the manual completely, he should remember by heart, even when called at 2 AM, how to operate the gantry, and how to be 100% sure the bloody thing does not spill neither his guts nor harms anyone in the area. And to remember it he must understand the book to a last comma. So the translation should be easy to understand for every bum in the street, including myself. I tried to make language about 10 times less harsh as the original 
I can't believe I missed this! Pure gold.
| | | | Steven Capsuto
United States
Local time: 02:14
Member (2004)
Spanish to English
+ ...
| Happens on both sides of the Atlantic | Apr 13, 2008 |
Jonathan Downie wrote: Steven Capsuto wrote: If you're dubbing a movie about Albanian shepherds and they wind up sounding like they're from the Bronx or the East End of London, something's very wrong. [Edited at 2008-04-12 18:41] Unless you are in Hollywood, in which case it is perfectly normal! I am very interested in dubbing as it has even further constraints than translation.
I was actually thinking of the vaguely cockney gladiators in the BBC's "I, Claudius" (at least that's my recollection of their accent; haven't seen the series in years). Not, of course, a translation, but still jarring and it's a good illustration of why films are often dubbed with such "neutral" accents.
[Edited at 2008-04-13 14:38]
| | | | Jonathan Downie (X)
United Kingdom
Local time: 07:14
French to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Steven Capsuto wrote: Jonathan Downie wrote: Steven Capsuto wrote: If you're dubbing a movie about Albanian shepherds and they wind up sounding like they're from the Bronx or the East End of London, something's very wrong. [Edited at 2008-04-12 18:41] Unless you are in Hollywood, in which case it is perfectly normal! I am very interested in dubbing as it has even further constraints than translation. I was actually thinking of the vaguely cockney gladiators in the BBC's "I, Claudius" (at least that's my recollection of their accent; haven't seen the series in years).
That would have turned an historical piece into a Carry-On film. Mind you, being one of those people who often checks BBC interpreting, I can imagine them not paying that much attention to accents...
| | | | Steven Capsuto
United States
Local time: 02:14
Member (2004)
Spanish to English
+ ...
Jonathan Downie wrote:
That would have turned an historical piece into a Carry-On film. Mind you, being one of those people who often checks BBC interpreting, I can imagine them not paying that much attention to accents...
I think they were going for class equivalence: the Roman imperial family spoke in Received Pronunciation and the poor folk sounded like uneducated poor Brits. Nice in theory, but to my American ears it sounded quite odd. It's still one of my favorite pieces of old, classic TV drama, though.
[Edited at 2008-04-13 17:43]
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Jonathan Downie (X)
United Kingdom
Local time: 07:14
French to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
I remember thinking about stuff like that when I did Drama at Uni. On paper, and to a dramatist, it looks good. To anyone who doesn't pas their days reading Lit Crit, it doesn't really work.
I wonder if you can tell a translator's education by how often s/he attempts something like that.
| | | | MariusV
Lithuania
Local time: 09:14
English to Lithuanian
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| quality = a happy and returning client | Apr 18, 2008 |
as simple as that.
+ A translator who really feels he/she put all his/her heart into the job he/she did.
| | | | Jonathan Downie (X)
United Kingdom
Local time: 07:14
French to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
MariusV wrote:
as simple as that.
+ A translator who really feels he/she put all his/her heart into the job he/she did.
If only we could all see the world that simply. But, of course, you are absolutely right!
| | | | hazmatgerman (X)
Local time: 08:14
English to German
| Downie - professionals | Apr 18, 2008 |
For the occasional work I do it is very simple. For the short term the quality is sufficient if the client is happy. In the long term it matters whether the short-term quality is sustainable money-wise. Academic deliberations on the subject may be intellectually interesting, and that's that.
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Jonathan Downie (X)
United Kingdom
Local time: 07:14
French to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | Academia and real life | Apr 18, 2008 |
hazmatgerman wrote:
For the occasional work I do it is very simple. For the short term the quality is sufficient if the client is happy. In the long term it matters whether the short-term quality is sustainable money-wise. Academic deliberations on the subject may be intellectually interesting, and that's that.
I always think that academia should try to fit real life and not the other way round. In the real world, you have to learn how much you can do to what quality at what price in what timeframe. Quality becomes another variable in the whole mix. Really it means all the things we have mentioned here but the most important one is a client who comes back to you.
| | | | Gerard de Noord
France
Local time: 08:14
Member (2003)
English to Dutch
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| Academia versus the real world | Apr 18, 2008 |
Jonathan Downie wrote:
I always think that academia should try to fit real life and not the other way round. In the real world, you have to learn how much you can do to what quality at what price in what timeframe. Quality becomes another variable in the whole mix. Really it means all the things we have mentioned here but the most important one is a client who comes back to you.
And it takes both a hazmat and a Downie to keep us focussed. Client satisfaction will always be number one, but we are always talking about our perceived quality and the client's perceived quality.
Many years ago, my brother taught me a valuable lesson. He was selling personal computers in an era that nobody believed in them and was an expert in building LANs and WANs before the internet was popular. He'd e.g. visit a decision maker at a firm who wanted to be able to see what's in stock on his computer screen. My brother would build the easiest solution imaginable, like synchronising with the contents of the personal computer of the warehouse manager once a week. His clients loved him. Three years later he'd go back to talk about upgrading the synchronisation to once a day.
I once told my brother how we at IBM were using the PROFS system to instantly send information from one PC to the other around the world and my brother just replied that his clients had never asked for that and that he only was fulfilling wishes his clients had expressed. He himself was among the first in the world to use the internet for fun, but he wasn't selling it.
To go back to Jonathan's initial question: "Do you think there is a discrepancy between how you define (quality) and how your clients define it?" The gap is great and being aware of that could save us a lot of effort, time and money.
Regards,
Gerard
| | | | Jonathan Downie (X)
United Kingdom
Local time: 07:14
French to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | Quality: the winner is...? | Apr 19, 2008 |
The question is whether we should offer them more that would benefit them. Personally, I could never bring myself to do anything less than the best job I can do with the time available. Occasionally, that means dropping he client a note to explain some of what I did to the client or asking them questions they hadn't thought of.
Sometimes it is worth offering the customer something they never thought of and proving how good it is. Take ISDN, I read a story about an ISDN salesman w... See more The question is whether we should offer them more that would benefit them. Personally, I could never bring myself to do anything less than the best job I can do with the time available. Occasionally, that means dropping he client a note to explain some of what I did to the client or asking them questions they hadn't thought of.
Sometimes it is worth offering the customer something they never thought of and proving how good it is. Take ISDN, I read a story about an ISDN salesman who tried to see it on all te useful things it could do. However, what sold it was the one thing it could do but, at the timel, wasn't that useful: ie, using it to surf all three websites available at the time, which gave you the rare privilege of looking at a dinosaur picture of a gem, of the server wasn't down.
You know what, that "useless" internet bit made the sale, every time. Why? It did it because it was new and people like being seen as innovative.
My rule is that when doing a translation, the highest quality standard wins. If mine is higher and would also include everything they could want out of it, mine wins. They stay happy and so do I. If theirs is higher, they win; they are happy and so am I. It might mean extra work, but a returning, faithful client is worth it. It's how I won a nice big repeating contract so I am not thinking of changing now. ▲ Collapse
| | | | MariusV
Lithuania
Local time: 09:14
English to Lithuanian
+ ...
Jonathan Downie wrote: MariusV wrote:
as simple as that.
+ A translator who really feels he/she put all his/her heart into the job he/she did.
If only we could all see the world that simply. But, of course, you are absolutely right!
Simple things are the most complex ones.
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