Showing posts with label quality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label quality. Show all posts
8/05/2016
翻訳と "quality assurance"
良く翻訳会社から「チェック」が依頼されます。
この「チェック」は結局何の作業を指しているかが翻訳会社の人たち（大半）知らないようです。
先日ある翻訳会社にチェック済みの原稿を納品した際に付けたコメントの一部をここで紹介します：
「一応「原文」の「翻訳」はなっているが、原文がが極めて曖昧（不正確）であるため、ドイツ語翻訳文は恐らく著者（企業）が言いたい事を反映していません。
「翻訳」文は基本的問題ないが、原文が不可解な所あるから、当然訳文も更に分からなくなります。
翻訳者はちゃんと約束通り（約束よりよく！）翻訳しましたが、それだけじゃ助かりません！
例えば：
"XXX（機械の事） will keep the alarm ..." この "keep" は「値を記憶する」それとも「状態を維持」するでしょうか？
"If the XXX is faulty ..." この "faulty" は訳文に「正しく作動しません」となっている事が原文より良いですが、果たして著者は何を言いたいのでしょうか。
* 全文（！）はどちらかと言えば「日本語の思考パターン」に基づいた文脈（sentence structure) になっている。
自然な英語やドイツ語はそれぞれの文章は前後を入れ替えて構成すべきでしょう。（自慢ではないが、私は普段そうやって文章を「再編制」しながら翻訳します。）
このような（品質）問題に関して品質管理部にも連絡しましたが、どうやら興味ないようです。無論お客さんも原稿を見ての通り一切興味ないようです。
6/03/2016
WFAS 2016 --- oh, please ...
I have thought for a while, whether I should say/write this here. Finally I made my decision.
In November this year a world conference about acupuncture (WFAS 2016) will be held in Japan. People working in this field probably know this for a long time already.
When I registered the other day via the website set up for the WFAS 2016 I noticed, that the English of that website is of embarrassingly poor quality. Although I contacted (mail) first the secretariat of the conference and second the secretariat of the "Japan Society of Acupuncture and Moxibustion" (JSAM = organizer), neither of these offices considered it necessary to reply to my mail .. or what would have been MUCH better .. correct the mistakes.
I have been trying to 'advertise' the good aspects of Japan (and/or Japanese acupuncture) to the world for about 20 years.
This website looks to me like a deliberate attempt at demonstrating to the world at large, that the Japanese are stupid and don't give a dime about what other people think. Thereby also thwarting my efforts to promote the "MADE IN JAPAN" brand.
I am not really open to the suggestion/excuse, that the organize has not enough money. The general participation fee is about USD 500. Assuming 500 participants register, a not very unrealistic figure, the organizer collects USD 250,000 to run the show. There surely should be 500 USD to ask an agency to draft a proper text. If anybody would ask me (which nobody does!), I would call it a disgrace.
Please! Send them a note. Maybe if a number of non-Japanese people would complain about the strange English, the people in charge might finally wake up ...
In November this year a world conference about acupuncture (WFAS 2016) will be held in Japan. People working in this field probably know this for a long time already.
When I registered the other day via the website set up for the WFAS 2016 I noticed, that the English of that website is of embarrassingly poor quality. Although I contacted (mail) first the secretariat of the conference and second the secretariat of the "Japan Society of Acupuncture and Moxibustion" (JSAM = organizer), neither of these offices considered it necessary to reply to my mail .. or what would have been MUCH better .. correct the mistakes.
I have been trying to 'advertise' the good aspects of Japan (and/or Japanese acupuncture) to the world for about 20 years.
This website looks to me like a deliberate attempt at demonstrating to the world at large, that the Japanese are stupid and don't give a dime about what other people think. Thereby also thwarting my efforts to promote the "MADE IN JAPAN" brand.
I am not really open to the suggestion/excuse, that the organize has not enough money. The general participation fee is about USD 500. Assuming 500 participants register, a not very unrealistic figure, the organizer collects USD 250,000 to run the show. There surely should be 500 USD to ask an agency to draft a proper text. If anybody would ask me (which nobody does!), I would call it a disgrace.
Please! Send them a note. Maybe if a number of non-Japanese people would complain about the strange English, the people in charge might finally wake up ...
9/11/2013
Term Assist
A littel earlier today I received an advertisement from Proz.com for "Term Assist", something that is supposed to "make your translation easier and faster by helping finding terms".
No offense, but after trying it out A LITTLE, I find it at best "useless".
I set my language combination to Japanese-English.
Select a term.
-> NOT the term selected is displayed, but the different characters taken apart and translation for the individual characters given.
That is NOT what I am looking for.
The given translation are "strange" too.
Apparent "Term Assist" is a Chinese product.
Obviously another example of the "Chinese quality" I have referred to several times before. The kind of "quality" nobody in his or her right mind would spend any money on.
I have seen similar things with "StarDict" - a dictionary software for Linux.
Even considering it being "free" (most of its contents seems to be pirated anyway), that thing too is for me as a translator useless.
I have other software (als FREE!) that works a hundred times better!
No offense, but after trying it out A LITTLE, I find it at best "useless".
I set my language combination to Japanese-English.
Select a term.
-> NOT the term selected is displayed, but the different characters taken apart and translation for the individual characters given.
That is NOT what I am looking for.
The given translation are "strange" too.
Apparent "Term Assist" is a Chinese product.
Obviously another example of the "Chinese quality" I have referred to several times before. The kind of "quality" nobody in his or her right mind would spend any money on.
I have seen similar things with "StarDict" - a dictionary software for Linux.
Even considering it being "free" (most of its contents seems to be pirated anyway), that thing too is for me as a translator useless.
I have other software (als FREE!) that works a hundred times better!
10/28/2012
China - "cheap is best" ...
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| English: Rolex Oyster Perpetual Sea-Dweller DEEPSEA (Ref. 116660) (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
"Do you have time to help me proofreading the job?
Our client is not satisfied with the translator's quality, and unfortunately, the translator is not responding on the feedback since last night, we are facing to lose this client now."
Well, there is really not much to say.
First of all the original client is at fault, because they were looking for translations that are above everything else CHEAP. And China provides that kind of service.
And the translation agency is at fault, because they were using a translator (I got the impression from the text they sent me, that this person is first of all NOT a native German), who agrees to provide CHEAP (= this is usually called "reasonably priced", "best rate", or something like that) work.
Is it then any wonder, when the client (apparently requiring some official documents for the export of cars) complains, that the quality of the translation is not the "Ferrari" or "Rolex" quality they have been expecting?
I really do not understand these people.
If you buy cheap products, you get cheap quality.
It is part of the deal.
And it applies to ALL fields of business.
(you cannot buy a real Rolex watch for 59 USD ...)
8/06/2012
Rate? --- No problem!
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| Patent drawing of flight simulator by Rougerie (France - 1928) (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
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| Japanese Language Book (Photo credit: born1945) |
The other day I was asked, whether I can translate FOUR related patent specifications, 2 from Japanese and 2 from English, into German. The Italian company (CAESAR SRL) wrote in its mail:
"We evaluated this job as:
- 5055 words from English / - 4000 words from Japanese
approx. qty: 9055 words / fixed price: € 780,00 --> 0.086 Euro/Word"
0.08 Euro/word for a patent specification from Japanese to German???
A few days after I reclined the offer, I got a mail from "wagner-international", asking me, whether I can do PRECISELY the same job (J-G portion only).
That made me celebrate. WONDERFUL!!!
Apparently nobody else is working for so low rates (for material of this complexity). And I told Wagner so.
That company says of itself: "We specialize in cost–effective, expert communication and media solutions ..."
Meaning: we squeeze every last drop of sweat and tear out of the translator to provide clients with CHEAP (the magic word of our time) product.
If it kills a few (thousand) translators ... well, that is their problem.
On the other hand ...
I got an inquiry --- by telephone! --- about a patent translation from France.
Once I had a look at the text, got a better readable PDF file here in Japan and told them my rate (the due date was fixed up front), the person at the other end of the line said: Rate? -- No problem!
That was not a translation agency, it was a patent office:
International Patent-Translation Bureau (IPTB)
On the one hand you have the agencies (sounds like "agent" from the movie "Matrix") that try to cheat and possibly kill translators,
and on the other hand you have companies knowing that some things simply have their price.
Opting for "cheapest is best" will run people/companies into trouble sooner or later. I have seen it many times ... those companies for which I was too expensive receive claims from their customers and then ask me (or anybody else) to have a look at the tranlation and "brush it up a little" ...
Oh, how stupid!
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