© Lucy Brooks, MCIL
Would
you be happy for a first year medical student to carry out your kidney transplant?
Or ask
your nephew who’s doing GCSE maths to audit your company’s accounts?
Or
employ someone who last practised law 20 years ago to draft a contract?
Of course not! Doctors, accountants and lawyers
require years of training and experience before they can be expected to do a
professional job. And they have to keep abreast of developments in their
profession – a process known as continuing professional development.
Let us turn the analogy to translation. A
surprising number of people believe someone who has an A-level in French is
qualified to translate any manner of documents. But it takes many
more years before the student can be a professional translator. It
may come as a surprise to you that even then someone who is proficient in two
languages is not necessarily someone who can translate well between them.
Besides having a thorough knowledge of the language from which he is
translating, your translator must have a certain turn of phrase and style of
writing in his own language that will ensure your text will read as if it had
been written in the target language in the first place.
So what are the specifics? You have an
important message to make to your clients and potential market. How do
you ensure that your brochure will not contain howlers such as “drive away
barrier” for starter inhibitor (found in a car brochure), “achievement exits”
for power outputs (found in a translation destined for the electronics
industry), and “free bath” for an open-air swimming pool (from a town council’s
glossy brochure for a town in the south of Germany)?
The translating industry in the United Kingdom is
unregulated. Anyone can advertise themselves as a translator, without the
need to prove they can understand one word of the source text. A
veritable minefield for businesses!
For many years professional, practising translators
have worked hard to ensure high levels of professionalism in their
industry. Two professional institutes for translators and interpreters
exist in this country: the Institute of Linguists (IoL) and the Institute of
Translators and Interpreters (ITI). Both strive to ensure their members
achieve the highest levels of competence, skills, and professionalism in
handling translated texts from one language to another – international
communications - and that they practice continuing career development.
In 2005 the IoL was awarded the Royal Charter and is
now known as the Chartered Institute of Linguists. This means that the
Institute has been recognised by the Privy Council and the Monarch as one that
strives towards professionalism of its members.
Subsequent to achieving this goal, the IoL, in
conjunction with ITI and other professional organisations, has now instituted
individual chartered status for its members. Like the professional status
for members of its sister institutes – such as the Institute of Chartered
Accountants, The Law Society, the General Medical Council, the Institutes of
Shipbrokers, Arbitrators, Foresters and so on - the Institute of Linguists
requires of its chartered members the very highest levels of expertise,
professionalism, career development, and dedication to the profession.
When choosing a translator you need to look into a number
of things. Firstly, the translator should always work into his or
her mother tongue. Many people think that if you can translate from
German to English that you can do the same in reverse. Unless the
translator is what I call “cradle bi-lingual”, in other words grew up to maturity
speaking both languages equally well, then he or she should only translate into
the mother tongue. That is the language in which they have a “feel” for
the style and perception of the language.
The translator should not only be familiar
with the field, but have at his fingertips the resources (dictionaries,
language forums, links) to find out more. He does not need to be an
engineer to translate a technical manual, nor an accountant to translate an
annual report, but he must understand how the machine works, or how the
financial world operates.
Make sure that you and the translator understand
what the translation is supposed to achieve. Particularly with short pieces,
unless the translator knows the audience being addressed, it’s very difficult
for him to set the right tone for the piece. It is not always possible to
use intuition to pick up the tone from reading the source text.
Agency
or Freelancer
Agencies vary enormously in size, from multinationals with
offices in New York, Paris and Hong Kong, to mini-agencies run from a home
office. The former will find you a translator on the other side of the
world to work on a translation overnight. It will then be checked for
correctness by a native of your country. Quality can vary from superb to
dreadful. As one of those checkers I’ve seen translations bordering on
both extremes of the range. It is imperative that you agree on the level
of service you will receive; translation, translation quality review, and final
proof-reading are all stages of the work, and each will incur a separate
charge.
A small agency will be more restricted in the
services it can offer, but will be able to offer a more personal service, and
will build up a relationship of trust both with you and with its
translators. The advantage of the small agency is that it will be able to
handle many of your multi-language projects; an individual freelancer may not
be in a position to do this. If you prefer to work directly with translators be
prepared to do the project management yourself. The fewer language
combinations you require the more sense it makes to work with freelancers
direct.
Agree a deadline
Allow a reasonable amount of time to do a good job, say a
week for a job consisting of around 3000 words. Even though a text of
3,000 words may only take a day - or two days at most - to do, good translators
are usually busy and might not be able to start immediately, so they will
appreciate a client who gives them up to a week to do a job of that size.
Good translators also have home lives. I get two or three phone calls
every Friday evening around 5 p.m. from some agency or other wanting 10,000
words translated by Monday. Three reasons why I say no: 1. I could
not do 10,000 words in that time, even if I started right then and there. 2.
I’ve got other jobs on the go from more organised clients. 3. I have a
family.
If your job is very large and your deadline very
tight, the agency will probably split it among several translators. The
results will vary in quality, and there is the likelihood that terminology will
not be consistent. So the sooner you consult your translation provider,
the more likely you are to find the right person. On the other hand some very
short jobs can often be slotted into a translator’s schedule for that day.
Personally, I welcome an occasional change from whatever I’m working on.
Agree a
price
Most translators charge per 1000 words. Ensure that
you understand whether this is based on source or target words. It is
probably best for you to agree on source because this is easier to establish at
the outset. Target words can often work out far more than the source
text. My own language direction of German to English produces around
10-15% more words in English. For that reason my source word prices are
higher than the target word price. The same would apply to translators
from English into French, for example.
If it is not possible to agree a word rate
(complicated formats, proof-reading, or reviewing services), it may be
necessary to discuss an hourly rate. But both parties need to have an
idea of what can be achieved in that hour. The translator will want full
details of what is required, and the client will want to know what he’s letting
himself in for.
Providing
the original
Is the source text in the form of a MS Word, Excel or
Powerpoint? Personally speaking Microsoft Office is my preferred format
because the software (glossaries and databases) I use can handle it perfectly.
Most PDF (in Adobe Acrobat) files can be converted into a Word document with
the aid of a conversion program. More complicated formats require extra
processing, so if you want your document presented in Quark or Interleaf or
similar, this needs to be discussed from the very outset. Try to provide
an electronic document rather than a poor fax, or faint photocopies.
Regional
variation
Portuguese in Brazil is very different from the European
sort. There are lots of Spanish-speaking countries in South America –
each has its own variations from the mother country. US English differs
in many ways from British English. Make
sure you are choosing a translator who is familiar with your target audience.
Proof-reading
Typos happen. There was a case a while back where a
brochure for a lens manufacturer had to be pulped because of a typo on the
front cover: It said worlwide. The translation supplier and the client
each thought the other was proofing, so no-one did.
Choosing the wrong
translator can have very serious consequences
A colleague who worked for a French translation firm received
a telephone call from an industrial bakery that made various types of fruit
tart, etc. The bakery had received a letter from a rather irate customer in the
UK (a supermarket chain) who had analysed one of their pear and almond tarts
and - surprise, surprise - found almonds in it, although an "allergy
questionnaire" had been completed, declaring that the products contained
no nuts. The bakery had avoided the "enormous" expense of
getting the questionnaire translated professionally by resorting to a
dictionary and their school English. When they got to the question "Does
your product contain nuts?" they had translated "nuts" as
"noix" - and replied, truthfully, that their pear and almond tarts
contained no walnuts “Nuts" should have been rendered in French as
"fruits à coque" to ensure it covered the generic term covering all
nuts.
Here’s
another fine mess
A colleague (member of the Institute of Linguists) was
asked to check over a web site that had been translated into French.
Things started badly when the first link on the site
was labelled “à la maison” (at home) which has nothing to do with a home page
(“accueil” is the accepted way of doing this). It got worse when it
emerged that the website, which concerned the Central African Republic, or CAR
in the English version, contained a further howler. The translator
merrily translated CAR each time as VOITURE.
The
upshot of all this
When you need a translation, always try to plan
ahead. Interview potential agencies or freelancers with some of the above
questions in mind. Ask them which professional organisations they belong to.
The IoL and the ITI have entrance qualifications and codes of conduct.
Members who fail to adhere to the code are disbarred.
In the next few years there will be more and more
Chartered Linguists. Ask if your potential translator has achieved this status.
If you are still not sure, ask for references, or
give your candidate a short test job to do, and have it evaluated.
If you wish to employ an agency to handle multi-language
projects, ask whether it will always use the same translator for each language
and ask about the standards by which they operate. If you prefer to deal
directly with the individual translators you may need to create a small team of
them to cover all your language requirements.
Once you have made your choice, treat your
translator as part of your team. He or she will appreciate being included
in the planning process, and would probably also benefit from a quick visit to
your factory or your offices (if this is feasible) to get a feel for your
product or service.
Arrange reasonable deadlines with your
translators. And if you want to keep them on-board, pay invoices
promptly. Ninety days is too long to expect anyone to wait, let alone a
freelancer.
If you follow at least some of this advice you are
unlikely to fall into some of the traps I have cited in this article, and will
build a lasting and constructive relationship with your translation provider.
© Lucy Brooks, MCIL, CL Translator