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Poll: Have any of your clients ever specifically asked you not to use CAT tools?
Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
ProZ.com Staff
ProZ.com Staff
SITE STAFF
Nov 5, 2014

This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "Have any of your clients ever specifically asked you not to use CAT tools?".

View the poll results »



 
Christopher Schröder
Christopher Schröder
United Kingdom
Member (2011)
Swedish to English
+ ...
No Nov 5, 2014

It's hard to imagine why they would.

Surely if they didn't think you capable of deciding for yourself that a job is unsuitable for CAT, they wouldn't use you?


 
Angie Garbarino
Angie Garbarino  Identity Verified
Local time: 14:59
Member (2003)
French to Italian
+ ...
Yes Nov 5, 2014

Once or twice for legal translations, the reason was that they were afraid of damaging the layout.

 
Michael Harris
Michael Harris  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 14:59
Member (2006)
German to English
No Nov 5, 2014

Chris S wrote:

It's hard to imagine why they would.

Surely if they didn't think you capable of deciding for yourself that a job is unsuitable for CAT, they wouldn't use you?


And to be perfectly honest with you, how can they check if you did or not?


 
Tim Drayton
Tim Drayton  Identity Verified
Cyprus
Local time: 15:59
Turkish to English
+ ...
No Nov 5, 2014

No, but I don't use them anyway.

 
Leon Ivanihin
Leon Ivanihin  Identity Verified
Local time: 16:59
English to Russian
Yes Nov 5, 2014

Chris S wrote:

It's hard to imagine why they would.



Yes, but they DID!

In my case these clients mixed CAT-tools with Machine Translation. They wanted the translation of the best quality, not 'something from some software'.
No problem. I did just as they asked. Why not?

And yes, I personally did not meet this side, but some people afraid of data leakage when using cloud-based CAT-tools. It makes sense.


 
neilmac
neilmac
Spain
Local time: 14:59
Spanish to English
+ ...
No Nov 5, 2014

Most of my clients aren't agencies, and as long as they get the job done they don't usually care about how I go about it, as long as the end product is good.

I wouldn't mind doing a "naked" translation, although in the past year or two I may have become over-dependent on my Dragon speech recog SW.


 
Rudolf Frans Maulany
Rudolf Frans Maulany  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 14:59
English to Indonesian
+ ...
Yes Nov 5, 2014

Yes, some of my clients I think because of confidential reasons.

 
Thayenga
Thayenga  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 14:59
Member (2009)
English to German
+ ...
No Nov 5, 2014

None of my customers has ever asked, and why should they?

Those customers who did asked in particular for Trados never became my clients because I don't use it.


 
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida  Identity Verified
Portugal
Local time: 13:59
Member (2007)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
Yes Nov 5, 2014

Some years ago, I received a highly spirited and well-written letter from a client (a media group) saying that they expected their translators not to use CAT tools as they valued style over consistency. I don't use them anyway…

 
Julian Holmes
Julian Holmes  Identity Verified
Japan
Local time: 22:59
Member (2011)
Japanese to English
I would like them to Nov 5, 2014

I had a lovely daydream today about a customer purring softly into my ear like this:

Dear gorgeous translator Julian

We have this absolutely HUGE job full of repetitions and really, really similar sentences over 10,000 pages long - give or take a few zillion words - that we'd like you to do for us.
Oh, and since the deadline is so short we'll be willing to ask you to charge us double your asking price.

Pleaaaase say 'yes.' We're just dying for you
... See more
I had a lovely daydream today about a customer purring softly into my ear like this:

Dear gorgeous translator Julian

We have this absolutely HUGE job full of repetitions and really, really similar sentences over 10,000 pages long - give or take a few zillion words - that we'd like you to do for us.
Oh, and since the deadline is so short we'll be willing to ask you to charge us double your asking price.

Pleaaaase say 'yes.' We're just dying for you to make heaps of spondoolicks while doing this awful job for us.

Your sincerely

Your absolute fave customer Just Love Translators Co., Ltd.
@the translator-friendly company with just absolutely buckets of money to throw at adorable J>E translators


And then I heard the doorbell ring and was awakened by the postie to sign for a registered delivery bill. Farewell, lovely dream. It was such a short and sweet liaison. Sigh....

Ask me NOT to use a CAT tool? Like asking for a cold beer in a chilled glass in Hell.
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Christopher Schröder
Christopher Schröder
United Kingdom
Member (2011)
Swedish to English
+ ...
I have that dream too most nights Nov 5, 2014

Julian Holmes wrote:

I had a lovely daydream today about a customer purring softly into my ear like this:

Dear gorgeous translator Julian

We have this absolutely HUGE job full of repetitions and really, really similar sentences over 10,000 pages long - give or take a few zillion words - that we'd like you to do for us.
Oh, and since the deadline is so short we'll be willing to ask you to charge us double your asking price.

Pleaaaase say 'yes.' We're just dying for you to make heaps of spondoolicks while doing this awful job for us.

Your sincerely

Your absolute fave customer Just Love Translators Co., Ltd.
@the translator-friendly company with just absolutely buckets of money to throw at adorable J>E translators



It alternates with the one where British Cycling come round to recruit me for their Olympic programme

[Edited at 2014-11-05 14:51 GMT]

[Edited at 2014-11-05 14:54 GMT]


 
Maxi Schwarz
Maxi Schwarz  Identity Verified
Local time: 08:59
German to English
+ ...
Most of my clients haven't even heard of CAT tools Nov 5, 2014

which makes it an impossible question to answer.

I asked one agency what they thought of CAT tools, and they said "A few translators we work with use them, because it helps them with their work. But basically we're not involved in how they work. We're interested in the final result."

(When I read forums, it's like a different world.)


 
DianeGM
DianeGM  Identity Verified
Local time: 15:59
Member (2006)
Dutch to English
+ ...
No ... Nov 5, 2014

but I think most of my clients are really only concerned about the end product.
They send a file and expect a translated file back at the agreed time for the agreed price.

@ Maxi: welcome to my world

[Edited at 2014-11-05 16:40 GMT]


 
Mariel Varjão Azoubel
Mariel Varjão Azoubel  Identity Verified
Brazil
Local time: 10:59
English to Portuguese
+ ...
Yes Nov 5, 2014

I answered No, but come to think of it, it actually did happen once or twice.

Back when I was in project management there was a client who absolutely loathed CAT tools for some reason (mostly I think they just didn't know how it worked and had the wrong idea about it, as if CAT were the same as Google Translate or something).

And then again with freelancing I also have a client who doesn't want me to use CAT tools for a specific project because it's a healthcare templat
... See more
I answered No, but come to think of it, it actually did happen once or twice.

Back when I was in project management there was a client who absolutely loathed CAT tools for some reason (mostly I think they just didn't know how it worked and had the wrong idea about it, as if CAT were the same as Google Translate or something).

And then again with freelancing I also have a client who doesn't want me to use CAT tools for a specific project because it's a healthcare template thing and it'll mess up the formatting, but they could've just made a bilingual template file (like I did) and then worked from that...
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Poll: Have any of your clients ever specifically asked you not to use CAT tools?






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