Foundations of Translation - Lesson 2

(These are the notes for a course on Foundations of Translation I am teaching at the University College of the University of Denver. I'll be publishing the notes for the various lessons during the next few weeks. A short description of the course can be found here).

Jobs for translators

Staff-translator

Good place to start

• Acquires skills while mentored by more experienced colleagues
  
• May accrue considerable experience in one (or more) specialistic
  fields
  
• At the beginning of one's career, better pay, and better benefits
  

Needs to be a team player

• Work well with other people
  
• Able to compromise
  
• Realize the end product is the team's translation, not an
  individual one
  

Danger of growing stale

(Not several years of experience, but one year of experience several times over - which is true of other professions, of course)

Free-lance translator

More experience needed

(although many translators start here, with no experience), and needs to be a self-starter

Customers

Translation agencies

• Wide range of different companies, from concerns where only a very few people work (or even just the principal), through large international companies like SDL or Lionbridge
  
• Some companies try to be everything for every customer, other specialize in many different ways
  
• Example: our company specializes in providing higher quality services to other translation companies
  
  See pages 28-30 of "How To Succeed as A Freelance translator"
  

Direct customers

• Private individuals (certificates, other documents, usually for consular or similar purposes)
  
• Businesses
  
  • Software companies
    
  • Law offices
    
  • Manufacturing companies
    
  • Etc.
    
  
  
• Public administration
  
  • Court system
    
  • Federal authorities (e.g., Department of State)
    
  
  See page 31 of "How To Succeed as A Freelance translator"
  

Translation rates

How to set one's rates

Various ways of setting one's rates

• Know what one's overhead is
  
• Determine what income one desires
  
• See what the market will bear
  

• Higher rates for more specialized work
  
• Higher rates for higher-quality work (but not everybody really wants that)
  

See pages 33 and also Chapter 4 of "How To Succeed as A Freelance translator"

Useful links and material about translation rates

• Translators Café.com Rate Statistics
  
• Rates on individual translators' pages on ProZ.com
  
• Simon Turner's Tariffometro (useful, but in Italian)
  

Translation editor

• Task often given to inexperienced translators, should instead be reserved for experienced ones
  
• Not every good translator has the skills or mindset for translation editing
  

Translation project manager

• Organization
  
• Contacts with customers
  
• Contacts with vendors
  
• Work may be very different in different organizations
  

Looking for a job as translator

• Résumé
  See my article on "How Not To Get Hired"
  
• Marketing
  
• Tests
  
• Professionalism
  
  • Meeting deadlines
    
  • Not accepting work one is not qualified for
    
  • Good communications with customer: Communicate issues as soon as they arise
    
  
  
• Other useful articles from ProZ.com


• Other useful articles from About Translation blog
  
  • Advice to Beginning Translators: 1 Résumés
    
  • Advice to beginning Translators: 2 Sending Out Your Réesumé
    
  • Advice to beginning Translators: 3 Contacting Prospects
    
  • Advice to beginning Translators: 4 Translation Tests
    

Translation associations, communities and resources

Translation associations

• Local organizations
  
  • ATA
    Translation certifications (Usefulness of)
    
  • CTA
    
  
  
• Other national and international organizations
  
  • FIT
    Organization of translation association
    
  • Organizations in the various foreign countries
    
    • AITI (Italy)
      
    • etc.
      

Translation communities

• Translation portals
  
  • ProZ
    
  • Translator's Cafe
  
  
• Other translators' online communities
  
• Translators' blogs
  
  • About Translation (My own blog devoted to
    professional translation)
    
  • Many other blogs
    

Payment practice lists

(sites and lists where translators can check on the reputation and payment practices of translation companies)

• ProZ's Blue Board
  
• TCR
  
• PP
  
• Other lists
  

Translation work

Work management

• Marketing
  
• Time management
  
• Project management
  
  • Recording projects
    
  • Doing the work
    
  • Delivery
    
  • Software for project management
    
    • Translation Office 3000
      
    • Ad-hoc software
      
• Accounting
  
  • Receiving orders
    
    • Purchase orders
      
    • Contracts
      
    • Other systems (both more informal or formal)
      
  • Invoicing
    
  • Payment reminders
    
  • Payment collection
    

Translation workflow

• SL writing
  
• Translation
  
• Editing
  
• Proofing
  
• QA
  

Assignments for next class

• Assignment: find a text that you'll translate as part of your Test for
  Class 3 (max 250 words).
  
  • Select business or technical article to translate (will be translated after 3rd class)
    
  • Indicate list of reference materials you intend to use to translate the text
    
  • Write down what difficulties you expect to encounter in translating this materials
    
  • Have this material ready before 3rd class, but do NOT yet translate the text
    
• Assignment: read chapter in "Becoming a Translator" about Learning

Notes from the previous lessons in this course:
Foundations of Translation - Course Description
Foundations of Translation - Lesson 1: Difference between translation and interpreting

Microsoft Glossaries RIP

As I mentioned in a previous post, Microsoft has released a new multi-language glossary of about 9000 terms.

Unfortunately, at the same time they have removed the old Microsoft glossaries that have been so useful to many IT translators: the only thing left on the old ftp site is a short readme file, which announces the new glossary as containing "more up-to-date terminology, [...] that is easier to use".

The old material is still available, but only to MSDN subscribers:

1. Go to http://msdn.microsoft.com/subscriptions/
2. Use the Sign In button to sign in to your MSDN account.
3. Click the "Subscriber Downloads and Product Keys" link.
4. Navigate to Tools, SDKs, and DDKs\Microsoft Glossaries.

I think it is a pity that the old, fuller glossaries are no longer available: it is true that some of the information there had to be taken with a grain of salt, as the glossaries contained many inconsistencies and even errors, but they were not really difficult to use (as Microsoft's readme file implies) - at least for people who knew something about software, or who used some of the various tools available on the web for making full use of the glossaries.

Several people knew about the impending demise of the old glossaries in advance, and I think many made full downloads to save their own copies of the most recent files.

Unfortunately, even those who have backup copies of the old glossaries will have to do without updated copies of the Windows and Office glossaries at the very moment when new and much updated copies of both are on the point of being released.

So no Windows Vista glossary, unless, as I believe, specific terminology information is going to be provided to the companies engaged in the localization of the newer Microsoft products. Even so, translators who would have relied on the updated Microsoft terminology to translate other software products will have to make do without.

Proof positive that Trados programmers should change job

I like to keep the matching settings of Trados fairly low: sometimes that way I get some useful suggestions (especially for long sentences where only part of the sentence matches), but often what I get is something like this:


That's right: "Do not submerge in water" is supposed to be a 53% match for "Unplug when not in use".

Trados' matching algorithms have long been known to be among the poorest of all translation memory tools, but this takes the cake!

Patches for Italian dictionaries on CD-Rom

Some time ago I bought a new computer, but until yesterday I hadn't needed to use any of my dictionaries on CD-Rom on it.
The operating system of the new computer is XP (SP2): of course, none of my dictionaries was running properly.
I knew that in the past I had downloaded the necessary patches and saved them in some backup, but I couldn't find the necessary files, so I had to search them again on the web. Fortunately, they are all still downloadable, and I thought that posting the links to the pages from which the patches can be downloaded might be useful for other colleagues:

Link for Zanichelli dictionaries (Ragazzini, Boch, Zingarelli, Morandini, McGraw Hill Zanichelli, Economics and Business, DELI)

Link for Hoepli dictionaries (Grande Dizionario di Inglese Picchi, Grande Dizionario di Spagnolo di L. Tam, Grande Dizionario Tecnico Francese, Grande Dizionario Tecnico Tedesco, Dizionario Tecnico Inglese Marolli)

Link for Sansoni/Rizzoli dictionaries (Dizionario Tedesco Sansoni, Dizionario Inglese Sansoni - also known as Grande Dizionario Rizzoli-Larousse)

I have personally tested the patches for the Picchi, Tam, Sansoni inglese and McGraw Hill Zanichelli, and they all work - I imagine that the patches for the other dictionaries also should work.

Foundations of Translation - Lesson 1

(These are the notes for a course on Foundations of Translation I am teaching at the University College of the University of Denver. I'll be publishing the notes for the various lessons during the next few weeks. A short description of the course can be found here).

Difference between translation and interpreting

Interpreting

Types of interpreting

Conference interpreting

Simultaneous


• First used at the Nuremberg trials
  
• Ability to wait for complete sentences, remember them while translating and speaking the previous one
  

Consecutive


• Need to summarize and shorten the oiginal
  
• Notes as aid to memory
  
• Note-taking techniques (Herbert)
  
• NOT: use of shorthand
  

Business interpreting (Role in business negotiations and meetings)

Community interpreting

• Court interpreting
  
• Medical interpreting
  

Ethics of interpreting

• Interpreter as the "voice" of others
  
• Interpreter as cultural bridge
  

Translation

University degrees for translators

Usefulness of university degree in translation (Respect accorded to degrees in translation from the major translation schools)

University-level degrees in translation

USA


• MIIS
  Most prestigious / Oldest program in the USA
  
• Kent
  Important center for Terminology studies
  

Europe


• Geneva
  One of the best programs in Europe
  
• Trieste
  My "Alma Mater", first school in Italy, excellent
  

Other (beware of the quality of many non university-level courses)

Books and publications on translation

Books for course


• McKay, Corinne: How to Succeed as a Freelance Translator, 2 Rat Press, 2006
  
• Robinson, Douglas: Becoming a Translator, Routledge, 1997, 2003 (2nd ed.)
  

Other interesting and useful books


• Baker, Mona: In Other Words, Routledge, 1992
  
• Hofstadter, Douglas R.: Le Ton beau de Marot , Basic Books, 1997
  
• Chesterman, Andrew: Memes of Translation, Benjamins, 1997
  
• Chesterman, Andrew and Wagner, Emma: Can Theory Help Translators?, St. Jerome, 2002
  

Other publications


• ATA Chronicle
  
• Multilingual
  

Allied subjects

Translation quality control activities

• Revision
  
• Reviewing
• Editing
  
• Proofreading
  

Localization

Terminology management

• Terminology extraction
  
• Glossary creation
  

Translation studies (Theoretical discipline)

Media activities

• Sub-titling
  
• Voice-over
  

Technical writing

Copywriting

Foundations of Translation

Last week I began teaching an introductory course on translation at the University College of the University of Denver.

The title of the course is "Foundations of Translation" (MODL 3950), and is described in the University College website as an

introductory course [that] addresses the essentials of translation theory, and basic translation skills that may apply to any language pair. Students will also learn how to address ethical issues that arise when translating sensitive and legal documents.

I will post here my lecture notes, please let me know if you are interested in receiving more information.

Update

Here is a more complete description of the course:

This course is open to all languages, and will strive to provide to all students the foundations on which to build in order to become professional translators.

It will provide an introduction to translation, covering topics such as what translation is, how it differs from interpretation, what jobs are open to translators, and what resources are available to our profession.

It will concentrate on the fundamentals that all translators should know: A deep knowledge of one’s own native language and of at least one foreign language is a necessary prerequisite, but, alone, it is not sufficient. To become a translator one should also fully understand the subject-matter of the text to be translated, and have knowledge of things such as translation tools, reference materials, translation processes, and, above all, self-knowledge - knowing what one knows as well as an awareness of what one does not know.

New Microsoft glossary

Microsoft has released a new multilingual glossary, which can be freely downloaded from here.

According to Microsoft,

To provide users with more up-to-date terminology, Microsoft has replaced the glossary content that was previously posted to the Microsoft ftp site with a more concise document that is easier to use.

The new document is definitely more concise than those available before: 9000 lines instead of hundreds of thousands (the old XP glossary alone contained more than 100,000 lines).

I doubt that the new glossary is as complete as the previous ones, but I hope it will be at least more consistent. On the plus side, for those that have to manage multilingual projects, this glossary contains translations of the English terms into up to 45 different languages (not all English terms are translated into all available languages).

(Hat tip: Christof)

Index entries

I'm currently editing part of a large set of computer manuals. This documentation contains index entries, for example:

• active links
• links, active

My Italian colleague translated this as:

• collegamenti attivi
• collegamenti, attivi

This is technically correct, but useless: "collegamenti attivi" and "collegamenti, attivi" would appear close together in the index, thus making the index less helpful.

A better translation of the two index entries is:

• collegamenti attivi
• attivi, collegamenti

This way, the user will be able to find the reference both under "collegamenti" and under "attivi", as in the original English document.

ASET update: "Just discard that contract"

ASET's Kevin Hendzel intervened in the ongoing chain of e-mails, stating that he didn't know about the contract, that it had been sent without his knowledge, and that it should be discarded, while ASET drafts something much more appropriate.

Some translators suggested that ASET should take into consideration the opinions expressed in the current exchange of opinions in drafting the new contract.
Also, several translators who know Kevin Hendzel wrote about his contributions to our profession and to ATA, so perhaps the current fracas could indeed be ascribed to internal miscommunications at ASET.

All the same, several aspects of the proposed contract were disturbing. We'll have to see what the new contract looks like.

In the meantime, I'm inclined to give ASET the benefit of the doubt.

ASET puts their foot in

ASET, a translation company who boasts of the quality of their work, seems to have just put their foot in: they sent to their existing suppliers a "new supplier package": W-9, W-8, and an 18-page contract.

For some reason, e-mails from translators who are answering to this rollout are forwarded to all other translators to whom the package was sent: so far I've received 16 of these e-mails, most very critical of the way ASET behaved (among other things, the e-mails complain of unreasonable demands and extended payment terms), with more than a few translators demanding to be removed from ASET's list of suppliers.

I've not had time to study the new contract myself, but this looks like a medium-sized PR fiasco for an otherwise fairly well-regarded translation company: they seem to have alienated at a stroke a number of good translators.

Update

Probably more like a major fiasco: 48 messages and counting, not a single one of them positive, and many of them from excellent translators that no good agency could afford to lose.