| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3] | Poll: Can a translation performed by a non-native and proofread by a native be commercially viable? Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
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pikachupichu 
Japan
Local time: 14:34
English to Japanese
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| It depends on what readers want, which document to be translated | Mar 28, 2012 |
A typical case is as below:
A translator in the name of A:
Born in China, studied in Japan when (s)he acquired the excellent commands of Japanese, immigrated to Canada to study for a master degree at an Anglophone university's engineering school, and completed with the degree. Worked for a Canadian IT company.
A translator in the name of B:
Born in Ontario, grown up there, studied English literature, and acquired a BA. Went to Japan to teach English where... See more A typical case is as below:
A translator in the name of A:
Born in China, studied in Japan when (s)he acquired the excellent commands of Japanese, immigrated to Canada to study for a master degree at an Anglophone university's engineering school, and completed with the degree. Worked for a Canadian IT company.
A translator in the name of B:
Born in Ontario, grown up there, studied English literature, and acquired a BA. Went to Japan to teach English where (s)he acquired Japanese, with the fluency at JLPＴ Level-I. (S)he continued to teach English to Japanese students in Japan
The topic of document to be translated is something in the engineering field.
Which do you prefer as your translator for any IT/engineering fields' documents from Japanese to English?
My choice is the translator A.
Unless the topic of documents to be translated is English literature, I would avoid the translator B.
If the topic is something else, I will look for another translator.
Proofreading is just a matter of time consuming. In fact, some documents were deteriorated after 'proofreading' by native speakers in my experiences.
I definitely choose someone as a specialist in the field of document in the first place, as long as (s)he has the proficiency in the target language.
[Edited at 2012-03-28 07:32 GMT]
[Edited at 2012-03-28 07:33 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Nicole Schnell
United States
Local time: 22:34
English to German
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In memoriam | Of course it is viable and profitable. | Mar 28, 2012 |
You are hired as a team, and you are paid as a team, at least two persons, right? So, where's the financial loss?
One of my long-term clients is very happy with this particular constellation that we offer in our tiny boutique translation firm. This US-based client will send us texts that will make the average native English speaker want to jump out of the window, not because the quality of the source text is crawling with errors, but because the text requires particular prerequisite... See more You are hired as a team, and you are paid as a team, at least two persons, right? So, where's the financial loss?
One of my long-term clients is very happy with this particular constellation that we offer in our tiny boutique translation firm. This US-based client will send us texts that will make the average native English speaker want to jump out of the window, not because the quality of the source text is crawling with errors, but because the text requires particular prerequisites.
Recent example:
An audit report for an international holding. Auditors are not particularly famous for their flowery writing skills. This auditor from hell however was obsessed with using self-invented abbreviations for the most mundane and non-technical phrases, things that can never be found in any dictionary, it was simply his style. It takes a lot of imagination of an even native speaker of the source language to decipher about 20k words of this [bleep...], uhm, financial poetry. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Tony M
France
Local time: 07:34
Member
French to English
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SITE LOCALIZER | No... or at least rarely! | May 28, 2012 |
Perhaps I've just been unlucky...
In my personal experience, I know that I am valued for the high quality of my output.
However, some agencies find that they cannot afford to pay for that; so they get a 'cheap' translation done by someone else (almost invariably a non-native), and then count on my proof-reading to deliver a Tony-quality product. Their mentality is that the rate for 'cheap translation' + 'Tony proofing' is still cheaper than 'Tony translation'. Well, I'v... See more Perhaps I've just been unlucky...
In my personal experience, I know that I am valued for the high quality of my output.
However, some agencies find that they cannot afford to pay for that; so they get a 'cheap' translation done by someone else (almost invariably a non-native), and then count on my proof-reading to deliver a Tony-quality product. Their mentality is that the rate for 'cheap translation' + 'Tony proofing' is still cheaper than 'Tony translation'. Well, I've got news for them...
1) Very often, the original cheap translator accepts an impossibly tight deadline, which eats into the time available for the all-important proofing stage.
I'd actually go so far as to say that these days, with so much low-cost/quality original translation going on, proofing rates actually ought to be higher than the translation rates! Think about it: you get a low-paid drone to do the donkey work, and then you pay a native-speaking expert to clean it up afterwards — after all, the proofer is your quality 'safety net', the last chance to get it right before the end customer!
2) I have seen some extremely good non-native speakers — but there is always something that betrays them! However, it has to be said that these people wisely don't work at the 'low-cost' end of the market, which is the real issue here.
3) It is often very restricting to work with a text produced by a non-NS; all too often, these are far too literal and stick too closely to the source text structure; I find it much easier to think round these sorts of problems when faced with the source text, it is much harder to deal with second-hand, as it were.
4) In the vast majority of cases, the original translation quality is so bad, I end up having to retranslate it (at my higher rate); if the agency is lucky, they will be able to get out of paying the original non-NS translator, thus limiting the damage. But even so, they will have gone over budget and made a loss. Take a fictional example: original translation rate 0.03 / word + proofing rate 0.04 / word = 0.07 / word overall. But if the job needs retranslating from scratch, at says 0.10 / word, the agency is already over budget by around 40%; if in addition they are obliged to pay the original translator anyway, then at 0.03 + 0.10 = 0.13 they are almost 100% over budget!
As a footnote, I did have a situation once where an ENS turned in an atrocious translation, clearly done by (early!) MT — it had to be completely re-done, and when the agency challenged her about it, she simply said "Oh, I knew you'd be having it proofed, so I didn't bother too much"! Needless to say, she has never worked for that agency again!
Because I have been 'abused' so often in this way, I now generally refuse to take proofing assignments other than as a favour to good customers, or when the source text is of acceptable native-speaker quality.
On one memorable occasion, I was asked to quote for a translation job, but my rate was "too high"; so the work was farmed out to multiple non-NS translators for less than ½ my rate, and I was asked to proof it (against my better judgement!) The resulting 'translation' was unusable, and the differences between the various translators were clear; as a result, I ended up having to re-translate the whole thing, this time in a rush, as the time left over for proofing was very short. So the agency ended up paying my rate anyway, plus a hefty rush-job surcharge!
So at least in my personal experience, it has not proved commercially viable for the agencies involved — and is not so particularly for me, inasmuch as I often spend nearly as long proofing a text as I would translating it from scratch (with all the research etc.), but obviously for a significantly lower rate. I tend nowadays to apply an hourly rate, which is fairer for all concerned, and does give a clear message to the agency about the quality of the original translation.
One thing I find quite tricky, but not unprofitable, is editing texts that have been written in EN by non-native speakers. But this is only possible where I have access directly to the writer in case explanations are needed, since I have no source text to help me! I have done quite a number of PhD theses like this, and found the work interesting, stimulating, and profitable.
[Edited at 2012-05-28 08:04 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | XXXphxxx (X)
United Kingdom
Local time: 06:34
Portuguese to English
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A lot of what you have said has struck a chord. More and more frequently these days I’m being presented with jobs that have unreasonable budgets and/or deadlines. When presented with my quote and proposed deadline, which could take the form of a revised deadline or a surcharge for what is essentially a rush job, the client turns to what I presume is a cheaper option, but nearly always with the line: “However, would you like to perform the review?”. Until recently, I’ve been quite happy t... See more A lot of what you have said has struck a chord. More and more frequently these days I’m being presented with jobs that have unreasonable budgets and/or deadlines. When presented with my quote and proposed deadline, which could take the form of a revised deadline or a surcharge for what is essentially a rush job, the client turns to what I presume is a cheaper option, but nearly always with the line: “However, would you like to perform the review?”. Until recently, I’ve been quite happy to take on the reviews in the knowledge that I’m charging my hourly rate anyway. However, the quality of these translations is undoubtedly declining and these days about one in five reviews are going over budget. My pace would normally be around 1,000 w./hour, yet more and more frequently the quality of the NNE translation means that we’re down to well under 500 w./hour. Maybe they don’t care; maybe they’ve just reversed the budgets these days and allocate more to the review than to the translation, but it seems an awfully cock-eyed way of doing things. I can’t be the only NE translator who is considering giving up reviewing/editing/proof-reading (whatever you want to call it) altogether as it is just too demoralising being confronted with such shoddy work.
Where we don’t agree is on the joy extracted from working on academic texts. I don’t know about yours, but some 90% of the ones I work on are written in (occasionally indecipherable) English by Dutch native speakers. I ask myself why they don’t simply write in Dutch and get the papers translated into English? Anyone know the answer? ▲ Collapse
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| @ Lisa: Native Dutch speakers prefer English (aka Dunglish) written by fellow native Dutch speakers | May 28, 2012 |
Lisa Simpson, MCIL wrote:
Where we don’t agree is on the joy extracted from working on academic texts. I don’t know about yours, but some 90% of the ones I work on are written in (occasionally indecipherable) English by Dutch native speakers. I ask myself why they don’t simply write in Dutch and get the papers translated into English? Anyone know the answer?
If Proz is anything to go by, there are hardly any native Dutch-speaking translators who can't translate into English and many apparently consider their English skills equal to and/or better than those of any native Anglo. In fact, according to Proz profiles, easily 75% of translators from the Netherlands/Flanders are either also native English speakers or once they leave their native country, become exclusively native English speakers, ie professional linguists still able to translate from Dutch but ostensibly no longer able/willing to translate into their erstwhile native language.
There are agencies who prefer to give Nl-En jobs to native Dutch speakers only. Look at some of the jobs postings on this site.
Imo, this would explain that.....
[Edited at 2012-05-28 11:04 GMT]
| | | | XXXphxxx (X)
United Kingdom
Local time: 06:34
Portuguese to English
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| @ writeaway: It still makes no sense | May 28, 2012 |
Why would they (presumably) struggle to write a lengthy academic paper in what is evidently their non-native language? Likewise, it makes no sense to me why someone would choose to translate into NNE. Is it just a question of rates into English being better?? Surely not.
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