| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13] > | From bad to worse... An advice? Native vs Non-native issue Thread poster: Inga Petkelyte
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Peter Zhuang 
Germany
Local time: 00:59
German to English
+ ...
| They are not worth your time. | Aug 11, 2015 |
Hello Inga,
As The Misha said, they are not worth your time.
I can relate to your predicament. See, I grew up in Singapore. And I translate (almost) exclusively from German into English.
As I started applying for jobs last year, I sent my application to many agencies in hope of landing my first job. Some agencies did not respond, while others bluntly replied that they only work with native speakers of the target language. I received a few positive responses... See more Hello Inga,
As The Misha said, they are not worth your time.
I can relate to your predicament. See, I grew up in Singapore. And I translate (almost) exclusively from German into English.
As I started applying for jobs last year, I sent my application to many agencies in hope of landing my first job. Some agencies did not respond, while others bluntly replied that they only work with native speakers of the target language. I received a few positive responses, but they wanted me to translate into Chinese, even after explicitly stating that English is actually my first language!
However, there are always agencies that will show some form of understanding for people with less typical background. I did eventually find a few great agencies which agreed to put me through their normal application process, and results have been rather positive until now. I am convinced that there are plenty of fish in the sea ever since.
There will always be people who are naysayers, people who go into a meltdown when someone dares to question their definition of "native speaker" and their dogmatic views on this issue. I have had unpalatable discussions with people who insist that the know my linguistic background better than I do.
If you are convinced of your ability and your clients are satisfied with your work, then the rest is just noise.
It's not a prejudice, it's the quality policy for those particular translation agencies.
Pray tell, if the OP was deemed the better person for the job, how does giving the job to another person a matter of "quality".
But hey, she should be happy that she got something out of it. Right? ▲ Collapse
| | | | jyuan_us
United States
Local time: 18:59
Member (2005)
English to Chinese
+ ...
| this has nothing to do with if the translator was native or non-native English speaker | Aug 11, 2015 |
DJHartmann wrote: The Thai Ministry of Labor didn't think native English translators (or proofreaders) were important either and this list of "forbidden occupations for foreigners" ended up being on their website (taken down today after public mocking):
Not alien to the professional set of career. Professional and not an alien to do.
Account end decree.
Set in professional video and tea alien life that do not.
2522.
1. The proletariat.
2. Farmers gas party animals of the forest or fishery, except that the use of specialized expertise or the control of farms.
3. The masonry construction or other carpentry work.
4. Carved wood.
5. The driving vehicle. The driver or vehicle that does not use machinery or mechanical. Exception of the pilot countries.
6. The sale of every page.
7. The auction.
8. Monitoring or control services unless account the interim audit.
9. The cut or polished diamonds or pebble.
10. The haircut or the curl of beauty.
11. Work hand-weaving.
12. Of woven mats or work appliances with rattan reed or straw, hemp bamboo pulp.
13. Paper hand job.
14. Lacquer work.
15. Thai musical work.
16. Job filling machine.
17. Work a gold or silver otter.
18. Lghin a job.
19. Job Thai dolls.
20. Berth blanket mitt work.
21. The card.
22. The products made from silk hand.
23. Job Buddha.
24. Work knife.
25. Indoor work with paper or cloth.
26. Work shoes.
27. Work hat.
28. The broker or the agent unless the agent or broker in the business of international trade.
29. Work in the engineering profession. Civil Engineering. Associated with the design calculations and organize research project construction control testing. Or advice. Excluding the special expertise required.
30. Job-related professional architectural design drawings about price director of construction or advice.
31. Crafts apparel.
32. The sculpture or pottery making.
33. The roll by hand.
34. The guide. Or the organized tour.
35. Hawk the product.
36. Work individually hand-printed Thai characters.
37. The young, and some hand-twisting spiral.
38. The clerk or secretarial staff.
39. Work for legal services or legal action.
Not assuming that your language is in any way as bad as this but this is how bad some non-native translations can end up. Absolutely shameful!
This is the result of the fact that this person was not qualified for language translation (Very low competency in English writing, lack of translation skills, etc). it doesn't matter if he is a native or non-native English speaker.
| | | | Rita Pang
Canada
Local time: 18:59
Member (2011)
Chinese to English
+ ...
MODERATOR | ...a bit off topic... | Aug 11, 2015 |
Some weeks ago I was approached and offered work by an agency based out of the US, but the PM is from the Philippines. The work involved was for QA purposes- I believe they are using the material I worked on to build into their recruitment/selection process for service providers. Anyhow, I got offered work, did it, sent it back. All was well. I then got another project again and the work is the same. In the middle of working on the project, I got an email from the PM saying that they have "disco... See more Some weeks ago I was approached and offered work by an agency based out of the US, but the PM is from the Philippines. The work involved was for QA purposes- I believe they are using the material I worked on to build into their recruitment/selection process for service providers. Anyhow, I got offered work, did it, sent it back. All was well. I then got another project again and the work is the same. In the middle of working on the project, I got an email from the PM saying that they have "discovered" that I am not a native speaker of English, and needed to "cancel" all my work.
I was born and raised in a bilingual setting in Hong Kong (yes, that former British colony), and spent my school/work years in Canada, then Europe. My face is clearly not white as you can see from my profile, and I am not really sure that other than spilling out stories of my life how else I can prove my "native level" of English. Not to mention that this comment came from a PM whose English is clearly not of a "native" level herself. Anyway, as Thomas has said, I am up against religion. I didn't want to have to go through a background check and send them infographics of family tree in order to make an extra buck. I wrote her back, calmly stating that her actions were unprofessional and racist; told them they don't need to bother paying me for my second project, but they better be paying my first.
The next morning, I got an email back from the same PM, apologizing profusely and stating that after having "looked into" my profile further, she felt that she was wrong in making the decision she made. I didn't get any whiter overnight, but anyhow, I told her that it didn't matter at this point, just pay me and we'll call it a day.
The happy news is that I did get paid, within the same week. I guess they really felt bad (and they should).
I live in Canada, where people are so careful in addressing issues of ethnicity and background that I have been, for the most part, lucky enough to avoid racial slur, or unfortunate remarks/actions related to my ethnicity in the workplace. However, itt has happened before, and it will happen again.
Additionally, since my postal address is in Canada and I speak French, people assume that I am apt in translating Quebecois French. I'm not. I wish I could, because that will bring me a lot more moolah, but I can't work with that language. It's unfortunate that things like addresses, last names, appearance and other factors play such a big part in the agency-translator relationship, so my thought is this: if they are not worth your time, drop them and move on.
[Edited at 2015-08-11 22:16 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Rita Pang
Canada
Local time: 18:59
Member (2011)
Chinese to English
+ ...
MODERATOR
Speaking of ATA exams and certifications, they *still* do not offer Chinese into English certification exams. When I last asked them, the answer was that "no qualified translators have been found who are willing/able to supervise and evaluate the results". Fair enough. I almost exclusively translate into English, and don't think I am quite ready for the English into Chinese certification. For the time being, it looks like I will remain non-certified.
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jyuan_us
United States
Local time: 18:59
Member (2005)
English to Chinese
+ ...
| More than 40% of my income has been generated by translating into English, | Aug 11, 2015 |
which is not my native tongue. This is because 1) my English writing is no worse than that of an average native English speaker; 2) My rate for translating into English is lower than that for translating into my mother tongue. 3) I made it clear to the client that it would be better for them to use a native English speaker to proofread my work. 4) For the translation of certain types of document into English, for example, medical records, I think I'm better than most native English speakers.
| | | | jyuan_us
United States
Local time: 18:59
Member (2005)
English to Chinese
+ ...
| I think all of the discussion about nativeness has been based on the assumption | Aug 11, 2015 |
that everybody is equal in translation competency. If you are given 2 choices: a native speaker of the target language with an average translation competency, and a native speaker of the source language who has a superior translation competency, which one would you pick if they offer you the same price?
[Edited at 2015-08-11 23:15 GMT]
| | | | Meindert
Netherlands
Local time: 00:59
German to Dutch
+ ...
| http://tinyurl.com/nu2w899 | Aug 11, 2015 |
DJHartmann wrote: The Thai Ministry of Labor didn't think native English translators (or proofreaders) were important either and this list of "forbidden occupations for foreigners" ended up being on their website (taken down today after public mocking):
Not alien to the professional set of career. Professional and not an alien to do.
Account end decree.
Set in professional video and tea alien life that do not.
2522.
1. The proletariat.
2. Farmers gas party animals of the forest or fishery, except that the use of specialized expertise or the control of farms.
3. The masonry construction or other carpentry work.
4. Carved wood.
5. The driving vehicle. The driver or vehicle that does not use machinery or mechanical. Exception of the pilot countries.
6. The sale of every page.
7. The auction.
8. Monitoring or control services unless account the interim audit.
9. The cut or polished diamonds or pebble.
10. The haircut or the curl of beauty.
11. Work hand-weaving.
12. Of woven mats or work appliances with rattan reed or straw, hemp bamboo pulp.
13. Paper hand job.
14. Lacquer work.
15. Thai musical work.
16. Job filling machine.
17. Work a gold or silver otter.
18. Lghin a job.
19. Job Thai dolls.
20. Berth blanket mitt work.
21. The card.
22. The products made from silk hand.
23. Job Buddha.
24. Work knife.
25. Indoor work with paper or cloth.
26. Work shoes.
27. Work hat.
28. The broker or the agent unless the agent or broker in the business of international trade.
29. Work in the engineering profession. Civil Engineering. Associated with the design calculations and organize research project construction control testing. Or advice. Excluding the special expertise required.
30. Job-related professional architectural design drawings about price director of construction or advice.
31. Crafts apparel.
32. The sculpture or pottery making.
33. The roll by hand.
34. The guide. Or the organized tour.
35. Hawk the product.
36. Work individually hand-printed Thai characters.
37. The young, and some hand-twisting spiral.
38. The clerk or secretarial staff.
39. Work for legal services or legal action.
Not assuming that your language is in any way as bad as this but this is how bad some non-native translations can end up. Absolutely shameful!
| | | | Phil Hand
China
Local time: 06:59
Chinese to English
| Nature of policy | Aug 12, 2015 |
Peter Zhuang wrote: It's not a prejudice, it's the quality policy for those particular translation agencies. Pray tell, if the OP was deemed the better person for the job, how does giving the job to another person a matter of "quality".
A policy, by definition, is a rule that applies in all cases. It is a reasonable, rational policy for an agency to work exclusively with target-native translators, because for the most part they will get better quality this way, with less effort expended on selection. We all know that not every agency in the world cannot work to this rule; but in a free market, diversity of policy is fine. This particular agency has chosen the policy that works for them. It may be that in this case, their policy has led to an inferior result. But the average result of their policy is an improvement.
But hey, she should be happy that she got something out of it. Right?
No, she should learn to distinguish genuinely bad behaviour by agencies from normal business practices which happen not to favour her. There's plenty of bad stuff going on out there, and it is worth complaining about and alerting your fellow translators to. This case is not bad behaviour, it's just a policy that didn't happen to favour Inga on this occasion.
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Angela Malik
United Kingdom
Local time: 23:59
German to English
+ ...
| There's a problem with your question | Aug 12, 2015 |
jyuan_us wrote:
If you are given 2 choices: a native speaker of the target language with an average translation competency, and a native speaker of the source language who has a superior translation competency, which one would you pick if they offer you the same price?
[Edited at 2015-08-11 23:15 GMT]
Wrong question. Most clients are not faced with the choice of "native speaker, average competency" and "non-native, superior competency". Their choices tend to revolve more around "native speaker, X years of experience, good references" and "non-native, X years of experience, good references". The client does not always have the luxury of being able to assess the true competency of the translator, and so chooses a target-native on the basis that their translation is likely to be more idiomatic.
If it were easy to see how competent someone was before offering them the work, I think we'd see a lot of non-native speakers who fare quite well, because some non-natives have truly mastered their working languages to a native or near-native level.
| | | | Heinrich Pesch
Finland
Local time: 01:59
Member (2003)
Finnish to German
+ ...
| Its the IBM syndrome | Aug 12, 2015 |
In the good old days of mainframe computing they said: Nobody ever was fired because he bought IBM.
Nobody can blame an agency for using native freelance translators, even if they have delivered a poor translation. But if the translator was non-native, they will blame the agency and never come back.
| | | | Emma Goldsmith
Spain
Local time: 00:59
Member (2004)
Spanish to English
| How to convey native-equivalent language skill | Aug 12, 2015 |
Inga Petkelyte wrote:
How shall I convince potential clients that my legal, banking, financial Portuguese is really good?
How shall I explain that there is a range of areas - technical, construction, transportation, automotive, rigs&oil - where I have no clue how to say a word in my officially native language but I feel like a fish in the water in Portuguese?
How to convey these my skills to potential clients?
You're definitely asking the right questions, Inga.
You should be able to show native-equivalent skills:
- through official exams. The only thing on your CV is 'Course of Portuguese' in 2001, which doesn't tell a future client anything, except possibly that you didn't speak Portuguese before then.
- through your writing - samples on your ProZ profile, a bilingual website, a Portuguese-only blog.
- by giving a plausible reason, e.g., if your mother or father is a native speaker and you can explain your native-equivalent skill this way.
You won't convince a client - especially one who simply has a no-native policy - by saying:
- you've lived x years as an adult in Portugal.
- you have 'no clue how to say word in your officially native language'
- offering lots of language pairs (including Portuguese to English). This sounds more like a jack of all trades, but not a master of Portuguese.
Hope this helps,
Emma
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 23:59
Member (2008)
Italian to English
| My only comment: | Aug 12, 2015 |
My only comment:
As a native English speaker I can spot a non-native English speaker almost as soon as they open their mouth/as soon as I've read the first couple of sentences they've written (including in this thread).
That's all.
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jyuan_us
United States
Local time: 18:59
Member (2005)
English to Chinese
+ ...
| a horrible reality | Aug 12, 2015 |
Angela Rimmer wrote:
The client does not always have the luxury of being able to assess the true competency of the translator, and so chooses a target-native on the basis that their translation is likely to be more idiomatic.
I think this is a horrible reality. A translation that is likely to be more idiomatic could be based on the wrong understanding of the source text.
Native speakers of the target language tend to write much better than they understand the source. On the other hand, the works of a non-native speaker could be less idiomatic but tend to be more accurate.
| | | | Peter Zhuang
Germany
Local time: 00:59
German to English
+ ...
| Policies can be discrimintory | Aug 12, 2015 |
Phil Hand wrote:
There's plenty of bad stuff going on out there, and it is worth complaining about and alerting your fellow translators to. This case is not bad behaviour, it's just a policy that didn't happen to favour Inga on this occasion.
A policy is not, by default, excluded from being discriminatory. In this case, she was rejected because of the country she grew up in. That is discrimination. The sad thing is that she would probably face the same kind of discrimination elsewhere; this wouldn't be an isolated case.
Besides, a policy about quality may not be a quality policy. A personal anecdote: I recently had the (dis)pleasure of reading a translation that had been worked on by not one, but two target-native translators. At first glance, the translation read suspiciously shoddy, and it indeed was a trainwreck. I am not talking about occasional grammar mistakes and syntax errors, but there were glaring (and slightly amusing) mistranslations. At this point, people may argue that those target-native translators are unprofessional and incompetent. Perhaps unprofessionalism (including overselling your abilities) and incompetency are the root problems of bad translations.
You are right in that it is a free market. As I said before, if Inga is confident about her qualities and if her clients are satisfied with her work, then she should go rock on in the free world.
But unless you have got the short end of the stick before, you wouldn't understand the frustration of losing a job because of discriminatory policies.
Anyway, now we can turn our attention to more pressing issues like the pains of getting unsolicited mass emails and the non-existence of spam filters.
| | | | | Maybe that applies to your language pairs, but... | Aug 12, 2015 |
I think this is a horrible reality. A translation that is likely to be more idiomatic could be based on the wrong understanding of the source text.
Native speakers of the target language tend to write much better than they understand the source. On the other hand, the works of a non-native speaker could be less idiomatic but tend to be more accurate.
the 'could' notwithstanding, you're being a little disrespectful to your colleagues there. There are plenty of native speaker translators who understand the source text perfectly well. Yes, there are bad ones too, but, as Angela says, you seem to be comparing the wrong things. Sure, if you have a medical text you'd be better giving it to a non-native speaker specialising in medical translation than to a native speaker straight out of college (indeed, giving any translation to a native speaker straight out of college is a bit of a risk), but you'd almost certainly be better still giving it to a native speaker specialising in medical translation (by 'native' there, I mean 'as competent as a native'). The fact that you've had to deal with poor work by apparently incompetent native speakers does not detract from this principle. I agree that some 'non-native' speakers do produce decent translations, but, in my language pair at least, they are vastly outnumbered by non-native speakers who produce substandard translations. And by 'substandard', I don't just mean that they mistranslate one or two words: I mean that virtually every sentence needs (often substantial) editing.
[Edited at 2015-08-12 10:36 GMT]
[Edited at 2015-08-12 10:39 GMT]
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