| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3] | Proofreading problem Thread poster: Trisha F
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Kay Denney 
France
Local time: 19:15
French to English
| I don't issue invoices in the name of Texte Style | Jan 2, 2014 |
jyuan_us wrote:
I was referring to some of my former vendors, not anyone here, because I have had no business interaction with anyone in this thread so far.
You don't know my name so how can you tell?
| | | | Diana Obermeyer
United Kingdom
Local time: 18:15
Member (2013)
German to English
+ ...
| arguments are going past each other | Jan 2, 2014 |
To an extend I agree with jyuan_us - as long as I know that a text is in my working area, there is no need to see a sample ***as long as I am paid per hour and the client trusts me with respect to the effort involved***.
I work with several clients on this basis.
Some of my clients don't even write anything in the email with the file, or they simply drop it in a shared folder and TRUST that the work gets done, and that they receive quality end results - regardless of the original qu... See more To an extend I agree with jyuan_us - as long as I know that a text is in my working area, there is no need to see a sample ***as long as I am paid per hour and the client trusts me with respect to the effort involved***.
I work with several clients on this basis.
Some of my clients don't even write anything in the email with the file, or they simply drop it in a shared folder and TRUST that the work gets done, and that they receive quality end results - regardless of the original quality of that file.
Equally, since I can struggle to see my own mistakes, I often use a monolingual proofreader and they receive an hourly rate. I send them files and I don't even find out until the end of the billing cycle, how long they actually spent on it. But I know that they are honest, so I don't worry about it. And they know that I prefer them to double and triple check, rather than save a few quid. On that basis, I will get better results than by negotiating a certain fee each time and YES - here I agree with jyuan_us - it saves both of us a lot of time! But this is the very basis of the collaboration - both between me and my client and between me and my proofreaders - there is trust.
Further, one of my agencies sends me files for bilingual review fairly regularly. About 80% of the time, they are of good to excellent quality and need very little work. About 20% of the time, they are time-consuming. I am paid per volume. Some assignments require very little work and in effect I receive a very high hourly rate. On others, I graft for very little money. Here, the AVERAGE EFFORT is in line with the AVERAGE PAY. Sometimes it works in my favour, sometimes it works against me, but it AVERAGES OUT at a fair payment. You just take the good with the bad.
However, many clients want to know the cost upfront for an individual assignment, in which case, I HAVE TO review the file in order to be be able to judge the effort involved.
Further, some outsourcers try to give out "proofreading jobs" after they google-translated a document to save costs. So again, IF they don't want to work on an hourly rate basis, I HAVE TO review the document. These particular outsourcers are the most likely to refuse a preview of the work in question and therefore, if such a preview is denied, I automatically assume that the outsourcer does indeed fall into this category. Consequently, I do not worry about not converting the enquiry into an assignment.
jyuan_us states that payment is made and received per amount of time spent. And that trust with respect to the actual time spent vs the invoiced time exists. Where this is the case, of course he is correct.
Where payment is per volume or set fee, evaluation must take place before assignment/acceptance.
We are talking about two very different scenarios and they demand two very different approaches.
[Edited at 2014-01-02 10:50 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | Mervyn Henderson (X)
Spain
Local time: 19:15
Spanish to English
+ ...
| I'm one of the translators Christine mentions ... | Jan 2, 2014 |
... who refuse to take on proofreading.
For three reasons: one, it's much, much more difficult than translating. Sometimes they give you the original text too, so you have to consider three texts - the original, the inevitably repulsive rendering, and your final text.
Two, it's controversial. You may be stepping on another translator's toes (a real one, not Google), plus you may find it's all flung back in your face, leading to longwinded interminable grammatical/styl... See more ... who refuse to take on proofreading.
For three reasons: one, it's much, much more difficult than translating. Sometimes they give you the original text too, so you have to consider three texts - the original, the inevitably repulsive rendering, and your final text.
Two, it's controversial. You may be stepping on another translator's toes (a real one, not Google), plus you may find it's all flung back in your face, leading to longwinded interminable grammatical/stylistic arguments from both sides, wasting even more of your time.
And three, how to charge? Probably by the hour. Which means, if you're pretty good at what you do and have it all finished in an hour, you get less money for doing an excellent job. You can do it by percentages, but it's all too approximate.
Recently I relaxed this rule for an otherwise superb customer, and halfway through I told myself "never again" as I was reminded of all the reasons why not.
Finally, "proofreading" is just what it means, reading galley proofs of something for publication, on hard copy - putting in international correction symbols in the margin to fix the odd comma, lower case/upper case, taking out double spaces between words, oh and - nearly always, as I remember when I used to translate books - reminding them that the word division programming in English at the end of the line has to be changed from the source language. "Revision" is correction, changing style, unfortunate phrases etc. but, as we know, all these concepts usually boil down to "retranslation". Curiously, nobody ever asks you to "retranslate" (much too expensive?).
All the best for 2014,
Mervyn ▲ Collapse
| | | | Trisha F
United Kingdom
Local time: 18:15
English to Spanish
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | Retranslation... | Jan 2, 2014 |
Mervyn Henderson wrote:
Curiously, nobody ever asks you to "retranslate" (much too expensive?).
Yes, that is what bothers me. Some people call a Google Translate document a "translation" and it is pretty much dealt with and paid for as a professional document but a proofreading that transforms that bogus translation into a proper one remains a proofreading and is paid as such. Agencies do not consider the fact that sometimes documents have to be retranslated and are not willing to pay for the effort.
It really bothers me that people Google Translate stuff and get paid for it, it infuriates me to see fraudsters calling themselves translators. This person who made me waste so many hours of my time may have got paid for this job but I reported him/her to the agency so that they stop giving him/her any work. If they are smart enough they will stop sending him/her projects. They have many competent people collaborating with them. Why would they contact the same fraud again if the agency's rates are the same for everybody and they can get dozens of proper translators for the same money?
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nrichy (X)
France
Local time: 19:15
French to Dutch
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Mervyn resumes the situation. I really like polishing texts (this is the nicest stage of my own translations), but the thing people call "proofreading" is always resulting in conflicts, either with the translator either with the client. Aside from typos and grammatical errors, as far as the translator is concerned, there is no reason why my "corrections" would be "better" than his translation (who am I to say this?), and I hate stepping on other people's toes, or even interfering with what they ... See more Mervyn resumes the situation. I really like polishing texts (this is the nicest stage of my own translations), but the thing people call "proofreading" is always resulting in conflicts, either with the translator either with the client. Aside from typos and grammatical errors, as far as the translator is concerned, there is no reason why my "corrections" would be "better" than his translation (who am I to say this?), and I hate stepping on other people's toes, or even interfering with what they have been doing. And for the client - take a typical 1000-1200 words translation which should (as they think) take 1 hour of "proofreading", well it doesn't. It takes time to read the documentation, to grasp the subject, to check if every sentence has a meaning, to avoid traps and to check some vocabulary. And in the end I am asked to sign and take responsibility. And to do administrative work (my invoice). I don't learn anything and I am busy with criticizing a text someone else translated with great pleasure.
But of course this doesn't answer the OP's posting. If after some time of proofreading you can see that this was machine translation or translated by someone who doesn't master the target language, well I think that you can hand it back, because the client asked you something you cannot do, in each case not at the price you normally charge. You took this proofreading task in good faith, it was not what you normally would expect, then it is not your problem anymore. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Mervyn Henderson (X)
Spain
Local time: 19:15
Spanish to English
+ ...
As NRichy says, not much of this is answering the OP Trisha's question. I see, however, she finished it and submitted the why-this-person-sucks stuff (and the more stuff the better, but again that's just wasting her own time).
My belated advice is to walk away, the gist of what I said before, and leave revision/proofreading to people who know what they're doing and are used to it and happy with it, or have nothing better to do.
Still, if Trisha has given them enough pr... See more As NRichy says, not much of this is answering the OP Trisha's question. I see, however, she finished it and submitted the why-this-person-sucks stuff (and the more stuff the better, but again that's just wasting her own time).
My belated advice is to walk away, the gist of what I said before, and leave revision/proofreading to people who know what they're doing and are used to it and happy with it, or have nothing better to do.
Still, if Trisha has given them enough proof, they may consider deducting from the original translator, or preferably not paying at all, and paying her more. A scenario I consider unlikely, because it entails a major temptation for them to avail themselves of Trisha's evidence, thus securing a good translation to keep their customer happy, slaughtering the original translator to get some dosh back ... but keeping the proceeds.
Best,
Mervyn ▲ Collapse
| | | | Trisha F
United Kingdom
Local time: 18:15
English to Spanish
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | That pretty much sums it up | Jan 2, 2014 |
Mervyn Henderson wrote:
As NRichy says, not much of this is answering the OP Trisha's question. I see, however, she finished it and submitted the why-this-person-sucks stuff (and the more stuff the better, but again that's just wasting her own time).
My belated advice is to walk away, the gist of what I said before, and leave revision/proofreading to people who know what they're doing and are used to it and happy with it, or have nothing better to do.
Still, if Trisha has given them enough proof, they may consider deducting from the original translator, or preferably not paying at all, and paying her more. A scenario I consider unlikely, because it entails a major temptation for them to avail themselves of Trisha's evidence, thus securing a good translation to keep their customer happy, slaughtering the original translator to get some dosh back ... but keeping the proceeds.
Best,
Mervyn
Actually, I always have to explain why I changed this or that in a translation anyway so the e-mail I sent did not take me long, I highlighted the worst mistakes and the rest... well, they will see it in the document. Pretty much every line and sentence has a short explanation because I basically changed it all. The original translator will have to see it and have his or her say but what more could they add if they must be aware of the fact that they Google translated this and that plenty of changes will have been made by the time they receive their proofread text?
I assume the agency might be tempted not to pay the original translator and will get away with paying a very small proofreading fee. I already felt that was the most likely outcome but I will still be happy if they do not pay and do not give work to this person ever again, that fake translator is a true time waster and people like that should not be in the industry at all.
Having said that, I retranslated but I was not entirely happy with my work as I was not given much more time (and I would not spend any more hours on it anyway). I made an effort beyond what was humanly possible already but I cannot guarantee much. Even if my work is normally very good, this retranslation may require proofreading as well. I do not know. The agency may save itself tons of money but it is their decision if they want to risk it again. I avoided a big disaster but the next time some client of theirs might publish utter pish just because the agency did not test that translator properly before giving him or her any work. And there will be complaints and the agency will have to assume its responsibility.
| | | | | Proofreading isn't an easy task | Apr 2, 2014 |
Proofreading isn't an easy task, and bad translation makes the job even harder. I suggest choosing the company you work for very carefully, as some will cut corners in order to save money. Make sure you spend some time checking out the project before you take it on so you can get a better idea of what you are letting yourself in for! If you choose a reputable and experienced company to work for, you shouldn't have to face this kind of problem.
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jotranslator
Israel
Local time: 20:15
Russian to English
+ ...
| business model | May 22, 2014 |
I have noticed that for a couple of the low-rate agencies the "get someone to do a bad translation for a very low rate and then have it proofread for 50% of the low rate" is a business model.
There is one agency -- they do not advertise work on ProZ as far as I can tell -- who deal with translations of patient medical records in one of my language pairs. They advertise the translations as "general" texts when they are not general, they require specialist knowledge of terminology. Th... See more I have noticed that for a couple of the low-rate agencies the "get someone to do a bad translation for a very low rate and then have it proofread for 50% of the low rate" is a business model.
There is one agency -- they do not advertise work on ProZ as far as I can tell -- who deal with translations of patient medical records in one of my language pairs. They advertise the translations as "general" texts when they are not general, they require specialist knowledge of terminology. The documents that I've seen are usually hard to read photocopies.
The total rate they wind up paying per word for the translation + proofing comes out at about $0.07 - $0.08. ▲ Collapse
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