Customers beware: the ethics of scattershot translation projects

Today I received a quote request from a new source, a translation company with which I had never worked before. They asked availability and rates for an urgent legal translation project. Together with their message they sent (not only to me, but to an unspecified number of English to Italian translators) a file with the source documents.

When I opened the files, I found a couple of very confidential documents, with the kind of information that, if I were the original customer, I would assume would be treated with the utmost caution by the agency.

At a minimum, this agency should have sent a message indicating the type of document to translate (e.g. "police records, about 1200 words"), and also that, before they could send it out to prospective translators, they needed to have a confidentiality agreement signed.

Sending confidential and sensitive documents to all and sundry, as they did, is a clear and serious breach of confidentiality.

First Impressions: OmniPage 17

OCR is not something we use very often, but sometimes it is useful or even necessary, when customer send us documents in hard copy or in a scanned graphic format.

The program we have used for the last few years is OmniPage Professional. We recently upgraded from OmniPage 15 to OmniPage 17. My first impressions are, on the whole, positive: OCR accuracy with documents not of the bast quality is improved, the program is much better at recognizing that stray dots on the page are not text (on the flip side, for Italian, this means that sometime the program does not recognize words such as "i" or "il", taking them as noise instead of characters).

An annoying defect I had not seen in the previous version is that the program sometimes puts the recognized characters on the wrong line in the target text.

On the whole, a useful program, and a real life saver when we need to translate repetitive documents that arrive to use in graphic form.

When translation rates are too high

You often see translators bemoaning falling translation rates and complaining of translation agencies that want to pay only a pittance.

Same of those translators, however, should pay much more attention to what they do than to the failings of translation agencies:

I've recently been asked to quote on an editing project where the Italian translator consistently misspelled "sì" as "si", "detto" as "ditto", "quel" as "quell", in addition to other mistakes such as "calico" for "calcio", "scora" for "scorsa", "so" for "si", "do" for "di", "siento" for "sento", "blocci" for "blocchi", and so on and on. In a short span of 107 words, I counted seven misspellings and two other errors, before giving up and telling the customer that this should be retranslated from scratch, not edited.

When they are paid a few cents a word, some translators are actually overpaid.

How to have more desktop on your laptop

Recently, my desktop computer suffered from a chain of problems. I had to send it for repairs twice; In the meantime, I’ve relied on my laptop.

When I use my laptop for short periods, or when I travel, I just use its built-in screen. For more sustained work, though, the small laptop screen is a hassle, with its tiny fonts and limited vertical space. So I connected the laptop to my desktop monitor.

At first, I just turned off the laptop monitor and used only the desktop one. Now, however, I’ve learned a trick that could prove useful to other people working from a laptop: I use both monitors at the same time, but, instead of displaying the same Windows desktop on both monitors (as you would do when projecting a Power Point presentation, for example), I extend the Windows desktop over the two monitors.

Several translators use a setup with two desktop monitors connected to the same computer. I did not know it could work also with a single desktop monitor and a laptop computer.

To use the laptop in this dual screen mode:

1. Put the laptop under the desktop monitor
2. Click Fn+F5 (your laptop might use different keys)
3. Select the dual monitor setup
4. Right click on the Windows desktop, click properties and select the Settings tab
5. Grab the inactive monitor icon, and drag it under the active one
6. If the computer displays a message that the second monitor will be activated, click on “Yes”; otherwise, select the check box “Extend my Windows desktop onto this monitor.”
7. Click apply
8. If necessary, click again on the Windows desktop, click properties, select the Settings tab, and adjust the resolution of the two monitors
   

Now, instead of a single 1280 x 768 laptop monitor, or even a 1280 x 1024 desktop one, I can effectively use a 1280 x 1792 split screen.

In the top part (the desktop monitor), I have my translation editor (MS Word or Tag Editor). In the lower part (the laptop monitor) I have Workbench with my translation memory, XBench with my glossaries, and maybe other reference applications, like WordWeb Pro.

Two big monitors side by side would be even better, but this is already a big improvement over a laptop’s small monitor.

How to run two copies of Trados freelance while sharing the same Internet connection

You work from home, together with your partner. You decide to try a program that supposedly can help you do your job better and faster. In spite of a few defects, you find that the new program really helps, so you buy a second copy for your partner, and install it on her computer. Runs great on her computer as well, but, as soon as you launch it from yours, the program detects the copy running on her computer and reverts to demo mode.

This is probably the most annoying limitation of Trados freelance: two copies cannot run on the same network, even if you have paid for both copies. SDL wants you to buy a pro license.

According to SDL’s the reason is that running two copies of Trados at the same time is something only an agency would, and they want agencies to buy the more expensive pro version. So, if you are not an agency but you live and work with another translator, you are out of luck: you can either run Trados on two disconnected computers (so you cannot share a fast Internet connection), or you can have both computers connected, but only one of them running Trados.

There is a way you can still share the same Internet connection without violating the terms of the freelance license: put the two computers on different networks.

The way I’ve done it is by adding an inexpensive wireless router to our wired home network.

Our computers and various devices connect to our Internet router via Ethernet cables. Also connected to the wired router is a wireless router, to which our laptops can link. When it is time to launch a second freelance copy of Trados on one of the computers, I just unplug the Ethernet cable from my laptop. At that point the laptop is no longer on the same network as my partner’s desktop PC, but it still accesses the Internet (through the wireless router).

This is just a workaround and still a nuisance (the physically disconnected laptop no longer reaches some of the peripherals). I suspect that I could find a better solution if I knew networking better, but this is a useful stopgap: this way we can have two copies o Trados running at the same time, from two computers that share the same Internet connection.

Update

Read the comments for better way to sidestep this issue. Also, as Paul says in his comment, SDL finally did the right thing, and this issue no longer affects SDL Trados Studio 2009 (the newest version of the program).

One thing I did not mention before: we do have one copy of Trados 2007 pro installed on my desktop PC, so normally this old Trados issue does not affect us - my wife works on her licensed copy of Trados freelance, and I on my licensed copy of trados pro. However, we also have a second freelance copy installed on a laptop, for use wen, for example, I work offsite. Right now, however, my desktop PC is out for repairs, and I have to work from my laptop, so I was forcibly reminded of this really annoying Trados built-in limitation.

Once again: what not to do when you send out your résumé

Today I received a résumé that is an almost perfect example of what you should NOT do if you want to be more successful in your search for new customers:

• The author mentioned she had browsed our web page, yet the résumé was address "to whom it may concern". If she had browsed our web page, she could easily have found the names of the partners of our company: sending your résumé to a specific person, instead than to nobody in particular, increases the chance that it will be read.

• The author said in the subject of her e-mail she was an English to Spanish translator, but she did not include that information in the header of the résumé. Without that information, it is impossible to see at a glance what exactly you do.

• The résumé was in Spanish, though it was sent to a company based in the United States. As it happens, I do read Spanish, but if I did not, the résumé would have been sent to a person unable to read it. Tailor the language of your résumé to the language or languages of the country you are sending it to.

• The résumé included work experience not relevant to our profession, such as teacher of English or education coordinator. Only include information that is relevant to the position you seek.

• The résumé listed first educational attainments, and only afterwards professional experience. Also, it was in chronological order, with older items first. Your résumé should follow the most commonly used format for your target country. For the USA, you should mention your professional experience first, your educational experience only later. Also, you should list your professional experience in reverse chronological order (most recent first).

• The résumé was much too long (seven pages). One page (two maximum for experienced professionals) is usually more than enough: busy people don't want to wade through seven pages of repetitious information. Be short and to the point.

• The résumé listed as working language pairs both English into Spanish and Spanish into English. Unless you are truly bilingual (raised as bilingual from an early age), you should give as your target language only your own native language.

• While the résumé listed as working languages English and Spanish, under "Languages" it only gave French language courses. If a language is not among the languages you translate, do not mention it in your résumé.

• The résumé had a "hardware and software" section, which may be useful, but then included irrelevant information. Tell the CAT tools and other specialized tools you use (so, do include Trados, Acrobat professional and Auto-CAD, if you have them). Do not include programs that everybody is expected to have (Windows, Office), or outdated software (Adobe 4 when the current version is 9). If you do not use the latest version of some program, it is better to blur the issue a bit, by not mentioning the version number at all.

• The résumé had a three-page list of translations done. Much more useful is a brief summary that suggests the fields you have translated in (for example, "Translated for customer X medical documents and articles, as well as various magazine articles for customer Y"). A long list of translations is usually counterproductive for two reasons: a) it will not be read, and, b) it gives the impression to be a complete list of all the translations ever done, thus evidence of a relative lack of experience.

• Finally, the résumé had a list of further education courses, none of which had any relevance to translation (at first glance they seem all to be courses for teachers). If something does not add to your professional experience or attainments, do not include it. If you include something, explain why it makes you a better translator.

This résumé managed not to fall into a couple of frequent errors: it did not include personal information (such as date of birth or marital status), and it did not include a photograph (both no-no's for a résumé aimed at a US prospect).

It is difficult enough to win new customers by sending out a good résumé. Sending one that hides your true accomplishments and looks amateurish further stacks the deck against you.

For more Dos and Don’ts about translators’ résumés, download my article “How Not to Get Hired”.

Year-End Accounting Analysis

The end of the year is a good time to see how our translation business is doing.

Corinne McKay, in Thoughts on Translation, already published a good list of things to do.

My list has a narrower focus: a good look at the data from the past year to see what went well, what didn’t go so well, and what to change.

Depending on how you track your projects, and on the features of you accounting software, you should do some or all of the following tasks:

• Create a list of all the invoices you issued during the year.
• Add all the invoices up, to get your total turnover for the year.
• Sort your list in decreasing order (i.e., you should have a list that starts with your best customer, and shows the total invoiced amount for this customer, then your second best customer, with the total invoiced amount, and so on).
• Work out what was the share of your total invoiced for each customer. Add that information to your list. At this point your list should look something like this:

  
    ACME Translation $ 25,000  25.00%
    BETA languages   $ 18,500  18.50%
    ...
    Zeta Trans       $    250   0.25%
    --------------------------------
    TOTAL INVOICED   $100,000 100.00%
   

• Calculate the increase or decrease of the invoiced amount for each customer over the previous year. For this you need a similar list for your previous year. If you don't have it, this is a good time to create it from the previous year final data.
• Calculate the percent increase or decrease for each customer over the previous year.
• Note which customers are new, which stopped sending you work, which have increased turnover, and which have decreased it.
• If you have done things like increasing or decreasing your rates for some of your customers but not for all of them:
• Check how the income from those customers has gone up or down (bear in mind, though, that correlation is not causation).
• Analyze your projects in whatever other ways you think most useful to give you a good picture of your business.
  For example, while two customers may both have assigned you $ 2,000 worth of work, they may be different if one has sent you ten $ 200 projects throughout the year and the other customer a single $ 2000 project. Try to decide which has the most upward potential (e.g., asking the "small projects only" customer if they can give you larger projects, or the "one big project" customer whether they have more frequent jobs).
• Analyze your projects by sorting them by language pair, subject matter and so on.
• If you find you would like to know something about your past performance that the data you have cannot tell you, think how to change your accounting and record keeping so as to gather the new data in the future (but also think whether the necessary changes in your workflow would be worth the trouble).

You should then run a similar analysis on your professional expenses:

• List all equipment, software licenses and other things you bought for your translation business during the year.
• List all subscriptions to professional publications, memberships, etc. you pay for your business.
• List all domain maintenance fees, hosting fees etc. for you net presence.
• List all services you pay for your business, such as utilities, telephone, Internet, online backup services (but remember that if you use these services also for your personal use, you should only count the portion you actually use for business).
• List all the marketing expenses for your business (brochures you brought to professional conferences or that you sent to prospects, e-marketing expenses, etc.).

Once you have listed all your professional expenses, you should analyze them to see what was well spent, things or services that you may not need any more (a good candidate for trimming could be your fax service, if you are finding that it is no longer used or necessary, for example), and things or services where the investment of more money spent would be helpful.

Some of the operations above are only possible if you already had similar data from the previous year. If you don't have the data, collect it starting for this year, so that next year you'll be able to run a more detailed analysis.

How to become rich working in translation...

...probably not by accepting such offers as

Dear translator,

A new translation job is available for you:

ProjectID: 253753
Word Count: 7
Your Earning: 0.56 $

Time allowance / deadline: 01:00 (hh:mm) - Time starts the moment you accept this job.

Source Language: Portuguese
Target Language: English

Commit responsibly! You must be able to deliver an on-time, high quality translation. Be sure you are qualified, interested and available to do the job.

To get this job assigned to you, please log in to XXX Professional Translation Services and go to the "My Translation".

If you accept this job, you are obligated to meet the deadline. Your time limit begins the moment you accept the job.

To take on this job assignment, log in to your translator account at XXX Human Translation.

If you have any questions, please send us an email.

With best regards.
The XXX Team

Article on translation and interpreting on the Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal today has an article by Diana Middleton on translation and interpreting jobs.

While some of the information is of doubtful value ("Interpreters can earn between $15 and $30 per hour": interpreters - especially conference interpreters - can earn much more than that, apart from those who work in phone interpreting and certain "community" interpreting services), the article on the whole will provide some useful insight to those that don't know much about our profession (kudos to Ms. Middleton for getting right the distinction between translation and interpreting, so often confused in the press).

Ms. Middleton had the good sense to rely on people who are knowledgeable about our industry - for example, prominent among the people quoted is fellow translation blogger Judy Jenner of Translation Times (congratulations, Judy!).

How not to get a meaningful quote

On Saturday night I received the following message:

From: XXX
Sent: Saturday, November 14, 2009 8:35 PM
To: ProZ.com Member
Subject: eng to italian

i have around 7000 words for eng to italian please quote urgently

XXX@XXX.net

A broadcast request to all and sundry, with no salutation, and no indication of subject area, file format, deadline, or anything else. In short, the perfect way to ensure that reputable translators will not even bother answering the message.

A better way to get quotes from good translators would have been a message such as:

From: XXX
Sent: Saturday, November 14, 2009 8:35 PM
To: Riccardo Schiaffino
Subject: Eng to Italian translation (legal contract)

Dear Riccardo,

I found your profile on ProZ, and I think you would be a good fit for this project.

I have a legal contract of about 7000 words to be translated from English into Italian. The deadline is next Friday, by 11 AM (EST).

I would really appreciate it if you could send me a quote for this job. Let me know if you need to see the original document to draft your quote: I can send you a preliminary version of the document (the final copy will be ready on Monday), but first I would need you to sign a NDA, given the confidential nature of this document.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Best regards,

Jane Doe
JDoe@XXX.net
PM, XXX Translation Company

A little courtesy, and more information, undoubtedly yield better results.