Here's a central question, is proofreading any faster or easier than translating from scratch? Recently I've done a couple of proofing jobs and had some discussions about the subject with some clients. It seems there are a few important points to keep in mind. I'm refering only to Chinese to English for these points:
1. Economic disparity.
This lies behind a lot of the reasoning of some translation agencies. Basically for my language combination, Chinese to English, it's much cheaper to get a Chinese native than to get an English native. As a guide a Chinese native might be around 20GBP per day (although they sneakily charge US and UK based companies around double that!), an English native is going to want something like 100-200GBP per day. So the question is, is it worth the extra 80GBP to get a native English speaker. The answer is simple, why not just hire Chinese people to do all your English writing then? Why not have Chinese based writers doing the Cambridge English dictionary? If being a native speaker makes your English better (it does) then if you really want a decent document, you have to get an English native to do it.
This leads to the question of taking the "middle road" and getting a Chinese person to do the original translation, and then hiring a native speaker for "proofreading" to make it sound more English. I would say I get about 3-5 emails a week from clients who run that kind of service. I always refuse to do these jobs because I find it takes me just as long to proofread the translation (which is ususally unspeakable quality) as it would to do it from scratch. In other words, these companies are not producing a "virtually" native translation that just needs a bit of work. They are producing a terrible translation that needs "re-doing" from scratch.
Needless to say, if there was not such an economic disparity for my language pair. I think most of these clients and companies would disapear.
2. Quality of translation
I'm sure it's possible to do a great translation into a foreign language. In fact there is plenty of research showing that it is possible. Here are my questions. Can you translate as quickly into a foreign language? Can you read through the tonnes and tonnes of required information as quickly in the foreign language? Can you keep doing that, all day, everyday for years and years? I would say the answer is no. Even though my Chiense is extremely good. I still prefer reading in English, and I read much faster in English. When I get a job on a difficult subject, I'll always read up on that subject in English first to get an idea of what's happening. If I did the same in Chinese, it would add a few extra minutes or hours here and there, and over weeks and years, I'd be far less profitable.
Thus, I think the idea of "quality" needs to be viewed not in the context of "doing it with unlimited time and resources" but in doing it at a cost of time and effort which is sustainable and reasonable to the translator. So if I was a Chinese native, I would much prefer to work English into Chinese, so I can have all the advantages of using my native language. In other words, I'm claiming that every translator would prefer to work into their own native language if possible.
Combining my two points. I claim that proofreaders don't really have much to gain from proofing non-native translation. I also claim that every translator would prefer to work into their mother tongue, so for both sides, the best thing would be for translators to get into their own mother tongue and for proofreaders to work in the same direction.
3. Agency savings?
I've worked with so many agencies who have come to me with jobs that were translated terribly and are now well overdue and they need me to go back over the document from scratch. This costs them a great deal of extra money, not to mention stress. The attempt to save a bit of money usually ends up costing a lot more than it would have saved in the first place.
The key question is, how good does the target need to be? If the client doens't need a brilliant translation, then of course it's better for everyone for the cheaper direction to work backwards. If the client needs a good quality translation, then that's when it's worth the extra cost. I would aruge that, a lot of Chinese clients don't realize how bad their Chinese to English translations are. They listen to their agencies (we get native's to proofread!) and think the English must be good. The clients don't have the resources to check the translation so they assume it's native English. The results are hilarious!
So personally, I hate proofreading anything done by a non-native translator, but not because I don't think a non-native speaker can't do a good job, more because I think over years and years of work, the non-native speakers will not be keeping such a consistently high quality level. I think clients need to better understand the needs of the end companies, and need to be able to provide what they actually ask for, not what they think the client needs.
3.
David Smith Translation main website
Monday, 13 February 2012
Monday, 31 October 2011
Google Translate with SDL Trados Connection Problems
Firstly, let me say that I hate Google Translate most of the time. For the kind of Technical Chinese to English translations I do, the results are usually hilarious (unintentionally) and not the slightest bit useful. However, on some occasions, it can be handy. For example, if I come across a list of chemical elements, for the heavier elements, all I would normally do is google them and find the Chinese name, there's no way I could memorize the heavier stuff. Google Translate can do that for me, saving the trouble. The problem is that the Google Translate doesn't seem to care about the quality of the source website and does occasionally get it wrong (so I have to double and triple check everything). Anyway, for some jobs it can be handy to use Google Translation, but it has to be used only in rare circumstances.
Thus, there are two important points to take into account. Firstly, the fact is that Goolge Translate has "HORRIBLE" licensing agreements. There has been a lot of writing about this on the web recently, you can see an example of of critical blog article here. Basically, Google keeps everything you do and can do whatever they want with it. For that reason, virutally no clients allow you to use Google Translate on their projects, but as I said, it can still have its uses in certain circumstances.
For that reason, it was a real problem when google recently started charging from the use of Google Translate (as mentioned on their blog here). This means that you have to register with "Google Checkout" and you will be billed for using Google Translate. You can argue about whether it's a good thing to be charged, but I guess it's up to them. The problem is that this change suddenly caused a problem to Trados Studio 2009. A quick look around the translation blogs will show that people were furious with SDL about that.
The only solution seemed to offer was to upgrade to Studio 2011 and then to WAIT until they release another service pack. The main rivals to SDL seemed to catch on a lot quicker, for example MemoQ has already updated its code, and so have a couple of the other TM providers.
Thus, a workaround was needed for SDL translate. Luckily, Translator's Corner came to the rescue. The solution is as follows. Trados Studio sends a call to the Google Translate system. We download some software (Fiddler) that allows us to "catch" the call and modify it. When then modify the call to the settings that work with the new paid version of the Google Translate system. When it comes back we catch the response and send it back to Trados as required.
Go over to Translator's Corner to see exactly how it works and get all the necessary code etc. It's worth using, but don't go using Google Translate unless you really know what you are doing.
Thus, there are two important points to take into account. Firstly, the fact is that Goolge Translate has "HORRIBLE" licensing agreements. There has been a lot of writing about this on the web recently, you can see an example of of critical blog article here. Basically, Google keeps everything you do and can do whatever they want with it. For that reason, virutally no clients allow you to use Google Translate on their projects, but as I said, it can still have its uses in certain circumstances.
For that reason, it was a real problem when google recently started charging from the use of Google Translate (as mentioned on their blog here). This means that you have to register with "Google Checkout" and you will be billed for using Google Translate. You can argue about whether it's a good thing to be charged, but I guess it's up to them. The problem is that this change suddenly caused a problem to Trados Studio 2009. A quick look around the translation blogs will show that people were furious with SDL about that.
The only solution seemed to offer was to upgrade to Studio 2011 and then to WAIT until they release another service pack. The main rivals to SDL seemed to catch on a lot quicker, for example MemoQ has already updated its code, and so have a couple of the other TM providers.
Thus, a workaround was needed for SDL translate. Luckily, Translator's Corner came to the rescue. The solution is as follows. Trados Studio sends a call to the Google Translate system. We download some software (Fiddler) that allows us to "catch" the call and modify it. When then modify the call to the settings that work with the new paid version of the Google Translate system. When it comes back we catch the response and send it back to Trados as required.
Go over to Translator's Corner to see exactly how it works and get all the necessary code etc. It's worth using, but don't go using Google Translate unless you really know what you are doing.
Sunday, 16 October 2011
Invoices
I hate writing invoices. As a freelance Chinese to English translator, I have to write invoices for each individual job I do. This month I've already written more than 10 invoices. I thought about adopting another on-line solution such as Fresh Books, and I did some research into the possibility.
So the first thing I needed to know was, how much time do I spend writing invoices. That was easy enough to determine. I took an average over 10 invoices and discovered that they take "x" minutes each (I don't want to give out the exact number due to client confidentiality agreements).
Next step would to work out the cost of doing the same using a website. I logged onto the website for Fresh Books one of the many online companies with similiar services. Next step was to look through the pricing and try to work out the cost for sending an invoice. With the websites, the initial time would be rather high, but once it was up and running, the main costs would just be fees. Let's call that price "y".
So now comes the easy maths. If x is more than y, then it would be worth my time to move to y. And x was considerably less than y. In fact I did some work and found that in order to justify paying even the just the fees (not taking into account the time and trouble to log on etc). I would need something like 30-50 invoices per month.
My conclusion is that at this point, using a website to do my invoicing would save time, make my life easier, and allow me to focus more on my work, but since the main reason I'm not earning more money is a lack of clients (ideally I'd have work to do for 8 hours every day all year round), rather than a lack of time, it's not worth doing anything like that at this point.
Other translator's I've spoken to usually do their own invoicing as I do. Some use a bookkeeper. I think it depends on the language combination. Germans/French/Spanish/Italian etc seem to get as much work as they can handle, so it might be worth doing it for them. More unusual languages like Chinese will mostly have at least a few hours per week to catch up with their invoicing for free.
So the first thing I needed to know was, how much time do I spend writing invoices. That was easy enough to determine. I took an average over 10 invoices and discovered that they take "x" minutes each (I don't want to give out the exact number due to client confidentiality agreements).
Next step would to work out the cost of doing the same using a website. I logged onto the website for Fresh Books one of the many online companies with similiar services. Next step was to look through the pricing and try to work out the cost for sending an invoice. With the websites, the initial time would be rather high, but once it was up and running, the main costs would just be fees. Let's call that price "y".
So now comes the easy maths. If x is more than y, then it would be worth my time to move to y. And x was considerably less than y. In fact I did some work and found that in order to justify paying even the just the fees (not taking into account the time and trouble to log on etc). I would need something like 30-50 invoices per month.
My conclusion is that at this point, using a website to do my invoicing would save time, make my life easier, and allow me to focus more on my work, but since the main reason I'm not earning more money is a lack of clients (ideally I'd have work to do for 8 hours every day all year round), rather than a lack of time, it's not worth doing anything like that at this point.
Other translator's I've spoken to usually do their own invoicing as I do. Some use a bookkeeper. I think it depends on the language combination. Germans/French/Spanish/Italian etc seem to get as much work as they can handle, so it might be worth doing it for them. More unusual languages like Chinese will mostly have at least a few hours per week to catch up with their invoicing for free.
Wednesday, 12 October 2011
Backup Computers
In order to do my Chinese to English technical translation job and ensure that I'm ready for anything, I decided a while ago to keep two identical laptops. I figure that if one laptop goes wrong the other can be used right away. Seems like a good idea? Here's what happened.
Two identical Acer Aspire laptops
The day I purchased my second Acer Aspire 4752 two things happened. Firstly I noticed that the new laptop only had the Intel i3 Core chip while my original one (black in the picture above) had the i5. They cost the same amount and came from the same store (Dixons in Ealing, West London), but I guess I should have checked that beforehand. Other than that they seemed identical so I was happy to let it go. The i3 was to be my backup machine anyway.
While I was turning on the new machine for its first use, I plugged my old computer into my TV to watch a TV show while I was waiting (new series of True Blood - crap by the way). Suddently my computer went BANG and turned off. I waited a couple of days and then turned it back on. It kept dying midway through the bootup.
So now I've got a dead "old" laptop. And a "new" laptop which I've more or less made usable from my external hard drive backup, I lost about a days work in the process. I also had to purchase a new SDL Trados license to use the second machine (I'll write about that in more detail at some point) because it wasn't letting me install it on another machine.
I decided the best thing would be to take out the hard drive of my "old" laptop. Back it up, and then format the machine. So I opened it up and took out the hard drive.
My old laptop opened up with the hard drive showing
Next step was take out the hard drive (which takes a bit of skill) and then plug it into my external case, which is USB powered. The idea being that it then becomes an external drive and I can copy all my data from that. (Although I do keep backups, they are not totally all-inclusive and I wanted to save as much data as possible - a lesson there perhaps).
The hard drive removed and in an external casing
Screws left over after putting everything back together!
So now the memory from the broken laptop is restored I decided to restore the factory settings. That's what I do and it works for a couple of days before breaking again. Then I tried another factory reset and it kept getting stuck.
Laptop stuck on system restore process
The old laptop was still only a six months old so I phoned Dixon's support. After some messing around I was put through to a company called Know How, the lady on the phone tried to get me to run a system restore, but I kept explaining that it was definately a hardware error. She agreed that they would come and collect the laptop from my home, repair it and then return it.
They took the laptop and agree to return it a week later. Close to the return date, I got a job overseas so I had to go away for 2 weeks. I phoned Know How and told them to delay the delivery until I got back. After that I got 17 calls from them ranging from "Yeah Mr David, I'm outside your house with your new laptop as agreed", to "you missed the agreed delivery today, when will you be available? I'll rearrange for tomorrow".
Eventually I got back home and got the laptop back in working order. A bit of a long story, but I thought it might be interesting. My main lessons from the experience were:
1. Always keep receipts (otherwise returning goods is a nightmare)
2. Backup everything (not just urgent or important, but everything). Also keep disks for ALL programs installed on the computer.
3. I'm not really happy with Acer. Both laptops seem a bit buggy to use, and a laptop shouldn't die within 6 months like that. In future I'll pay a bit more for an IBM or Lenovo which I hear have better keyboards anyway.
4. Keeping the two identical laptops is difficult (have to install everything on two machines/possible license issues/bugs need to be fixed twice). It might be better to think about a network of somekind?
What do you guys do for backups? Can you recommend any good solutions? I hate having to double my effort running installers etc just for the 1% chance that something might go wrong. Is there any other way???
Two identical Acer Aspire laptops
The day I purchased my second Acer Aspire 4752 two things happened. Firstly I noticed that the new laptop only had the Intel i3 Core chip while my original one (black in the picture above) had the i5. They cost the same amount and came from the same store (Dixons in Ealing, West London), but I guess I should have checked that beforehand. Other than that they seemed identical so I was happy to let it go. The i3 was to be my backup machine anyway.
While I was turning on the new machine for its first use, I plugged my old computer into my TV to watch a TV show while I was waiting (new series of True Blood - crap by the way). Suddently my computer went BANG and turned off. I waited a couple of days and then turned it back on. It kept dying midway through the bootup.
So now I've got a dead "old" laptop. And a "new" laptop which I've more or less made usable from my external hard drive backup, I lost about a days work in the process. I also had to purchase a new SDL Trados license to use the second machine (I'll write about that in more detail at some point) because it wasn't letting me install it on another machine.
I decided the best thing would be to take out the hard drive of my "old" laptop. Back it up, and then format the machine. So I opened it up and took out the hard drive.
My old laptop opened up with the hard drive showing
Next step was take out the hard drive (which takes a bit of skill) and then plug it into my external case, which is USB powered. The idea being that it then becomes an external drive and I can copy all my data from that. (Although I do keep backups, they are not totally all-inclusive and I wanted to save as much data as possible - a lesson there perhaps).
The hard drive removed and in an external casingAfter a bit of messing about I was able to copy all the data from that drive (my old computer) and so I didn't lose any data. I did lose a lot of time with all the messing around and trying to figure out what I'm doing. Now I know you're going to say I'm mad, but I swear I looked and looked, and there were some screws left over after I put the hard drive back in the "old" (broken) laptop.
Screws left over after putting everything back together!So now the memory from the broken laptop is restored I decided to restore the factory settings. That's what I do and it works for a couple of days before breaking again. Then I tried another factory reset and it kept getting stuck.
Laptop stuck on system restore processThey took the laptop and agree to return it a week later. Close to the return date, I got a job overseas so I had to go away for 2 weeks. I phoned Know How and told them to delay the delivery until I got back. After that I got 17 calls from them ranging from "Yeah Mr David, I'm outside your house with your new laptop as agreed", to "you missed the agreed delivery today, when will you be available? I'll rearrange for tomorrow".
Eventually I got back home and got the laptop back in working order. A bit of a long story, but I thought it might be interesting. My main lessons from the experience were:
1. Always keep receipts (otherwise returning goods is a nightmare)
2. Backup everything (not just urgent or important, but everything). Also keep disks for ALL programs installed on the computer.
3. I'm not really happy with Acer. Both laptops seem a bit buggy to use, and a laptop shouldn't die within 6 months like that. In future I'll pay a bit more for an IBM or Lenovo which I hear have better keyboards anyway.
4. Keeping the two identical laptops is difficult (have to install everything on two machines/possible license issues/bugs need to be fixed twice). It might be better to think about a network of somekind?
What do you guys do for backups? Can you recommend any good solutions? I hate having to double my effort running installers etc just for the 1% chance that something might go wrong. Is there any other way???
Friday, 19 August 2011
Problems with Sub-languages in Trados Studio
One great blog about using Trados Studio is Tuomas Kostiainen's nice blog My Migration to Trados Studio 2009.
I read his post with great interest about the problem with sublanguages. It's a real problem that has affected me a great deal.
So the problem is basically that if you have say a "Chinese to English (UK)" Translation Memory setup. But now you get sent a US English job. When you try to open your Translation Memory you get told "wrong language" and basically can't.
My work around was always just to have 3 TM's Chinese - English (UK), (US), and (Canada). After working on say the US TM I have to export it and use it to create new Canadian and UK English TM's. If I then work on the English TM, I export it and create a new US and Candian TM and so on. In a week I'll quite often do a few US and a few UK English jobs (with the occassional Canadian one thrown in), so as Thomas says this method is "getting old very fast".
In reality I am quite happy to always work in US English and then do the changes into UK or Candian English in Microsoft Word, so I don't really deserve this hastle! Does anyone really keep separate TM's for UK/US/ and Candian English? Not to mention some of the other sublanguages which are available "Belize/Carribean/Ireland?" Is Irish English spelt or written differently to UK English? A quick look at the Wikipedia page tells us that "Ireland does not have its own spelling rules and British English spelling is used throughout the island."
Actually there really aren't many spelling or grammatical difference in Chinese to English technical translation into UK or US English. One of the terms that comes up quite often which is problematic is "suplher"/"sulfer" (it's not as simple as having the "ph" used in the UK and "f" used in the US though as this Rod's Chemistry Blog points out). Aside from that, and a few other very cosmetic differences (z's for s'z and so on). I don't even think I've got any terms that I would ever mix up if the US and UK TM's were merged.
It's a real problem and impacts quite severely on my use of Trados. A little thing like that can add 20 mins of work to a job, and that totally negates the time saved using a TM in the first place. It's a good reason for looking into something like WordFast, or sticking with Trados 2007 of course!
I read his post with great interest about the problem with sublanguages. It's a real problem that has affected me a great deal.
So the problem is basically that if you have say a "Chinese to English (UK)" Translation Memory setup. But now you get sent a US English job. When you try to open your Translation Memory you get told "wrong language" and basically can't.
My work around was always just to have 3 TM's Chinese - English (UK), (US), and (Canada). After working on say the US TM I have to export it and use it to create new Canadian and UK English TM's. If I then work on the English TM, I export it and create a new US and Candian TM and so on. In a week I'll quite often do a few US and a few UK English jobs (with the occassional Canadian one thrown in), so as Thomas says this method is "getting old very fast".
In reality I am quite happy to always work in US English and then do the changes into UK or Candian English in Microsoft Word, so I don't really deserve this hastle! Does anyone really keep separate TM's for UK/US/ and Candian English? Not to mention some of the other sublanguages which are available "Belize/Carribean/Ireland?" Is Irish English spelt or written differently to UK English? A quick look at the Wikipedia page tells us that "Ireland does not have its own spelling rules and British English spelling is used throughout the island."
Actually there really aren't many spelling or grammatical difference in Chinese to English technical translation into UK or US English. One of the terms that comes up quite often which is problematic is "suplher"/"sulfer" (it's not as simple as having the "ph" used in the UK and "f" used in the US though as this Rod's Chemistry Blog points out). Aside from that, and a few other very cosmetic differences (z's for s'z and so on). I don't even think I've got any terms that I would ever mix up if the US and UK TM's were merged.
It's a real problem and impacts quite severely on my use of Trados. A little thing like that can add 20 mins of work to a job, and that totally negates the time saved using a TM in the first place. It's a good reason for looking into something like WordFast, or sticking with Trados 2007 of course!
Wednesday, 9 March 2011
Windows 7 SP1
So I've been having a lot of trouble installing Win 7 SP1. I would leave the update running and it got to 50% and then froze. I tried leaving it running over night twice, but on both occasions it didn't go anywhere.
I read all over the net but I couldn't find anyone else who was having a similiar problem. Most people were saying the update took about one hour rather than the 1/2 hour suggested by Microsoft but that it eventually worked fine.
I read round and round, until I came across something that might be interesting to translators. Apparatently, Windows 7 has trouble updating, if you have more than 20 language packs installed. I had a look and found I've got about 35 language packs, all the European languages, plus most of the Asian and quite a few of the African languages. As a translator I figured it was better to have them and not use them, than need them but not have them.
However, I suppose I'm unlikely ever to have to deal with languages like Thai, Hebrew, Turkish and so on, so I selected about 15 languages to remove from the system. Firstly I was amazed that doing that saved a whole 1.6GB of my hard drive memory. Secondly, I'm amazed how slow the process is, with each langauge taking a good 5 minutes.
As a technical translator I'm not all that worried about having less language packs on my computer, but what about for translation PM's? They need to work with potentially hundreds of different languages, so what are they supposed to do about this problem?
Anyway, if you're having a problem with Windows Update, this could be the reason.
I read all over the net but I couldn't find anyone else who was having a similiar problem. Most people were saying the update took about one hour rather than the 1/2 hour suggested by Microsoft but that it eventually worked fine.
I read round and round, until I came across something that might be interesting to translators. Apparatently, Windows 7 has trouble updating, if you have more than 20 language packs installed. I had a look and found I've got about 35 language packs, all the European languages, plus most of the Asian and quite a few of the African languages. As a translator I figured it was better to have them and not use them, than need them but not have them.
However, I suppose I'm unlikely ever to have to deal with languages like Thai, Hebrew, Turkish and so on, so I selected about 15 languages to remove from the system. Firstly I was amazed that doing that saved a whole 1.6GB of my hard drive memory. Secondly, I'm amazed how slow the process is, with each langauge taking a good 5 minutes.
As a technical translator I'm not all that worried about having less language packs on my computer, but what about for translation PM's? They need to work with potentially hundreds of different languages, so what are they supposed to do about this problem?
Anyway, if you're having a problem with Windows Update, this could be the reason.
Thursday, 24 February 2011
Windows 7 SP1
So SP1 has become available for download on Windows 7. They announced it on their blog:
http://windowsteamblog.com/windows/b/bloggingwindows/archive/2011/02/22/windows-7-sp1-now-available-for-everyone.aspx
and it appeared in my "new updates are available" box.
I started downloading it, but it seemed to hang at 25%, and after about 4 hours I gave up and told it to cancel. It hung for about an hour, so I just powered off my laptop.
I tried again twice, but each time, it did a couple of hours work and then seemed to hang. I've just been out for the day, and I left my computer at home running the update, and after at least 8 hours it still hadn't finished. So again, I've had to cancel it.
I've been looking through all the usual blogs, but I seem to be the only person with this problem. I'll run a really careful backup and everything, and then try again overnight. This is the first big problem I've had with Win 7, and it has impacted on my abililty to get my work done.
Very strange, and very annoying problem.
http://windowsteamblog.com/windows/b/bloggingwindows/archive/2011/02/22/windows-7-sp1-now-available-for-everyone.aspx
and it appeared in my "new updates are available" box.
I started downloading it, but it seemed to hang at 25%, and after about 4 hours I gave up and told it to cancel. It hung for about an hour, so I just powered off my laptop.
I tried again twice, but each time, it did a couple of hours work and then seemed to hang. I've just been out for the day, and I left my computer at home running the update, and after at least 8 hours it still hadn't finished. So again, I've had to cancel it.
I've been looking through all the usual blogs, but I seem to be the only person with this problem. I'll run a really careful backup and everything, and then try again overnight. This is the first big problem I've had with Win 7, and it has impacted on my abililty to get my work done.
Very strange, and very annoying problem.
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