Training for Translators

Classes for translators and interpreters

Translation quality


Corinne McKay

Misspelled words I'm tired of seeing

Like many translators and other word people, I have a low tolerance for spelling, grammar and punctuation errors in print. Thankfully it’s not just me; when I took a series of editing classes with Alice Levine a couple of years ago, she opened the class with a New Yorker cartoon (you don’t even need the picture to appreciate it) that featured a restaurant guest saying to a waiter,  “I’ll have the misspelled Caesar salad and the improperly hyphenated veal osso-buco.” Needless to say, this cartoon provoked gales of laughter from the assembled crowd of editing students. A few people in the class even admitted that they refused to shop at Boulder’s only large-scale mall because of its improperly hyphenated name: Twenty Ninth Street (you’ll find the mall between 28th St. and 30th St., not at #20 9th St as the name would suggest). I’ve made my peace with Twenty Ninth Street, but here are a few habitual spelling and usage errors that drive me crazy.

  • It’s instead of its. I recently received a conference announcement from a language industry professional association, proclaiming that this association’s upcoming conference would feature “education at it’s [sic] best.” I had a visceral reaction to this, similar to what I experienced on a recent trip to Ace Hardware (which at least isn’t a language industry entity) when I was confronted with an enormous sign asking, “Can’t find what your [sic] looking for?” Here’s a helpful page that explains the difference between it’s and its.
  • Lightening instead of lightning. This one is everywhere too; I recently cringed to find it in a book that had done well enough to be reviewed in the New York Times Book Review. The lightening/lightning confusion really befuddles me because most people seem to pronounce these words correctly, i.e. “My hair color is too dark, I’m thinking of lightening it,” versus “If you see lightning, run for cover.” I don’t feel like I hear loads of people talking about getting “struck by light-en-ing” when they’re speaking, but for some reason the spelling confusion remains.
  • “I could care less” instead of “I couldn’t care less.” I think that many people just say or write this without thinking about the connotation, for example “I could care less what time we get home, I’m not in a rush.”
  • Less versus fewer. When my neighborhood supermarket did a major renovation and still didn’t correct their “15 items or less” signs in the express checkout lanes, I seriously considered shopping elsewhere so as not to reward that kind of sloppiness (but proximity won out!). Grammar Girl has a great page of quick and dirty tips on less versus fewer. Nutshell version: fewer is for things you can count, less is for things you can’t. Fewer grammatical errors on signs, less suffering.

I feel so much better now… feel free to add your own most-hated misspellings too! Alot, loose/lose, they’re/their/there, aloud/allowed… it’s OK to vent!


Corinne McKay

Two posts that translation clients should read

For anyone who’s a translation buyer, here are two excellent blog posts on what makes a good client. Ryan Ginstrom’s Five practices of agencies that get it gives five specific examples of how his agency clients have impressed him. I agree with these wholeheartedly; especially the feedback piece. It’s not hard to understand why clients are reluctant to pass on negative feedback; they don’t want to get into a “your word against mine” argument with the translator, they’re not in the business of training translators, and it’s probably easier just to dispense with using the problematic translator and hire someone else in the future. However, I think that clients are often equally sparse with their positive feedback because they’re busy, they’ve moved on to another project and (possibly the strongest factor) they assume that good translators know how good they are. Clients, trust us here… most people who are excellent translators are excellent in part because they are perfectionists who are very critical of their own work and constantly striving to improve. Even a simple “the client was really pleased with it” or “it required almost no edits” goes a long way.

Then, make sure to check out Jill Sommer’s 10 simple rules for project managers to live by and keep me happy. I love these tips; many of them help remind clients that although translators (and other freelance service providers) are often willing to go the extra mile for our clients, we are not their employees. Because most translators are relatively tech-savvy, asking us to do formatting, OCR, etc. may work out in the end but it will often slow the project down and take our time and energy away from the job we are really good at…translating. Likewise, pushing your translators to work longer, faster, etc. for more than a  few days at a time will likely backfire, especially if the translator is not compensated accordingly.


Corinne McKay

Some thoughts on feedback and the translation process

Sorry for the unannounced week of silence here at Thoughts on Translation; I went on vacation for a week and suddenly became violently allergic to using my laptop… but it seems that the bad reaction has now passed and Thoughts on Translation is back at the treadmill and ready to open up some new topics.

So, let’s talk about feedback and the translation process. One of the things I enjoy about working with direct clients is that I’m in control of the translation workflow, and I get direct feedback on my work from the person who I hire to do the editing. When I work for direct clients, I do the translation, then I send it to my editor, then I review her comments and if there are any that I have questions about, we talk about them together before preparing the final version of the document to send off to the client. However, the feedback flow normally ends there; a client will sometimes offer a sound bite assessment of a translation — “it was great, just what we needed” or “could you make the tone a little more casual?” or something along those lines, but my sense is that very few translators received detailed feedback from their clients.

When one works with a translation agency, things often go a little differently. Although it’s not a good practice, there are some agencies that don’t proofread the translations they receive at all, they simply forward them to the end client and assume that the translator has done an excellent job. Obviously everyone’s business model is different, but I decline to work with agencies that do this, simply because I think that every translation needs to be seen by at least two sets of eyes, and at agency rates I cannot afford to hire a second translator to edit my translations before I submit them. A second category of agencies are those that have their translations proofread by someone who reads the target language but may or may not read the source language. Finally, there are some high-quality agencies that have their translations reviewed by a second translator working in the same language combination as the person who did the translation; very quality-conscious agencies might even have these two people collaborate, the way my editor and I do when we work with direct clients. In all cases, agencies may or may not send the translator any feedback that they get from the end client.

These various feedback models raise a few questions. How can translators improve their work if they don’t get detailed feedback on it? How can clients provide feedback without getting into a “your word against mine” situation with their freelancers? Who should be the ultimate authority when it comes to a choice of words? Should agencies be obligated to provide the translator with the final version of their document as it was sent to the end client?

This topic sprang to my mind because I’ve recently come across some sticky issues involving feedback. One involved a translator whose work was butchered by an editor before being sent to the end client who then complained about the quality of the translation, and one involved my own unpleasant experience with an agency that assured me my work would be edited by a second French>English translator and then didn’t follow through. I agree that the QA and feedback process has its issues: QA and feedback take a lot of time; if you’re working on 3,000 words due tomorrow, the collegial back and forth with your editor probably takes time that you don’t have; in addition I think that agencies are simply not in the business of providing continuing education to translators, and they’re afraid that if a translator receives a poor review of his/her work, it will lead to conflict. However, lack of feedback is also a problem because it deprives translators of the opportunity to improve their work, and leaves translators wondering what happened if they’re suddenly dropped by a regular client.

Personally, I firmly believe that the best process is for a translator and an editor to work together, with the editor’s suggested changes going back to the translator. In addition, I’m fortunate to have gotten to the point in my business volume that I can ask about an agency’s QA and feedback process and decline to work for them if they don’t meet what I consider an appropriate standard. However, I’m not so sure about the best model when there isn’t time for this three-step process to happen. Anyone have feedback stories to share, or suggestions to offer?


Corinne McKay

Improving the quality of your translations

If one of your goals for 2009 is to market your translation services to a more discriminating client base, you’ll certainly want to step up your marketing efforts. At the same time, it’s important to focus on the quality of the product you’re offering; don’t try to sell a Yugo at Mercedes prices. The latest Fire Ant & Worker Bee column’s first piece of advice on surviving a recession as a freelancer is “Make yourself indispensable,” and a large part of that is giving your clients the type of translation they’ll have a hard time finding elsewhere. (The column I’ve linked to coincidentally includes a link to my blog, but this isn’t a link exchange!)  Here are a few suggestions on improving your translation quality, and feel free to add your suggestions in the Comments!

Read industry publications. You don’t have to spend a lot of money or travel great distances to find some excellent continuing education materials. For example, the current issue of Translation Journal includes an article on enhancing translation quality as well as a number of language-specific translation technique articles. The ATA Chronicle (included in your membership dues) also runs articles on translation technique.

Read other translators’ work. Whether on a paid basis (for example as a proofreader) or just for your own education, one of the most practical ways to improve your translations is to read work done by translators who are more experienced, more specialized or more skilled at writing than you are. As long as the materials you’re asking for aren’t confidential and you make it clear that your purpose is self-improvement, I think that many translators would be flattered to be asked for some samples of their best work.

Take a writing or editing class in your target language. Some of the best professional development money I’ve ever spent was on a series of editing classes with Alice Levine. I still enjoy translating much more than I enjoy editing, but these classes showed me that there were concrete things I could do to improve my editing skills. Likewise, there are many people who are excellent translators but who just aren’t very good writers in their target language; look into a local adult education or community college course if you’re in this category.

Take a class that applies to one of your specializations. Some (lucky!) translators come to the profession with significant work experience in a targeted subject area, but most of us are largely self-taught in our specializations. Pursuing some training in your specializations can put you a cut above the “jack of all trades” translator. Your local colleges and universities are great resources for this (consider taking the course on an audit basis if you don’t need/want the credits) or look at online programs. Through places such as the USDA Grad School, you can take online or correspondence courses such as Business Law, Legal Writing (you can even become certified as a paralegal), Principles of Accounting, Audit Report Writing, Intro. to Editing, Hydrology, and more.


Corinne McKay

Link: an interesting take on translation quality

Ryan Ginstrom has a really interesting post (that links to yet another post) on translation quality. Besides learning the helpful term “chokuyaku” (apparently Japanese for “literal translation”), you can find out about one translator’s novel take on the “you get what you pay for” issue; this translator spends as much time on the project as the client has paid for.  If it’s a low-paying client, he works as fast as he can and accepts that the quality is not great. I agree with Ryan that personally I could never do this, but it’s an interesting thought.