Parsing words is a terrible idea June 23, 2008
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Random musings, Translation Sites.2 comments
I have somehow become the go-to person for the daughter of one of my NOTA members who is doing an internship in Germany. She has asked me questions that have stumped her for the past couple days now. I don’t mind an occasional question, but lists of questions and e-mails every day are a no-no. Anyway, she wrote me today asking about the term “Wirtschaftspate.” I didn’t really have time to get into it, so I told her to ask her co-workers. She instead asked her professor at OSU, who told her:
For future references [sic], get in the habit of parsing words, i.e., isolating the stem of the words and the various components that make up an entity. Wirtschaftspate = Der Pate = godfather, hence, the godfather of economy. It’s actually quite common to hear the word ‘Pate‘ in German when referring to someone really important or someone whose opinion and approval means much. Hence, translating it as ‘the godfather of economy’ makes full sense and it’s something that’s featured in other languages as well.
I couldn’t disagree more!
After doing a quick Google search for “godfather of the economy” I responded to her that this was not at all a common phrase. In fact, it only got one hit – in reference to someone becoming the godfather of the economy minister’s child. Why do people insist on simply breaking down words in German and then come up with an inelegant solution that sounds wooden and at worst translated?
Parsing words is not a good idea at all and is the sign of a inexperienced translator. I used to parse words before I went to Kent State University and lived in Germany for a while. It is better to find an equivalent meaning than to parse words. Read the sentence and decide how the word fits in the sentence. In this case, he is getting an award for his dedication in offering his experience and know-how to an economic campaign. The movie “The Godfather” (Der Pate) has nothing to do with it.
You don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone June 20, 2008
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Random musings, Tools, Translation Sites.1 comment so far
Whew, that was a bit nerve-wracking… Leo, a much-loved, online German-English/German-French/German-Spanish/German-Chinese dictionary disappeared for a while yesterday. When I tried to call it up yesterday it took forever to load and then displayed “page not found.” Luckily I still also use my electronic dictionaries from Acolada UniLex (which includes my beloved Pons/Collins Unabridged general dictionary, Brinkmann/Blaha Wörterbuch der Datenkommunikation, Ernst Wörterbuch der industriellen Technik, and Kucera Wörterbuch der Chemie) and Langenscheidt (which truly unites the Handwörterbuch, Fachwörterbuch Mikroelektronik, Fachwörterbuch Telekommunikation, and Peter Schmitts Fachwörterbuch Technik und angewandte Wissenschaften as well as the Duden Rechtschreibung in one interface-which is *really convenient*), so it wasn’t that big of a deal. However, I did get nervous when someone wrote to PT late last night asking where it went and someone responded that it had transformed into Leo-Pro, which had transformed into Slicktionary, which had then been swallowed up by dict.cc. What a frightening thought. I would hope if something like that would happen they would let us know ahead of time.
Leo may not always be the most accurate solution (and some of its terms can be downright wrong), but it often has suggestions that go beyond the scope of my dictionaries and hit the nail on the head. It is especially helpful with obscure business terms and slang words, which I encounter a lot in my marketing surveys (not to mention bad grammar, typos, garbled special characters, etc., but I digress…) A good translator generally doesn’t and shouldn’t depend on dictionaries to perform their job, but they can come in handy when you are stuck trying to come up with the perfect word. And you really have to have a good command of a language to recognize when a suggested term is in no way suitable.
Luckily it was back up again when I woke up this morning. There were a lot of people sweating bullets yesterday… Welcome back, Leo!
Wikipedia: How to Get Clients to Pay Invoices Promptly June 19, 2008
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Business practices, Random musings.1 comment so far
My iGoogle page has once again provided an interesting tidbit. Today’s “How To of The Day” is “How to Get Clients to Pay Invoices Promptly.” As someone who has $1000 in overdue invoices and almost $2000 due within the next week, I was very curious to see what they had to say.
Their tips include:
- Make your payment policies clear at the time your services
are retained. - Accept all forms of payment and encourage credit card
payment. - Get a deposit in advance.
- Always let the customer pay when they offer.
- Make arrangements for payment before you deliver the final
product. - Follow up every day until you receive your money.
- Apply your payment policies to every single customer.
- Contact the credit agencies.
I have only quoted the highlights. I highly suggest clicking on the above link and reading the whole article.
I agree with most of the points, but unfortunately in our business some of the points don’t apply. First of all, I don’t know many translators who are willing to accept credit cards (I know there are a few who rely on PayPal and/or Moneybookers, but I personally can’t justify the fee). Getting a deposit in advance or payment before delivery is all well and good if the client is a direct client, but I don’t know many (if any) translation agencies that are willing to accept either of those practices. I also disagree with following up every day until you get paid. I generally wait a week or two before I send out a reminder. Once the invoice is over 30 days late I will write an e-mail every week or every couple days. If it were ever to get more than 45 days late I think I would then start writing them every day and being a total pain.
Luckily I haven’t had to worry about this much. I do my due diligence before accepting work from a new client (I subscribe to Payment Practices and Zahlungspraxis [a German-language payment practices list] and ask for referrals from several of their translators if the agency isn’t listed on one of those lists) and generally only work with clients with whom I have a good relationship. In the rare cases that an invoice has been almost 30 days overdue it is usually because the project manager or accounting has misplaced or lost the invoice – or at least claims they have and assure me that it will be processed as soon as possible.
The bullet item I would probably add would be: “9. Submit invoices either with the job or immediately after you have submitted the job.” I’ve found most agencies take 30 to 45 days to pay an invoice (and I refuse to work with agencies that have payment terms of 60 days or even 60 days EOM [end of month]). Why wait an additional 15, 20 or 30 days because it took you that long to send them the invoice in the first place?
Do you have any tips you have found to be helpful for being paid promptly by your clients? I definitely want to hear them!
The joy of a mid-day off June 19, 2008
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in German culture, Random musings.add a comment
One of the joys of freelancing is the ability to take time off whenever you want. After practically burning myself out translating a really term-dense medical assessment, which I delivered last night, I decided to take the early afternoon off to run errands and treat myself. I have a couple jobs on my desk, but they are all pretty manageable. I had to pick up my Father’s Day gift, a print of Cleveland my dad picked out on my laptop (I love the Internet!), so I made a list of all the things I needed to get done and spent a few hours driving around town and into downtown Cleveland. I got a little side-tracked (ok, lost) and drove through an extremely dodgy part of town (East Cleveland, which is the foreclosure capital of the world) on my way downtown. The Plain Dealer wrote an article on the situation in East Cleveland this week – little did I know I would be driving through that exact part of town just two days later. It was interesting seeing all the once-beautiful homes in a terrible state of disrepair. Some of the homes must have been breathtaking in their day.
I hit the local German import store, Hansa Import Haus, to stock up on Jacobs Krönung coffee and ended up buying some Lindt and Ritter chocolates, cheese, jam, good German bread, and several kinds of beer (since it’s summer I’ve decided to try Warsteiner’s new line of Radlers – beer mixed with lemon, orange and/or cola flavoring). I look forward to trying them on my balcony. Having lived in Salzburg, I am a big fan of the Radler and the Almdudler (which tastes a bit like ginger ale). Afterward, I treated myself to a nice café au lait, Perrier, Niçoise salad, and a strawberry crepe at a little French bistro and creperie, Le Petit Triangle Café (formerly known as Le Oui Oui Café) down the street from Hansa Haus.
I ran a couple other errands and stopped at the local library to pick up a book I ordered through Search Ohio and to browse their DVD collection. Now I am home, refreshed and ready to devote myself a marketing survey. But it definitely feels like a Friday…
Were Cinderella’s glass slippers a mistranslation? June 16, 2008
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Random musings, Translation Sites.add a comment
I wanted to share this gem from my Snopes.com RSS feed on my iGoogle page (http://www.snopes.com/language/misxlate/slippers.asp). As translators we hear lots of myths and tales, such as Martin Luther supposedly throwing his inkwell at the devil while translating the Bible into German in his study at the Wartburg Castle (kind of a fun trip for translators, BTW – the tour guide mentioned he was constipated and that is why he might have imagined seeing the devil, but I digress…); however, I have to say that I had never heard about this myth before. Enjoy!
Claim: Cinderella’s slippers were made of fur in the original versions of the fairy tale, but they became glass slippers in later versions as the result of a mistranslation.
Status: False.
Origins: Although Cinderella’s glass slippers make their first appearance in Charles Perrault’s version of this well-known fairy tale, they were not the result of a mistranslation.
The standard explanation for Cinderella’s famous footwear is that it is the result of a mistranslation, someone having mistaken pantoufle de vair, fur slipper, for pantoufle de verre, glass slipper, when making an English version of Charles Perrault’s Histoires ou contes du temps passé avec des moralités (1697). (The title of Perrault’s collection — in English, Stories or Tales of Olden Times with Morals — also is known as Tales of My Mother Goose, after a line that appears on the frontispiece of the original, Contes de ma mère l’oye.)
The principal difficulty with the standard explanation is that pantoufle de verre appears in Perrault’s original text, so this is definitely not a question of mistranslation. Nor does it seem to be a case of mishearing, with Perrault writing verre for vair when transcribing an oral account, since vair, a medieval word, was no longer used in his time. (Vair, variegated fur, from the Latin varius, varied, also is a root of miniver, originally menu vair, small vair, which referred initially to the fur — perhaps squirrel — used as trim on medieval robes and later was applied to the prized ermine, or winter weasel fur, on the ceremonial robes of peers.)
Finally, the glass slipper is peculiar to Perrault’s telling of the story, which is one of the world’s best-known and most widely distributed folktales. In most versions, Cinderella is helped by her dead mother, who reappears as a domestic animal, typically a cow or goat, rather than her fairy godmother; often, she makes three visits to a ball, festival, or church; and her true identity is revealed by a ring that will not fit anyone’s finger but hers. The story probably is of Oriental origin. In the oldest known version, from China in the ninth century, the heroine loses a slipper, as it happens, but it is of gold. The glass slipper, then, along with the use of the witching hour of midnight as the moment at which the heroine’s finery will disappear, seems to be one of Perrault’s own contributions to the Cinderella story.
Top 10 tips from an overworked translator June 13, 2008
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Business practices, Random musings, Translation Sites.add a comment
If you are just getting started (or are striving to be better), here are my top 10 tips to be efficient and successful.
1. Be organized. Develop a system that works for you. Use some kind of job tracking system. Make lists of tasks you need to do that day, week, month. Keep all open jobs in a folder and move the files somewhere else once you have delivered the job. Set up an archiving system to archive your past work using a system that allows you to quickly and easily locate a file if the client asks for it. I zip up the source file, Trados backup file, target file, and any reference materials and/or any purchase orders from the client and name it with the client name and some descriptive words about the file (title, keywords, etc.). I then save the zip file in a folder called “Archive” in My Documents that has subfolders for each month, which are then moved inside folders for each year at the end of the year. Also, keep a handle on your e-mail in box using folders and e-mail filters. Read your e-mail program’s Help to find out more.
2. Manage your time wisely. Check your e-mail and plan your day accordingly as soon as you turn the computer on. Work when you need to work. Set your e-mail program to check e-mail every half hour – not as soon as it comes in. Avoid being sucked into watching television when you should be working. One of my colleagues always recounts to new translators how she would watch soap operas for several hours a day when she first started translating. If you do take a break, set a deadline and then go back to work when that time is up.
3. Take regular breaks. Try to get up and walk away from your desk every hour for at least five minutes. Make a cup of tea or coffee or drink a glass of water. Take a lunch break. Sitting at a desk in one position can be very taxing on your shoulders and strains the eyes. Getting up and walking away allows your eyes to focus on something else for a while. Your health and your sanity will thank you.
4. Be easy to work with. Be the translator that project managers contact for assignments. If you cannot accept a job, try to recommend another translator who can. Always be pleasant and try to be as accommodating as possible. I always include a few sentences of personal greeting to my project managers or the accountant who receives my invoice. Build up a personal rapport with your clients.
5. Strive to be the best. Respond promptly to e-mails – even if it is just to say “Thank you for your inquiry; however, I’m afraid I am booked through next Thursday.” Turn in your translations on time or even early. If you are running behind, notify your clients in advance – not an hour before the deadline. Do everything you can to track down that last elusive term or abbreviation. Ask your colleagues on a listserv, call an expert, or research it on Google. One time I was translating bank statements and records and called someone at the bank in Germany to find out exactly what the abbreviations meant instead of just guessing.
6. Don’t be a generalist – specialize. By that I mean don’t accept every job that comes across your desk just because you might need the work. If you don’t know how to translate patents or have no idea what the steel pressing text is about, turn it down! You’ll be doing yourself and your client a favor. If you accept a job that is over your head you will only be stressing yourself out and may ruin your relationship with your client by turning in a sub-par translation despite all your hard work.
7. Put in the extra effort to format your documents properly. Clients really appreciate it when you format the documents to correspond to the source text. That said, they may have different margin settings or may not have your font, so your perfectly formatted document could look terrible if you don’t format in a manner that transcends margins and fonts. Learn as much as you can about formatting. Learn how to set tabs instead of hitting the tab key eight times and/or the space bar. Try to use common fonts such as Arial or Times New Roman instead of obscure fonts such as Shruti or Ravie. Learn how to use the Hanging Indent tab on the ruler instead of using the space bar to line up your text.
8. Run spell-check. This should be obvious, but you’d be surprised how many translators do not run spell-check before delivering their translations. Make sure your translation is perfect – or at least has no obvious typos. Someone once told me to proof your translation backwards so you really notice the words.
9. Try to take tech-free days. When I am really busy my apartment looks like a tornado went through it by the end of the week :-). It’s important to schedule days or afternoons off so you can run errands, do laundry, vacuum, wash dishes, and just plain relax. My biggest pet peeve is that agencies don’t seem to respect weekends. It is up to us to defend our right to have a day or two off. Everyone needs days off in order to recharge. In our case, we also need to loosen up our shoulders and give our brains a break. Translation can be stressful and requires a lot of concentration and thought.
10. Keep marketing yourself whenever you can. Even though I have plenty of work and several clients who regularly contact me at least several times a week, you never know if that client will develop liquidity problems, your favorite project manager may leave and no one else there will know you, or their client base may change and they will suddenly no longer be getting work in your field of specialization. Become active in local groups (either translation-related or in your fields of specialization) and post regularly on listservs where your fellow translators are active. Join the ATA and attend their smaller, specialized conferences (you’re more likely to make lucrative contacts). Keep your resume up to date, post your profile/resume on translator portals such as Aquarius, TranslatorsCafe, or ProZ (however, I don’t pay to use them.), and carry business cards with you wherever you go. You never know where your next job will come from.
Does anyone else have a fabulous tip they would like to share? I’d love to hear it!
Omnilingua servers down due to Iowa flooding June 13, 2008
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Random musings, Uncategorized.2 comments
One of my clients, Omnilingua in Cedar Rapids, is doing its best to keep operating as usual despite the fact that its servers (e-mail, FTP, etc.) are down due to the flooding in Cedar Rapids. According to CNN, nearly 4,000 homes have been evacuated, a railroad bridge has collapsed and cars are underwater on downtown streets. The Iowa governor has declared 55 of Iowa’s 99 counties to be state disaster areas. I hope everyone at Omnilingua and throughout Iowa are safe and dry tonight and that the flood waters will recede soon. No deaths or serious injuries were reported in Iowa, but they’re “going to need a lot of prayers, and people are going to need a lot of patience and understanding.”
6/16/08: I received an e-mail this morning that the servers at Omnilingua are functioning again as well as two job requests, so business is back to normal there – thank heavens. I remember how weird things were when the Rhine flooded in Bonn. I can’t even imagine the entire downtown area flooding there. Let’s hope the rains stop and the floodwaters recede quickly.
Foreign bank accounts and taxes June 12, 2008
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Business practices, Marketing ideas, Random musings.4 comments
After a good night’s sleep I feel well-rested and ready to the tackle the day.
I’m going to treat myself to a nice breakfast out in a few minutes, but I just wanted to talk about the importance of having a foreign bank account. Having an account in your foreign country of choice will not only save your foreign-based clients money and hassle when paying you, it will also save you money on wire transfer fees and/or foreign check charges.
A service like Paypal and Moneybookers may be convenient, but it is a lot more expensive than setting up a foreign bank account when you consider the fees involved (1% or 5% doesn’t sound like much, but when you have a EUR 5,000.00 payment it can be downright painful!)
You may also obtain more work from agencies in foreign countries. For instance, with the dollar tanking, agencies in Europe are in search of good translators here in the U.S. because they can hire translators for a lower euro word or line rate yet still keep the translators happy because the rate is higher in the long run due to the exchange rate. But the key to being able to earn euros is having a euro-based bank account.
I opened my bank account in Germany while I was living there and simply changed my address when I moved. My bank (Dresdner Bank, which bought out the Internet-based Advance Bank) has no problems mailing my bank statements to the U.S., and I am able to track my accounts, make transfers, and use my Dresdner Bank credit card here in the U.S. As far as I am concerned, online banking is one of the best inventions since sliced bread and the Internet!
One of my French translator friends was in Paris a few weeks ago and managed to open a savings account there with the help of one of her friends/colleagues, who went with her and dropped a lot of names of the people he knows at the bank, which really helped get things moving.
That is all well and good, but there are also ways that U.S.-based translators can open a foreign bank account without having to physically be in the foreign country. It’s a little extra work, but it’s really worth it. Now, I can only speak for German banks, since I have experience with them.
A good place to start is http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=784503. You would open a personal account because your business is not registered with the German authorities. It’s legal to have a personal account in this case.
Several translators I know have opened an account with Postbank, Deutsche Bank, or Bank of America. The procedure is probably similar for any bank.
Get the form for opening an account online, print it out and complete it. It has to be “legitimiert” (notarized/legitimized) by a German embassy, consulate or mission and then returned by post. No initial deposit is usually required. The only hassle is having to go to the nearest German consulate to have it legitimiert.
One translator I know has had very bad customer service experiences with Postbank and found Deutsche Bank to be relatively easy to use. Their account forms can be downloaded from the Web. Also, you will need to complete forms validating that you are a foreign tax subject and provide a W-9 – the bank may be able to provide these to you in advance.
Most of us do our banking online (very secure with a TAN system) and also use a debit card here or abroad. There are several ways you can access your money:
- If you have a Postbank account, you can request a check be sent to you in USD. It takes about 10 days to arrive, slightly longer than a wire transfer, but only costs EUR 7.80 and it is a US check drawn on a US subsidiary of Postbank.
- Wiring money through your bank is not a good option! My bank takes out a sizable fee (EUR 19.50) – and intermediary banks in the middle also take a sizable chunk (last time some bank in New York took out $25 for simply forwarding the transfer). However, you can transfer the money after it accumulates into a sizable amount using a service such as XEtrade, which enables business and individuals to send, receive and track international payments and buy and sell foreign currency. XEtrade makes its money by collecting a small percentage of the money through a lower exchange rate. You transfer the money to their local bank account in Germany or wherever else they have an office, and they transfer the equivalent amount from their local bank account in the U.S. to your chosen bank account. The initial paperwork and verification process is rather annoying, but once it is set up it is a very quick and affordable option.
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You can initiate a transfer from your German bank to your U.S.account by mailing in a simple Auslandsüberweisungsauftrag. This is a special form, but you can also do it informally on your letterhead as long as the signature matches.
- You can use your bank or debit card to withdraw money at an ATM here in the U.S. It only costs EUR 4.50 through Dresdner Bank – no matter how much you withdraw. That said, I haven’t withdrawn more than $800 at a time.
- Deutsche Bank and Bank of America have an agreement in which you can withdraw money at an ATM for free. It can be a good deal if you have one in your area.
- A colleague just reported that Netbank (http://www.netbank.de/nb/) is an option. It was apparently quicker to do the identification process while in Germany but you can also take care of it here in the US (notary public, etc.).
- I sometimes let the money accumulate and rely on it when I am overseas, which minimizes my “vacation” expenses. That way you don’t have to worry about the weak dollar while in Europe.
Having a foreign bank account gives potential clients the (accurate) impression that the translator has regular dealings with that country and gives them one less administrative task to worry about. And that is truly money in the bank!
P.S. One important note: you should always declare your foreign income on your tax returns! My tax consultant tells me as long as you do not have $10,000 in a foreign bank account you do not need to declare that you have a foreign bank account (I’m not a tax consultant – I’m merely repeating what my consultant told me!). But you do need to report your foreign income. It simply isn’t worth the aggravation, and one should never try to cheat Uncle Sam. I track all my income on an Excel spread sheet (four worksheets – one for each quarter). Column A is for payment in euros, Column B the exchange rate that day, Column C the total or converted total in dollars, Column D the invoice number, Column D the client name, and Column E the date paid. I total up the dollar amount and set aside 20% for my estimated quarterly tax payment. Preparing my taxes is a breeze because I simply print out the Excel spread sheet and hand it to my tax consultant. But I digress…
[July 16, 2008: If you are looking for a German bank, Expatica has a very good article that compares the different German banks and the various services they offer.]
Das hat mir gerade noch gefehlt… June 11, 2008
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Random musings.add a comment
I just read on Wired Top Stories (through iGoogle) that my ISP, Time Warner Cable, is discontinuing access to Usenet due to the New York Attorney General’s blacklist-based initiative to quell undesirable Internet content (i.e., child pornography).
According to a report by Declan McCullagh, Sprint will be blocking the entire
alt.hierarchy of Usenet, while good old Time Warner Cable has no time for such fussiness and will just stop offering all Usenet access.
I’m obviously not interested in child pornography, but I do use Usenet to download music sometimes. This is just downright censorship for censorship’s sake. Talk about painting all Usenet users with one brush. I’ve been using Usenet since 1995. It was one of my core tools when I worked as an Internet researcher in Germany. Just because some sicko misuses Usenet doesn’t mean everyone should suffer. What’s next? Discontinuing phone service because some people call 1-900 numbers?
Can anyone recommend a good ISP?
Nobody ever told me there’d be days like these June 11, 2008
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Business practices, Random musings.2 comments
I’m having one of those days where you wish you could just crawl back into bed and pull the covers over your head. I delivered my second batch of files for one of my clients today, but unfortunately due to her poor writing/communication skills apparently that batch of files had been canceled but she hadn’t made that clear. I assumed the second batch of files she had sent out had precedence over the first batch and that the due date for the first group of files I received was June 11th. So I translated 1,600 words for nothing – well, not quite nothing. They’ve offered to pay 50%, which I obviously have no choice but to accept. AAARGH!!! I’d rather have the full amount since I had turned down several jobs in order to translate that batch. Don’t bother telling me I should have asked for a PO. With this client usually an e-mail confirming the job (which I have) is sufficient. I have an e-mail stating “You still can do the other documents, I sent you yesterday, but this batch is more important for the client.” Oh well, I’m not giving up yet.
To add insult to injury, I have almost $1000 in overdue invoices at the moment (6 invoices ranging from 6 to 17 days overdue) and when I wrote the PM for the largest outstanding invoice to remind him (because they have been prompt payers in the past) he told me they cannot locate my invoice. I went into my out box and forwarded the e-mail from April 28th in which I sent the invoice to him (with the invoice attached). He promised they would process it right away. I hope it arrives by June 15th when my quarterly tax payment is due, but I highly doubt it. Luckily I have a tiny cushion tucked away.
I don’t know about you, but I really want to call it a day and avoid e-mail and the phone for the rest of the day! Unfortunately I can’t, because I still have to translate 3000 words of a medical report (for Friday) and 3000 words of quality management text (due whenever but I’d like to get it off my desk by Friday).
Ah, the joys of being a freelancer…
Musings from an overworked translator 