| Pages in topic: < [1 2] | How to know if a translation is good? Thread poster: chcw
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| It is totally diffrent from many other professions. | Jan 27, 2014 |
You can tell f you like the walls have been painted nicely, or if you like your haircut. If you don't know one of the languages involved, you may have no idea whatever the work is good or horrible, even if it is nicely laid-out, and seemingly no are commas missing.
I think you ought to show it to a recommended editor--even the membership in various organizations is not a proof of anything, at least not a 100% guarantee.
[Edited at 2014-01-27 18:15 GMT]
| | | | | Looking on the bright side... | Jan 27, 2014 |
Now we have told you how badly things can go wrong, there are in fact a lot of conscientious, professional translators about, and they provide excellent service. If you choose a reliable agency or a member of a professional association, the chances are you will end up with an excellent translation after all.
Translators are just as highly qualified and ethical as any other profession - economists, engineers, technicians, doctors, lawyers, teachers, you name them.
In th... See more Now we have told you how badly things can go wrong, there are in fact a lot of conscientious, professional translators about, and they provide excellent service. If you choose a reliable agency or a member of a professional association, the chances are you will end up with an excellent translation after all.
Translators are just as highly qualified and ethical as any other profession - economists, engineers, technicians, doctors, lawyers, teachers, you name them.
In the real world, you have to take chances. Life is too short to run an inquest on everything you have done by a professional. Avoid the cowboys, pay a realistic price, and hope for the best. We live on our reputation like everyone else, and most translators take a real pride in their work.
Best of luck!
[Edited at 2014-01-28 09:25 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Paul2013
China
Local time: 04:17
Chinese to English
+ ...
| Learn the language | Jan 28, 2014 |
Once I was assigned the job to find a Spanish translator. My company wanted the best rate. I found one that was suggested by our leader. Fortunately, I had some knowledge about the target language and I knew that the translation agency was no good.
Translation is actually a manual job. A good translator in one field may produce bad translation in another field. Find the native speaker in your industry. For example, an engineer. He knows better than the common translator. His transl... See more Once I was assigned the job to find a Spanish translator. My company wanted the best rate. I found one that was suggested by our leader. Fortunately, I had some knowledge about the target language and I knew that the translation agency was no good.
Translation is actually a manual job. A good translator in one field may produce bad translation in another field. Find the native speaker in your industry. For example, an engineer. He knows better than the common translator. His translation is not the word-to-word translation, but it is hard for him to be understood by common proofreaders or translators. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Thayenga 
Germany
Local time: 22:17
Member (2009)
English to German
+ ...
| Think positively | Jan 28, 2014 |
Christine Andersen wrote:
Now we have told you how badly things can go wrong, there are in fact a lot of comscientious, professional translators about, and some provide excellent service. If you choose a reliable agency or a member of a professional association, the chances are you will end up with an excellent translation after all.
Best of luck!
As Christine stated, there are many excellent translators and proofreaders/editors out there. So don't let anything (the possible negative outcome) discourage you, but take it as good advice, encouraging you to do your homework (research) first.
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| My two cents | Jan 28, 2014 |
I've been thinking lately about this: how could someone who knows nothing about translation determine the quality of a translation, and here's my two cents:
This applies to only one situation: the target language is your mother tongue.
Since all good translations have to sound natural and fluent in the target language, you can go through the translation to see whether there are logic errors or expressions that sound awkward. If you find obvious problems, then the transl... See more I've been thinking lately about this: how could someone who knows nothing about translation determine the quality of a translation, and here's my two cents:
This applies to only one situation: the target language is your mother tongue.
Since all good translations have to sound natural and fluent in the target language, you can go through the translation to see whether there are logic errors or expressions that sound awkward. If you find obvious problems, then the translation quality must be poor. Otherwise, the translation quality will be "passable" (although there's still the risk that there might be mistakes that you cannot find).
This helps you to find out obviously flawed translation. However if the target language is not your mother tongue or you want more accurate results, I think you only need to ask an editor to go through the translation, and ask him/her to provide not only the evaluation results, but also some examples/details explaining why he/she thinks the quality is good/bad.
Examples help you to see clearly whether the editor is doing a good job or not. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Neil Coffey
United Kingdom
Local time: 21:17
French to English
+ ...
| Working with checker/proofreader | Jan 28, 2014 |
In my experience you can get *some* level of confidence by working with a checker or proofreader who demonstrates a high level of linguistic ability/cultural awareness through how they justify their observations (while this at the same time gives you a judgement about the original translation). Of course, to some extent this is part of what you are buying when you go through an agency (at least, if you go through a competent agency...).
To put things in terms of Sheila's plumber/ele... See more In my experience you can get *some* level of confidence by working with a checker or proofreader who demonstrates a high level of linguistic ability/cultural awareness through how they justify their observations (while this at the same time gives you a judgement about the original translation). Of course, to some extent this is part of what you are buying when you go through an agency (at least, if you go through a competent agency...).
To put things in terms of Sheila's plumber/electrician analogy: if you asked a second plumber to check the work and they said "it's generally well done, except for this pipe in the bathroom that according to Regulation 12C should be 4cm higher", this would give you a level of confidence about both workers' ability above a simple "Yeah, it looks fine, mate". If the proofreader says: "The translation sounds natural and looks accurate except for the way they've used modal verbs in this paragraph: the form X is generally a bit closer to the meaning of Y in English", that gives you a level of confidence about both translator and proofreader. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Carry out a backward translation | Sep 30, 2014 |
If you do not know the target language, then ask one translator to perform 'Forward Translation' i.e. from English to German. When the job job has been finished ask another (having no prior information/link between each other on the same job) to carry out the Backward Translation i.e. from German to English. This will help you evaluate the quality of the first translation job.
In one such instance, I was asked by my client to carry out Forward Translation (English to Urdu) and then... See more If you do not know the target language, then ask one translator to perform 'Forward Translation' i.e. from English to German. When the job job has been finished ask another (having no prior information/link between each other on the same job) to carry out the Backward Translation i.e. from German to English. This will help you evaluate the quality of the first translation job.
In one such instance, I was asked by my client to carry out Forward Translation (English to Urdu) and then they hire another translator to carry out translation Urdu (job done be me) to English. Thanks God! I was successful!!
However, it's a costly practice. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Sheila Wilson
Spain
Local time: 21:17
Member (2007)
English
+ ...
| Just to add... | Sep 30, 2014 |
Ciththeekei wrote:
ask another (having no prior information/link between each other on the same job) to carry out the Backward Translation i.e. from German to English.
The second translator, the one performing the backward translation, must know what it is they're doing. You can perform a translation quite literally. But you can also deliver a translation which is much freer on the word level while still translating the message accurately. If both translators choose to translate quite freely then the result could be quite a way from what you expect; but it doesn't necessarily follow that the first one was not good.
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A good translation is faithful to the meaning and mood of the text, does not contain errors that are not rooted in the original and reads no worse than it. If you don't know the languages yourself and the art of translation and writing, you'll need to rely on the opinion of others.
Just like with a lawyer or doctor, you need to rely on that person's reputation among his clients or patients and in professional circles, and to some extent you can watch the results.
| | | | Daryo
United Kingdom
Local time: 21:17
Serbian to English
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| that could be the worst trap... | Jan 23, 2015 |
Yan Yuliang wrote:
I've been thinking lately about this: how could someone who knows nothing about translation determine the quality of a translation, and here's my two cents:
This applies to only one situation: the target language is your mother tongue.
Since all good translations have to sound natural and fluent in the target language, you can go through the translation to see whether there are logic errors or expressions that sound awkward. If you find obvious problems, then the translation quality must be poor. Otherwise, the translation quality will be "passable" (although there's still the risk that there might be mistakes that you cannot find).
This helps you to find out obviously flawed translation. ...
Sorry to sound like a prophet of doom, but this can be the worst trap to fall in.
A nice sounding and coherent translation is only likely to be conform to the original.
Most of the time it probably will be a good translation, but without knowing the language of the source text, you will simply never be able to detect cases were the translator misunderstood the ST and made a translation that sounds very plausible but has only very tenuous links with the ST.
This happens only occasionally, but not spotting it can be leading straight to some real problems.
I don't see any ways of avoiding it: you need someone who knows the subject matter in both languages
| | | | | You have a problem when the meaning is more important than elegant language | Jan 23, 2015 |
Yan Yuliang wrote:
I've been thinking lately about this: how could someone who knows nothing about translation determine the quality of a translation, and here's my two cents:
This applies to only one situation: the target language is your mother tongue.
Since all good translations have to sound natural and fluent in the target language, you can go through the translation to see whether there are logic errors or expressions that sound awkward. If you find obvious problems, then the translation quality must be poor. Otherwise, the translation quality will be "passable" (although there's still the risk that there might be mistakes that you cannot find).
This helps you to find out obviously flawed translation. However if the target language is not your mother tongue or you want more accurate results, I think you only need to ask an editor to go through the translation, and ask him/her to provide not only the evaluation results, but also some examples/details explaining why he/she thinks the quality is good/bad.
Examples help you to see clearly whether the editor is doing a good job or not.
(My emphasis)
Not all native speakers of a language are able to write well, and certainly not all native Danish drafters of legal documents, just to take one little group I sometimes have to deal with. Copywriters of tourist brochures are another.
In the first case, there are specific things that must be stated in a legal document, and the elegance or otherwise of the language has to take second place. The source may sound stilted, especially if it makes extensive use of some conventions in legal writing that are not used in ordinary language. They have their place, and in a legal context may even be elegant ways of including a lot of complicated information unambiguously.
Ordinary mortals have to read them very carefully, and a translator has to analyse the sentence and the grammar correctly in order to translate the meaning precisely.
The result may coincide with some piece of more or less elegant English legalese, or it may sound like something 'no native would ever write'. Simply because English natives would not be writing documents under that particular law.
I had a Danish colleague (now retired) who was very good at at finding the best possible renderings of Danish law - she had a deep understanding of law and language, both Danish and English. She wrote beautiful English in other contexts. But even she gave up on occasions, and when asked to proofread, I would turn and rewrite her sentences several times, but rarely came up with anything we liked better. OK, they were logical, but they were not always good language. They were correctly translated, however, which in that context was more important.
In other cases, the source is simply poor quality.
It may be written in a hurry, never intended for more than the use of the moment, or it may simply be the work of someone with no ear for language or perhaps less than ideal knowledge of the subject matter (like some copywriters in advertising, believe it or not...).
Writers like that can waffle on. It sounds fine, until you try to work out, as a translator must, what it actually means.
I have struggled with several texts like that recently. In some cases a little elegant-sounding blurb is sufficient - one beautiful beach near good ('hyggelige' = cosy) restaurants and a golf course can be as good as any other. However, I do try to look at websites and find something I can use to give the reader some real information. I almost hope it is NOT a good translation of the original!!
[Edited at 2015-01-23 13:28 GMT]
| | | | Jean-Pierre Artigau (X)
Canada
Local time: 16:17
English to French
+ ...
Translation should be like the spies we sometimes see in films: it shoud be elegant and efficient and it should not look like what it really is (not look like a translation).
Jean-Pierre
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magdadh
United Kingdom
Local time: 21:17
Polish to English
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| fluent vs/and accurate | Jan 23, 2015 |
Christine Andersen wrote:
In other cases, the source is simply poor quality.
(...)
I have struggled with several texts like that recently. In some cases a little elegant-sounding blurb is sufficient - one beautiful beach near good ('hyggelige' = cosy) restaurants and a golf course can be as good as any other. However, I do try to look at websites and find something I can use to give the reader some real information. I almost hope it is NOT a good translation of the original!!
Ha! I know I am going off topic here, but this is actually quite a common issue, isn't it? It's so much harder to translate a text written badly at source... I often wonder how much deep editing should one do, though? I mean, we are not really not paid for that, are we? And also sometimes it obviously interferes with the 'integrity' of the original text, I mean even in the sense of presenting the writer (let's say the text is a cover letter or a cv) as someone better at a particular task (eg writing a cv or a cover letter) than they really are...
***
As to the original question. I think checking with the end user is a good way to assess the fluency of the translation. If they feel it reads well enough, then it probably does, for the purposes of the particular job.
But of course it doesn't necessarily mean it's accurate - as it was said above, a text that reads well might be still wrong in the sense of not conveying the precise meaning of the ST.
| | | | Balasubramaniam L.
India
Local time: 01:47
Member (2006)
English to Hindi
+ ...
SITE LOCALIZER | Only if he is familiar also with the source language | Jan 24, 2015 |
Nicole Coesel wrote:
When you are in doubt about the quality of a translation, what you could do is ask a proof reader/editor to take a look at the translation. This so-called proofer will be able to tell you the quality level straight away (assuming this is a professional and a native spreaker of the target language.
A translation is "good" only when it fulfills two conditions:
1. It is faithful to the original;
2. It has flow and elegance and can pass for an originally written document in the target language.
A good native proof-reader will only be able to ensure the second of the above two criteria, and therefore, will not be in a position to give assurance on the overall "goodness" of the translation.
Only when the proof-reader is also well-versed in the source language in addition to having great proficiency in the target language, will he be able to provide an assurance on the quality of the translation he has proofed or reviewed.
In other words, what is required here is not a mere proof-reading, but a thorough peer review by another competent translator working in the same pair of languages.
But this, however, does not answer the OT's question, for the question still remains, how do you find out whether the reviewer is a competent translator or not.
To my view, there is no simple solution to the OT's question. To a large extent ours is a profession based on trust and judgement. In most cases you can make out by studying the profile of a translator, evaluating any test translation he has completed, or even by just glancing over the way he words his email replies to you, whether he is a reliable translator or not.
This is the reason why most clients and agencies prefer to stick with a translator who has once provided them with a satisfactory translation, as to most, the known devil is preferable to the unknown one. Also, the more you work with a translator, the more you become familiar with his abilities and your trust in him increases.
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