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Poll: Have you ever been asked to proofread your own translation by another client? Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
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This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "Have you ever been asked to proofread your own translation by another client?".
This poll was originally submitted by MAllaqui
View the poll here
A forum topic will appear each time a new poll is run. For more in... See more This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "Have you ever been asked to proofread your own translation by another client?".
This poll was originally submitted by MAllaqui
View the poll here
A forum topic will appear each time a new poll is run. For more information, see: http://proz.com/topic/33629 ▲ Collapse
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Αlban SHPΑTΑ 
United States
Member (2008)
English to Albanian
+ ...
It happened to me once It was a short text that bounced back to me from another company.
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Tatty
Local time: 02:16
Spanish to English
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I hope you took their money and didn't admit to the translation being yours!
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John Cutler
Spain
Local time: 02:16
Spanish to English
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| More common with minority languages? | Jun 17, 2008 |
I suppose this could happen from time to time with minority languages for which there are a limited number of translators. (?)
The corollary to the question: and how did you handle the situation? would be quite interesting to hear
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Jenni Jelse
Sweden
Local time: 02:16
English to Swedish
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I was once asked to proof a small text by one of my main clients. It was a text I had translated myself for quite a new client. I told them that it was my translation, but as it was small they still wanted me to do it - so I did, just that one time.
When I got a similar job again from the new client I told them that I wouldn't be able to do these jobs for them anymore. I decided that my main client was far more important to me and I didn't want to have to turn down jobs from them. O... See more I was once asked to proof a small text by one of my main clients. It was a text I had translated myself for quite a new client. I told them that it was my translation, but as it was small they still wanted me to do it - so I did, just that one time.
When I got a similar job again from the new client I told them that I wouldn't be able to do these jobs for them anymore. I decided that my main client was far more important to me and I didn't want to have to turn down jobs from them. Obviously I couldn't go on proofing my own work! ▲ Collapse
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Mariam Osmann
Egypt
Local time: 03:16
Member (2007)
English to Arabic
+ ...
| Other, I have been asked to refer to my document | Jun 17, 2008 |
I have translated a first batch of a project with an agency. A couple of weeks later, I got a second batch for the same project from another agency, and I have been asked to refer to the document translated by "another translator" for consistency purposes.[The documents as they are transfered from one PC to another they may got the author's name changed], It was my word document, only with different author's name
I didn't tell my client "Don't worry, consistency is 100% guaranteed"... See more I have translated a first batch of a project with an agency. A couple of weeks later, I got a second batch for the same project from another agency, and I have been asked to refer to the document translated by "another translator" for consistency purposes.[The documents as they are transfered from one PC to another they may got the author's name changed], It was my word document, only with different author's name
I didn't tell my client "Don't worry, consistency is 100% guaranteed";)
I got a third batch from the second client, It was some paragraphs from my first assignment with the other agency but where some info which were in the form of XXX are mentioned, so I only filled the missing parts in my first translation.
I suppose this could happen from time to time with minority languages for which there are a limited number of translators. (?)
In my case, It was the translation field rather than the language pair which made my document return back to me, I guess. ▲ Collapse
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It's happened to me once. I told the second client that I was ethically bound to turn it down as I had translated it in the first place. I've continued to work with both clients regularly.
It was actually quite interesting, as my translation was actually a back-translation, and when I was asked to revise it I was also sent the original English document as well as the Italian translation and my backtranslation. So I got to see how close I was to the original!
BTW I agree... See more It's happened to me once. I told the second client that I was ethically bound to turn it down as I had translated it in the first place. I've continued to work with both clients regularly.
It was actually quite interesting, as my translation was actually a back-translation, and when I was asked to revise it I was also sent the original English document as well as the Italian translation and my backtranslation. So I got to see how close I was to the original!
BTW I agree with MAllaqui, in my case too it's the field that was relevant, rather than an uncommon language pair. There are any number of IT-EN translators out there but not many who specialise in medical.
[Edited at 2008-06-17 12:40] ▲ Collapse
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Niina Lahokoski
Finland
Local time: 03:16
Member (2008)
English to Finnish
+ ...
Yes, I once got a request from an agency to proofread a text I had translated for another agency a while back. Of course I told them why I could not take the job. Both agencies were more or less regular clients then, and I continued to work with them.
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Elías Sauza
Mexico
Local time: 18:16
Member (2002)
English to Spanish
+ ...
| It happened once | Jun 17, 2008 |
At the time I was working for an oil company and an agency had asked me to complete a translation for the oil industry for my country. A second agency in my country asked me to edit my own translation. I asked a colleague translator working for the same company as me to edit the work. This definitely happened because they were looking for translators specialized in the oil industry, which narrowed the possibilities.
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Joan Berglund
United States
Local time: 20:16
Member (2008)
French to English
And it probably would'nt happen since you can't swing a cat around here without hitting a FR>EN medical translator. Not that I would ever do anything so unkind to a cat (or even most FR>EN medical translators). I do think an independent proofreader is a good idea, so I probably wouldn't try to proof my own work if I got it back. What I probably would do is try to subcontract it to someone I trusted rather than kick it back to the agency. I did see a proofed vesion of one of my jobs once. Th... See more And it probably would'nt happen since you can't swing a cat around here without hitting a FR>EN medical translator. Not that I would ever do anything so unkind to a cat (or even most FR>EN medical translators). I do think an independent proofreader is a good idea, so I probably wouldn't try to proof my own work if I got it back. What I probably would do is try to subcontract it to someone I trusted rather than kick it back to the agency. I did see a proofed vesion of one of my jobs once. The agency sent it as an example of how the client wanted another job I was working on formatted, I don't think they remembered it was my translation. A few changes were good, the proofreader had a couple terms I liked better than mine. Most were foolish, seriously s/he changed "moreover" to "furthermore". Nice work if you can get it. And some were wrong, s/he mixed up "de meme" and "de plus". So I would rather pick the proofreader myself if I were given the opportunity, and look at the changes before accepting them. ▲ Collapse
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Αlban SHPΑTΑ
United States
Member (2008)
English to Albanian
+ ...
Tatty wrote:
I hope you took their money and didn't admit to the translation being yours!
It was just a small 400 word text and I assured them that I had already checked my translation before I had handed over to agency A
After that agency B asked me if I could still find someone else to do the job, and they wanted the track changes option to be used on this document. I emailed it to a friend.
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| It wasn't my translation when it came back to me! | Jun 17, 2008 |
While I was working in house for an agency I once sent off a small job and was busy with another when the head office called and asked me to talk to a client who was very unhappy about a text.
Something rang a bell about that text, but it was not at all the standard we usually sent out.
We had a new trainee, whose work we proof read very carefully at the time (and at the end of his probation period we asked him to find another job...) - but it was not the sort of thing he typi... See more While I was working in house for an agency I once sent off a small job and was busy with another when the head office called and asked me to talk to a client who was very unhappy about a text.
Something rang a bell about that text, but it was not at all the standard we usually sent out.
We had a new trainee, whose work we proof read very carefully at the time (and at the end of his probation period we asked him to find another job...) - but it was not the sort of thing he typically did. To be fair, it was far worse. Luckily, I did not accuse him of anything that time!
I called the client and asked if they had a source text, and he almost exploded and quoted the job number. It was coded, but there was no mistaking it - that was my personal code number at the end of it!! 
I promised to call back again after I had looked into it... and found that the source text was only half as long as the supposed translation.
Then I recognised it. I had really worked at that text, because it was neatly written in Danish, an absolute joy to read, and quite a challenge to translate, but I hoped I had succeeded more or less.
At least it was strictly correct when I sent it off.
I mailed my original version direct to the client - who had written the Danish himself, also after a lot of thought. He then called me and apologised very sincerely, and said that was far more like what he expected, and that was why he had chosen that agency.
In the meantime he had discovered that the brochure he had written for had been heavily edited. Someone from his own firm had been asked to expand the article to fill an extra page... and made a real hash of his Danish too!
In the end they printed the original versions in both languages and filled the empty page with a picture, so there was a happy ending to that story.
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...but once I had to translate the same text for two different clients (agencies). It was one of those test translations, that end-clients sometimes give agencies! And, of course, to me it was a job, not a free test...
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Mariam Osmann
Egypt
Local time: 03:16
Member (2007)
English to Arabic
+ ...
| Another funny story | Jun 17, 2008 |
Eleni Makantani wrote:
...but once I had to translate the same text for two different clients (agencies). It was one of those test translations, that end-clients sometimes give agencies! And, of course, to me it was a job, not a free test...
Happened to a friend of mine, the documents were about an accident to-be-translated from her native into English, the client didn't pay as promised, the amount was substantially reduced because a mistake from the agency, which they refused to admit.
Several months later, she received the same documents from a regular client, but seems the end client was the victim's lawyer .
My friend said: wow time to get my money back! But she still wonders why to-be-translated into English while both party are native of the language by which these documents were issued, the accident took place in her country and the trial will take place in her country too.
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Erzsébet Czopyk
Hungary
Local time: 02:16
Member (2006)
Russian to Hungarian
+ ...
SITE LOCALIZER
John Cutler wrote:
I suppose this could happen from time to time with minority languages for which there are a limited number of translators. (?)
Dear John, I still do not have that kind of experience, but have something close to it: I refused the work of a translator, it was simply awful, but I was forced somehow to finish the project in time. With two of the colleagues, working in Hungarian-Russian pair, we worked as a horses 2 days and completed the job. Almost 2 years later one of my brand new clients came and sent me some topics-related links, and among those - our old translation about pig husbandry division
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