The inverse way of disrupting translation practice

I recall a sunny colleague calling me a Luddite on the Proz.com platform some years ago. The reason, vaguely recollected now, was that I chose to criticize a technology. It might have been translators using iPads, I don’t know. I confess to feeling jaded after reading numerous headlines about this or that technology increasing a translator’s productivity or how we should embrace AI, MT or some other technoacronym to bring home the bacon.

I also remember a translation agency owner (the agency, Antler Translation Services; Peter Wheeler the speaker) speaking at a New York Circle of Translators meeting in 1991. He spoke about translators pecking at a typewriter and fearing the desktop computer. That statement made a profound impression on me because a) I was a recent graduate with a translation diploma and b) I didn’t yet have a computer. I was enthusiastic, feeling paradoxically both new and at home among these translators who were challenging each other to move forward. Adopt the PC! seemed to be Mr. Wheeler’s proposed mantra.

We’ve come a long way in these intervening decades. That gentle push to embrace more efficient technologies has long been replaced by a less considerate and forceful thrust to board the fast-moving treadmill of technomarvels: CAT tools, TEnT tools, terminology extraction utilities, notebooks, laptops, mobile phones, file converters, project management and invoicing applications, webinars. They all march to the thrilling and shrilling marketing tune of each brand. And speaking of brand, we are told to imagine and develop our “personal brand” and speed network, smile and email our way into the hearts of new clients.

Your mind is not a cog. Don’t act like one.

But serious minds demand facts to support this whirlwind of tech-enabled innovation, creativity and get-the-rates-you-deserve chorus. No matter, the oft-cited Bureau of Labor figures extolling the double-digit year-on-year growth figures for the translation and interpreting profession will see us through.

Happy to quote these numbers, translation associations boost their MLM-grade conference offerings with promises of “networking that works” and other slick slogans. After all, hundreds and even thousands of members can’t all be wrong, now, can they? Is this the age of technomagic to transport us to a new era for translators? Can we really improve our lot as professional translators and the product of our labors with the flick of a technological wand? Call me a Luddite but I propose an antidigital approach to translation as a profession because I don’t care so much about my projected image as much as what I write in the form of translations.

I work with a team of translators. We use SDL Trados 2015. Our workstations hold 65 GB of RAM. All of our tools and applications reside in an internal cloud. That’s right—our desktop computers don’t have a hard drive to speak of. We enjoy a highly collaborative relationship with a team of workflow managers who take care of the mechanics of importing and exporting files, handling vendors and making sure our translation memories, termbases and other resources are on the right portals, waiting for us.

There are some unsettling trends that I thought were just my imagination, when I was working as an independent translator: not knowing how to use dictionaries, overdependence on Google hits to determine language usage, assessing translation quality by terminology choices, questionable research methods to determine sense and meaning in an original text or paragraph, overuse of bilingual dictionaries. I recognized some of these trends in the workplace, and they’re worrisome to me. These habits work to the detriment of two translation-related activities: reading and writing.

Reading is cheap and exposes us to a variety of genres and media, from advertisements to novels to specialized magazines and journals. Writing is likewise cheap and it can be done with almost anything over almost anything. I prefer the old writing instruments: pen or pencil, and a blank or lined sheet of paper. Before the reader tells me that reading or writing have little to do with advances in translation, productive tools and networking at conferences to get more clients, or raise rates to the level we all think we deserve, ask yourself: when was the last time you read something out loud? When was the last time you wrote a paragraph, a whole sheet describing, narrating or explaining anything?

Alone with your pen and paper, faced with the hum of your thoughts, try to make up a story, or describe an imaginary village or animal. Try rescuing a beloved teenage memory: your first day of driving a car, riding a bicycle, or seeing a sad face while riding the bus or subway. Consider what a dear friend told you about her day and try to put that in writing, just for yourself. Your mind, your hand, your eyes, your remembrances need no batteries. You don’t need to plug anything. Your high-definition screen in the mind helps you connect the dots.

Years ago I embarked on a sort of lone crusade to work more slowly, to give my eyes a little more time to read the originals I was given to translate, to read over the freshly mindbaked sentences I wrote on my CAT tool, to reconsider merging “segments” so that the language would flow more idiomatically and more naturally in written form. That endeavor, which I playfully called Keep calm and translate slowly, cost me dearly: rush-driven clients stopped calling me, tight deadlines deserted me, but I kept enjoying working with a select few clients who trusted me and with whom I developed lasting business relationships. But market forces being what they are don’t favor such unusual approaches and I was forced to go to the corporate world, where I am surrounded by technology. At least I am given enough time to work at my own pace as long as I am efficient.

Although our translation memories, built by other translators with different reading and writing habits, govern the way I review translations, whenever I am given a translation, I flex my mind muscles and put my own habits to work. I am free to apply my own research, reading and writing methods, techniques—not technologies— that bring me closer to the reader. I still harbor the hope that there is at least one reader who cares about language, about how things are written, who expects to savor a sentence, parse a paragraph, sense the syntax cadence that is carefully assembled for her use and decision-making. Because, no matter what technology you choose to translate with, the warm, distilled sense of human communication, whether oral or written, will always endure and transcend your technotoys.

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Taking the pulse of translation theories

If you are a translator or interpreter going to the upcoming ATA Conference in San Francisco, USA, consider performing this unscientific but social experiment: ask any of the veteran translators at the hotel lobby if they have a preferred translation theory.

If you get a hesitant reply, a stare or a shrug, don’t be discouraged. Or surprised. The more veteran the translator is, or the more steeped he/she is in the latest technologies or sales pitches for translation services, the less interested our colleague will be in (insert a derisive pause here) any translation theory.

Why is that? Glad you asked, because one of my current objectives as a PhD student at the Universidade de Aveiro – Universidade de Nova joint doctoral program in Translation and Terminology is to listen to, learn about and discuss relevant translation theories. By relevant theories I mean concepts that ordinary translators can apply in their workflows. For example, Eugene Nida’s literal-and-dynamic (or functional, as Nida claimed in later years) equivalence theory is rooted on biblical translations, a subject hardly relevant to commercial or technical translators today. That doesn’t make it irrelevant, however. But that’s a discussion for another day.

The writing of a translation is where the translation theories (i.e. our writing choices) are often applied.

And why, you may ask, translation theories should be relevant to the most important people in our profession —namely, our customers? They are, I would say, indirectly relevant to them. They don’t need to know them, but we do in order to base our translation decisions and provide adequate explanations for them.

One reason why exposing a customer to even a basic discussion of translation theories is unadvisable is that it can be dangerously confusing. For example, some customers already (and inadvertently) conflate two concepts: word-for-word (or literal) translation with a translation that is faithful to the original. While a customer may ask you to do a faithful translation (faithful to the meaning or spirit or intent of the original text —which, in Nida’s view, would be called a functional translation or, in Christiane Nord’s words, an instrumental translation— the selfsame client may bristle at not finding the same words (sometimes they’re false friends or false cognates) in your translation.

And some terminologists and terminology software advocates tend to muddle things up in this scenario by overemphasizing the importance or hierarchical relevance of a wordlist or glossary, or worse, by overselling the consistency between texts.

Studying and discussing translation theories and their specialized (i.e. arcane) terminology is par for the course in academic circles for translation studies. I recently expressed my view to one of my professors (in my very poor Portuguese, mind you) that we need to be the bridges between the world and the translation studies field to share these translation theories in an accessible language. I was given a reply that best attests to the surprise of making translation theories more accessible to the layman (“translation theory does not have esoteric language”). Still, that’s one of my objectives.

If you are a buyer of translation services, you may not need to know translation theories but you already know whether a text is well written or not. If you like to write, if you enjoy reading a well-composed document, you’re already knowledgeable in writing theory. The main bridge I propose for you to meet me half way is writing well for its intended purpose. I hope to meet you there soon.

Nondisclosure and noncompete agreements: some practical advice

Remember back when the only contract you had with a customer was your word of honor? Recall that time in the nebulous past when word-of-mouth meant someone recommended you (as a reliable translator, accountant, electrician, publisher, typographer, designer, etc.) and you got a new customer’s ear to start working on a new project?

Translators: Remember those days when all you had to sign was a one- or two-page agreement with a translation agency?

The more complex the organization, more paperwork has to be read, signed and dated. Having been in the marketplace as an independent professional and an employee translator for several software companies since the late 1990s, I’ve learned a thing or two about agreements, what to sign, what to return unsigned for clarification, and when to dispute a restrictive clause. When I wrote a weekly column for a Lakeland newspaper in 2004-2005, I was required to sign an agreement with the actual owner of the newspaper (a large New York-based company with the word TIME on it). The agreement basically took all my intellectual rights away in exchange for the paltry sum I was going to get paid. I challenged the highly restrictive language —after all, it meant, in part, that I couldn’t use my columns on other publications, websites, books or media. However, I had to relent because I was told that it was a standard agreement. My priority was to get published, not to challenge a point.

In large companies, signing nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) is par for the course because any employee working on a product (even writing translations for a product or service) may come in contact with privileged, confidential or proprietary information. Trade secrets have to be safeguarded, the logic goes. If you are an independent contractor, you might fear not signing everything that the company is forwarding you because you think you’d lose the client. Some companies have a right to impose highly restrictive NDAs. I once worked for a translation company specializing in clinical trial documentation; having been recommended by an esteemed colleague, I was in and started working for them in less than a month. One of the conditions, however, was that I was never to disclose the name of the company in any way. Since this particular limitation did not restrict my earning power or jeopardize my intellectual rights, I signed it.

I have worked with dozens of translation agencies over the years, and I have developed a kind of yardstick to gauge for which I would consider signing any agreement at all. Basically, the more paperwork a translation agency gives you to sign, the warier you should be. I mean, why the paranoia on the part of the agency? Why lawyering up to a professional translator or interpreter? If you have been burned by a motormouth translator who gave away confidential information or by an interpreter who tweeted key case data, the solution is not to add more restrictive operational clauses to your agreement, but to choose your translators and intepreters more wisely.

Another sticky issue is that of noncompete clauses. I remember signing a couple of agreements with translation agencies where a noncompete clause was included. In short, I was not to pursue business with the agency’s clients for 12 or more months after the agreement’s termination. I didn’t see the harm in signing on such clause, but reading comments from fellow translators about this kind of language gave me pause. Several colleagues had pointed out the unenforceability of noncompete clauses.

A recent article published in The Wall Street Journal (June 15, 2016, B8 section) shed some much-needed light on the matter. Publishing company Law360 and the New York Attorney General’s office reached a settlement under which noncompete provisions should be removed from employment contracts.

Similar situations are taking place elsewhere (see quote about sandwich chain Jimmy John’s below). Even the White House has expressed an opinion. These precedents are highly relevant to practicing translators, proofreaders, technical writers, graphic designers, interpreters and other so-called knowledge workers. Remember that noncompete clauses and nondisclosure agreements are just some of the many aspects in a contractual relationship with a customer or employer. You are encouraged to do due diligence, learn the main legal concepts and terms involved, read an agreement before signing it, ask sensible questions, challenge any clauses you disagree with and, if necessary, walk away.

Translation educators should also take part in the discussion. Along with the requisite business skills that any professional should cultivate, the legal knowledge necessary to navigate through these and other agreements and contracts is essential to nurture a professional image and foster genuine cooperation with your customers.

A reputational story

Introduction

Companies are concerned about their image, their brand, their standing. It’s nothing new. Old problems with new words. What was described as affecting the reputation and the good name of a company is not adjectivized as reputational.

If a company enjoys a place of high esteem among its peers and in the community, domestically and internationally, then that good name becomes valuable and acquires a monetary value. It is then used as currency to extend its influence, increase its market share and cement its reputation.

Translators and translation agencies have depended on name dropping (“IBM is one of our customers”) and certifications (“Member of ASETRAD” or “ATA-certified translator”) to preestablish their status and foster trust. Testimonials started to appear in the late 90s on company websites as well as on individual translator’s webpages. The problem I always saw with those testimonials was their anonymized nature. Here’s a current example:

First names, or initials, with no company affiliation. Hm, does that approach foster trust? Some fabricated reviews at websites such as Amazon created a bit of an uproar a few years back, what we would call escandalete in Spanish or furore in British English (or Italian). Compare this with an exemplary use of testimonials below:

The company Advanced Language Translations is using testimonials the way I think they should be used: who said what about your company. The downside? Testimonials may have a short shelf life because project managers, localization managers, purchasing staff and others in similar positions come and go. The main advantage of a testimonial is its focus when it is properly written. Keen eyes may have also noticed that none of the testimonials refer to competitive pricing or low rates but to “reasonable cost” and “on budget.” As a translator myself, I would love to work on one of their projects!

Reputation and references

Speaking of working for a company as a translator, I recently had a telephone interview with a headhunting agency for an 8-week project involving technical writing and Spanish translation (two of my specialty activities). I was required to provide two professional references, as the best practice in these interviews go. I keep a list of at least six, so I provided two of them within minutes. I was promised to get a call back that afternoon.

The phone rang as anticipated and the interviewer thanked me for the references, but made some comments about one of them, saying that they couldn’t use it because my reference wouldn’t divulge what kind of projects I had taken part in. Then, I offered other references, which I emailed immediately. Coincidentally, the person who turned out not to be an adequate reference for this job called me to tell me about his experience. This is a personal friend and a long-time client, mind you. His reason for not giving particulars to the interviewer? He considered the details of his projects to be confidential and he left the impression that he was a competitor of the interviewer’s company.

Although he gave the interviewer very positive comments on my professionalism and dependability, his earnest and strict approach to giving detailes as requested by the interviewer backfired. I did not get the job. The moral of the story for me: be selective about which references to offer for a particular job. Did my reputation suffer? I think not, since the headhunting agency was working for the actual customer and is contractually bound to find the most adept candidate for the project, not for themselves.

Branding the profession

Translators and translation agencies earn and lose customers by word of mouth, directly and indirectly, all the time. This does not necessarily mean that a particular translator or agency is incompetent or a poor provider, but that their fees or rates are outside the budgetary boundaries of a customer, or that the customer used other economic or social criteria to choose a different vendor (“Our new translator is easier to work with”). Due to the globalizing nature of the Internet and its tools, market encroachment, client poaching and the downward pressure on services fees have given reputation a sometimes undesirable fluidity.

This impermanent state of affairs has taken some old hands by surprise: accustomed to decent pre-Internet translation rates, they complain and lament the way clients come and go looking for the most competitive rates. And this is happening regardless of the translation provider’s solid reputation. What a translation company or a translator has invested decades in developing, their good name and good professional standing no longer seems to hold the same reputational value. Seasoned translators in developed countries such as Great Britain, France and the United States have groaned in hushed whispers, then in loud complaints, about the influx of so-called cheap providers from developing countries, as if there is some conspiracy behind them to undercut their market share and, of course, their reputation. If a customer prefers a Spanish translator living in China over another living in Spain, what’s the point in cultivating your good name?

Among the answers given to this dilemma by translation associations and so-called language consultants, I have seen an increase in presentations, webinars, brochures and similar vehicles to help translators and similar providers with marketing their services better and, lately in the first years of the 21st century, with branding their services. As an example, the American Translators Association’s conferences have held an increasing number of marketing sessions. Based on a visual assessment of ATA’s past conferences, we have the following:

In the span of 14 years, we see a dramatic increase in sessions targeting independent contractors (individual translators and interpreters) to educate them on the use of sales, marketing, branding and business techniques and tools. This development shows two things in my mind: a) an increased preoccupation on better ways to sell translation services and b) the transformation of ATA conferences from an educational event to a marketing one.

Of course, I agree that translators should cultivate a good professional name in order to optimize their word-of-mouth approach to finding and retaining customers. In my experience, customers worth retaining prefer a reliable service, a personal touch and negotiation skills to find a reasonable price worth paying. In the field of professional reliability, I’ve been intrigued by other online tools that might be of service to a translator or translation company.

The branding aspect works best with companies than with individuals. A brand is usually tied to a logo, a slogan and a single word to convey a positive image. Take IBM’s Think, for example. An individual translator or interpreter (or similar professional) would do better in creating and maintaining a good name or good reputation, however, as the branding approach is kind of silly and oversized. A translator who is too concerned about her brand risks projecting an unfocused view, a pretentiously sized corporate image that isn’t really there, just as the “We” statements in individual websites.

Separate but successful business endeavors

During the summer of 2015, when work volume was low, I started to sell items on eBay: electronics, audio equipment and other second-hand items, such as vinyl records. Selling successfully on eBay is mostly a matter of personal image: how fast you ship and how accurate is your description of the item being offered for auction or sale; in short, what good your word of honor is. Consequently, good eBay sellers take very good care of their reputation by fostering a climate of trust that will engender good reviews and addressing any problems with the customer as they arise.

I started to think about the reputational and economic value of my eBay reviews when I read the following from a recent buyer:

This positive feedback surely feeds one’s ego, but there are many potential buyers who read these reviews in order to guide their purchasing decisions. Would then it be appropriate to route potential translation customers to my eBay feedback page? From a business standpoint, I don’t see why not.

Conclusion

For individual translators, professional and personal references are still being used, along with a CV or resumé and sometimes a cover letter, to assess a candidate for a job or project. Although websites and directories are being consulted to find competent translators, they are just a couple of several components in an effective business strategy to find and retain customers by word of mouth and good reputation. Branding and marketing listicles are gimmicks that only benefit the consultant who offers them. Not all social media are amenable to foster trust or a good name, but try them you must in order to find for yourself —not by others’ opinions— whether these are tools worth using. In my long experience as a translator, a good reputation is built every time a project is delivered to specs or beyond expectations, every time I exchange polite and on-point communications, every single time I telephone a customer who is frustrated or who needs to discuss a delicate aspect of a project. No fancy website and no extensive blog nor Facebook posting can do that.

Safely disposing of confidential media

You’re familiar with confidential agreements asking for the return, disposal or destruction of confidential information belonging to the client. This information may be found in electronic files, paper files, emails, graphics, and media such as USB drives, CDs and DVDs. Getting rid of paper confidential material is pretty easy: you shred it. I use a crosscut paper shredder, the Black & Decker BD-890A. That way, every page and scrap of paper gets reduced to mulch.

But, what to do with DVDs or CDs containing client files? There are a few options for our peace of mind:

1. Chuck them in the trash
2. Shred them in a special shredder (which is more expensive)
3. Scratch the silvery side of each disk with a knife to make it unreadable
4. Drill holes into each disk (what I’ve done)

Putting confidential DVDs or CDs in the trash is the half-way method because someone hunting for stuff in your garbage may end up reading proprietary material. It’s a minuscule possibility but it’s better not to do it. I’ve seen paper shredders that can also destroy CDs and DVDs, but they employ high-torque motors (6 to 9 rpm) that increase the price of the shredder. For the occasional disposal of confidential media, it’s too expensive an option.

I’ve applied method #3 above and felt good about myself, confident that I’ve met the spirit and the letter of the law in keeping confidential information out of the hands of unauthorized third parties. However, drilling holes into the media started to seem a more elegant solution. Here’s how I did it:

Use a slender drill bit, like the one shown in the picture. I’ve used a 2.38 mm (3/32 inch) bit to avoid cracking the polycarbonate of the DVD.

Insert that drill bit into your power drill and use a high torque setting. That way, you don’t have to press too hard onto the media to make the holes and you won’t risk ruining your drill bit.

Drilling into a plastic substance like polycarbonate carries a very low risk of having shards fly into your face and eyes, but use some wrapping material or sandwich the disks in a way that any pieces and bits are contained inside the wrapping. I used a very low-tech material: newspapers (see below).

The result is confidential DVDs with several perforations that make them unusable and unreadable. Then I tossed them in the trash, making sure that I crossed out any identifying markings.

Making sure that you take proper care of confidential and proprietary materials from your customer is not just good business practice and a polite way of maintaining your relationship, but it is crucial in this day of cybercrimes affecting companies big and small.

The same destructive method can be applied to hard drives. Regardless of the erasure method employed, data can still be retrieved by determined information thieves. Since it’s better to be safe than sorry, use a power drill on a high torque setting, mounted on a conventional power drill clamp to make those orifices safely on a hard drive. Remember to wear goggles.

 

 

 

If you fall down, don’t cry and go to your mommy

Most translators are avid readers of printed books. I recently received an email alert from one of my public libraries, the Bay Village Public Library, to tell me a copy of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell had finally arrived. I was walking to the entrance when I noticed a tall young mother and her 4- or 5-year-old boy gently chatting while walking in front of me to the entrance door. The boy suddenly tripped and hit his knee. He started to cry just like little tykes cry when they fall without serious consequences.

The mother helped him up and picked him up in her arms, consoling him while walking towards a small reading garden instead of the entrance door. For some reason, that moment immediately made me think of what the boy’s father would have likely done instead: dad would have stopped to turn towards the boy and say something like:

– Are you okay, David? It’s just a scratch on your knee.

– You ok, buddy? (helping the kid up and observing the scratch) It’s okay, just a scratch. Let’s go to the library!

Or phrases to that effect. Or maybe the father will turn the little painful event into playtime or downplay it with fun. A recent article in The Wall Street Journal pointed to the role fathers play in child development when they (the fathers) are allowed to engage in hyperactive play. Another article I read a while ago spoke of how children learn emotional strength by playing with their dad. The article, which also appeared in The Wall Street Journal, points to the element of risk in fatherplay and its value in child development:

Many fathers walk a fine line during play between safety and risk, allowing children to get minor injuries without endangering them, says a 2011 study of 32 subjects in the Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics. Researchers say this can instill emotional intelligence under fire, and an ability to take prudent risks and set limits with peers.

The hyperactive play of fathers is beneficial for child development.

Going out in the world as translators, businesspeople, doctors or athletes, we encounter situations that will cause minor and major hurts, from breaking up with a girlfriend to losing a cherished client. When a painful situation is a first for us, we take a bit longer to process our newfound feelings and thoughts on how to move forward. As we gain experience, we learn to control those feelings of pain, frustration, disappointment, etc. and also learn to heal up faster.

Learning to stand for oneself with father-play.

I recently lost a dear client after two years of successful engagements. It was my fault. I made the usual amends: apologies in writing and on the phone, offering to provide a discount on my next project, even go on “probation” for a few months as “punishment.” I didn’t wallow in self-pity nor did I slump in a deep depression, despite the fact that losing this client meant losing 30% of my annual income. Supported by the mental discipline learned since childhood, I thrived and prevailed. Sadly for the customer, he decided to do the politically correct thing and stick to some obscure principle of severely punishing a vendor for a minor mistake.

Like I said, it was my fault and I corrected the error. And this was not an error of the magnitude usually contemplated in Errors & Omissions clauses or policies, even though I keep an E&O insurance policy current at the request of this particular client. Which brings to mind an interesting thought experiment: let’s assume that I had provided a faulty translation that was printed on costly paper and distributed to this client’s customer base. Let’s assume this error cost my client $5,500.00 in extra printing costs, for which I would be responsible through my E&O —or professional liability— policy. Fine. What do businesspeople do in this instance? Client invokes the E&O provision, vendor assumes responsibility, E&O insurance company pays for the damage and possibly raises vendor’s policy premium a bit. In the end, both client and vendor keep doing business. Otherwise, what is the point of an E&O policy anyways? Wouldn’t it be an act of bad faith to ask your vendor for an E&O policy or some other remedy in case of an error or omission, only to let the vendor pay up and then cut him off?

So, I tend to view my lost-client experience as a mother overly comforting a child who just peeled his knee: the hurt was not catastrophic and the kid was able to get up and walk without any lasting injury. The excessive comfort provided by the mother seemed to say, in this parallel, that the injury was greater than it really was. What would happen when the kid becomes a man and his mom is no longer around? Who is going to be the biggest comforter? An insurance policy? The government? A punitive contract clause?

Speaking of contract clauses, agreements entered by clients and translation vendors have the simple purpose of stating the scope of products or services provided by the vendor, performance conditions and rewards, as well as consequences for nonperformance. Some customers, afraid perhaps that an error or omission in a translation would be catastrophic, tend to include a harshly punitive clause in their NDAs (nondisclosure agreements) or translation agreements with contractors, making the latter 100% responsible for all claims and damages resulting from agreement noncompliance. If you were the translator doing a job worth $550 for your client, how does that clause square with a potential error in that translation job? If the translation is faulty, are you, the translator, subject to a lawsuit, legal expenses and such?

To be able to foster and maintain healthy business relationships between clients and translation vendors, a sincere discussion of errors and remedies should take place, as well as what-if scenarios and how each party would act. We could take the overprotective, “hovering motherly” route (no offense to the mothers out there) and ask for full protection in case of error or injury at the expense and to the detriment of a business relationship…or man up and proceed in a way that is fair, disciplined and trust-building to both parties.

Please be patient with us translators

Translators and translation agencies are an interesting bunch. Sometimes we act like second or third children too eager to please our elders. Every single website promoting translation services almost invariably offers the same thing: hundreds of languages and thousands of translators and interpreters at your disposal. No subject matter is too esoteric or insignificant, no document too small or too unimportant. We aim to please.

Some of this eagerness is wholly sincere: we do care about languages and about precision in writing the best translation copy for you. But this desire to meet your demands may also betray a deep insecurity: we swim in a sea of saturated language service providers, with many bilingual amateurs and self-aggrandizing entrepreneurs looking for the next success story and fighting for customers like you, attaching to your business like remoras. We are afraid to be undervalued, underappreciated and ignored by you.

This insecurity drives us to show a little resentment towards amateur translators and Johnny-come-latelies who will snatch clients from us. It’s like a Cold War movie or a poor man’s John Le Carré novel: we want to rescue you from them as James Bond, but we end up being a copy of Johnny English instead.

The translation industry is highly fragmented, with very large language service providers (LSPs in our jargon) gobbling up the large government and corporate contracts because they have the marketing muscle and the human resources for them. In America, as well as in many other industrialized nations, the bulk of the translation services providers consists of small businesses, 5 to 50 strong, some being general-purpose agencies and some boutique translation companies. The rest is individual practitioners. Unlike milk producers in California, our industry does not have a slogan like and TV campaigns to bring awareness to the powerful resource we can be for your company.

In this sea of confusion, it’s commonplace to see providers overpromising, overreaching and sometimes underperforming, which hurts other, better prepared providers. So, if that has been your experience, your new, better qualified translation provider may have to start from scratch to rebuild your trust in our services. Hence my request to be patient with us multilingual folks.

I recently penned a comment to a colleague’s sincere plea to improve and unify our public relations efforts and remind others out there that human translation is far better than machine (or software-driven) translation. This is what I wrote:

Subscribing to the right trade and business magazines and newspapers also helps to be aware not just of what’s going on with translators and interpreters elsewhere, but also with sister professions, such as graphic designers, information designers, technical communicators and writers, and so on. Many of our struggles as a profession are not unique to us, and knowing what other trades and professions are doing in the public arena can be very informative, educational and helpful.

After reading an article by graphic designer Ilise Benun in the HOW magazine, regarding how to negotiate fees for freelancers, I contacted her for permission to use parts of her article in my blog (wordsmeet.wordpress.com). She graciously granted it, and she’s now one of my LinkedIn contacts.

We need outside speakers at our ATA chapters and annual ATA conferences to learn what others are doing to bring not just attention but honor and respectability to our profession. We are too isolated. Isolated people tend to believe too much in their own fears and paranoia. We become so hungry for solutions that anyone with a megaphone and charisma can sell us their agenda.

I don’t think we should approach PR from our fears of being undervalued or ignored as a storied profession, as any fear-based campaign can become a self-fulfilling prophecy and undo our best intentions and efforts.

So, next time a translation company or translator comes knocking, please be patient. They’re trying to be as helpful as they can in a competitive and fragmented world.

Judging a translator by his rate is like judging a book by his cover

You must have seen them by now: dozens of websites of translation companies and individual translators strive to drum up business by bringing the fees discussion front and center.

There’s nothing wrong about transparency. After all, you, the translation client, may not have the time to haggle over prices when your multilingual or bilingual project is on the clock. This move seems to be responsive to the time needs of customers: more time discussing the particulars of a project, less time discussing about prices and price comparisons. When I was doing project management for a New York-based translation agency, the policy we were given about this was as follows. I’m paraphrasing from memory:

If the client tells us that he found a better price elsewhere after we gave them a quote for the project, invite the client to produce the alternate quote, point by point, and we will match it.

This sounds more like a challenge, doesn’t it? A gentle nudge to say If you can spare the time to bring that quote to us, we’ll match it! and hoping that you’ll accept theirs instead.

A small and yet unscientific sample of translation companies offering their prices for all to see include the following:

icanlocalize.com offers rates upfront.

Aussie firm Straker Translations offers fees.

1Translate.com’ sampling of its fees

Naturally, you can draw your own conclusions. While reading the spiffy descriptions of these companies, I found this for 1Translate.com:

1translate was founded in 2001. Prior to that, translation was our hobby. We translated a few web sites and did some work for Google when they were just starting. We soon realized that there was a lot of demand for language translation services.

Quite telling, isn’t it?

Publishing rates in this fashion is, to me, a disservice to the customer. When cultivating a relationship with a customer, it shouldn’t be about shoving a menu of prices. The long-time customers that I have been cultivating and who still come for me for their Spanish information design services (including desktop publishing and voiceover services) usually send me an email to let me know they need me to do this or that job for them. Our mutual trust is such that there’s no discussion of prices, unless it’s something that has to be rushed or that entails a very peculiar treatment. Time is of the essence. The most important thing for these customers (among which I count Sesame Street and Trumbull Industries), the first thing they want to know is When can you do this for me? Fees, rates, etc. are a secondary consideration.

The promise of speed in service

Imagine yourself in the driver’s seat of a Bugatti Veyron, the world’s fastest automobile. The rush, the adrenaline pumping into your temples, the tunnel vision and the blurry sides of the road as you travel at 267 mph. Imagine running your business the way you’d run in this beautifully designed car. Is speed desirable in both scenarios? Maybe not.

The Bugatti Veyron Super Sport

Noted former Olympian and motivational speaker Vince Poscente wrote that the rules governing the well-known triangle of time, quality and cost have changed in what he charmingly calls The Age of Speed. He maintains that you can get top quality at the right price, and fast because new speedy technologies make this possible. More on this in a jiffy.

Like New York City’s skyscrapers, speed awe us the higher it goes. When I first visited the Big Apple and saw the Brooklyn Bridge and some of Lower Manhattan’s man-made towers of steel and mirror glass, I was amazed and nothing else seemed to beat the size and grandeur of this spectacle, an ongoing show for the masses.

We all like speed in different settings, from the gearhead with his love for fast vehicles to the bungee jumper to the fighter jet pilot. Speed can be measured in time and distance, and time is our main concern here as business owners. Time to get a loan approved, time to hear back from a prospective customer, time to market our new product, etc.

My goal in this article is not to tell you how to do your job faster or better. In the short space of a few paragraph, I hope to persuade you to stop and think about the priorities in your business that call for additional time to accomplish —and you already know they take additional time.

Back to the age of speed, Mr. Poscente is, like most motivational speakers, half right and obvious. Of course some things can be made with a higher level of quality, faster and cheaper. But services or certain products are not things. These things are supported by craftsmen, people who love their job, people who are making this world a better place thanks to the services they provide.

Take your most recent client: how long did it take you to bring him in to use your services or buy your products? Maybe weeks, months or years, correct? Regardless of the medium of contact or communication, from zippy email campaigns to ubiquitous phone calls, some businesses relationships cannot be rushed into being. Consider the following example.

I recently visited the Best Buy store in Avon looking for a netbook. A helpful employee dressed in traditional Best Buy blue garb greeted me and answered my questions in a clear and professional way; then he proceeded to push a thin folder with Geek Squad material into my hand, prompting me to take it. I said I didn’t need it or want it, but he didn’t listen. What happened next?

I’ve been a Best Buy customer for many years, so I won’t let an improperly trained employee steer me away from the shop. Perhaps he was motivated to do or achieve something fast, like how many Geek Squad folders he could deliver to walk-ins.

You may have recently read about the arrival of the iPhone 5 in a few weeks from now. It’s designed to be speedier and take advantage of 4G LTE networks, much faster than the old 3G or 4G networks of yore. But faster is not necessarily a better trait in a technology, and some technologies provide counterproductive results if they perform faster than desired.

Consider the newest A6 core designed for the iPhone 5. A technical analysis, as reported by Ars Technica[1], revealed that the core blocks were put manually, not by using software, which would be the so-called more intuitive way of speeding things up. Notes iFixit’s Miroslav Djuric, as reported in the Ars Technica site:

“It looks like the ARM core blocks were laid out manually—as in, by hand,” iFixit’s Miroslav Djuric said via e-mail. “A manual layout will usually result in faster processing speeds, but it is much more expensive and time-consuming.”

In physics, there’s a concept called terminal velocity. In layman’s terms, an object moving at a certain speed achieves terminal velocity, which is a constant value of speed, when confronted with the opposing force of say, a fluid or the force of gravity. Let’s look at this from a business point of view. Suppose your secretary types at 75 words per minute. You hired her because she’s a fast typist at the computer, knows how to compose business correspondence and makes very few, if any, typos. There are people out there who can type faster than that, and slower than that, like 40 words per minute, which is the acceptable minimum in most workplaces. Suppose now that you need to send out a very important letter to a client in France, in English, within 30 minutes. You met this prospect at a trade show, shared business cards and struck up a positive and enriching conversation. He wanted to receive some samples, but that time was not the right time. Today you received an email requesting said samples.

As an experienced and effective business owner, you can’t possibly just reply with a short email saying “Confirmed receipt of request for samples. Expect them next week. Your signature.” You are dealing with a new client, a promising prospect overseas, and he wants to see samples of your products! A hastily made email won’t do him justice, wouldn’t you agree? A letter, even if it is emailed as an attachment, is your best shot.

So you write up a draft for your secretary to type up, format in company template with logo, letterhead, the whole bit. You will then have it printed out in laser color, sign it yourself, scan it and send it to your French customer as an enclosure in a return email. The question is, do you want your secretary to hurry up and type it faster than usual?

Rome wasn’t built in a day, goes the saying. Tasks and projects that require attention to detail can seldom fulfill their goal if done faster than it is advisable to do. Big decisions in business require quality time set aside to make them, but only experience, trial and error and focus can help us weed out the inconsequential decisions from the really big ones.

I work with words every day, and I have to choose them carefully for my customers. I can translate some documents very, very fast and produce a highly efficient product. But other documents require more research, more reading, more formatting and more consultations with a client. With an eye set on what my client needs and not what my clock is looking like, I hope to continue to serve my clientele with the same gusto and drive that moved me to write this for you.

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[1] http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/09/detailed-analysis-of-apple-a6-core-reveals-layout-done-by-hand/ as published on September 25, 2012. Viewed on October 3, 2012.

Translators will always be wanted

I recently answered a poll at the popular site Proz. The question was Would you recommend translation as a career to future generations? There were over a dozen comments by the participants.

Understandably, some translators are concerned about finding direct clients or retaining the ones they got. Others doubt because technologies may replace our craft. Here’s my answer:

Absolutely, a resounding YES

I’ve been a full-time translator, often freelancing, sometimes inhousing, for the last 19+ years in America (oh, sorry, the U.S.A.) –I was born in Argentina.

I am not afraid of new technologies, Google, artificial intelligence or other tools because I don’t confuse excellent writing with so-called productivity. Translators who write very well are hardly in danger of being replaced by technology (how unimaginative!) or low-cost translators in third- and fourth-world countries.

Translation requires passion as do other professions and crafts, but excelling at writing in your own mother tongue is so germane to our occupation that you can’t be a good or successful translator unless you write very, but very well.

Our profession also requires an understanding and command of translation techniques and strategies, something you learn from translation theory. Don’t get me wrong, I am not talking about ivory-tower, only-for-academics theory. But it is required to understand why some texts can be translated in one way and other texts in another.

Finally, excellent translators know how to read and why (this reminds me of a Harold Bloom book I just purchased and that I am impatient to start reading!). My best friends are books (sorry, human best friends!). They’re always there, they help me reflect on what is said and how it is said.

Loving languages or being a polyglot are not enough to become a prosperous translator (I am using ‘prosperous’ here with liberty). You have to love to write, and write well. Anything else is secondary.

The poll and comments can be found here.