| Pages in topic: [1 2] > | Do you submit feedback when a certain translator's jobs that you review are consistently AWFUL? Thread poster: Adieu
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Adieu 
Ukrainian to English
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At what point do you notify a PM that someone is lazy, incompetent, and utterly subpar compared to their other translators?
How do you clearly communicate that this is a real issue and you aren't just being petty or in a mood?
| | | | | Feedback is important, even if it is a critcism | Sep 27, 2021 |
Well,
If it really is this consistently awful, I think it is better to submit a honest, but not offending, feedback. Euphemism and being slightly indirect about your criticism can be really helpful, but you have to balance that euphemism with honesty.
Try to prove your points by using examples of the carelessness (and any other issues) of the individual you are evaluating.
Do not loose your cool, but be firm and assertive about how this situation is prejudicing fo... See more Well,
If it really is this consistently awful, I think it is better to submit a honest, but not offending, feedback. Euphemism and being slightly indirect about your criticism can be really helpful, but you have to balance that euphemism with honesty.
Try to prove your points by using examples of the carelessness (and any other issues) of the individual you are evaluating.
Do not loose your cool, but be firm and assertive about how this situation is prejudicing for you and everybody that works with the individual in question.
Feedback IS very important after all. For everyone involved, it is a mean to achieve improvements. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Kevin Fulton
United States
Local time: 10:30
German to English
| I am very fortunate | Sep 27, 2021 |
For the past 10 years or so I've been working with a group of highly-competent translators whose work needs almost no revision; occasionally a homophone or similar error slips through the spelling check, or a comma needs to be added or deleted, but no rewriting is required. It's like free money.
However, in past years when I've been asked to edit the work of translators unfamiliar to me, I never hesitated to comment on the quality of their work.
[Edited at 2021-09-27 22:21 ... See more For the past 10 years or so I've been working with a group of highly-competent translators whose work needs almost no revision; occasionally a homophone or similar error slips through the spelling check, or a comma needs to be added or deleted, but no rewriting is required. It's like free money.
However, in past years when I've been asked to edit the work of translators unfamiliar to me, I never hesitated to comment on the quality of their work.
[Edited at 2021-09-27 22:21 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | I always send feedback | Sep 27, 2021 |
I try to remember to say something positive as well as pointing out the negative things. A colleague did this for me when I started out, and it was very helpful!
The compliments make the criticism less painful, and it is important to know when you are doing well, to keep on the same way, as well as to be told where there is room for improvement!
If a translation is really hopeless, I stop proofreading and offer to translate the text again from scratch. I have only done this on... See more I try to remember to say something positive as well as pointing out the negative things. A colleague did this for me when I started out, and it was very helpful!
The compliments make the criticism less painful, and it is important to know when you are doing well, to keep on the same way, as well as to be told where there is room for improvement!
If a translation is really hopeless, I stop proofreading and offer to translate the text again from scratch. I have only done this once or twice, but I would not hesitate! It may not take longer, and it is far less frustrating than trying to patch up a hopeless text.
Assuming you really know what you are doing, final result will be more consistent and better quality. ▲ Collapse
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Adieu
Ukrainian to English
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TOPIC STARTER
I don't bully noobs who are visibly improving.
I am talking about shameless confirmers of walls of untouched MT intermixed with so-so TM matches that haven't even been checked for accuracy or touched up to use the same terminology, format, and style.
You know the type: a mix of aggressive capitalization and no capitalization, mix of bullets with periods, semicolons, and no punctuation, 2-3 different date formats, two or more name and title formats that aren't from the s... See more I don't bully noobs who are visibly improving.
I am talking about shameless confirmers of walls of untouched MT intermixed with so-so TM matches that haven't even been checked for accuracy or touched up to use the same terminology, format, and style.
You know the type: a mix of aggressive capitalization and no capitalization, mix of bullets with periods, semicolons, and no punctuation, 2-3 different date formats, two or more name and title formats that aren't from the source text, etc.
If the output vaguely resembles grammatically correct sentences in the target language, they think their job is done. Content? Style? Terminology? Nope never heard of it ctrl-enter-submit
[Edited at 2021-09-28 00:42 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Feedback is part of the review | Sep 28, 2021 |
In most cases when I do reviews, I do not know the name of the original translator, so I would not know if they were consistent in their quality (or lack of).
A review serves two purposes: first, to deliver a flawless result to the end client; and second, to assess the quality of the translation. Some agencies ask for feedback when delivering a review. If they don't expressly ask for it, I will only give feedback if the translation was exceptionally poor (or, in some cases, if it wa... See more In most cases when I do reviews, I do not know the name of the original translator, so I would not know if they were consistent in their quality (or lack of).
A review serves two purposes: first, to deliver a flawless result to the end client; and second, to assess the quality of the translation. Some agencies ask for feedback when delivering a review. If they don't expressly ask for it, I will only give feedback if the translation was exceptionally poor (or, in some cases, if it was exceptionally good).
In specialised translation, you can have cases where a translator was a good linguist but a poor specialist and it shows. You can have cases where the translator was a good specialist but not really a wordsmith. Due to the lack of specialists, agencies often assign people to projects who could better apply their talents elsewhere. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | A bit of humour... | Sep 28, 2021 |
since I'm usually paid by the hour, I point out to the agency that they would save a lot of money if they changed translator... 
| | | | Laura Kingdon
United Kingdom
Local time: 15:30
Member (2015)
French to English
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| Specific examples | Sep 28, 2021 |
If it's obviously the same person consistently delivering unacceptably poor quality, then I'll let the PM know. You can show that you're not simply being petty by giving specific examples of clear errors that the person has made. These should be as blatant and objective as possible; for example, I did a review recently where the translator had translated a word meaning "tablet" as "monoclasticity", which no one could possibly argue is correct.
If you're being paid by the word, then... See more If it's obviously the same person consistently delivering unacceptably poor quality, then I'll let the PM know. You can show that you're not simply being petty by giving specific examples of clear errors that the person has made. These should be as blatant and objective as possible; for example, I did a review recently where the translator had translated a word meaning "tablet" as "monoclasticity", which no one could possibly argue is correct.
If you're being paid by the word, then you could also say that the translation quality is too low and that you'll need a higher rate to cover the extra time it will take you to review the file. If you're being paid hourly, then Giovanni's advice to tell the agency they could save money by hiring a different translator is absolutely correct. ▲ Collapse
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Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 15:30
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Rogério Ribeiro wrote:
.....Do not loose your cool....
!
| | | | | My experience | Sep 29, 2021 |
Over the years I’ve seen the good, the bad and even the ugly until experience told me to never accept a job (translation, editing, proofreading or whatever) without having a good look at it. This means that sometimes I have to say to the agency “I’m sorry, this text doesn't need proofreading or even editing, it needs retranslating”. Very, very occasionally (one hand is enough to count the number of times) they ask me to (re)translate the text. This also means that most of the translation... See more Over the years I’ve seen the good, the bad and even the ugly until experience told me to never accept a job (translation, editing, proofreading or whatever) without having a good look at it. This means that sometimes I have to say to the agency “I’m sorry, this text doesn't need proofreading or even editing, it needs retranslating”. Very, very occasionally (one hand is enough to count the number of times) they ask me to (re)translate the text. This also means that most of the translations I edit are good or even excellent and in this last case I always send a note to the agency saying “please extend my sincere congratulations to the translator”. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 16:30
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
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Tom in London wrote: Rogério Ribeiro wrote:
.....Do not loose your cool.... YIKES !
How many dots are there in ellipses in your town, Tom?
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 15:30
Member (2008)
Italian to English
| Never mind that | Sep 29, 2021 |
Never mind that. People who don't know the difference between "lose" and "loose" should not be criticising someone else's English.
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| In that case I had better retire at once! | Sep 29, 2021 |
Tom in London wrote:
Never mind that. People who don't know the difference between "lose" and "loose" should not be criticising someone else's English.
I know the difference in my head, but my fingers don´t.
I have been struggling with keyboards for fifty years, and I still cannot promise that a mistake will never get past my final chek. (sic)
You cannot see how may times I have stopped and corrected typos, just typing this post. Or gone back. It drives me mad, but I can't type! Unfortunately my neat and legible handwriting does not fit the bill for most jobs, so I have to compromise.
But I look leniently on other people's mistakes that could simply be typos.
| | | | | Wow, I'd croak if I had to hand-write all my translations! | Sep 29, 2021 |
Christine Andersen wrote:
It drives me mad, but I can't type! Unfortunately my neat and legible handwriting does not fit the bill for most jobs, so I have to compromise.
... and the first time I got a PC all to myself was in the mid-noughties, I think. Anyway, this thread has little to do with typos, it's about people who consistently deliver awful translations. Many of them know how not to do so but are just lazy, while others are simply incapable of doing the job. And it often takes profound intuition to tell the work of the former from the work of the latter because there are but few people who really enjoy doing brain-racking work, of which translation is a species, so people cut corners. I know one person here on KudoZ who definitely gets their share of translation jobs, but if I were to decide, I'd give them zero jobs just on account of the quality of their numerous KudoZ replies. I've written lots of reviews commenting on other people translations, so my take on this is to only roast the translator's mistakes – especially those which, I believe, they could have avoided by trying harder – without ever getting personal (I'm sure most people on this forum will know this principle without me telling them). And, as they say over here, you shouldn't ever say good things about a translator's work because this tends to dull their writing skills. Never having your translations roasted is about the best thing you could expect by way of praise
[Edited at 2021-09-29 12:59 GMT]
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