CAT Tools Update

Terhitung sejak hari Jumat, tanggal 14 Mei 2010 lalu, TranslationLinker telah memutakhirkan perangkat lunaknya, terutama CAT Tools.
Saat ini, TranslationLinker mulai menggunakan SDL Trados Studio 2009, SDL Trados 2007, dan Passolo versi terbaru untuk memenuhi kebutuhan proses terjemahan serta memenuhi persyaratan dari beberapa klien kami yang mengharuskan penggunaan salah satu perangkat lunak tersebut.

TranslationLinker@2010

Teknologi Terjemahan – Mengapa harus menggunakan CAT Tool?

Mengapa harus menggunakan CAT Tool? Jawabannya sederhana saja: Jika Anda menerjemah dengan menggunakan CAT Tool maka pekerjaan Anda akan lebih baik dan lebih cepat. Dengan demikian, keuntungan yang Anda dapatkan pun akan bertambah dan waktu Anda pun tidak akan tersita terlalu banyak lagi, meskipun pada kenyataanya waktu tetap akan tersita .

Lalu apa yang dilakukan oleh CAT sehingga bisa membantu Anda? CAT seperti yang telah saya bahas dalam posting sebelumnya, Translation Gears – CAT Tools – Basic Knowledge, adalah singkatan dari “Computer Aided Translation” atau penerjemahan berbantuan komputer. CAT tool adalah program komputer yang dapat Anda gunakan untuk membantu menerjemahkan teks sumber dari suatu dokumen dengan lebih efisien melalui berbagai fungsi utama, antara lain:

• CAT tool menyegmentasi teks yang akan diterjemahkan menjadi segmen-segmen (kalimat) dan menampilkan segmen tersebut dengan tampilan sederhana guna mempermudah dan mempercepat proses penerjemahan. Sebagai contoh CAT Tool yang cukup populer adalah Trados, dimana setiap kalimat atau baris teks diproses sedemikian rupa menjadi sebuah segmen yang ditampilkan dalam kotak khusus (lihat gambar) yang terdiri dari dua kotak; yaitu kotak pertama berwarna hijau yang berisi teks sumber dan kotak kedua yang berada tepat di bawah teks sumber yang akan diterjemahkan.

• Terjemahan dari setiap segmen disimpan bersama dengan teks sumbernya. Teks sumber dan terjemahan selalu diproses dan disajikan sebagai satu translation unit (TU) atau unit terjemahan. Anda dapat kembali lagi ke segmen yang telah diterjemahkan sewaktu-waktu untuk memeriksa hasil terjemahan dengan membandingkan antara teks sumber dan terjemahan dari setiap unit terjemahan yang ada. Dalam Trados, ada beberapa fungsi khusus yang berguna untuk membantu penelusuran dari satu segmen ke segmen lainnya dan untuk menemukan segmen yang perlu diterjemahkan atau mencari unit terjemahan yang perlu direvisi – proses ini yang biasanya disebut sebagai quality control atau kendali mutu.
• Fungsi utama CAT Tool adalah untuk menyimpan unit terjemahan dalam sebuah database, yang disebut sebagai translation memory (TM) atau memori terjemahan, sehingga di kemudian hari semua unit terjemahan yang pernah tersimpan dalam memori terjemahan tersebut dapat digunakan kembali untuk teks sumber lain, atau untuk teks sumber yang sama. Dengan dibantu fitur khusus “fuzzy search” (pencarian segmen yang memiliki tingkat kesamaan di bawah 100%), CAT tool dapat menemukan segmen-segmen yang tidak sama 100 %. Fitur ini sangat menghemat waktu dan tenaga serta membantu terjemahan tetap konsisten, baik dari segi terminologi yang digunakan maupun gaya terjemahan.
• Fungsi utama CAT Tool yang keempat adalah pencarian otomatis dalam terminology database atau database terminologi. Pada Trados biasanya berupa fitur yang menampilkan secara otomatis istilah yang pernah diterjemahkan serta fitur penyisipan hasil pencarian istilah yang dapat ditemukan dalam MultiTerm (perangkat lunak pengelolaan terminologi) yang telah dipadukan dengan Trados.

Selain keempat fungsi utama yang disebutkan di atas, masih ada fungsi-fungsi lain yang terintegrasi dalam CAT-Tool yang tentunya juga sangat membantu untuk mempermudah proses penerjemahan dan meningkatkan produktivitas, antara lain:

• Alat pencarian teks
• Alat indeks/concordance atau konkordansi, yaitu program yang berfungsi untuk mencari sejumlah kata atau ungkapan dan konteks yang  terkait dalam bentuk monolingual, bilingual atau multiligual corpus, seperti bitext atau memori terjemahan
• Kendali mutu melalui pemeriksaan atau filter otomatis – seperti filter spasi ganda, tanda baca dll. – atau dengan menerapkan pengaturan formal, seperti fitur tambahan pemeriksa ejaan
• Program statistik yang menyediakan informasi tentang proses penerjemahan
• Alat import/ekspor
• Alat untuk post-production (misalnya. Pemeriksaan format, misalnya penyelarasan tag terjemahan)
• Alignment Tool. Banyak hasil terjemahan yang tidak melalui proses pengerjaan dengan bantuan CAT Tool, sehingga tidak ada unit terjemahan yang tersedia dalam bentuk memori terjemahan atau TM untuk dapat digunakan kembali. Untuk membantu menyimpan teks terjemahan tersebut dalam sebuah TM, banyak CAT Tool yang menyediakan alat khusus untuk menghasilkan TM. Alat inilah biasanya disebut sebagai “alignment tool” yang digunakan untuk memadukan teks sumber dan teks terjemahan dan menyelaraskannya menjadi sebuah unit terjemahan dan mengumpulkannya dalam satu database TM.
• Internet, salah satu fasilitas utama yang tidak dapat dihindari oleh penerjemah untuk mendapat berbagai informasi dan referensi

Ditulis oleh Arif Furqon, 30 Agustus 2009

Email: arffurqon@gmail.com

Hak Cipta @ 2009 www.TranslationLinker.com

Arif Furqon adalah pendiri serta pemilik TranslationLinker, agen jasa terjemahan Bahasa Inggris – Bahasa Indonesia (Jawa Timur, Indonesia). Pernah bekerja sebagai penerjemah dalam sebuah kantor agen terjemahan lokal selama 4 tahun, sejak 2005 hingga 2009, kemudian memutuskan untuk memulai karier mandiri sebagai penerjemah lepas dan mendirikan agen jasa terjemahan sendiri.

Translation Gears – CAT Tools – Basic Knowledge

Dalam posting kali ini saya ingin berbagi sedikit pengetahuan tentang pengertian CAT Tool dan ‘Translation Gears’ yang patut dimiliki dan dipertimbangkan penggunaannya selama proses menerjemah.

Dalam dunia bisnis terjemahan berskala internasional, bagi sebagian besar penerjemah profesional yang berpengalaman dengan puluhan klien dan ratusan bahkan ribuan pekerjaan yang pernah ditangani, perangkat lunak terjemahan atau sebut saja CAT Tool yang cukup beragam sekali jenisnya, sangatlah dibutuhkan. Keberadaan CAT Tool bukan lagi jadi alat tambahan untuk membantu menerjemah tapi lebih bersifat ‘wajib’ untuk dimiliki, digunakan dan menuntut keahlian si penerjemah agar dapat menyelesaikan tugasnya dengan baik dan sesempurna mungkin sehingga hasilnya tidak hanya berupa terjemahan dengan kualitas terbaik tapi juga diharapkan tidak merusak atau dapat mempertahankan tata letak, format, desain dan aspek-aspek lain yang harus dijaga betul dari materi sumbernya.

Jadi, menerjemah tidak lagi sesederhana yang kita bayangkan 10-20 tahun silam, yang hanya menuntut keahlian dan penguasaan bidang dari si penerjemah terkait bahasa sumber yang akan dialihbahasakan, meskipun untuk saat ini proses menerjemah masih mungkin dan tentu saja dapat dilakukan secara konvensional. Tapi, jika betul-betul dilakukan akan sangat berat dan banyak memakan waktu dan energi #:-S

Dulu para penerjemah senior hanya membutuhkan mesin ketik, kamus cetak, pensil atau pena (gunanya untuk corat-coret saat jenuh atau membuat catatan kecil selama menerjemah :p). Atau, yang agak canggih sedikit ada yang telah memanfaatkan teknologi komputer untuk menerjemah tapi belum sampai melibatkan ‘kecekatan tangan‘ CAT Tool. Sedangkan akhir-akhir ini, bisa dikatakan penggunaan CAT Tool cukup luas. Bahkan – tanpa mendiskreditkan – bagi penerjemah yang belum pernah menggunakan atau tidak memiliki CAT Tool tertentu adalah penerjemah yang belum ‘lengkap’. Memang ada beberapa yang masih bertahan dalam dunia terjemahan konvensional, yaitu menerjemah dengan mengandalkan kemampuan penerjemah sepenuhnya mulai dari menerjemahkan, mengetik, mengedit, mengatur layout dst.

Berbeda dengan penerjemah yang telah benar-benar membuka diri untuk menerima CAT Tool. Selama menerjemah, sejak file diterima (file yang dikirim oleh klien atau agen terjemahan kepada penerjemah untuk kemudian dialihbahasakan) hingga hasil akhir hampir seluruhnya dikerjakan dengan menggunakan CAT Tool.

Dari poin ini mungkin ada yang bertanya, apa sih CAT Tool itu? Nah, pada segmen ini saya ingin mengutip pengertiannya dari Wikipedia.org untuk menjelaskan sedikit apa yang dimaksud dengan istilah yang cukup populer ini.

Computer-assisted translation, computer-aided translation, atau CAT adalah perangkat lunak yang dirancang untuk membantu penerjemah manusia (human translator) selama menerjemah dan mempermudah proses terjemahan. Jika dilokalkan computer-assisted translation atau computer-aided translation berarti penerjemahan berbantuan komputer.

Walaupun memiliki konsep serupa, penerjemahan berbantuan komputer tak dapat disamakan dengan terjemahan mesin atau machine translation. Dalam penerjemahan berbantuan komputer, program komputer membantu penerjemah yang menerjemahkan teks sendiri dengan melakukan segala keputusan penting. Dalam terjemahan mesin, penerjemah membantu mesin, yaitu komputer atau program menerjemahkan teks yang selanjutnya dapat disunting oleh penerjemah atau tidak disunting sama sekali.

Penerjemahan berbantuan komputer atau CAT adalah istilah umum yang digunakan untuk mencakup berbagai pilihan alat penerjemahan mulai dari yang sederhana hingga yang kompleks. Berbagai fungsi yang dimiliki oleh CAT Tool meliputi:

• Pemeriksa ejaan, baik berupa perangkat lunak pemrosesan kata internal atau program add-on;
• Pemeriksa tata bahasa, baik berupa perangkat lunak pemrosesan kata internal atau program add-on;
• Pengelolaan terminologi, berfungsi membantu penerjemah agar dapat mengelola bank terminologinya dalam bentuk data elektronik. Bentuknya bisa berupa tabel sederhana yang dibuat dengan perangkat lunak pemrosesan kata atau spreadsheet, database yang dibuat dengan menggunakan program seperti FileMaker Pro atau, untuk mendapatkan solusi yang jauh lebih baik (lebih mahal tentunya), perangkat lunak khusus untuk mengelola istilah seperti LogiTerm, MultiTerm, Termex bisa digunakan dalam proses ini.
• Kamus berupa CD atau instalasi perangkat lunak, baik satu-bahasa atau dwibahasa
• Database terminologi, baik dalam CD-ROM atau yang dapat diakses melalui Internet (seperti KBBI online)
• Alat pencarian kata (atau program pengindeks kata), yang berguna untuk mencari teks terjemahan atau  berbagai jenis dokumen acuan. Dalam industri terjemahan indexer yang dapat digunakan diantaranya Naturel, ISYS Search Software dan dtSearch.
• Concordance atau konkordansi, yaitu program yang berfungsi untuk mencari sejumlah kata atau ungkapan dan konteks yang  terkait dalam bentuk monolingual, bilingual atau multiligual corpus, seperti bitext atau memori terjemahan.
• Bitext, pengembangan teknologi terjemahan yang cukup baru, hasil dari penggabungan teks sumber dan terjemahannya, yang kemudian dapat dianalisis dan diproses dengan menggunakan alat pencarian kata atau concordance.
• Perangkat lunak pengelolaan proyek yang memungkinkan penerjemah untuk menata proyek-proyek terjemahnnya, kemudian membuat pembagian tugas terjemahan untuk beberapa penerjemah lain, serta melacak perkembangan setiap tugas yang diberikan.
• Translation memory (TM) atau memori terjemahan, alat yang memuat database segmen-segmen terjemahan yang terdiri dari bahasa sumber serta terjemahnnya, baik satu bahasa sasaran atau lebih.
• Sistem yang hampir secara otomatis dapat menerjemah seperti menggunakan terjemahan mesin, tapi pengguna tetap yang memiliki kendali dan memutuskan proses penerjemahan. Dari poin inilah, seringkali proses ini disebut sebagai human-aided machine translation (penerjemahan mesin berbantuan manusia).

Ditulis oleh Arif Furqon, 22 Juni 2009

Email: arffurqon@gmail.com

Hak Cipta @ 2009 www.TranslationLinker.com

Arif Furqon adalah pendiri serta pemilik TranslationLinker, agen jasa terjemahan Bahasa Inggris – Bahasa Indonesia (Jawa Timur, Indonesia). Pernah bekerja sebagai penerjemah dalam sebuah kantor agen terjemahan lokal selama 4 tahun, sejak 2005 hingga 2009, kemudian memutuskan untuk memulai karir mandiri sebagai penerjemah lepas dan mendirikan agen jasa terjemahan sendiri.

Terjemahan Mesin – Machine Translation

Terjemahan mesin (bahasa Inggris: machine translation, MT) adalah cabang linguistik komputasional yang mempelajari penggunaan perangkat lunak komputer untuk menerjemahkan teks atau ucapan dari satu bahasa alami ke bahasa lainnya. Pada tingkat dasar, terjemahan mesin melakukan substitusi atau penggantian sederhana kata-kata dari satu bahasa alami ke bahasa lainnya. Dengan menggunakan teknik korpus, dapat dilakukan penerjemahan yang lebih kompleks sehingga memungkinkan penanganan yang lebih baik terhadap perbedaan tipologi linguistik, pengenalan frase, penerjemahan idiom, dan juga penanganan anomali.

Perangkat lunak terjemahan mesin yang ada saat ini umumnya mengizinkan kustomisasi berdasarkan domain atau profesi sehingga meningkatkan hasil terjemahan dengan membatasi lingkup substitusi yang diizinkan. Teknik ini terutama efektif dalam suatu domain yang menggunakan bahasa formal. Pada praktiknya, terjemahan mesin dari dokumen-dokumen pemerintah dan hukum ternyata menghasilkan keluaran yang lebih berguna daripada teks pembicaraan atau teks lain yang lebih tidak standar bentuknya.

Perbaikan kualitas keluaran juga dapat dicapai melalui campur tangan manusia. Contohnya, beberapa sistem dianggap lebih akurat menerjemahkan jika penggunanya telah menandai kata-kata mana di dalam teks yang merupakan suatu nama. Dengan bantuan teknik-teknik ini, terjemahan mesin telah terbukti bermanfaat sebagai suatu alat bantu bagi penerjemah manusia, dan dalam beberapa penerapan bahkan dapat menghasilkan keluaran yang dapat dipergunakan langsung (”as is”). Namun demikian, sistem-sistem yang telah tersedia saat ini tidak mampu untuk menghasilkan keluaran dengan kualitas yang menyamai penerjemah manusia, terutama jika teks yang akan diterjemahkan menggunakan bahasa sehari-hari.

Sumber: Wikipedia.org

Getting Started as a Freelance Translator

Redistributed from Translatewrite

Copyright 2006 by Corinne McKay, corinne@translatewrite.com. This article may be freely reproduced or redistributed for non-commercial use with attribution to the author.

Background

I became a translator via a series of happy accidents. After taking French in school since seventh grade, I studied abroad at the University of Grenoble, France, for my junior year of college. There, a professor recommended me for a part-time job as a trainee translator at the University’s graduate school of business. This ended up involving work on an international marketing textbook that was subsequently published by Prentice-Hall. Back in the U.S., I taught high school French for 8 years, did a few translations on the side when people asked me, and earned an M.A. in French from Boston College. After relocating to Colorado and having a child, I wanted to find a career that would allow me to use French and work from home, so I decided to try to make a go as a professional translator. Several years later, I’m certified by the American Translators Association and happily employed by a growing list of regular clients. I hope that these tips will be helpful to aspiring translators! Please note that the examples provided here reflect my personal experience; everyone’s mileage will vary depending on your language pairs, professional background, geographic location, etc.

The good news, the bad news

If you have excellent skills in at least two languages, there is a lot to recommend launching your own freelance translation business. According to the most recent American Translators Association compensation survey, the average self-employed freelance translator working full time in the U.S. earns more than $50,000 a year, and with most translation work done over the web, it’s an attractive business for people who want a portable career, or live in places (like my hometown of Boulder, Colorado) where there are few well-paying jobs for translators. The translation industry is also, by most measures, booming. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts a better-than-average employment picture for translators and interpreters until at least 2014, and many qualified translators are busier than they’ve ever been. However (you knew that was coming!), many people with excellent language skills fail at self-employment, not because they can’t do the work, but because they make basic and avoidable business mistakes, or underestimate the role of business management in their overall work plan. This phenomenon was part of what inspired me to write my book How to Succeed as a Freelance Translator. In addition, it takes a lot of financial and mental preparation to launch any type of business, and freelance translation is no exception. For most people, I advise counting on at least a one year startup phase, during which you will need either another job, savings or a loan to pay some of your living expenses while your work volume increases.

How it went for me, and some numbers

In 2002, I had been teaching high school French for 8 years. After having a baby and moving to Colorado, I decided to look for a work from home job where I could use French. I knew very little about the translation industry at that time, and had no contacts at all in the industry. Looking back on it, I think that my first career move was to open the Denver Yellow Pages to the “Translators and Interpreters” section and start calling all the agencies that were listed. A few of them agreed to give me an informational interview, and they became my first clients. To be fair, the fact that I had an M.A. in French and had done a translation internship at a business school may have opened some doors; but, compared to an experienced translator, I was starting from ground zero. During that first year in business, I contacted over 400 potential clients, including corporate members of the American Translators Association, local businesses that had a connection with a French-speaking country, the Colorado court systems, and legal aid agencies. I also became active in the Colorado Translators Association and started editing their newsletter in order to get to know translators in the area. Out of those 400 contacts, I landed three or four regular clients, and I earned $9,000 total. Honestly, at the end of the year, I as on the verge of giving up. The $9,000 I had earned seemed like a pitifully small amount for all the work that I had done, and I thought about looking for a full time job. Fortunately, I was determined not to waste the year of effort, and decided to give it another year. I kept marketing and networking, and business grew. My second year, I made $18,000, and the year after that, $36,000 (I think I see a pattern here!), while working about 20 hours a week from home. At that point, I was convinced that I would stick with freelancing, since my previous highest annual income was $33,000 teaching high school French. While my income hasn’t kept doubling every year, this year I think that I will meet the ATA average of over $50,000, while working about 30 hours a week and taking at least 4 weeks of vacation, which is a situation that would be impossible with a full time job in my area.

Some tips for beginning freelance translators

Following is a list of suggestions for beginning freelance translators. If you’d like a more comprehensive look at launching your own translation business, feel free to take a look at my book How to Succeed as a Freelance Translator.

• Be realistic. When you’re looking for a full-time job, all you need is one offer. To work full-time or close to it as a translator, you need a sizeable list of regular clients. Unless you have very marketable skills in an in-demand language pair, it may take a year or more until you are working full time. In my case, I contacted about 400 translation agencies (not a typo) over the course of my first year in business, and it was about 18 months until I was earning an amount equivalent to my previous full time job.
• Never quit marketing. Once you have steady work, it’s tempting to think that agencies will keep contacting you, freeing you from the hassle of contacting new prospective clients and touching base with previous contacts. However, this is a bad assumption. Work flows go up and down, agencies go out of business, the project manager who loves you quits and is replaced by someone who brings in his/her own person, etc. Plus, you never know when an “out of nowhere” project offer will be perfect for you, and/or allow you to raise your rates. Even though I usually have about as much work as I can handle, I still send my resume to 3-5 new agencies per week just to keep the ball rolling. Recently, one of these agencies (in Europe) contacted me with a multi-thousand dollar project because I was the only U.S.-based French to English translator in their database, and a client wanted a project translated into U.S. English.
• Don’t ignore the local market, especially if you present yourself better in person than on paper. My first clients, who I still work for today, were local agencies who I contacted and offered to meet with to show them a portfolio of my work. Check the yellow pages or Internet under “translators and interpreters.” Even if the agencies say that they don’t hire beginners or don’t have work in your language pair, go visit them anyway and find out what they do. You’ll understand more about what your potential clients want, and they’ll know you for when your skills are more in line with their needs.
• Join some associations. The American Translators Association and its local chapters (a list is available on the ATA website, or Google “translators your state,” replacing “your state” with your actual state) are a great way to establish your seriousness as a translator, and to meet other translators.
• Ask for advice. While it’s somewhat risky to contact a translator in your own language pair for risk of sounding like you’re trying to swoop in on his/her clients, most translators enjoy their work and like to talk about their jobs and how they got started. A freelancers group I’m in (for women only) has a tradition called “Take a successful woman to lunch,” where an aspiring translator/writer/web designer/artist, etc. offers to buy lunch for a more experienced person in exchange for a conversation about the profession.
• Orient your resume toward translation. Especially for people who are native speakers of a language other than English and have specialized professional skills, this is key. Highlight specific skills right away, such as “Spanish-bilingual software specialist,” “Native speaker of Arabic with mechanical engineering background,” etc. rather than expecting the agency or client to see that you have these capabilities.
• Offer services that more experienced translators probably don’t. The translation industry is booming, and many experienced translators with a full house of regular clients don’t have a financial need to work nights, weekends, rush jobs, etc. Make it clear to prospective clients that you can fill in in a pinch, and be willing to actually do this!
• Get certified. Certification by the American Translators Association isn’t a must, but can lead to a big increase in business as the credential becomes more recognized. In my case this happened when, shortly after I passed the certification exam in French to English, an agency I work with was requested by a major client to use only certified translators on certain projects.
• Be realistic about your earning potential. While translation is definitely well-paying as compared with other careers that allow you to work from home in your pajamas on projects that are often very interesting, remember that 25-40% of your income as a freelancer will go to things that your employer normally pays for when you have a full time job. Most people count in the biggies- taxes, health insurance, retirement plan contributions and vacation/personal/sick time, but over the years other expenses like dictionaries, office equipment, continuing education and professional travel add up too. Over the course of the 8 years I worked full time, my employer paid for tens of thousands of dollars of “extra” stuff like this, including half the tuition for my M.A. degree, a laptop computer and two trips to France. These days, I spend about a thousand dollars a year just to attend the annual conference of the American Translators Association, plus various other workshops. Remember also that the time it takes to do non-translation activities like marketing, networking, accounting, collections, billing, updating computer systems, even cleaning your office, is “off the clock.” For all of these reasons, even if you work 40 hours a week, it may be more realistic to plan on billing no more than 25 hours a week.
• Find the economic advantages to freelancing. As a corollary to the tip above, freelancing is far from all bad news when it comes to earnings. You may be able to take significant tax deductions for business related expenses, unlike when you have a salaried job (talk to a tax professional about this). Furthermore, if you work from home you won’t be paying commuting expenses, lunch out, work clothes, etc. Depending on your particular situation, there may be even bigger hidden benefits. In my case, I have a small child; if I worked 30 hours a week at an employer’s office, I would need at least 35 hours of child care to cover work and commute time, and the preschool my daughter attends charges $9 an hour. As a freelancer, I’m able to work about 30 hours a week with 15 hours of child care by making up the rest of the time at night or when my child is with my husband or a friend. Even if I needed to pay for more child care, working from home opens up the option of using a less expensive option, for example a teenager who can play outside with my child while I work inside. This savings alone, plus the additional time to spend with the family, makes freelancing a very attractive option if you have small kids.
• Keep in touch. As you apply to agencies, keep a file of the person you talked to or e-mailed with, and what his or her response was to your inquiry. As you get more experience, periodically contact these people again to let them know a) you’re still there and b) you have some new projects to tell them about.
• Show an interest in the profession. Once you explore the tip of the translation iceberg, you’ll be amazed at the number of translation-related websites, magazines and newsletters out there. Contributing to them allows you to both educate yourself and present yourself as someone who’s really passionate about the industry, not just someone who likes to work in your pajamas!
• Never (never) take on work you can’t handle. Especially in a small community of translators and translation consumers, the surest way to sabotage your emerging freelance business is to take on something that’s too technical, too long, or too complex. Clients will appreciate your honesty and use you for projects that you can handle. Sometimes this involves protecting clients from hiring you for work that *they* think that you can do, such as translating into your second (third, etc) language. Politely explain that this work is best handled by a native speaker of that language and offer a referral.
• Keep your clients happy. While this could be an article in itself (when I have time!) it’s worthy of mention. Finish every project on time and on budget, and NEVER miss a deadline without notifying a client as soon as you realize that despite your good planning, the project won’t be done on time. Return all phone calls and e-mails as soon as you can, always within one business day. When you’re not available, help solve the client’s problem by referring them to a colleague. In all of your dealings with your clients, remain professional. When you encounter a problem, it hurts to have your skills or qualifications questioned, but remember that the client is already in high-anxiety mode if they’re not happy with your work, and you need to remain calm rather than making the client more upset. Probably one of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever been given is “don’t hold onto your clients by charging less, hold onto your clients by charging more and proving that you’re worth it.” Of course there are some agencies and direct clients who only care about getting the work done for one cent per word cheaper than the last translator they used, but most clients care just as much about quality as they do about price. Keeping a good relationship with the client and doing outstanding work proves to them that often, you get the level of service you pay for.

Cross Cultural Marketing Blunders

Although cruel, cross cultural marketing mistakes are a humorous means of understanding the impact poor cultural awareness or translations can have on a product or company when selling abroad.

Below we have provided a few classic cross cultural marketing blunders for your enjoyment. For more examples, please visit the 3 links at the end of the page.

1. Locum is a Swedish company. As most companies do at Christmas they sent out Christmas cards to customers. In 1991 they decided to give their logo a little holiday spirit by replacing the “o” in Locum with a heart. You can see the result..

2. The Japanese company Matsushita Electric was promoting a new Japanese PC for internet users. Panasonic created the new web browser and had received license to use the cartoon character Woody Woodpecker as an interactive internet guide.

The day before the huge marketing campaign, Panasonic realised its error and pulled the plug. Why? The ads for the new product featured the following slogan:
”Touch Woody – The Internet Pecker.” The company only realised its cross cultural blunder when an embarrassed American explain what “touch Woody’s pecker” could be interpreted as!

3. The Swedish furniture giant IKEA somehow agreed upon the name “FARTFULL” for one of its new desks. Enough said..

4. In the late 1970s, Wang, the American computer company could not understand why its British branches were refusing to use its latest motto “Wang Cares”. Of course, to British ears this sounds too close to “Wankers” which would not really give a very positive image to any company.

5. There are several examples of companies getting tangled up with bad translations of products due to the word “mist”. We had “Irish Mist” (an alcoholic drink), “Mist Stick” (a curling iron from Clairol) and “Silver Mist” (Rolls Royce car) all flopping as “mist” in German means dung/manure. Fancy a glass of Irish dung?

6. “Traficante” and Italian mineral water found a great reception in Spain’s underworld. In Spanish it translates as “drug dealer”.

7. In 2002, Umbro the UK sports manufacturer had to withdraw its new trainers (sneakers) called the Zyklon. The firm received complaints from many organisations and individuals as it was the name of the gas used by the Nazi regime to murder millions of Jews in concentration camps.

8. Sharwoods, a UK food manufacturer, spent £6 million on a campaign to launch its new ‘Bundh’ sauces. It  received calls from numerous Punjabi speakers telling them that “bundh” sounded just like the Punjabi word for “arse”.

9. Honda introduced their new car “Fitta” into Nordic countries in 2001. If they had taken the time to undertake some cross cultural marketing research they may have discovered that “fitta” was an old word used in vulgar language to refer to a woman’s genitals in Swedish, Norwegian and Danish. In the end they renamed it “Honda Jazz”.

10. A nice cross cultural example of the fact that all pictures or symbols are not interpreted the same across the world: staff at the African port of Stevadores saw the “internationally recognised” symbol for “fragile” (i.e. broken wine glass) and presumed it was a box of broken glass. Rather than waste space they threw all the boxes into the sea!

Source: Kwintessential

The Business of Freelance Translation

Tips and advice on how to be a succesful freelance translator … The Business of Freelance Translation.

How to become a successful freelance translator

After completing their translation training programmes at higher professional education or university level, many students can’t wait to set up as a freelance translator. However, gaining a foothold as a freelancer in a very competitive translation market may turn out to be a pretty complicated business. Translation agencies are not usually keen on contracting inexperienced translators, business clients are difficult to find without commercial tools, and the tax authorities won’t just accept anyone as a self-employed person. So what do you need to do to set up shop as a successful freelance translator?

Translation agencies

Most translation agencies are wary of admitting new freelancers into their networks. After all, it takes a while before it really becomes clear whether a freelancer can live up to their expectations: does he/she stick to agreed deadlines, offer a consistent level of quality, consult relevant reference resources, deal effectively with various registers and specialisations (commercial, technical, medical, financial, IT, etc.)? Many translation agencies begin with a ‘trial period’ in which they closely monitor the work submitted by new freelance translators. To reduce the risk of a fiasco – and avoid the associated costs - translation agencies normally only accept applications from freelance translators who have had at least two or three years – fulltime experience in the translation business.

Business clients

In their attempts to introduce themselves directly to companies, freelancers usually find it difficult to gain access to the people that matter and, once they are there, to secure orders. Companies tend to prefer outsourcing translation services to partners that are able to offer comprehensive solutions. They look for agencies that can fill their translation needs in a range of different languages, are always available, can take on specialised texts and have the procedures in place to ensure that all deadlines are met. In view of their need for continuity, capacity and diversity it is hardly surprising that many companies select an all-round translation agency rather than individual freelancers. An agency may be more expensive than a freelancer, but the additional service and quality guarantees justify the extra investment.

Tips to achieve success as a freelance translator

What steps will you need to take after graduation to develop into a successful freelance translator?

1. After completing your studies, it’s best not to present yourself on the market straightaway as a freelance translator, but first to find employment at an all-round translation firm and spend a couple of years there to gain the necessary practical experience. As a salaried employee your income will be less compared to what you might potentially earn in a freelance capacity, but don’t forget that without experience you’re never going to be successful in the first place. In many cases, you will be assigned to a senior translator who revises your translations, monitors your progress, and makes you aware of your strengths and weaknesses. This will enable you to acquire the skills and baggage you need on your way to becoming a professional translator, and will give you the opportunity to experiment with various types of texts and disciplines.

2. If you can’t find a position in paid employment, try to find a post as an (unpaid) trainee. A translation agency may not have the capacity or resources to take on new staff, but it may still be able to offer you an excellent training post to help you gain practical experience in a commercial environment. A traineeship may serve as an effective springboard for a career in the translation business, perhaps even within the same agency that offered the traineeship.

3. After having whetted your skills at a translation agency for a number of years, you may decide that the time has come for you to find your own clients. Ideally, you should move on to a part-time contract so that you have enough time to recruit clients and work for them, and enough money to live on. It is important to make clear arrangements with your boss at this stage, to avoid a conflict of interests. The best strategy is to send your personal details and CVs to a selected group of professional translation firms and translation departments within companies and governmental institutions, explicitly referring to your work experience. Don’t forget to highlight your willingness to do a free test translation.

4. Make sure to register as a self-employed person with the relevant tax authorities and seek their advice if necessary.

5. Once you have managed to find enough freelance work to keep yourself busy for around 20 hours a week, you might consider terminating your employment contract and devoting the extra time to attracting new business. In 20 hours most experienced freelance translators tend to earn around as much as a full-time translator in salaried employment.

These are obviously very general guidelines, and your personal career may evolve along quite different lines depending on your preferences, skills and personal conditions. Whatever your circumstances, however, you will find that experience and a certain amount of business acumen are the things that matter most in a successful freelance career.

By Fester Leenstra
metamorfose.vertalingen@gmail.com
www.metamorfosevertalingen.nl
Fester Leenstra is co-owner of Metamorfose Vertalingen, a translation agency in Utrecht (The Netherlands). After having worked for several translation firms in paid employment, he took the plunge in 2004 and incorporated his own company.
For further details about Metamorfose Vertalingen, visit www.metamorfosevertalingen.nl

Copyright: Kwintessential Ltd

Expending Client Base in Interpretation and Translation Services

Networking with another professionals and companies is the key to grow freelance translation or interpretation business sector. It is also very challenging to develop steady cooperation with perspective clients since the market is overwhelmed with any type of translation services. However, if one possesses creativity, and knows which domains are demanding, and less competitive, he or she may find networking and self-promotion easier to conduct. By brainstorming an interpreter or a translator may discover, for instance that a Speech- Language Pathologist will need his or her services.

What does a Speech-Language Pathologist (SLP) do?

SLP evaluates, diagnoses and treats individuals who exhibit speech, language, voice, fluency, and swallowing disorders. Now, you may wonder why this professional needs your interpretation or translation services. SLP who works in culturally diverse areas such as Australia, Canada or United States (USA), he/she finds working face-to-face with an interpreter necessary. For instance, according to the U.S. Census Bureau there are approximately 50 million people in the USA who speak a language other then English at home. (American Community Survey, 2002).

In Los Angeles, one of the most diverse cities in the USA there are 150 languages spoken in public schools, and many cultural communities such as: African American, Armenian, Chinese, Korean, Polish, Russian and other. When working in US public schools, SLP is required by the law (Special Education Legislation) to conduct assessment in student’s native language. That’s when an interpreter or a translator plays an important role. An interpreter can be involved in many different tasks such as participating in process of evaluation, diagnosis and treatment when collaborating with SLP. One of the responsibilities is to translate spoken words from one language to another when SLP performs the standardized or non-standardized testing, and gives instructions to a patient. In addition, an interpreter will be involved in some type of analysis that will help SLP to distinguish between language difference and language disorder.

An interpreter therefore, will not only interpret words but also pay close attention to the production of sounds, language competence such as grammar, pragmatics of given culture and cognitive behavior of a patient. An interpreter will help SLP to determine if a mother tongue of a client is deviant, and if the “errors” that occur in second language are due to interference of first language. Moreover, an interpreter will be needed during an interview when SLP collects background information from a client such as medical, developmental history, speech/language acquisition history, and family and social history. Furthermore, an interpreter may be needed during treatment when SLP or a client decides that therapy in native language is necessary and beneficial. A translator may offer his/ her services to SLP since the questionnaire forms, consent forms, evaluation, diagnosis, treatment and progress reports should also be presented in native language of a client who may not be able to read in his second language.

How can I network with those professionals? First of all find places that are cultural and linguistically diverse. Promote your services by contacting or even visiting public schools, private practices that offer speech/language therapy, hospitals, local clinics, rehabilitation centers, nursing care facilities, colleges and universities, state and local health departments, state and federal government agencies, home health agencies. Also, visit ASHA (American Speech Hearing Association) website.

The author Marian Marcinkowski is the President of http://www.verbumsoft.com He is the owner of http://www.translatorsbase.com and http://www.directfreelance.comTranslatorsbase.com it is a global provider in translation solutions, providing translation services via network of professional freelance translators and translation agencies located around the world. Directfreelance.com it is a directory of freelance professionals.