Ever wondered why???

I got this via one of the many translator sites I am registered at:

"Hi,
We need German to Japanese translators urgently.
Pls send your resume to anithagomathy@gmail.com ASAP.
From: anitha gomathy / India / Company: Aabheri Transco"

I did contact the lady and said, I do Japanese-German translations (the post said: German<->Japanese).
She sent me the file to have a look at and wrote:

"Please let me know if you are available for the attached job.
Language Pair: DE<>Japanese
Please deliver the project by Tuesday morning (THAT would be the following day!) 11 AM IST (24-03-2014).
Payment: 140 USD total in 25 days via PayPal"

File size: 4964 words. = 0.028/word
appr. 31 pages worth of translation, to be done in (less than) one day.
The file shows, that CAT tools will NOT be of much help.
I use "160 words/page" as a rough yardstick for technical translations.
Such a page would be 3.2 USD.

OK. Everybody who wishes to work through the night in super high speed for 3 USD per page raise your hands.
No one? Funny.
Actually, this lady posted - and keeps on posting; she seems to be getting desparate -
this job on just about ALL translator sites I know of,
but apparently nowhere anybody has responded (the counter always says "0 bids").

Strange, isn't it?
I wonder whether that Indian lady ever wonders why nobody is offering her any help ...

Relevant information

Today on a translator site a job posting read:

"One of our client is having requirement for technical English to German Translation.
Domain: Technical.
File Type: Word (pdf converted)
Words around 1500
Please mention your best rates for this job."

Its technical. OK.
What kind of "technical"? Subject matter?
No indication at all.
How are you then supposed to provide your "best rates" (meaning "peanuts"!) for this job.

If you ask a construction firm:
"Let's build something. Give me a price."

What kind of answer would you expect???

Trials ... again, stuborn shortsightedness

Japanese language (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Yesterday I received a response to a mail I sent to company with which I had contact several years ago, trying to refresh the memory of me. I copy the correspondence, not giving any names. To my mind the other party (company located in India) is asking rather unreasonable things.
Or is it me, who is off the mark???????

My mail specified what I am doing:
Japanese -> German
Japanese -> English
English <-> German translations.
medicine / pharmaceutics / chemistry / science / engineering
patents / manuals / etc.

Upon which I got the response:
Thanks for your mail,we would like to see your translation quality,is it possible for you to do 2 page sample from Japanese to English ?

Me again ->
Trial: I have done that so many times over the past three decades, that I got sick of it.
As a result I picked up some "trials" in various language pairs, fields
and put them on my website:
http://www.einklang.com/Translation%20samples.htm
Please have a look there. I am convinced you will find more than enough material there to judge my capabilities. (naturally, all translations are made by me)

I do understand but as per our company policy we have to evaluate the new translator by giving our sample. Let me know if you are interested or not ?
We request you to deliver it tomorrow EOD. 

Thank you, but ...
this text has 1149 characters, which represents approximately 3.2 pages of translation.
I do not do "trials" of this size any more.
AND, this is about business (financial orientation). That is a subject matter I usually do not handle.
In my original mail I indicated roughly, what I am usually working with.


Fine or else do the first 2 pages if you don't wish to do sample we regret to say that we can't add you in our database


Any proper translator is a specialist in some fields but not in others.
If an employer assigns work lying outside the translator's
specialization, it cannot expect proper results.
A barber does not do carpenter work.
Since you are apparently unwilling to recognize this universal truth,
I believe it is indeed safer for me not to be a part of your team.

Sorry for stealing your time.
Thomas Blasejewicz

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Expertise - no expterise

Academic Book Stack (Photo credit: phonono)

Crimson Interactive (also known as Edisense, India based translation agency)

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?

Degrading translators

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Apparently I submitted a quote on a job offer through Proz.com, although I really do not recall that one. That company, "mygengo.com" replied yesterday:

"Thanks for your response to my ProZ ad regarding Japanese to English translation. It would be great if you could create an account on our website and begin our translator qualification process. There's an automated 5-question test and an approx. 300-word translation test that we require."

They want to check my "qualification", but then suggest to potential clients, that it is not necessary to pay for "a level of expertise". What about me???

So, I checked their website and found the following:

http://mygengo.com/translation-solutions/low-cost-translation/translation-prices/

mygengo.com:

"The question we asked ourselves was whether or not customers should always be paying for a level of expertise when they don’t actually need it. The answer we came up with was absolutely not."

My comment:

THAT is the wrong question when working with "real" humans, because the level of "expertise" (experience) of a translator is what defines him or her and cannot (or at least SHOULD not) be turned ON/OFF. Thus, requiring that a translator does NOT show any expertise is to my mind AT LEAST degrading to that translator or rather an outright insult!

mygengo.com:

"When comparing our services to others in the industry, we rates up to 70% lower AND we offer the same professional-quality.  We also provide a 100% money back guarantee. Our customers know that if they’re not satisfied, we’ll make it right."

My comment:

Should it not be "our rates are"? -> A mistake that should not occur on a professional website, where it is actually presented for the entire world to see.

"Money back guarantee" -> does that imply:

"No money for the translator when the customer does not feel like paying"? No, thank you. As a professional translator depending on my translation work for a living THAT is not an acceptable option. Or will this agency cover any such mood swings of the customer?

mygengo.com:

"Say good-bye to clumsy machine translations and expensive professional agencies. Welcome to myGengo."

My comment:

"Say good-bye to expensive professional agencies." This presumably means for the translator: "Say good-bye to proper/decent pay". As opposed to machines, real people (translators) need to eat! But if their work cannot (literally) "put food on their tables" , the only resource for the clients left will be those "clumsy machine translation" … And if the clients are companies that take pride in their products, they should also take pride in the translation of their materials.

mygengo.com:

"Standard translations at myGengo begin at just $0.05/word and $0.03/character (Chinese, Japanese and Korean). "

My comment:

MAYBE (?) people living in rural China or India can still afford to work for these (slave labor) rates. But not ANYBODY I know of, who is living in ANY of the developed countries of the world. Definitely I cannot afford to work for this rate here in Japan. The result would be STARVATION -> and this is NOT a joke!

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