Showing posts with label translation agency. Show all posts
Showing posts with label translation agency. Show all posts
7/31/2013
Identity theft
This is the first time, it has concretely pointed out to me.
Two days ago I received a mail from a translation agency in Germany, for which I occasionally work. They asked me, whether a job application from someone describing him(her?)self with text portions from my public (multiple translator sites) profile actually came from me.
NO, it did not!
Somebody has set up a gmail address with my name:
blasejewicz1979@gmail.com
and offered his (her?) services to that translation agency.
THAT is impersonation, or identity theft.
The person is question is a thief = criminal!
If anybody comes across the above mail address ... you are dealing with a criminal.
When I searched the help section of Google, I only found, that THEY cannot (and will not) do anything about this and was referred to
https://complaint.ic3.gov/
Internet Crime Complaint Center
There I DID file a complaint about identity theft.
Although I do not expect anything to happen ...
According to that translation agency, this (fraudulent applications etc.) is SO frequent, that they do not do anything about it.
Probably you cannot do anything about it.
This sheds some very interesting light on the integrity and health of the human race!
5/14/2012
Why do I still do this?
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| Keyboard-of-Japanese-language (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
In the mail I was asked, whether I can do it, of if not, maybe recommend someone who can. The rate offered was about 25% of what Japanese companies usually pay me for a Japanese-German translation.
Since I do not translate into Japanese, I offered to asked someone else.
Response: "YES. Please do."
So, I actually contact a colleague, write some mails, even get on the phone.
Naturally, even for a Japanese translator in Japan working in the German-Japanese language pair (which is cheaper than the other way round), the offered rate was still well below 50% of the "normal" rate.
And that from a rich country like Germany!
My colleague recline the offer. No wonder.
And I communicated these things to the company in Germany.
I ***DO NOT*** mind referring jobs to colleagues at all.
What I ***DO MIND*** is the fact, that the company in questions did not even say thank you.
I spend "considerable" time and effort - even phone costs - to find THEM(!), not me or my colleague, someone who can help out and do not even get this little "thank you".
I should probably stop being so nice ...
4/27/2012
Expertise - no expterise
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| Academic Book Stack (Photo credit: phonono) |
This company CONSTANTLY posts "job offers" on various sites, always offering hundreds of thousands of words = large volumes. Whether this is true or not is not really interesting here. (I have worked for them before. there were never any "large volume jobs". NATURALLY, after I started to work it did not take long before they started asking me to lower my rates - which I already DID set a little lower than the Japanese rates.)
The interesting thing is, the posts ALWAYS state at their top:
"Expertise: No special expertise"
but a little further down it then ALWAYS (this text is ALWAYS IDENTICAL):
Description: ... This makes the position challenging ...
Eligibility Criteria:
• Should have minimum 2 to 3 years of experience in Academic Translation
• Should hold at least a bachelor's degree in any field
• Expertise in academic subjects
• Certifications in translation and/or academic translation would be preferred
Well, to me THAT looks definitely like "special expertise"!
Or am I missing something important here? Do not understand the text maybe?
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.
2/05/2012
"Fuzzy matches" - make me feel fuzzy all over ...
When talking about CAT tools, the term "fuzzy matches" keeps popping up. In theory I understand what that is supposed to mean, but .....
this always comes with "strings attached", if I may say so.
First, when Japanese companies send me work, even translation of manuals etc., the companies already "check" for those portions that are identical or almost identical and deal with those. I get ONLY what is different. That means, I don't get any chance to encounter any fuzzy matches.
Second, even if the CAT tool DOES present me fuzzy matches, I will have to CAREFULLY compare the presented versions and edit as required, in front, at the end, in between, changing word order etc ...
Usually, I would finish my job a lot easier and quicker, when I type it entirely new then doing all the "editing". I have not yet bothered actually COUNTING the key strokes that would be required for such editing and compared that to typing, but I suspect the count may actually be higher ... at least that is my impression.
So, if editing "fuzzy matches" actually requires the same amount of effort (and time) as typing a new translation, I fail to see why the work invested into fuzzy matches should be cheaper. Or am I missing something important?
Well, I mentioned it before, with ONE SINGLE exception, so far all attempts at using the CAT tool "memoQ through one year have made my work (and my life!) MORE difficult ...
this always comes with "strings attached", if I may say so.
First, when Japanese companies send me work, even translation of manuals etc., the companies already "check" for those portions that are identical or almost identical and deal with those. I get ONLY what is different. That means, I don't get any chance to encounter any fuzzy matches.
Second, even if the CAT tool DOES present me fuzzy matches, I will have to CAREFULLY compare the presented versions and edit as required, in front, at the end, in between, changing word order etc ...
Usually, I would finish my job a lot easier and quicker, when I type it entirely new then doing all the "editing". I have not yet bothered actually COUNTING the key strokes that would be required for such editing and compared that to typing, but I suspect the count may actually be higher ... at least that is my impression.
So, if editing "fuzzy matches" actually requires the same amount of effort (and time) as typing a new translation, I fail to see why the work invested into fuzzy matches should be cheaper. Or am I missing something important?
Well, I mentioned it before, with ONE SINGLE exception, so far all attempts at using the CAT tool "memoQ through one year have made my work (and my life!) MORE difficult ...
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