Help

14:52 Nov 6, 2012
English to Swedish translations [PRO]
Art/Literary - Poetry & Literature / probably off topic...
English term or phrase: Help
Hi
I'm in charge of promotion of a new book and have to take care of getting some excerpts translated. And while I had good luck with translators into the 4 languages I happen to undertand, the once i don't understand at all, already gave me the most headache.
Here is my situation:
I have paid someone (Person A) to translate a 700 word test document from English into Swedish and then hired someone else (Person B ) to proofread/edit (if necessary), basicaly to evaluate the translation I received from Person A. Unfortunately Person B claims that the translation done by Person A is horrible and asks for a hefty fee to correct it. I'm little reluctant since this is very similar scenario I had a while back with Spanish, which I also don't understand at all.
Any advise as to how to evaluate correctness of translation I receive from a translator myslef, without paying someone else (Person B) only to tell me the original is bad and than trying to sell me their services, and then again i will have to pay someone else (Person C) to evaluate and most likely will be told the translation from Person B is as bad as the translation form Person A and they can correct it?
I'm totally frustrated, because this is like going in a vicious circles. It cost money and time and is unlikely to help the publication ever reach the swedish reader....

Thank you anyone who reads it and responds!
tooneutral


Summary of answers provided
3 +1Use a translation agency that guarantees quality
Thomas Johansson
3hmm...
Joakim Braun
Summary of reference entries provided
Check the translator's qualifications
myrwad

  

Answers


6 hrs   confidence: Answerer confidence 3/5Answerer confidence 3/5
help
hmm...


Explanation:
If you outsource translations in languages you don't understand to people you don't know, this is the risk you take, isn't it?

Also this was a "test document", and it seems the translator failed the test.
Isn't that the point of testing? If you cannot trust the reviewer, what's the point of hiring him/her?

Are you promoting a book to be translated using excerpts translated by someone else than the final translator?

It should be a simple enough matter to find working professional translators with book credits in relevant subjects to their name. But perhaps they're not on Proz...

Joakim Braun
Sweden
Local time: 12:57
Native speaker of: Native in GermanGerman, Native in SwedishSwedish
Notes to answerer
Asker: Joakim Braun - vielen herzlichen Dank fuer die recht "vertvolle" Antwort....

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9 hrs   confidence: Answerer confidence 3/5Answerer confidence 3/5 peer agreement (net): +1
help
Use a translation agency that guarantees quality


Explanation:
It takes time to find and single out good service providers in any area. Reputable translation agencies with several years on the market already have gone through this process (supposedly) and _should_ (if they've done their job well) have good, long-tested translators in their database and _also_ be able to provide some guarantee for the quality of the final product.

If you prefer to work directly with your translators/proofreaders, you should, as myrwad says, select persons based on competence rather than price. Useful indicators are e.g. amount of experience, professional associations, university degrees, references.

Be aware of that there is always an issue of differences of style that may create problems: the translator has his (or her) style, the proofreader another. Result: the translator may do his or best - and do it well - but the proofreader will still disagree. This may be particularly so in the case of literature and fiction.

So, in general, you need to ensure that you work with the right people, and it is perfectly natural that this will take some trial and error.

Thomas Johansson
Peru
Local time: 06:57
Native speaker of: Swedish
Notes to answerer
Asker: Thomas - thanks for your input, I pretty much agree with everything you said, although it doesn't help me any further ... It certainly is a trial and error that takes time. Unfortunately it is rarther difficult to find competent people, and going through an agency doesn;t necessary guarantee better results, but from our experience neither does hiring the most expensive person.... As a matter of fact I do a thorough evaluation of each person before we hire, but we learned that reffrences can be faked and friends will happily vouch. Sometimes we received exceptionall job the first time while the second time the quality was lackining But above all we "enjoyed" irrelevant inputs (like one of the answer to this post) by people that were usually not just difficult to deal with, it also turned out that they were generally the least competent.


Peer comments on this answer (and responses from the answerer)
agree  Joakim Braun: To the original poster I will say again that finding reliable translators for books in any subject should be a fairly simple matter. Browse a few publishers' listings, library catalogs or even physical bookstores (if you have contacts in the country).
16 hrs
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Reference comments


14 mins peer agreement (net): +4
Reference: Check the translator's qualifications

Reference information:
At several occasions it has happened to me when I have proofread translations made by other translators, that it is impossible to do anything else than rewrite the translation completely. Therefore I don't accept proofreading against a fixed rate (if I don't know it has been done be a qualified translator), but against an hourly rate. Anything else is like offering a job to a random rate. To avoid this scenario you should not choose the translator with the lowest rate to make the translation, choose a translator who is a member of SFÖ (the Swedish Association of Professional Translators), otherwise your translation may be done by a totally unqualified person. I have no better advise to give you.

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Note added at 1 hr (2012-11-06 16:02:06 GMT)
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I forgot to mention the website address: www.sfoe.se, where you also can search for freelancers.

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Note added at 14 hrs (2012-11-07 05:15:10 GMT)
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For membership in SFÖ you need at least five years experience as a professional translator and also references to verify it. You have to agree to follow the ethical code of the association, and the member has to undergo the associations' scrutiny. Also the buyer has the possibility of direct contact with the translator himself/herself, which normally is not the case if the translation is bought through a translation agency. To assign a member in an association is no absolute guarantee for quality, but the odds for a successful cooperation are much higher. Not all qualified translators are members of a translators' association, but most unqualified translators are not, and it is apparent that many of the unqualified are not aware of their inferior skills in the translation area.

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Note added at 2 days18 mins (2012-11-08 15:10:38 GMT)
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I am sorry, I can only refer to my added note above. By assigning a translator with membership in a translators organisation you eliminate obviously unqualified (and hopefully also unethical) translators...

myrwad
Sweden
Native speaker of: Swedish
Note to reference poster
Asker: Myrward - thank you for the refference to sfoe.se.

Asker: Thanks for all the input, however the question remains - how do you evaluate translator's competence without having knoweledge of the language when you can't even trust someone else you hire to check? And yes this is a literary work, machine translation is not an option and as a new publisher contacts are limited and so are funds-even testing people costs money. If we continue like this with other languages we are going to exhaust resources on translators evaluation.... Basically what I want to find out is if there is a way for me, to evaluate translation I receive. Is there something that I have to pay special attention to. With the swedish translation Person B ended up asking 25 EUR for 700 word article, document was returned with some slight changes to approximately every second sentence. Long sentences averaging 30 words, let say there were 30 "changes" to the whole article. Translation of a number twenty was returned as # ( a digit, 20, no spelling it out) and translating who as HON (that)- allthough person A translated correctly as SON (who), jump was translated as hope - that pretty much tipped the scale. The point is that Person A evidently returned a good translation but Person B took advantage knowing that we can't evaluate ourselves, trash talked about translation of Person A, and made few changes hoping to secure the job for herself. If we go throught the same process with each language, we will be bancrupt soon and it is such a major turn off - because the same happened to us with Spanish, so not an isolated incident within the industry....

Asker: Thank you myrward - your feedback was most valuable! Hopefully we will have better luck hiring via sfoe ...

Asker: thanks for the clarification about hoppas, nothwithstanding general rules no translator should take the curtesy of using digits if the original provided to her/him is spelled out. And because the translator elected not to include some words in a sentence ( in this case - verbs) I do have hard time to belive the reviewer has done a good job.... but since I understand zip swedish I can't judge....


Peer comments on this reference comment (and responses from the reference poster)
agree  João Araújo
3 mins
  -> Thanks!
agree  Johan Sjöbom
46 mins
  -> Thanks!
agree  Alexander C. Thomson: This is all the more essential if your book is literary (as I assume it is from the category you posted this in): that means you can’t rely on machine translation at all to indicate how good or otherwise the translation sample is.
4 hrs
  -> Thanks!
neutral  Thomas Johansson: I agree the choice should be based on competence rather than price, but not all qualified translators (e.g. I) are associated with any translators' association. Being a member of a translators' association is not a guarantee of quality.
9 hrs
  -> Please see my added note...
agree  Joakim Braun: Swedish uses "hopp" for both "jump" and "hope". "Hon" or "som" (not "SON") might both be correct depending on sentence construction. The general rule is to write digits > 12 as digits, not words. Perhaps the reviewer has done a good job!
2 days 1 hr
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