| Pages in topic: < [1 2 3 4] > | This year, I noticed gross misinterpretation of people's professional qualifications (at ProZ.com) Thread poster: Marquis
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Marquis
United States
Local time: 08:39
English to Polish
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TOPIC STARTER | To writeaway | Jun 21, 2017 |
Maybe they should.
It seems you are right.
I am just saying Proz.com is becoming less and less reliable and my hope for the future of the site is that hopefully the clients notice this as well and stop asking people for their Proz profiles, as these do not mean anything. And neither do feedback, as you can get one from your colleague without having to translate a word for them.
This is like high school all over again .......
I just do not u... See more Maybe they should.
It seems you are right.
I am just saying Proz.com is becoming less and less reliable and my hope for the future of the site is that hopefully the clients notice this as well and stop asking people for their Proz profiles, as these do not mean anything. And neither do feedback, as you can get one from your colleague without having to translate a word for them.
This is like high school all over again .......
I just do not understand how some of you - seasoned translators get mad that I posted this.
Yes, being fluent in any language is possible without visiting the country, blah blah blah, but you do not translate into the language that you just started speaking 5 years ago!!!!
And if you or anyone else can translate into 7 native languages - THAT IS GREAT AND MORE POWER TO YOU. There are exceptions to every rule. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Lingua 5B 
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Local time: 15:39
Member (2009)
English to Croatian
+ ...
| Natives speakers do. | Jun 21, 2017 |
Marquis wrote:
How does either one of you know what am I native in?????
If you are native in any language, it's easy for you to tell who is not. For instance, in this particular sentence, in terms of sentence structure, I know that you were supposed to use a subject after "what", not a verb, and I know this from school. Native speakers know it intuitively. I am with Phil on this one.
[Edited at 2017-06-21 06:29 GMT]
| | | | Marquis
United States
Local time: 08:39
English to Polish
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | To Lingua 5B | Jun 21, 2017 |
Well, since you claim to translate into 50 languages, I am just going to stop here.
Your opinion is as important to me as Trump's hair.
This is not an EN test.
You are funny. Keep on writing .LOL
| | | | Lingua 5B
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Local time: 15:39
Member (2009)
English to Croatian
+ ...
| You started this thread, please keep it professional. | Jun 21, 2017 |
Marquis wrote:
Well, since you claim to translate into 50 languages, I am just going to stop here.
Your opinion is as important to me as Trump's hair.
This is not an EN test.
You are funny. Keep on writing .LOL
What's so funny about the firm sentence structure evidence I provided? This is a very fixed rule in the English syntax, it's not even arbitrary. Yes, you opened a thread, and as long as I keep it civilized, I will keep on writing.
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| You continued this thread, please keep it professional ;-) | Jun 21, 2017 |
Lingua 5B wrote:
What's so funny about the firm sentence structure evidence I provided? This is a very fixed rule in the English syntax, it's not even arbitrary. Yes, you opened a thread, and as long as I keep it civilized, I will keep on writing.
I'm not sure you needed to pick apart OP's English. One slip, which a native could easily have made, doesn't necessarily indicate a lack of native proficiency and doesn't undermine the specific argument being made.
OP was writing about checking credentials/memberships. I was the one who mentioned native proficiency, and only as an aside. And I wasn't thinking about the many gifted near-natives on here, more the real jokers.
NB PROZ HQ: I think it is a GOOD IDEA to introduce a "near-native proficiency" option. But checking credentials, just as an employer would check references, would be an even better idea. Although I accept that having a qualification or membership does not necessarily a good translator make.
| | | | | | Lingua 5B
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Local time: 15:39
Member (2009)
English to Croatian
+ ...
| I'm not sure this is a native-like error. | Jun 21, 2017 |
Chris S wrote:
I'm not sure you needed to pick apart OP's English. One slip, which a native could easily have made, doesn't necessarily indicate a lack of native proficiency and doesn't undermine the specific argument being made.
Yes, natives do make structural or grammatical errors, but this is not a type of error a native would make - perhaps a 3 year old native child would as their syntax is not developed yet.
Well, she asked a question, I picked the first thing I spotted to support the claim. In linguistics, every claim must be supported by at least one (or commonly several) examples. So, please do tell me what was unprofessional in my post as I presented it in a civilized manner? On the other hand, take a look at the tone of OP's reply, the references she's using, etc. - completely personal and immature.
Am I correct to assume this is the longest thread in the history of ProZ? A more precise title would be "Should native English claims be verified"?
[Edited at 2017-06-21 08:26 GMT]
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Lingua 5B wrote:
Yes, natives do make structural or grammatical errors, but this is not a type of error a native would make - perhaps a 3 year old native child would as their syntax is not developed yet.
Well, she asked a question, I picked the first thing I spotted to support the claim. In linguistics, every claim must be supported by at least one (or commonly several) examples. So, please do tell me what was unprofessional in my post as I presented it in a civilized manner? On the other hand, take a look at the tone of OP's reply, the references she's using, etc. - completely personal and immature.
I'm not sure that pointing out the flaws in a person's use of their target language is helpful. It's certainly inflammatory and probably unprofessional. But I was only messing with you.
You're right that a native would never say that, but it's also just the kind of typo/editing error any of us could make, especially when writing in haste. The quality and naturalness of the rest of the OP's posts is native standard to my ears.
I do feel for the OP. It's not nice when you voice an opinion and a whole forum decides to gang up on you even though they share largely similar concerns. What is it with the Internet?
And, of course, there is the argument that without verification of credentials this is not a professional site, so why should we act professionally on it
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Maija Cirule
Latvia
Local time: 16:39
German to English
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[Edited at 2017-06-21 09:29 GMT]
| | | | Marquis
United States
Local time: 08:39
English to Polish
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TOPIC STARTER | Dear Lingua 5B | Jun 21, 2017 |
Make your claims to the right person, since you understand English so well.....
Go and translate something.
It seems you speak 50 languages but have loads of time to start something out of nothing, and you do not even read the posts you respond to...
I care not to get involved in your posts about correct EN. I got work to do, unlike some of us.
| | | | Marquis
United States
Local time: 08:39
English to Polish
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | Dear Lingua 5B | Jun 21, 2017 |
And please do not insult me. I am not questioning your language skills.
You apparently have some issues about whatever you posted on your profile, thus it hurts.
Yeah, the truth hurts sometimes.
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 15:39
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
| On natives making non-native errors | Jun 21, 2017 |
Chris S wrote:
You're right that a native would never say that, but it's also just the kind of typo/editing error any of us could make, especially when writing in haste.
And the OP does seem to write in haste, judging from the typing errors in her posts.
But I think your statement needs qualification: a monolingual native speaker would never say that. Us bilinguals/multilinguals know that the one language sometimes creeps up on the other, when you're not looking, even though you're able to pick out which phrasing is correct if you stop and think about it.
This is one reason why checking for non-native errors in casual writing is not a reliable method of testing for nativeness. The OP made a clear non-native error, but did he make it because he is non-native? You can't tell.
It's a pity she mentioned the nativeness issue in her post, because the bulk of her post raises a valid point, namely misrepresentation of credentials (and nativeness is a contentious issue, whereas saying you're an ATA member when you're not isn't).
I recall an incident some time ago in which an agency was banned for non-payment. The agency complained that there were quality issues. I had a look at the profiles of some of the translators that complained about non-payment, and found one who claimed to be a member of all translation associations. I contacted a few of them to find out if indeed this person was a member of theirs, and you guessed it: she wasn't. And she's still on ProZ.com, even today.
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Kristina Cosumano (X)
Germany
Local time: 15:39
German to English
| Obviously cheaper just to lie about it. | Jun 21, 2017 |
Marquis wrote:
If it is so easy to become an ATA member, why do people lie about it so often........
I guess if no one is actually checking, then some folks figure they can just say they are members, without paying the membership fee.
In light of the two posts below — ah, yes, "ATA certification" would make more sense, if that's what the OP meant to say.
[Bearbeitet am 2017-06-21 11:58 GMT]
| | | | Lincoln Hui
Hong Kong
Local time: 21:39
Member
Chinese to English
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Marquis wrote:
If it is so easy to become an ATA member, why do people lie about it so often........
You sign up, pay the dues, you're a member. There is no difficulty at all. ATA Membership is open to anyone with an interest in translation and interpreting as a profession or as a scholarly pursuit. It means nothing in terms of qualification, except demonstrate that you have made the financial and intellectual commitment to be part of a professional organization, which is also true for professional organizational membership in many other fields.
You can choose to be an active/corresponding member by completing certification/getting reviewed, but associate members enjoy full membership benefits except the right to vote and hold Association office. You paid the dues, you have full right to call yourself a member.
Who the hell are these people lying about being an ATA member?
| | | | | Did you mean ATA-certified? | Jun 21, 2017 |
Marquis wrote:
Not only that, I found a translator who claimed to be registered with the ATA in 7 language groups...
I reckon you meant to say ATA-certified. I have known a couple of people who are ATA-certified in three language pairs, and there could be people who are certified in even more. However, it would be quite the exception as the exam is really challenging and passing is attainable only for truly native-level users of the target language.
In the case of the ATA, certification status can be easily checked in the ATA directory and the certification number (which every certified person has) at http://www.atanet.org/verify, so if Proz.com is NOT doing that check, it is clearly something to look into.
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