A non-native client who thinks he knows my native language better than me!

Callum Walker wrote:

I'm looking for some guidance with regard to a situation which has been on-going for many weeks now, and frankly, is beginning to irritate me immensely.

On the 10th August, I accepted a proofreading project through an agency based in Ukraine of a document originally written in Russian but translated into English (my native language). The original translation had clearly been done by a non-native speaker of English and was naturally very poorly done; this required a vast amount of editing and correction. As such, I charged slightly higher than my usual proofreading rate (since, in essence, what I was doing was actually nearer to translation than proofreading!). Anyway, I submitted the completed proofread document, which I believed was very well written, and was probably about a million times better than the original translation, only to receive an email back from the client asking me to "read it through again, checking the English translation with the Russian original". I did this, and made one or two very minor stylistic changes (nothing that would constitute an error), and then re-submitted the document.

Several days later, I received an email stating pretty much the same thing: "read it through again, making sure that the English translation closely matches the expressions in the RUssian original". So again, I did this for the client, going through the (very long) document, checking each sentence against the original corresponding sentence. No problems found once again. I made one or two (once again) stylistic changes, but again, nothing that was actually a mistake. I emailed the document back, explaining that the reason that the English did not closely match the Russian is because languages, by their very nature, are different. English expresses ideas and concepts in a different way to Russian. Just because something is said in one way in Russian, it does not mean that you can directly transfer that concept into English word-for-word. I did however say to them that if they had specific issues, please highlight them or comment on them to bring them to my attention, and that I can pay it special attention. I explained that I cannot devote the time to look through the entire 10,000 document every few days to search for some tiny inconsistency which they believed to have found.

And once again, I got an email back, this time with highlighted sections... but only on the first two pages of a 17 page document. The instruction was "to read through the rest of the document and make similar changes". Apparently they didn't have time to read through the rest of the document. So I made some changes (which didn't really need doing) on the first two pages and explained that I would do no further unless they gave me some constructive feedback.

And this has continued since then, to the extent that they have actually started to 'correct' my English (which I must re-iterate, is my native language). But these 'corrections' they are making are frankly wrong - they are poor from every possible angle: grammar, vocabulary, syntax etc. I have re-corrected their mistakes and I have asked them to respect my professional opinion as a native speaker.

The problem is that I can just see this continuing for ever - it has now been almost a month since I accepted the job, and it is really interfering with my other work. I have explained to them that I cannot keep doing this for them because I have other project commitments, but I fear that this will not matter to them.

Firstly, how do I address this attitude of theirs that "they know English better than me" (the client being a Russian or Ukrainian native speaker, and myself being an English native speaker)?

And secondly, should I charge extra for this continuous re-proofing?

My fear is that they have asked me to edit certain sections so many times that it is becoming 'over-edited' and is actually taking away from the simplicity and accuracy of the original work which I did. They are almost making me turn this document into one which is written in "Russ-glish" (yes, that is my attempt at combining Russian and English), and I'm worried because I'm almost tempted to just humour them so that I can be done with this document. But that of course goes against my translation ethics: that translations should be natural, accurate and correct in the target language.

Help please!

Tatyana Oleneva wrote:

"according to the EN 15038 Translation Industry Standard (adopted by the European Committee) the editor cannot be held responsible for the translator's product -- the translator has the prerogative of accepting or rejecting the editor's suggestions and is therefore responsible for the final quality of work."