Lost in translation at My Allrecipes May 11, 2009
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Fun stuff, Translation.3 comments
One of my former students posted this amusing anecdote to the Kentlingua listserv tonight. A woman wanted to send two recipes to her boyfriend’s mother in Costa Rica and took the easy way out.
A few weeks ago, I made a chicken dish for Carlos that he loved. After the first bite, he told me it was so good, would I mind sending the recipe to his mother in Costa Rica? I only speak conversational Spanish, but I thought what the heck, I would try to translate it to English before I sent it. How hard could that be, right?
Machine translation strikes again, but this time at least the person who used the online translator is embarrassed of the results 🙂 Enjoy!
Ideas on handling presumptuous clients May 8, 2009
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Business practices.8 comments
Presumptuous: overstepping due bounds (as of propriety or courtesy) : taking liberties (Merriam-Webster)
We’ve all had to deal with them – clients who have unreasonable deadlines, clients who expect you to do their work like prepping files or formatting files to meet their standards even though the source text didn’t conform with their specifications, clients who change terms in the middle of the job, clients who expect you to translate 2000 words in one hour. Here are two very real examples that just happened today (one to me and another to a colleague who is ready to tear her hair out).
Example 1: Client sends a binding job order for a job due Monday morning at 11 a.m. German time without even asking if I am available.
Example 2: Two separate clients contacted my colleague on Wednesday with 4600 words and 7700 words respectively. Both clients initially asked her to deliver on Monday and she agreed – and then they started putting on the pressure for Friday. One even had the audacity to send her a PO with a Friday deadline instead of the agreed upon Monday deadline (for the 7700 word job).
Example 1 was resolved by sending an e-mail stating that I wasn’t available over the weekend. Hopefully they can find someone else. It’s not my problem. They should have had the common courtesy to ask if I was available. I have worked the last two weekends and two weeks straight without a day off. I need some “me” time.
Example 2 is a little trickier, and I would love to hear what you all would do in that situation. The nightmare PM has simply ignored her e-mails stating that the agreed upon deadline was Monday. The PM instead sent her an email asking her if she (colleague) wanted her (the PM) to convert the Excel glossary into a Multiterm glossary. She ended up delivering the 7700 word job 3/4 finished and is powering on with it today. In the meantime she is completely stressed because, like everyone, she hates delivering a job she hasn’t finished working on and hasn’t polished. I told her I would simply deliver the jobs as agreed upon on Monday and not stress out so much about it. But of course you have to keep the client happy…
She is seriously thinking about quitting freelancing and getting a different job altogether. Her final sentence says it all: “I love translation just not some of the business aspects of it. Which is sort of weird, because I think I did really well dealing with the business aspects when I was a PM. I would never have put “my people” under that kind of pressure.”
So how do you handle presumptuous clients? Any advice for my colleague?
Update: Client in Example 1 responded asking when I could deliver by because she definitely wants me to do it, so I now have a Monday afternoon deadline. See, clients can be reasonable if you stick up for yourself. Oh, and if you are reading this through an RSS feed I highly suggest clicking on the link to visit the blog itself and check out WordPress’ third suggested post for a good laugh.
TGIF: Schoolhouse Rock – Rufus Xavier Sarsparilla May 7, 2009
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Fun stuff, TGIF.1 comment so far
This particular Schoolhouse Rock clip on pronouns is a personal favorite. It first aired in 1977. Jack Sheldon must have practiced for weeks in order to sing this song. Jack Sheldon is a trumpet player, vocalist, and all-around great entertainer. He sang most of my favorite Schoolhouse Rock clips, including Conjunction Junction and the wonderful “I’m Just A Bill.” I promise his songs will stick with you. They are very catchy. Enjoy!
Now, I have a friend named Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla,
And I could say that Rufus found a kangaroo
That followed Rufus home
And now that kangaroo belongs
To Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla.
Whew! I could say that, but I don’t have to,
‘Cause I got pronouns,
I can say, “HE found a kangaroo that followed HIM home and now IT is HIS”
You see, (uh) HE, HIM, and HIS are pronouns,
Replacing the noun
Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla,
A very proper noun.
And IT is a pronoun, replacing the noun, kangaroo!
Common Sense Advisory survey on translation tools May 7, 2009
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Business practices, Translation.add a comment
Nataly Kelly of the Common Sense Advisory (and the Global Watchtower blog) is inviting freelance translators to participate in a new survey on translation tools, your clients, and the various translator communities you are active in. You can take the survey until June 1st. I just took it and can vouch that it will only take a few minutes of your time. The more people who take it, the more comprehensive (and thus better) the survey results will be. You might also want to bookmark this page to weigh in on their surveys.
New blog on the blogroll: Mox’s Blog May 6, 2009
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Fun stuff, Translation Sites.6 comments
There’s a new translation blog (Mox’s Blog) out there that has a unique approach that sets it apart – he’s a cartoonist and translator who draws translation-related cartoons. I just discovered the blog yesterday and have enjoyed his past cartoons. The translator behind Mox’s Blog is Alejandro Moreno-Ramos. Alejandro lives in Madrid, Spain and is an electromechanical engineer and English-French to Spanish translator. His main character Mox “is a young but well educated translator with two PhDs, six languages… and he hardly earns the minimum wage.” You know – a typical translator :-). I have taken the liberty to post my favorite cartoon here, but I urge you to subscribe to this very amusing blog.
Fantastic new Internet research tool for Germans: Linguee.com May 5, 2009
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Tools, Translation Sites.5 comments
Marita Marcano just shared this great research tool on the GLD list this morning. I immediately bookmarked it prominently on my toolbar. Although only a beta at the moment, Linguee is a powerful online search tool that searches millions of bilingual texts in English and German for words and expressions. Every expression is accompanied by useful additional information and suitable example sentences. It is an online dictionary and a BBI dictionary of word combinations all-in-one. It is essentially a corpus search, which is what the professors at Kent have been talking about for several years now. Now, you should remember that any term found on the Internet needs verification, but with the wealth of examples from so many different locations it should be immediately obvious if one translation is hideously off.
As the Linguee site so capably explains:
When you translate texts to a foreign language, you usually look for common phrases rather than translations of single words. With its intelligent search and the significantly larger amount of stored text content, Linguee is the right tool for this task. You find:
- In what context a translation is used
- How frequent a particular translation is
- Example sentences: How have other people translated an expression?
By searching not only for a single word, but for a respective word in its context, you can easily find a translation that fits optimal in context. With its large number of entries, Linguee often retrieves translations of rare terms that you don’t find anywhere else.
…
Linguee is used like a search engine. You search for a word or a phrase, and you find pairs of sentences that contain the word or the phrase as an exact or similar match. If the search is not successful, it usually pays off to simplify the search phrase and search again. The search result is clearly arranged in groups of expressions and ordered by frequency. By clicking on the “Examples +” button you are presented with more example sentences.
Happy Day after Cinco de Cuatro May 5, 2009
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Fun stuff, Random musings.add a comment
Yesterday President Obama greeted a White House crowd gathered for a May 4 celebration of Cinco de Mayo, the Mexican holiday honoring an upset military victory over the French, whose troops didn’t do so well in North America and don’t celebrate the same day much. In a well-intentioned attempt at Spanish and a joke about being a day early, Obama said: “Bienvenidos. Welcome to Cinco de Cuatro — (laughter) — Cinco de Mayo at the White House. We are a day early, but we always like to get a head start here at the Obama White House.” As most of us with any semblance of language skills know, he wasn’t saying “Happy May 4th.” He was saying, “Happy fifth of fourth.” He should have said, “Feliz cuatro de mayo.”
Well, you’ve got to give him points for trying…
TGIF: Bonus video – MADtv parody on Schoolhouse Rock April 30, 2009
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Fun stuff, TGIF.2 comments
I just discovered this funny parody of the Schoolhouse Rock video I posted last week on nouns. Be sure to watch the original to refresh your memory before watching this to truly enjoy it. MADtv is Emmy Award winning American sketch comedy television series that made/makes fun of just about anything it can in American pop culture. It aired from 1995 to 2008 on Fox and is in syndication on the Comedy Channel. It is currently looking for a new TV station to continue airing its shows.
TGIF: Verb (That’s What’s Happenin’) April 30, 2009
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Fun stuff, TGIF.add a comment
It’s Friday. Time for another TGIF video. I’m continuing the Schoolhouse Rock grammar videos and am really enjoying watching them again. This video first aired in 1974. In the video a young man goes to the movies to see Verb, the superhero. He learns all about verbs and what they can do. Enjoy! (Verb!)
How to successfully work with people over long distances April 30, 2009
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Business practices.1 comment so far
Freelance Folder features a blog post on How to Successfully Work With People Over Long Distances today that I feel is an important topic to translators and worth sharing. If you don’t live in the global metropolises of Washington DC or New York City, most likely you do not work very often with local agencies and clients. I have one client in Ohio, but most of my clients are spread all over the U.S. or Europe. One of the things that always fascinates people I meet when I talk about what I do is that I work with clients all over the world. This also presents challenges, and one of the biggest challenges we face as translators is that of working with people who we’ve never met face to face. Several of my clients call me on the phone, which I encourage since it allows me to build a good rapport with them and ensures they get an instant answer as to whether or not I am available to accept their translation job. However, most of my business negotiations and everyday communication occurs non-verbally via e-mail.
Communicating via e-mail can be difficult, because it is so easy to be misunderstood by the recipient. As Freelance Folder states, “Without seeing a client’s face or reading his or her body language, it can be pretty hard to know if you’re getting the full message.” One study found that 78% believe they were communicating clearly, 89% of those receiving the e-mail believe they were correctly interpreting what was written, and only 56% correctly interpreted the message.
Freelance Folder offers 5 Tips for Dealing with Long Distance Clients. They are:
- Check Your Emotions at the Door. It can be tempting to shoot out an emotional response to an e-mail that seems upsetting to you, but don’t fall into this trap. If an e-mail provokes an emotional response, then allow yourself enough time to recover from that emotion before you respond.
- Stay Professional and Businesslike. You’re running a business. Your client is also running a business. Communication between the two of you should reflect that. While it’s okay to be friendly, in general I’ve found that it’s best to stay away from overly personal communications with your client.
- It’s Okay To Negotiate. An online negotiator definitely has a more difficult job than one who can negotiate face-to-face. For that reason, I think that many freelancers avoid negotiating terms with clients. However, negotiations are an important part of doing business. Don’t be afraid to negotiate.
- Beware the Hidden Tone. When sending an e-mail occasionally an unfriendly tone creeps in. Usually, the tone is not at all a reflection of how I’m feeling at the time, but rather more a result of how rushed I am. If you have this problem get someone else to read your e-mails before you send them.
- There Probably Is No Hidden Agenda. Without nonverbal cues, it’s easy to fear clients who contact you through the Internet. This is where your due diligence comes in. Before accepting work, check the client’s reputation and background. In my experience, in most cases there is no hidden agenda.
The post is definitely worth a read if you work with people over long distances. At the least, it will definitely make you stop and think the next time you are drafting an e-mail to a client.
