| Páginas sobre el tema: [1 2] > | Poll: Do certain clients need low-quality translations? Autor de la hebra: ProZ.com Staff
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This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "Do certain clients need low-quality translations?".
View the poll results »
| | | | | Yes definitely | Dec 16, 2015 |
because they only pay you peanuts.
In my native language, there is a saying, if literally translated "to catch a sea bream with a shrimp", which in English would be "to throw a sprat to catch a whale".
| | | | Sara Maghini 
Reino Unido
Local time: 10:30
inglés al italiano
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Not sure I understand the question...
| | | | Andreas Assmann
Francia
Local time: 11:30
Miembro 2009
francés al alemán
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| Yes definitely | Dec 16, 2015 |
All those who just want you to make some corrections to their Google translations....
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Natalie Soper
Reino Unido
Local time: 10:30
francés al inglés
+ ...
You could argue that some people deserve low quality translations, but why would anyone need one?
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This is the wrong platform to put this question! It should be asked to clients not to professional translators...
| | | | DianeGM
Local time: 12:30
Miembro 2006
neerlandés al inglés
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| Possibly ... | Dec 16, 2015 |
I could imagine that if documents were required for specific purposes, such as in-house as background information - a lower quality might be acceptable compared to say than for a document which is intended for publication.
But, personally, I've never had such a request from a client
[Edited at 2015-12-16 13:27 GMT]
| | | | | Perhaps, mostly in two cases | Dec 16, 2015 |
Cost/benefit fails to justify the expense
No matter how funny it came out, the example I put at the end of this page is translation-wise justified, as it was found on the back of the packaging for a $1.99 vegetable peeler. Most competing products are sold without any packaging beyond a piece of plastic covering the... See more Cost/benefit fails to justify the expense
No matter how funny it came out, the example I put at the end of this page is translation-wise justified, as it was found on the back of the packaging for a $1.99 vegetable peeler. Most competing products are sold without any packaging beyond a piece of plastic covering the sharp edge for safety.
According some savvy folks, "clearly wipe to f**k" in the translation gives away that it is unquestionably a well-known (sabotaged?) CN-EN MT contrivance, in the present case a cost-wise adequate choice.
No clue on what PARTS of 'it' should be translated
This was in the late 1970s, so long before the Internet, CAT tools, MT, etc. As a full-time employee, my mission was to develop, from its American original (in English, duh!), a Brazilian version (in Portuguese, ditto) of an extremely popular didactic manual on the technology around my employer's products.
In the process, I found a newer such manual, independently developed by that company's subsidiary in Italy (in Italian, ovviamente!). In spite of an early decision of mine to refrain from translating Italian, though I speak it, I made an exception, and - after having obtained clearance from my boss - added some very useful/interesting/valuable parts of that Italian manual to the Brazilian edition of the American original.
The point is that if that (200 pp, A4-size, 2 columns crammed with 11-pt Helvetica text) manual were in German, for instance, I'd need a low-quality translation to check which parts of it - if any - I'd get professionally translated to include in the Brazilian version of that manual.
However... a smart client nowadays would use machine translation for that.
My take is that the only advantage of cheap, low-quality human translation over free online machine translation is that the former provides you with someone to BLAME! That's actually what you pay for, some kind of a "rental scapegoat". ▲ Collapse
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No one needs low-quality translation, and the question is perhaps not well phrased, but it is difficult, given the limitations on length.
However, there ARE occasions when clients do not need and cannot afford top-quality, polished translations, and gisting or a rough draft will do.
I used to work for an agency that sent large batches of e-mails and internal correspondence for translation, to be used as evidence in court or simply for the record.
Huge batch... See more No one needs low-quality translation, and the question is perhaps not well phrased, but it is difficult, given the limitations on length.
However, there ARE occasions when clients do not need and cannot afford top-quality, polished translations, and gisting or a rough draft will do.
I used to work for an agency that sent large batches of e-mails and internal correspondence for translation, to be used as evidence in court or simply for the record.
Huge batches of answers to questionnaires are another category I have translated.
The source material is not top quality. Typos and speling erros don't matter, proivded hte menaing is clear.
There is no need to reproduce them deliberately in the translation, as long as it gives the message as accurately as possible. However, if typos creep in and the odd formulation is literal and not very idiomatic, it is not important. It is not necessary to spend a lot of time proofreading and editing for these purposes.
In these days when some agencies count commas and so-called QA means accounting for every time I translate 3. in Danish as third in English ... (No, there is NOT a figure missing or incorrectly localized in the translation, that is how you localize it correctly!!) ...
You have to define what you mean by quality before you can discuss what low quality is. However, there will be occasions when 'draft quality' or a fast and unpolished translation is quite adequate for the purpose.
[Edited at 2015-12-16 09:58 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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Natalie Soper wrote:
You could argue that some people deserve low quality translations, but why would anyone need one?
That was exactly what I was going to say
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Natalie Soper wrote:
You could argue that some people deserve low quality translations, but why would anyone need one?
Exactly what I was about to say, Natalie. Surely no-one NEEDS a bad translation. They might not care about quality, but ... need? No.
| | | | Thayenga
Alemania
Local time: 11:30
inglés al alemán
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| Nobody needs bad translations | Dec 16, 2015 |
Jenny Forbes wrote:
Natalie Soper wrote:
You could argue that some people deserve low quality translations, but why would anyone need one?
Exactly what I was about to say, Natalie. Surely no-one NEEDS a bad translation. They might not care about quality, but ... need? No.
But some seem to think that money is the most important factor, so they'd rather have a translation of poor quality than pay for a high quality translation.
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Julian Holmes
Japón
Local time: 19:30
Miembro 2011
japonés al inglés
Chris S wrote:
Natalie Soper wrote:
You could argue that some people deserve low quality translations, but why would anyone need one?
That was exactly what I was going to say
Now, if a client asks me to do a low-quality translation because they don't 'need' a high-quality one, then I will tell them what they really need.
This is such a dopey question  since it might preclude the next question:
Will you lower your rates to deliberately do a lower quality translation if asked for?
| | | | Minna Bäckman
Finlandia
Local time: 12:30
sueco al finlandés
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| I guess I've encountered this one? | Dec 16, 2015 |
Finnish client who did not understand EU tender requirements well enough wanted to have a simple-language "bullet-point" translation of the text, no complex sentence structures. Did that, they were happy.
On the other hand, I would not have called it a "low-quality translation" and nor did they. And they paid quite well
[Edited at 2015-12-16 11:22 GMT]
| | | | | Yes, definitely | Dec 16, 2015 |
International projects are required to maintain bilingual workflow, which is often only a bureacratic requirements. They order all their documents translated, but these translations only need to be "present" and are never read or checked.
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