Scam or trend? March 28, 2011
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Business practices, Scam alert.30 comments
Usually I automatically delete e-mails like the one below after reading the subject line or at most the first line, but one of my friends forwarded it to me with a snarky comment that made me giggle this morning: “Can you count the typos/misspellings in this email???? Don’t think any of us will be going out of business anytime soon.” She was also wondering if it was the latest scam or the latest trend.
Become translator on TextMaster now and get extra 10% commission
Hello,We are very pleased to announce the opening of TextMaster, the first plateform [sic] dedicated to creating, translating and proofreading text. TextMaster is a service putting clients with specific needs in contact with writting [sic] specialists.
As a translator, we invite you to join our professionnal [sic] community for free and earn money with your talent! By subscribing now, you’ll get an extra 10% commission for life!
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See you soon,
TextMaster’s team
Also, while responding to her e-mail, in which she mentioned an e-mail last week from “TextKing”, it occurred to me that the two might originate from the same person. So what say you, fellow readers, scam or misguided attempt to fill a market niche that simply doesn’t exist? After all, a 10% commission of 0 is still 0!
Make your comment heard March 18, 2011
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Random musings.15 comments
AKA “How to write a meaningful comment”
I didn’t approve a comment the other day, because it seemed too much like self-promotion. It said “Please do read more here [link]. this will surely help all of us.” The link was a blog post on a similar topic, but in my experience comments like this end up being spam or might even contain a link to a phishing site. So I deleted the comment and wrote the author of the comment explaining why I hadn’t published it. After some confusion on my part that made me think the commenter was being impersonated by someone using their e-mail to promote their blog (which apparently wasn’t the case), I realized the person was simply trying to be helpful. However, I had already deleted the comment.
Most readers of blogs aren’t aware, but blog authors often have to weed through lots of meaningless comments written by spammers, trolls or self-promoters to find actual comments written by actual readers. This blog currently has 1,891 comments, while my blog’s spam filter has caught 21,942 spam comments from being published. That’s a lot of spam!
In my experience, there are three kinds of meaningless or “unproductive” comments
- Straightforward spam. This is usually pretty obvious, and Akismet usually does a really good job catching the most obvious spam. This can include very long posts featuring lots of swear words or porn and/or links to porn sites or comments that obviously have nothing to do with the post itself. This spam never sees the light of day, because I try to keep up with deleting this spam.
- Trolls. These are people who say inflammatory or off-topic things just to rile people up. Luckily I haven’t had too many trolls on the site, and everyone behaves themselves. I haven’t had to block anyone from commenting again, which I really appreciate. There is a big difference between trolls and critical comments. Trolls deliberately say outrageous things to bate you. Critical commenters feel strongly about what they write and do an admirable job defending their position, so I won’t delete these comments. I don’t believe in censorship, but if someone is blatantly offensive I do adhere to the theory “my blog, my rules” and won’t hesitate to delete a comment in the future.
- Self-promoters. These are commenters who don’t contribute to the conversation, but say something like “Great post!” while leaving links back to their own blog or site. Sometimes this practice can feel like spam if it happens often enough.
To ensure your comment gets published, please follow these simple rules:
- Don’t just post a quick criticism like, “I don’t agree; this isn’t my experience.” This doesn’t really engage in a conversation or offer something meaningful to other readers or commenters. Alternate viewpoints are welcome here, so please take the time to elaborate on it.
- Put your comments in context. Even though I may know who you are from interactions on online forums or previous comments, most people won’t know who you are when you’re commenting. So be sure to relate something about your background, experience, or point of view so we know where you are coming from.
- If possible offer a targeted resource. Some of the best comments point us to a very specific blog post or resource that I hadn’t seen before. The Internet is so vast it is easy to miss something or not be aware something is out there. Also, be sure to explain why you feel these resources are valuable to the readers in a sentence or two.
- Don’t be afraid to ask questions. I try to be clear and concise, but I’m also human. If you didn’t understand something, there’s a good chance someone else didn’t understand either. So bring it up in the comments.
- Don’t just argue. If your views differ from mine, look for common ground. I am open to new ideas. I write this blog and read other blogs to learn more. I have learned so much from my colleagues in online forums, e-mail listservs and blogs since I started out in 1995. And I love sharing the knowledge I have learned with students and other translators.
I appreciate all of you who have left comments on this blog. I think the comments are often times more valuable than the actual post itself, because it is great to hear other experiences, opinions, and suggestions from fellow translators. That said, try to add a little substance to your comments to ensure they get posted for everyone to read. Leaving meaningful comments is also a good way to draw readers to your site. I enjoy clicking on the links in the contact information you leave to discover new and interesting blogs. If you want to share a link in the comment itself, please explain why you feel the page you are linking to might be of interest to me and/or my readers. Your thoughts are encouraged and welcomed!
Nebulous business practices abound… March 15, 2011
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Business practices.9 comments
Do you have any capacity to take on work for Thursday morning?
That was all the e-mail that I received this Tuesday afternoon said. How am I supposed to answer this? “Uhm, yes?” “Sorry, I’m all booked up.”? I ended up going with “It depends.” and asked them how many words they need translated and what kind of a document it is – and, most importantly, what is the field/subject matter of the text itself? Could some clients be more nebulous about what they need? I don’t think this client could include less info if they tried…
Clients need to realize they need to be a little more specific when asking about our availability. 1000 words of an e-mail is not the same as 1000 words of legal or medical text. I can probably squeeze in 1000 words in a field that doesn’t require a lot of research and thought, but 1000 words of dense legal just isn’t going to happen. Especially when I am already working on 2500 words of medical reports recalling stent and bypass procedures. Besides, I had to take the critters to the groomer’s today and am running behind…
TGIF: Madonna Interview March 4, 2011
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Fun stuff, TGIF.5 comments
I had the text of this interview on my original website for a long time. It cracked me up when I read it, and it cracks me up even more that French & Saunders can barely read through it without totally losing it with laughter. When Madonna was in Budapest, Hungary filming the movie Evita, she was interviewed by the Budapest newspaper Blikk. The questions were posed in Hungarian, then translated into English for Madonna, whose replies were then translated back into Hungarian for the article. Shortly thereafter, at the request of USA Today, Madonna’s comments were then retranslated from Hungarian back into English for the benefit of that paper’s readers. To say that something was lost in the process is to be wildly ungrateful for all that was gained.
Luckily, since I never delete files… here is the original print of the interview for those of you having trouble following the interview due to the mangled language and laughs from French & Saunders. Enjoy!
“I Am a Tip-Top Starlet”
In which something is lost, but much is gained, in the translation
When the huge Evita production company blew into Budapest last month to rent its ancient architecture, Madonna, the film’s star, was much too busy staying in character to meet with the local press. Finally, on the eve of her departure, good manners prevailed, and the pop diva submitted to an interview with the Budapest newspaper Blikk.
Here is the complete transcript:
Blikk: Madonna, Budapest says hello with arms that are spread-eagled. Did you have a visit here that was agreeable? Are you in good odor? You are the biggest fan of our young people who hear your musical productions and like to move their bodies in response.
Madonna: Thank you for saying these compliments [holds up hands]. Please stop with taking sensationalist photographs until I have removed my garments for all to see [laughs]. This is a joke I have made.
Blikk: Madonna, let’s cut toward the hunt: Are you a bold hussy-woman that feasts on men who are tops?
Madonna: Yes, yes, this is certainly something that brings to the surface my longings. In America it is not considered to be mentally ill when a woman advances on her prey in a discotheque setting with hardy cocktails present. And there is a more normal attitude toward leather play-toys that also makes my day.
Blikk: Is this how you met Carlos, your love-servant who is reputed? Did you know he was heaven-sent right off the stick? Or were you dating many other people in your bed at the same time?
Madonna: No, he was the only one I was dating in my bed then, so it is a scientific fact that the baby was made in my womb using him. But as regards these questions, enough! I am a woman and not a test-mouse! Carlos is an everyday person who is in the orbit of a star who is being muscle-trained by him, not a sex machine.
Blikk: May we talk about your other “baby”, your movie, then? Please do not be denying that the similarities between you and the real Evita are grounded in basis. Power, money, tasty food, Grammys – all these elements are afoot.
Madonna: What is up in the air with you? Evita never was winning a Grammy!
Blikk: Perhaps not. But as to your film, in trying to bring your reputation along a rocky road, can you make people forget the bad explosions of Whos’s That Girl? and Shanghai Surprise?
Madonna: I am a tip-top starlet. That is my job that I am paid to do.
Blikk: O.K., here’s a question from left space: What was your book Slut about?
Madonna: It was called Sex, my book.
Blikk: Not in Hungary. Here it was called Slut. How did it come to be publish? Were you lovemaking with a man-about-town printer? Do you prefer making suggestive literature to fast-selling CDs?
Madonna: These are different facets to my career highway. I am preferring only to become respected all over the map as a 100% artist.
Blikk: There is so much interest in you from this geographic region, so I must ask this final questions: How many Hungarian men have you dated in bed? Are they No. 1? How are they comparing to Argentine men, who are famous for being tip-top as well?
Madonna: Well, to avoid aggravating global tension, I would say it’s a tie [laughs]. No, no, I am serious now. See here, I am working like a canine all the way around the clock! I have been too busy even to try the goulash that makes your country one for the record books.
Blikk: Thank you for your candid chit-chat.
Madonna: No problem, friend who is a girl.
Folly and foolishness in the translation industry March 3, 2011
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Business practices.39 comments
A recent discussion on Proz.com (<sarcasm>that well-known bastion of professionalism</sarcasm>) suggested a general strike against TRADOS and other expensive CAT tools. Luckily most of the people in the discussion presented well-founded ideas why this is not a good idea. As @NadVega pointed out, “A CAT tool is an investment like any other. If the ROI justifies the purchase, it is not too expensive.” Like it or not, CAT/TEnTs are now part of doing business as a translator. As professionals we need to make sure we are investing in our businesses.
This cult of poverty thinking that is so prevalent among so many of our colleagues drives me crazy.
The idea of the “poverty cult” stems from a presentation by Neil Inglis at the 1996 ATA Regional Conference in Washington, D.C. and later that year at the Annual Conference in Colorado Springs. Inglis, a translator at the International Monetary Fund, suggested that the poverty cult “may develop from the inferiority complex that language professionals have (and others have about them) regarding their worth in the marketplace.” Inglis characterized “the Seven Deadly Sins of the Poverty Cult” as “envying the success of others, gloating over the failure of others; a pervasive sense that it is better for everybody to fail than for a few to succeed; a sickly squeamishness where the subject of money is concerned; shabby gentility, more shabby than genteel; a widespread conviction that it is better to have a little and be secure than to take a gamble and risk losing everything; and last, and very much least, Schadenfreude mixed with sour grapes.”
This suggestion to strike just goes to show that – despite great strides – the cult of poverty is alive and well in the translation industry. To that I say… if you are not earning enough that a couple hundred dollars presents a hardship or an annual dinner or workshop by your local translation chapter that costs $30 makes you twitch you should either raise your rates or find another profession.
Every profession has its own tools and expenses. You need to adapt or perish. Dentists need to upgrade their x-ray machines and dental tools. Lawyers need to remain up-to-date on the most recent rulings in their field of specialization. Architects need to spend several thousand dollars on AutoCAD and other CAD software. Sure, their clients don’t demand discounts because they have this software, but there are plenty of clients out there who don’t insist on discounts. I know, because I work for many of them. If a client tries to “bully” me into buying one tool over another I simply don’t work with them. There are plenty of other fish in the sea…
In our profession you need at a minimum a computer, e-mail, and language skills in order to translate. Most people also prefer to buy dictionaries in which to look up terms. Some of us choose to use CAT/TEnTs. Whether you buy an expensive or cheaper tool or use a free tool is up to you. If your client wants you to work with a certain tool it is up to you to decide if you are willing to adapt or possibly lose the client.
Back in the early days translators translated their texts using quills and parchment, then pen and paper, and then typewriters. They went through a lot of carbon paper and White-Out back in those days. And if they were like me they would have to retype the document if they made too many typos. When computers were invented, several translators I know were the first ones to buy a computer, which back then cost several thousand dollars and didn’t have near the storage capacity as we have now (or any storage capacity for that matter…). Fax machines and modems were also very expensive. They may have complained, but they coughed up the money in order to continue working because they knew the tools were necessary to be more productive. They used their expensive modems and dial-up connections to communicate with each other on CompuServe and LANTRA-L. They tossed the modems and dial-up when high-speed Internet was available. They are still in the business, delivering files via e-mail or FTP and translating several thousand words a day with the help of CAT/TEnTs.
One agency near me hasn’t done such a good job in adapting. The company owner has developed a reputation for driving to his translators’ homes and hand-delivering the source texts. One colleague called me just today complaining that he wanted the translated paragraph directly beneath the source paragraph in the translation of a fairly lengthy technical text. She was shocked because that was the first time in 15 years anyone had asked her to do that. I laughed and told her that sounded about right and suggested she tell him he can either do the necessary cutting and pasting himself or she would charge him more for the formatting work. And if he balked tell him to find someone else… You’d be surprised how many members of my local translators association don’t have an e-mail on file with us!! Adapt or perish…
Just because we use a CAT/TEnT and charge by the word now does not mean we are merely “CAT operators” as one person vehemently contends. I used to think I didn’t have enough repetition in my work to warrant using a tool. I too used to be vehemently against the idea of using translation tools until I finally saw the benefits these tools provide. My CAT/TEnT has saved me hundreds of hours and earned me lots of money that I wouldn’t have otherwise earned. Using alignment I was able to align a quality assurance manual, import it into my translation memory and save myself three days of work because all I had to do was proofread the suggested translations and change the company name. The client was thrilled, and now I have a good Quality Assurance TM. My Medical TM has become so vast that I can quickly translate several thousand words a day of highly technical stent reports or discharge reports thanks to the repetition in medical reports. I still have to be careful to check numbers and make sure each segment is translated accurately. This doesn’t mean I am just a CAT operator; it just means I am able to leverage previous translations and benefit from the consistency this ensures.
For the record, I use Trados 2009 and sometimes Transit XV. I just bought another TEnT (Fluency) today after attending an online tutorial. I liked that it had built-in tabs with online resources like Linguee and Google. It cost me $99, which I am sure will quickly pay for itself. One translator in the above Proz.com discussion uses Omega T because it is a free, open source tool. You don’t have to spend a lot of money on a tool, but you really should have one if you want to compete in the current market.
As Neil Inglis stated, “We are highly skilled professionals and should expect to be treated that way, and our status as such should give us clout in every regard (not just as language professionals).” I would also add that we need to act like professionals in order to be treated as such. Stop complaining about the cost of this and that if it is part of doing business and pay the subscription fees or buy the tools that make you work more efficiently and effectively.
♪♫ Everybody’s working on the weekends… ♪♫ February 26, 2011
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Business practices, Translation.8 comments
After about a month of being underworked I have returned to the world of the overworked translator. I was lucky to earn enough to cover my rent and bills last month, while this month it looks like I am on track to exceed my monthly income target. I have turned down a lot of projects over the last few days (and suggested colleagues who may or may not be available). However, I have several clients to whom I simply can’t say no, so I am working this weekend – by choice. This seems to be a common habit in our industry. Everyone always complains about the clients who call at 4 PM on Friday with a job that absolutely must be done by Monday morning. And when you ask for a rush rate? Yeah, good luck trying to get one from the clients, because it seems there are a lot of our colleagues who are perfectly willing to consider Saturday and Sunday a normal work day. Perhaps because they work a full-time job and only translate on the weekends or simply have no life outside of translation…
I hope to be able to take a day off at the end of this coming week to balance my time spent translating this weekend. Both big projects are due March 1st and March 2nd respectively, plus a little mini-job for Monday that I really should have finished yesterday but chose to procrastinate on. If we work on the weekends the least we can do is take time off during the week instead. I have no intention of burning out after only 15 years in the industry.
I don’t intend to spend my entire weekend stuck behind my keyboard and monitor. I have plans with friends and family this weekend that I am not willing to cancel. Being a translator truly forces us to be masters of time management, because otherwise we simply wouldn’t get everything done. But I can guarantee you that there is one thing I WON’T be doing this weekend – housework!! LOL! I have a Living Social coupon for a cleaning service that I intend to cash in very soon…
Sharing What I Do as a Translator February 25, 2011
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Business practices, Translation.3 comments
Fabio from Fidus Interpres just published a blog post with the exact same title as this one on his blog based on an exchange he had with another translator on LinkedIn to “exchange infos about each other, explaining what we do so that maybe we can be an interesting resource for each other in future translation & localization projects.” Instead of writing an extensive comment on his blog I thought I would take a page from his playbook and share what I do here. They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. I invite other bloggers to do the same on their blogs. I think it will be fun to learn a little bit about each other.
Like Fabio, I very rarely outsource jobs, and if I do I rely on translators who I have met in person or have worked with successfully in the past. However, as Fabio said, you never know if one of your clients may need someone with a skill set that matches that of one of your colleague’s.
I have been translating (and proofreading) from German into English (American English) since 1995.
Most of my customers are translation agencies in the United States and Europe (usually Germany but occasionally Switzerland, England or Austria). I worked for the FBI as a contract linguist for about four years, and now work for several agencies with government contracts. I do not work for the larger translation agencies. I find the smaller agencies appreciate my skills more and are more willing to pay my rates. I prefer to work for agencies that value me and respect me as a professional.
I have a Master’s degree in Translation from Kent State and lived for six years in Bonn, Germany and one year in Salzburg, Austria. My time living abroad helped me not only become extremely fluent, but also gave me the cultural knowledge one needs to be a successful translator. I also have a working knowledge of Russian, which sometimes helps me translate documents that have been uncovered in the former Eastern Bloc countries for my agencies with government contracts.
I specialize in documents in the fields of medical and computer. I love translating medical reports, medical documents for insurance and pension claims, FTP manuals, computer games, mobile phone apps and games, and anything and everything software-related. I taught myself HTML back in 1995 and have taught web design for the translation students at Kent State, so I have a deep love for Geekspeak and the Internet. I have also been known to translate legal documents relating to Nazi hunting, Internet fraud, witness statements and interviews, police reports, legal claims, and the occasional contract. I proofread a lot of the police reports related to the 9/11 hijackers who lived in Germany back in 2001 and 2002. I am not a big fan of personal documents (birth certificates, letters of reference, school transcripts, genealogical documents), but I translate them when a client asks me. I also translate I also translate responses for market research surveys, so this means not only am I a fast translator since the deadlines are often tight and the word counts are high but I am also very good as deciphering the most terrible misspellings and typos you can imagine. I am also very, very good at formatting Word and WordPerfect files cleanly (I set a tab where I need it instead of using tabs and spaces to get there) and making them look almost like a mirror image of the original.
I’m not arrogant to claim that I am the best translator out there, but I am good at what I do and my clients are very happy with my results. If you have complicated, high-falutin’ German that sounds like it comes from an ivory tower or need the translation to sound like poetry I’m probably not your girl. But if you need to know what the text says, it needs to be conveyed clearly and sound good, and you need it to mirror the original I’m the one to call.
I do not translate financial, chemistry, patent, or technical texts. If I read a text and don’t understand it I will turn the job down and most likely be able to recommend someone more than capable of handling the text. I have built a very good network of contacts on both sides of the ocean. I recently helped a client find a German to French translator by recommending three excellent colleagues who I know from living in Bonn.
I also do not translate into German. German grammar is too complicated for a non-native speaker who was not exposed to it from a young age, and it takes me too long to translate into my non-native tongue.
Now, how about you? Would you like to tell us about your translation background (specialization, experience, likes and dislikes)?
TGIF: Bill Cosby and the alphabet February 25, 2011
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Fun stuff, TGIF.1 comment so far
Sesame Street always gets the best guests to star in their clips. This one is from the 1970s and features Bill Cosby reciting the alphabet. I love the faint line you can see between the old school split-screen. Nowadays, it’d be perfect and you’d think there was really two of them. Enjoy your Friday, everyone. I for one will be working all weekend to try to get some headway on the big jobs on my desk. No rest for the wicked. Glad today is a snow day here in Cleveland. I have an excuse to stay home, stay warm and work. I already helped push the mail delivery woman’s van out of a snowdrift this morning.
TGIF: Law & Order: UK explained to the Yanks February 18, 2011
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Fun stuff, TGIF.3 comments
Thanks to Silvina Jover-Cirillo (@ATGTranslations) for sharing this hilarious video. I’m a huge Law & Order fan. I have been known to lose several hours of the day to L&O marathons, so I stay away from the television when I need to translate. I have been enjoying Law & Order: UK for the last year or so. Apparently L&O: UK is launching on BBC America. This is their intro clip explaining the British justice system (and British culture) to American viewers. Even if you aren’t familiar with the show I promise it will make you laugh. And if you haven’t seen the shows yet you simply must!
Just one thing: according to Asylum UK, “Certain words get lost in their translation, mind, such as “knackers”, which they take to mean “pants”, when, as we all know it means “bollocks”, which they in turn would probably translate as “male cows or bulls.”
Ah, the English language… full of mysteries and misunderstandings for both sides of the pond.
What is your gut telling you? February 17, 2011
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Business practices, Translation.4 comments
No, not that you need to get out and exercise more. ALL of our guts are telling us that! I’m talking today about intuition, your gut feeling. We’ve all had those job requests where our gut tells us “RUN!” but we take it anyway and live to regret it. You spend all weekend researching a bunch of terms and slowly plodding through the text only to have the client come back with a lot of complaints a week later because you didn’t know the subject matter enough. Or you take a job only to learn three months later that the client is a known scam artist and you’ll never see the $3000 he owes you. We all have our stories…
I have learned to listen to my gut more. This is something they don’t teach you in school.
If your gut is telling you something isn’t right, chances are the job offer is fishy or you simply aren’t up to the job. That e-mail from the Prince of Ghana is most likely not from the Prince of Ghana. The other subtle warning signs in the mail like typos and bad grammar are causing your gut to clench and say “don’t even bother responding.” That check you received in the mail from that client in Nigeria is probably a fake, just ask your gut.
One of my colleagues wrote our listserv today asking what seemed like a simple question about word prices for creating a specialized dictionary. She seemed to think it would only take one work day to create, and the client was requesting a word price instead of an hourly rate. Her colleagues suggested she demand an hourly rate and budget at least a month for the project. I would also have suggested asking for $40 a word since there would be a lot of research involved. I bet she’s glad she listened to her gut and asked for a second opinion from her colleagues. I bet if I had asked that colleague what her gut was telling her she would have answered “don’t do it.”
If your gut tells you something isn’t right or that you really shouldn’t try to translate that technical specification because you don’t recognize one-third of the words and would have to look them up, try listening to it. Ignore all the voices in your head telling you “well, I need the work” and tell the client no. Because if you listen to those voices you could really end up regretting taking the job (and possibly being institutionalized, but that’s a post for another day… LOL!).
Have you ignored your gut and lived to regret it? Feel free to share your experience here. I’ll start…
Musings from an overworked translator 