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Poll: What do you do if you are assigned to review a poorly translated text?
Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
Thomas Johansson
Thomas Johansson  Identity Verified
Peru
Local time: 04:50
English to Swedish
+ ...
Well Mar 20

Christopher Schröder wrote:

Thomas Johansson wrote:

The translators are typically good professionals who need their jobs and income, but they are now forced to process EU MTPE translations at 30% discounts.

They’re not forced to take this work.

If they do, they should still do it properly.


That's a bit of hard moralizing in a world where people need to pay their rents and get by till the next month while their employers suddenly have cut their rates with 30%.

However, I do think what is happening is that experienced translators are gradually leaving EU translations, and that sort of job is gradually being taken over by less experienced people, such as newly starting translators.

Compare this message I recently received from an agency who is looking to organize a team for an upcoming EU tender: "we will be training a sophisticated MT engine, and these tasks will be MTPE to ensure quality and consistency... As a result, it is not required to be an experienced translator of EU texts." I.e. the industry itself seems to envision MTPE going hand in hand with a transition towards using less experienced translators.

Meanwhile, I think the EU translation industry is gradually switching towards a new way of looking at translation workflows.

It's becoming less and less like in traditional situations where you would expect a translator to translate a document from scratch and deliver a high-quality ready-to-use translation. In such a situation, the translator is seen as ultimately responsible for the quality of the finished translation.

Instead the philosophy is becoming more something like: "Use this MT translation. Spend the assigned time and try to improve it as much as possible. Deliver it with all segments confirmed. The client is waiting, hurry up." I.e. the MT is now expected to do the main part of the job. Translators are just becoming a sort of reviewer, the first stage in a 2 reviewer workflow, who try to improve the output as much as possible. The question about responsibility is becoming blurred - who is responsible for the final product: the post-editor, the reviewer or the MT?

For now, the translators are still being held responsible in practice (e.g. the translator will be penalized if the finished translation has too many errors), but in all fairness it is no longer possible to hold translators responsible since in effect they are being asked to do something in 30% less time than is needed to do it properly.

In any event, the agencies are keeping track of the performance of each translator (based on feedback from the EU clients and evaluations from the reviewers) and they are continuously trying to improve their teams by recruiting new members and sending less jobs to low-performing members.

Christopher Schröder
Rachel Waddington
Marzieh Izadi
 
Christopher Schröder
Christopher Schröder
United Kingdom
Member (2011)
Swedish to English
+ ...
Thomas Mar 20

Yes, that’s how the big agencies work, and I don’t like it either. But as I say, working for them is a choice, and you can always tell them you need more time for a job. Once you have it on record that you need more time, they pretty much have to give it to you.
I have a hate/hate relationship with one of the big nasties based on me being a demanding diva and they just keep coming back and they give me the time and the money I ask for. Sometimes a bit of backbone is required.

Marzieh Izadi
 
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Poll: What do you do if you are assigned to review a poorly translated text?






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