your opinion on translation service providers

Sheila Wilson wrote:


Does that mean you're a freelancer (dealing with 30+ languages?), or an agency outsourcing work to freelancers?

We aren't allowed to name names here

Again, I'm confused about your direction of interest.

If you're interested in freelancers working with you, as a "better" agency, then maybe you should say so. OTOH, advertising in that way is also against site rules.

Maxi Schwarz wrote:


I'm writing in as a translator. As the trained translator, I am the professional who has the expertise and knowledge to first of all produce a correct translation, ask pertinent questions of the end client if needed, and have a quality assurance process in place whereby the final product is checked thoroughly before being sent out. I have worked for only one LSP that routinely has a second person proofread my work. i have on occasion hired a colleague with specialized expertise to check my translation, and paid this out of pocket. Having the training, I also know who to look for, and can assess the quality of their work.

To answer your actual question, the LSP has to hire somebody who is at least as competent as the original translator (who hopefully is competent - but if the LSP went for "cheap and fast" s/he may not be). It is common enough for a proofreader to insert error into a correct translation. Having a proofreader in order to claim ISO standards can also be a trick to suggest QA is going on, when perhaps both people are being underpaid. Will the LSP know what to look for, or necessarily care?

My experience is limited to a few agencies in Canada. Most people are bilingual for English and French, so someone else proofreading my work hasn't been much of a problem. But then someone who doesn't understand German is hired to proofread my German to English translations. In German nouns are capitalized. So it has happened that the proofreader has thought he was dealing with proper names. I.e. "Er wohnt in einem Haus in Deutschland.", translated as "He lives in a house in Grmany" gets "corrected" to "He lives in Haus, Germany." or "Mr. Haus lives in Germany."


I would hire a translator and not merely a linguist. It's like someone who knows anatomy might be a doctor or a sculptor, or simply know anatomy. Any professional translator considers context - that is Translation 101. And we don't only look at links provided by the end client. We do additional research as needed, and ask pertinent questions when applicable.

Actually, in general, we wouldn't know much about their processes. Usually my agency clients will send me a document and ask "Can you do this? By when can you do this? What will you charge?", and then make arrangements with their client accordingly. The translation process and QA process is largely mine. I expect an agency to communicate promptly with the end client if I have any questions. If the agency doesn't do so already, I ask the agency to have their client look at my translation (or draft, if a hard copy is needed, i.e. certified) and come back with any questions or concerns. But how they handle it internally, I wouldn't actually know.

Łukasz Gos-Furmankiewicz wrote:



Hi.



From a management perspective processes always look very important, but they can't do much for translation quality. Client service yes, translation quality, nope. That depends squarely on the talent of the people used and their work ethics.

As far as treating freelance translators well or paying them well, I'm afraid I'm not going to have good news for you. The pay tends to be awful, and contracts tend to be long, complicated, one-sided and anything from arrogant to humiliating.



Get an inhouse language department. Build a core team of trusted people at least for the most important languages. Avoid agencies if at all possible.



File signatures, files with tracked changes, comments, metadata etc. Otherwise you can't tell. Bargain prices decrease the probability. ISO and other certificates don't guarantee much, let alone promises made on their websites.



Easy. They'd have you believe quantity matters. Yes, two people have a higher chance of spotting language errors and mistranslations than one person, but the quality of translation depends critically on individual talent. It's demanding work, highly intellectual and highly creative at the same time. No matter how much brainpower you have, you will always find a way to use all of it. And smart people burn through a lot of energy when working on a text. Agencies insist on paying a pittance, so they end up working with low-cost freelancers only and closing themselves off from the best talent.

In probability terms:

(i) A good proofreader/reviser/editor can clean up after a poor translator, but solid foundation will be missing, and from an empty vassal even Solomon cannot pour water. (ii) A poor translator and a poor reviser won't somehow make a great translation. And (iii) a poor reviser can destroy a good translation by a good translator. Ending up with (iv) a good translator and a good reviser would require a awful lot of luck.

Bottom line: not just any two, it matters what kind of people look at it.



You can't. You can't take a dirt-cheap freelancer, write a long list of obligations and checklists and a hold-harmless clause into the contract and somehow make it work. They can hope to deflect the client's lawsuit with it (less easy than they think), but that's it.

In short, unless they pay professional fees, you're stuck with amateurs, semi-pros and the occasional halfway decent pro or particularly talented amateur with low self-esteem or bad luck or an appreciation for very modest living.

No process magic can generate talent that simply isn't there.



It depends on the time required and how much the freelancer is paid. Discount prices and additional requests don't mesh together too well, no matter what agencies say to make you believe it.



Always.