Finding a Qualified Translator

I recently read an article about the translation industry in Yemen and how more and more people are opening translation shops and proclaiming to be authorized translators but not necessarily having the training to operate a translation business.

 

This is seen as a big problem because unqualified people are misleading consumers into thinking that their information will be translated correctly, when in fact, it will not be up to standard. This is further intensified by the fact that some clients will shop around for translations and then decide to go with the cheapest solution no matter what. This isn't the best criteria to search for if you want a good translation.

 

How then, if you are in need of having something translated, should you determine which translator or translation agency is qualified to work on your project? In the U.S., the ATA is an organization that certifies translators and many clients will want the translator to be ATA-certified. This is not always the best solution, however. Just because a translator is not ATA-certified does not mean that they are not qualified.

 

I think the best way to know if the person you're dealing with is qualified to do translation work on your behalf is to look at their client list and see if the people that they've worked with before have been happy with the work that they have received.

 

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Article Directory in Spanish

Lately, in order to increase traffic to my main website spanish-translation-help.com, I've been writing articles relevant to Spanish translation. In submitting these articles, I have focused on two main article directory sites, www.goarticles.com and www.ezinearticles.com.

 

So far, I have submitted 5 articles to goarticles.com and 3 articles to ezinearticles.com. I'm not sure how much traffic is coming through these, but in the research I've done, it seems to be a good way to get more traffic.

 

The question I have, however, is whether or not there are any article submission sites specific to accepting articles written in Spanish. If there are any, I'd be intersted to know where to find them.

 

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Translation and Billboards

Translating in any language can be a tricky situation. You have to know who your audience is, and that means knowing what flavor of a particular language a particular group speaks.

 

For example, the same words in Spanish could have different meanings depending on the person who is subjected to that language. Spanish is different, whether you're in Cuba, Puerto Rico, or Argentina. It's also different to Cuban Spanish-speakers living in the United States.

 

Therefore, it is interesting how marketers use language to target specific groups of people.

 

A story in Miami over the weekend illustrates this. Volkswagon wanted to advertise their GTI 2006 model specifically to Hispanics in the United States. Well, it didn't go too well.

 

They put up billboards with a picture of the car alongside the words "Turbo-Cojones" in big letters. Needless to say, not a few people were a little offended and the sign was taken down a few days later.

 

Whereas the term cojones was used to signify gutsy in the ad, the more vulgar meaning was the one that came across and eventually got the ad shut down.

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Want to be a Conference Interpreter?

There is a program from the Directorate General for Interpretation in the European Commission for those who are interested in becoming a conference interpreter.

 

If you meet certain requirements, you may be eligible to receive a study bursary from the Directorate General for Interpretation. It seems like it could be a great opportunity.

 

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Teacher suspended for not translating

According to the Aspen Daily News, "A Spanish teacher at Aspen Middle School has been suspended without pay for refusing to administer standardized tests this week, school district officials confirmed Wednesday."

 

Schools in Colorado are mandated by the state to give Colorado State Aptitude Program exams, and these exams are only in English. In order for all students to take the exams, teachers are required to translate the directions, the questions, and the multiple-choice answers from English to Spanish for students whose first language is not English.

 

The teacher in question, Sam Esmiol, says that he didn't feel it was right for him to translate the test for a couple of reasons. First, he said that he "feel[s] that each teacher is going to translate the questions and answers differently" and that "each group of students taking the test is getting a slightly different version. There's too much personal influence on the results."

 

Secondly, he says he is not a trained translator and therefore shouldn't be expected to translate.

 

It does seem like it is unfair for the students to have each teacher that gives the test provide his or her own personal translation of the directions, answers, and questions. The translations are going to be different among the teachers and those translations very much have the possibility of influencing the students.

 

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Translation Summit

The Center for Language Studies at Brigham Young University, the American Translators Association (ATA), and the National Virtual Translation Center (NVTC) are jointly hosting the first ever Translation Summit: The Latest Word in Translation.

 

The theme of the summit is "Bringing together private industry, government, and academia." Representatives from all three sectors will be at the summit being held in Utah on March 20, and it seems that the goal will be to increase dialogue between these three sectors.

 

It will be interesting to see what, if anything, comes out of this summit, and how the information will trickle down to the actual translators and interpreters doing the job on a daily basis.

 

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Translation Technology

The translation industry is, like any other industry, constantly looking for the next technological breakthrough that can aid the field and those that work in it. A lot of translators are able to translate and do their jobs without having to interact with new technology but whether they use it or not, it's out there. And it's only going to get more prevalent as more companies and government agencies work to fix the national translation problem.

 

Companies and government agencies are constantly facing the issue of sifting through vast amounts of data written in various languages and figuring out how to best sift through that information for the gold nuggets to then be able to act on them.

 

As translators, we often face our own dilemma of trying to decide if it's worth it for us to keep informed of all these changes that could take place in the future. I for one think that it is imperative that every translator keep up to speed on the type of translation technology that is being developed. The translation industry, as I said before, is like any other industry, and in order to be a good translator, you must be informed about the industry you represent.

 

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Lost in translation

OK, so one of the things I like to do to keep up on the Spanish translation industry is to read news about translators and translation in general. However, I'm getting really tired of seeing every journalist out there using the phrase "lost in translation" in their stories. Half the time the phrase doesn't even fit with the story. The other half of the time it looks like the writer is just trying to using a catchy phrase that isn't all that catchy.

 

It seems like everything is getting "lost in translation" these days. Take a look at some of these I pulled from various headlines of news articles:

 

1. Energy efficiency lost in translation

2. Culture, cuisine get lost in translation

3. Measures lost in translation

4. Italian flavor gets lost in translation

5. Athletes' quotes often lost in translation

6. NYC schools lost in translation

7. Hong Kong Disneyland gets lost in translation

8. Yahoo gets lost in translation

9. Winter Olympics remained lost in translation

...and most importantly...

10. Timberlake tattoos lost in translation

 

I hope the phrase itself gets lost in translation so I don't ever have to read or hear it again.

 

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Free Translator's Handbook

The 1999 edition of the Handbook for Literary Translators from the Translatiom Committee of PEN American Center in New York is finally available for free. According to their website:

This, the fully revised fourth edition of the Handbook, a valued information resource for translators, is now accessible free of charge in either an on-line version or as a downloadable Microsoft Word document.

This handbook contains various information for all levels of translators, such as help in negotiating a contract, a sample contract, globalization issues, and resources for translators.

 

This is an invaluable resource for translators just starting out, or those who would like updated information on the translation industry.

 

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Pledge of allegiance in Spanish

The flag of the United States, and especially the accompanying Pledge of Allegiance has certainly had its share of controversy, especially it seems in the last few years.

 

Well, the controversy didn't end with Michael Newdow.

 

Turns out that Noelle Tepper of Frederick County, Maryland also had a beef with what a local middle school was doing with the Pledge.

 

It seems that the school thought it would be a good idea to broadcast the pledge being recited in different classes. One of the broadcasts was of the Pledge being recited in Spanish in a Spanish class. Tepper was infuriated that the Pledge could be spoken in another language other than English because, according to her, "the Pledge of Allegiance is a sacred oath to Americans. Why should it be OK to translate it into another language where it loses meaning? Our government is in English. Our laws are in English. It is the predominant language, and it should be our national language."

 

So, first of all, she implies that because the Pledge is an oath for Americans, it can't be recited in another language. I know plenty of people who are Americans who speak more than one language (myself included). Does it make us any less American if we repeat the Pledge in another language?

 

Second of all, how does she know the translation of the Pledge in Spanish causes meaning to be lost? Sure there are times when translations aren't faithful to the original documents, but to just assume that meaning is lost is preposterous. Does she even speak Spanish?

 

Third, whether or not you believe English should be the national language of the U.S. should not preclude the idea that a middle school Spanish class have the opportunity to recite the Pledge in the language they are studying. It doesn't make them or the Pledge any less American.

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Looking for a new language?

Not finding enough translation work? Maybe you should learn a new language. According to Datuk Noh Omar, the Deputy Education Minister of Kuala Lumpur, "translation of books into Malay is still scant...compared to other countries."

 

So if you need more work, maybe you could learn Malay.

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New Translations in Spain

After Spain legalized same-sex marriage, they decided to go one step further. They've created new birth certificates in order to avoid discrimination.

 

Instead of having the terms father and mother on the certificates, they will be replaced with the terms progenitor A and progenitor B.

 

Let's hope this doesn't get carried away even more, such as:

 

madre tierra = la tierra del progenitor

padre nuestro = progenitor nuestro

 

 

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Translation Technology

Newsweek International has published an interesting article on translation technology.

 

The article describes various projects underway (mostly in Europe) to create machines for understanding and communicating to humans. Especially intriguing are the "ceiling-mounted 'audio-beam' speakers" by DaimlerChrysler that are capable of projecting sound 5 meters to an area as small as a single seat. This would potentially replace headphones at conferences or other places such as the U.N.

 

One thing that I think is interesting about the translation and interpretation arena is that a lot of the technological advances seem to be happening in Europe. I'm sure that this has something to do with the fact that a lot of European countries have more than a single official language, and therefore government is more involved in streamlining translation and interpretation, as opposed to the United States, where English is the defacto language and it is usually companies that are working on translation issues in order to increase revenue.

 

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Multi-directional Translation

The translation industry is a profession like any other; it's got its shares of unwritten guidelines and rules that translators should follow along with translators who do and don't follow them.

 

When I was in my translation program in college, one of these "guidelines" that the professors told us over and over again was that we should only ever translate into our native language. So I should only ever translate from Spanish to English and native Spanish speakers would do the opposite.

 

This counsel we were given does seem to make sense when you first begin as a translator. You are usually more fluent in your native language and have an easier time rendering another language into that language, than vice versa.

 

However, when translators finally leave the comfort of school and begin competing with other translators in the market, they often find that this guideline is hardly ever adhered to. Translators who promote their services advertise that they are equally able to translate both directions between a language pair. I often wonder how many of these translators are as good as they advertise and are able to go both ways.

 

The American Translator's Association (ATA) provides certification tests for translators and they are very specific that translators who advertise their certification must pass language direction-specific tests. For example, a Spanish-to-English translator must pass a Spanish-to-English translation test in order to be certified in that specific language pair and specific direction. If they want to be certified from English-to-Spanish, they must take another test specific to that direction.

 

So why do translators who are not certified advertise multi-directional translation services? I think that one of the reasons is because of the number of translators in the market. If you are an English-to-Spanish translator, you could be losing business by not accepting offers for Spanish-to-English translations.

 

Also, certain a certain language direction might not be in as high a demand as the other direction. For example, I've noticed that there are more translators offering Spanish-to-English translation services than English-to-Spanish and so therefore there might be more jobs going from Spanish-to-English.

 

Now the real question is whether or not this is an ethical thing to do. I know many translators that are not certified by the ATA and they get plenty of business from clients who are happy with their work. Individual translators need to honestly assess their translation abilities and decide whether it would be fair to a client to proclaim their ability in a certain language direction.

 

By doing so, they will help the translation industry earn more respect and be able to provide a better product to the client.

 

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Keyword Popularity

For the past few months, I've been getting a keyword report from Worktracker. This report contains two lists. The first is the Top 300 Surge Report and according to Wordtracker, "contains the top 300 queries from the last 48 hours, which represents the complete queries from the largest Metacrawlers on the web for the last 48 hours."

 

I enjoy getting this email because it helps me see trends that are developing and also gives me new ideas for various projects. However, there is something I don't understand.

 

The top three search terms on the list are, in order:

1. Google

2. Ebay

3. Yahoo

 

My question is this: Why are these search terms? Don't most people know that the URLs of the above companies are the same as the business name? It would seem to me that people interested in finding the Google webpage would already know where to find it and not have to search for it.

 

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New poll on bilingual dictionaries

I've just added a new poll (my very first one, in fact) to the blog. I'm curious to what everyone's preferences are. After the poll ends, I'll let you know what mine is.

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Simultaneous Interpretation is no curling match

First of all, let me say I have nothing against curling. I think people who do it must be very talented and work very hard to be good at their sport.

 

That being said, I think I'd have a better chance of being a curler than being a simultaneous intepreter. When I was in college, I took Spanish translation classes and these classes mostly focused on the art and skill of written translation. However, to get us a feel for what intepreters do and to engrain in the students that interpreters and translators are not the same, our professors let us practice doing simultaneous interpretation.

 

After I went through that, I realized that I could never be an interpreter. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done and I gained a new respect for people who could sit down and concentrate to such a degree that they could interpret somebody else speaking in nearly real time.

 

Not only do interpreters have to be able to multi-task efficiently, they have to be walking encyclopedias that are not phased by anything they come across, because if they do, they'll be behind the speaker and it'll it be tough to catch up. Interpreters also have to be able to work with audio equipment and not let it various intricacies distract them.

 

Most of the time interpreters work in tandem, and because it's such a tiring and draining job, they have to rely on their partner to take over. But, while an intepreter is not interpreting, he/she is helping the other person, looking up terms that might be unknown, and helping to deal with any technical issues that might arise.

 

So while I love translating and think I'm decent at it, I could never be an interpreter and would rather go one-on-one against Maria Sharapova on the tennis court.

 

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