Showing posts with label Evaluation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Evaluation. Show all posts
9/24/2014
Trials and their "evaluation"
I have been writing about this before.
Some company contacts me regarding a possible "cooperation" (meaning, they want me to work for them), BUT ask me to do a little "trial" first.
This happens all the time, but there was one particularly interesting one the other day.
The company, "A.C.T. Fachübersetzungen GmbH" contacts me and asks, whether I would like to work for them.
The person in charge, a German lady, then sends me the "trial material" for Japanese to German translation with the words, "this a not too technical general text (instructions for a headlight)". Naturally, the lady cannot read the original material.
Having a look shows that this is supposed to be a part of an easily comprehensible user manual.
HOWEVER, the Japanese original is VERY strange in several places. So strange, that educated Japanese could not make sense of some portions.
Ok. I do the translation. After more than a month(!), the company tells me, that my translation is "not good enough".
BEFORE I got that verdict, I accidentally noticed, that someone (= the reviewer!) had to ask SEVERAL TIMES(!) the Proz.com community for help to understand the original.If educated Japanese cannot understand the text and the reviewer (also a lady) needs to ask several times for help ... this can hardly be "a not too technical general text". (I did not have to ask for help ...)
When I asked the company, whether they can show me the corrected text ...............
No answer at all.
Maybe I am prejudiced, but if that company and its reviewer have so much confidence in their absolute superiority (and MY inferiority), they should be confident enough to show where I was wrong.
If they cannot do that ... I can only assume, that they are afraid, their judgement might be proven wrong.
Somehow I pity the customers of that company.
4/12/2012
トライアル － お互いが見える
先日又ある会社（20年前に仕事した事ある会社）に頼まれ、新しいクライアントが仕事の打診しているからトライアルをしてください。
私はこの仕事をもう27年間をやっているから今更トライアルをやる必要ないはず。
そして、私のHPにもどっさりサンプルある：
http://www.einklang.com/Translation%20samples.htm
頼まれた「トライアル」は3/26に送信しました。それから2週間以上も経ってなんの連絡もない。
現時点で恐らく一端相談した仕事はより能力のある、より安い翻訳者に依頼され
たに違いない。
それは仕方がないし、特別依存もない。
しかし、私の仕事振りを「判定」するには二週間も掛かるならば、判定する側に
問題あり、又は此方を無料で仕事をさせた後、一言もない（例えば「今回は残念でした」など）のは少なくとも昔の古き良き挨拶の好きな日本では通常の礼儀に反するものであった。
こう言う事は今風のディジタル時代で頻繁に起こるからこそ（PRECISELY
because of this situation) 依頼された時電話でも申し上げたように「トライアル」をやりたくない。
こうして私の仕事を判定しようとする会社の仕事振りを見せてもらっているから、その会社の信頼性（又は判定する能力）も此方に見せてもらった。翻訳者としてそのような無責任の対応する会社 - 翻訳会社であれ、クライアントであれ - に信用しないほうが無難でしょう。 ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// ある意味すごい才能だって言われる才能があったとしても、続ける才能さえあれば、 他のどんな才能も凌駕する時が必ず来る。 山口千尋 (靴職人)
3/27/2012
Translation samples - the other side
The other day I wrote (quoted from my website) a little something about my views regarding the never ceasing requests for translation samples, often also called "trials".
These always look like tests for the translator.
BUT I have come to think of these things ALSO as tests of the companies/clients requesting these trials.
1) I have been working 27 years as a translator and do not need to test today in order to know what I can do. Samples of my work can be found on my website too.
2) During these long years of work I have often been asked to "evaluate" some translations made by somebody else. If these had been work, it is "natural" that they are several (many) pages long, but there have also been plenty of trials. These were mostly 3-4 pages long. But I usually need AT MOST half a page to get an idea of what that person can (or cannot) do. If I go through the rest of these pages, this will provide me only with some more minor details, or some specific words that may have been used wrongly.
3) When I get something to "evaluate", I am expected to produce an output within hours, or at the latest 2-3 days. However, those "trials" I have been doing are send to some mysterious "reviewer" and it takes something LITERALLY months to get the "results" back. The details of these results are - as I wrote before - are most often kept "secret". If someone (the reviewer) needs THAT much time to come to a conclusion -> I as a translator feel sufficiently authorized to question his/her competence!
4) I also dare to doubt the competence of the reviewer/company when they are ONLY able to evaluate my skills with ONE PARTICULAR text. Anybody who claims to be a professional in this field should be able to evaluate the skills from ANY translation sample.
5) Then I get sample text, which contain mistakes = in the source language.
Thinking positively I could regard these as "part of the trial", intentionally placed there to see if I pick those up.
In case THAT was not the purpose, these mistakes reveal the lack of language skill of the client/company providing the sample. If ther are not able to write in their native language, how in the world do they intend to judge the quality of a certain translation?
Precisely this last aspect provides in MY MIND a red flag for that particular client. If I work for them, they are likely to come up with all sorts of unreasonable claims etc. I have seen this before. More than once.
So, I do a trial and observe how the results come back: this give me a certain view on how much the client can be trusted.
These always look like tests for the translator.
BUT I have come to think of these things ALSO as tests of the companies/clients requesting these trials.
1) I have been working 27 years as a translator and do not need to test today in order to know what I can do. Samples of my work can be found on my website too.
2) During these long years of work I have often been asked to "evaluate" some translations made by somebody else. If these had been work, it is "natural" that they are several (many) pages long, but there have also been plenty of trials. These were mostly 3-4 pages long. But I usually need AT MOST half a page to get an idea of what that person can (or cannot) do. If I go through the rest of these pages, this will provide me only with some more minor details, or some specific words that may have been used wrongly.
3) When I get something to "evaluate", I am expected to produce an output within hours, or at the latest 2-3 days. However, those "trials" I have been doing are send to some mysterious "reviewer" and it takes something LITERALLY months to get the "results" back. The details of these results are - as I wrote before - are most often kept "secret". If someone (the reviewer) needs THAT much time to come to a conclusion -> I as a translator feel sufficiently authorized to question his/her competence!
4) I also dare to doubt the competence of the reviewer/company when they are ONLY able to evaluate my skills with ONE PARTICULAR text. Anybody who claims to be a professional in this field should be able to evaluate the skills from ANY translation sample.
5) Then I get sample text, which contain mistakes = in the source language.
Thinking positively I could regard these as "part of the trial", intentionally placed there to see if I pick those up.
In case THAT was not the purpose, these mistakes reveal the lack of language skill of the client/company providing the sample. If ther are not able to write in their native language, how in the world do they intend to judge the quality of a certain translation?
Precisely this last aspect provides in MY MIND a red flag for that particular client. If I work for them, they are likely to come up with all sorts of unreasonable claims etc. I have seen this before. More than once.
So, I do a trial and observe how the results come back: this give me a certain view on how much the client can be trusted.
3/18/2012
Translation sample(s)
Greetings
I (no - I believe EVERY freelance translator) am often asked to do a "trial translation" when I get in contact with a new company, or in some cases also for companies I have been working with for long years already, but where **new clients** ask for these trials. In the latter case at least the translation agency PAYS for the work done.
Otherwise somebody (who?) evaluates my work using some mysterious "quality criteria" that are neither defined nor disclosed and then comes to the conclusion, that I am not qualified - but, of course, cannot tell me why. I am sentenced guilty, but do not get a chance to defend myself (my work).
Typical example of a response from such a company:
"Our evaluators checked your translation strictly against the same criteria our Clients evaluate us, and we regret to inform you that your translation was not awarded a passing mark. We understand the disappointment, but in compliance with internal policies, evaluation details are kept confidential."
If they cannot tell ME about MY work, I must assume they are ashamed of THEIR work ...
In those cases in which the other party had the courage to show me (again an experience that probably ALL translators worldwide share) their "corrections" (those little red marks all over the paper), they usually turn out to be insignificant stylistic changes or even outright mistakes.
To quote someone from a (translators) mailing list:
"If you actually ask them to make a list of what is actually "wrong", most claims are usually unfounded (style issues, minor formatting, ambiguous source text, in-house company-specific abbreviations, job titles etc).
Style issues are particularly bad for English where there often myriads of alternatives but you can only pick _one_ word. Customer A wants that word, but Customer B wants one of the other ones and Customer C wants something different again.
Quite often also, the "issues" disappear completely as soon as you ask the agency to put something in writing."
In what other industry and for what possible product/service would this kind of claim be possible? For a reclamation about a defective product you have to produce evidence of the shortcoming/defect = show the defective product. If you take a written examination, usually you get back at least your grades and most likely also the examination paper WITH the correction marks.
If a translator does a trial which is then rejected, the company that considers the quality of that trial inferior, must certainly be very confident about the quality of their own work and the editors who evaluated the trial. If they are absolutely right and have so much confidence -> well then there cannot be any sensible reason for this secrecy!
For these reasons I have to decided NOT to do any trials any more. Above (refers to a page on my website: http://www.einklang.com/Translation%20samples.htm) I provided a number of actual translation samples. Check / investigate / judge them any which way you choose. If you like them: fine. If not: I am sorry.
And ... if ANY of (your) evaluators tells you, they can check/evaluate the quality of my translations ONLY using the sample that particular company has provided ... then you have a SERIOUS PROBLEM with your evaluator(s)!!!
Thomas Blasejewicz
The chief virtue that language can have is clearness,
and nothing detracts from it so much as the use of unfamiliar words.
Hippocrates
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