| Stron w wątku: [1 2] > | Unprofessional "proofreading" Autor wątku: Tunde Sele
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Tunde Sele 
Rumunia
Local time: 02:33
angielski > węgierski
+ ...
Hi all!
I am very furious, so I would like to share what happened to me a couple of minutes ago. I am really interested in your opinion!
I was contacted by an agency, they accepted my rate, I had to do a test translation, it was quite easy..so everything fine! Today, I received their feedback. They stated that my translation DOES NOT MATCH the translation they have...are they serious? Two linguists will never translate the same text in the same way. I kindly asked them to have... See more Hi all!
I am very furious, so I would like to share what happened to me a couple of minutes ago. I am really interested in your opinion!
I was contacted by an agency, they accepted my rate, I had to do a test translation, it was quite easy..so everything fine! Today, I received their feedback. They stated that my translation DOES NOT MATCH the translation they have...are they serious? Two linguists will never translate the same text in the same way. I kindly asked them to have a native proofreader evaluate my work because I am confident with it! It is absolutely hilarious! Is this a joke? I've never met such an unprofessional way of evaluating test translations!
What do you think about this? ▲ Collapse
| | | | | They test you, and you test them | Mar 13, 2014 |
If you what you say is true, you're lucky to have learned it now. This information will save you the headache that would inevitably come from working with them.
[Edited at 2014-03-13 20:36 GMT]
| | | | Tunde Sele
Rumunia
Local time: 02:33
angielski > węgierski
+ ...
NOWY TEMAT
Mikhail Kropotov wrote:
If you what you say is true, you're lucky to have learned it now. This information will save you the headache that would inevitable come from working with them.
You're probably right, but in this situation I really can't think about the positive side of all this. I am simply shocked that this could really happen.
| | | | | Tails and legs | Mar 13, 2014 |
Someone famously said "Calling a tail a leg does not make it a leg."
This agency may like to call themselves an agency, but it does not mean they are necessarily professional or trustworthy. Ask them for written feedback on your work; this will give you another opportunity to evaluate their communication with their translators, and how serious they are.
If this gets you nowhere, put it down to experience and move on. Lots of serious agencies out there; don't waste your ... See more Someone famously said "Calling a tail a leg does not make it a leg."
This agency may like to call themselves an agency, but it does not mean they are necessarily professional or trustworthy. Ask them for written feedback on your work; this will give you another opportunity to evaluate their communication with their translators, and how serious they are.
If this gets you nowhere, put it down to experience and move on. Lots of serious agencies out there; don't waste your time with someone who wastes yours.
Best of luck. ▲ Collapse
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Mikhail Kropotov wrote:
They test you, and you test them
If you what you say is true, you're lucky to have learned it now. This information will save you the headache that would inevitable come from working with them.
| | | | Gerard de Noord
Francja
Local time: 01:33
Członek ProZ.com
od 2003
angielski > niderlandzki
+ ...
| Don't look back | Mar 13, 2014 |
Mikhail Kropotov wrote:
They test you, and you test them
If you what you say is true, you're lucky to have learned it now. This information will save you the headache that would inevitably come from working with them.
Cheers,
Gerard
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I think one lesson to learn from this is to politely decline to do test translations unless they're for specific jobs that you're confident of getting. Otherwise, do a few in subjects that you're interested in, put them on your website and/or ProZ profile, and refer potential customers to them.
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philgoddard wrote:
I think one lesson to learn from this is to politely decline to do test translations unless they're for specific jobs that you're confident of getting. Otherwise, do a few in subjects that you're interested in, put them on your website and/or ProZ profile, and refer potential customers to them.
I do the same, though some companies are rather inflexible in their routines without necessarily being less than nice to work with. In some cases all of the daily work with translators is done by a PM who is a nice person but can't dispense with procedures designed by the owner or some other higher-up. So I let them have their sample, whis is all the better if they're impressed with my skills even before real work starts. On the other hand, if they have a misguided verifier I'd better learn that also before real jobs start. A win-win, with a lot of win for me. I can also learn something about them from the choice of the testing material and the test brief.
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Saeed Abedini
Iran
Local time: 03:03
angielski > azerbejdżański
+ ...
| no big deal...! | Mar 14, 2014 |
This is usual in many ways. They even can use your test translation as a way of making free work out of it. They may need a translation and they just give you that translation as a test! believe me I have seen this many times.
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Mikhail Kropotov wrote:
If you what you say is true, you're lucky to have learned it now. This information will save you the headache that would inevitably come from working with them.
[Edited at 2014-03-13 20:36 GMT]
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They can't be a real translation agency if they think this is how to assess the quality of a translation.
Before I do a test translation, I usually check out the agency to see if they have been rated by other translators, if they have a professional-looking online presence, emails etc. This can prevent you from wasting time with amateurs and jokers
| | | | Peter Simon
Holandia
Local time: 01:33
angielski > węgierski
+ ...
| What's also possible ... | Mar 14, 2014 |
Tünde, is that when they write "my translation DOES NOT MATCH the translation they have", they mean that they'd checked your work with a CAT tool. Looking at your language pairs, that's all the more outrageous - there would never be matching among them! Otherwise, I tend to agree with the other remarks.
On the other hand, I have already received one similar answer, and on being questioned further, they provided me with proper answers. They were partly correct in pointing to a few m... See more Tünde, is that when they write "my translation DOES NOT MATCH the translation they have", they mean that they'd checked your work with a CAT tool. Looking at your language pairs, that's all the more outrageous - there would never be matching among them! Otherwise, I tend to agree with the other remarks.
On the other hand, I have already received one similar answer, and on being questioned further, they provided me with proper answers. They were partly correct in pointing to a few mistakes that had arisen from my lack of expertise in that particular field, though I still keep fuming about one that I can't agree with. The terrible thing about such tests is if they only look for the few mistakes, if any, and not that it was still good work. Unfortunately, my feeling was also that the person checking my solution was simply jealous of competition and made a mountain out of a molehill.
[Edited at 2014-03-14 14:03 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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| Clarification please | Mar 14, 2014 |
Peter Simon wrote:
Tünde, is that when they write "my translation DOES NOT MATCH the translation they have", they mean that they'd checked your work with a CAT tool.
What on earth does that mean, Peter?
| | | | Erik Freitag
Niemcy
Local time: 01:33
Członek ProZ.com
od 2006
niderlandzki > niemiecki
+ ...
| Peter probably means MT | Mar 14, 2014 |
Mikhail Kropotov wrote: Peter Simon wrote:
Tünde, is that when they write "my translation DOES NOT MATCH the translation they have", they mean that they'd checked your work with a CAT tool. What on earth does that mean, Peter?
As can be seen from Peter's other recent post, there seems to be a misunderstanding as to what a CAT tool does
| | | | Tom in London
Wielka Brytania
Local time: 00:33
Członek ProZ.com
od 2008
włoski > angielski
Tunde Sele wrote:
Hi all!
I am very furious, so I would like to share what happened to me a couple of minutes ago. I am really interested in your opinion!
I was contacted by an agency, they accepted my rate, I had to do a test translation, it was quite easy..so everything fine! Today, I received their feedback. They stated that my translation DOES NOT MATCH the translation they have...are they serious? Two linguists will never translate the same text in the same way. I kindly asked them to have a native proofreader evaluate my work because I am confident with it! It is absolutely hilarious! Is this a joke? I've never met such an unprofessional way of evaluating test translations!
What do you think about this?
No two translations will ever match. The attitude you're getting from those people demonstrates that either (a) they don't know anything about translation (b) they are trying to exploit you in some way (c) both.
Whatever the truth may be, your obvious course of action at this point is to never have anything more to do with them.
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