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Poll: Do you feel some reviewers make changes to translations "just to change something"?
Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
Anne Schulz
Anne Schulz
Germany
Local time: 10:36
English to German
+ ...
Sometimes May 18, 2018

Mario Freitas wrote:

if they were great, they'd be translating, not revising



Mario, I am not sure about this point. In my experience, clients/agencies tend to assign the translation to the cheaper one and the review to the more experienced one (preferably for a word-based rather than a time-based price), to optimize cost effectiveness.

As a translator being reviewed, there are usually about 20% changes leading to an improvement, 60% changes inducing a feeling of "so what", and 20% changes which I reject because I feel they make things worse. I am not sure if those 80% were applied "just to change something", but I consider them preferential at best.

As a reviewer, I try to use the same approach as Richard Purdom: If the translation is poor, correct only basic errors. If the translation is fine, suggest improvements and make clear that this is not the correction of errors, but an attempt to optimize the whole text.


Angela B
Mijo Schyllert
Syrtos
Laura Kingdon
 
Mario Freitas
Mario Freitas  Identity Verified
Brazil
Local time: 06:36
Member (2014)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
Sorry, Anne May 21, 2018

Anne Schulz wrote:
Mario Freitas wrote:
if they were great, they'd be translating, not revising



I'm sorry, Anne, this was an unthought phrase, because revisers make me very angry most of the time.
I agree that "If the translation is poor, correct only basic errors. If the translation is fine, suggest improvements", but in the last part, only with SUGGEST, not with make changes and fill a good translation with red marks. This is what makes me angry. When the translation is excellent, the revisers usually change a hundred words with synonyms, because they cannot agree to deliver a document without red marks. It would mean they did nothing, right? That's the cause for all misundrestandings between translators and revisers.

Sorry about that phrase again.


Josephine Cassar
 
memond
memond  Identity Verified
Local time: 05:36
Member (2015)
English to French
+ ...
YES! Jun 7, 2018

I am a scientific translator and a reviewer, and I find that too many reviewers don’t know how to review. Most of them make changes just for the sake of making changes. I find it particularly irritating for scientific translations. A lot of reviewers (who are not scientists) add useless words in translation just to add more words or make sentences nicer. In science, you have to go with simple and clear sentences. The goal is not to make beautiful literary sentences. Most of the time this extr... See more
I am a scientific translator and a reviewer, and I find that too many reviewers don’t know how to review. Most of them make changes just for the sake of making changes. I find it particularly irritating for scientific translations. A lot of reviewers (who are not scientists) add useless words in translation just to add more words or make sentences nicer. In science, you have to go with simple and clear sentences. The goal is not to make beautiful literary sentences. Most of the time this extra wording makes scientific understanding difficult. When I’m reviewing scientific translations, I focus on scientific mistakes, language mistakes (spelling, grammar) and translation mistakes or specific terminology, otherwise I don’t change the text because it is the work of the translator and it is his/her responsibility.Collapse


Ines Radionovas-Lagoutte, PhD
 
gauloise
gauloise
United States
Local time: 10:36
Member (2020)
Italian to English
+ ...
changing to be like google translate Jun 26, 2019

What really bothers me is when you take a sentence and put it into the proper word order in English and write it so it sounds fluent, and they change it to basically google translate.

I think sometimes it is not so much just to change something, but because they are afraid the client will be angry it is not like the original

Almost everyone speaks at least a little English, and clients do say things like "this is not like the original!" and i think it gives revisers co
... See more
What really bothers me is when you take a sentence and put it into the proper word order in English and write it so it sounds fluent, and they change it to basically google translate.

I think sometimes it is not so much just to change something, but because they are afraid the client will be angry it is not like the original

Almost everyone speaks at least a little English, and clients do say things like "this is not like the original!" and i think it gives revisers cold feet to make changes in word order so that it will seem native-sounding.

I just did a translation and they came back to me with another one with the instruction: "Put the product name after the noun this time" :/ I told them that is the French style and got an eye roll basically. If they want to pay for bad work, so be it.

Sometimes, I wish I translated into Japanese or something where the non-native speaking client couldn't meddle.
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Kay Denney
Nikolay Novitskiy
 
Kay Denney
Kay Denney  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 10:36
French to English
. Jun 27, 2019

A client just recently changed my translation "Tourist Board" into "Tourist Office". Office de tourisme in French. This can either mean
- a little kiosk where people hand out maps, which in English we call a Tourist Information Office,
- or a proper office where people do background work to attract tourists to a region, by making those maps, and lovely websites, setting up schemes so that cyclists get access to bicycle repairs near the lovely cycle route along the coastline, or set
... See more
A client just recently changed my translation "Tourist Board" into "Tourist Office". Office de tourisme in French. This can either mean
- a little kiosk where people hand out maps, which in English we call a Tourist Information Office,
- or a proper office where people do background work to attract tourists to a region, by making those maps, and lovely websites, setting up schemes so that cyclists get access to bicycle repairs near the lovely cycle route along the coastline, or setting up deals where you get discounts and queue-jumping passes when buying tickets to several different museums and so on. That would be a Tourist Board.

But no, the proofreader went with Tourist Office. Google must be wrong then.

[Edited at 2019-06-27 07:54 GMT]

[Edited at 2019-06-27 07:54 GMT]
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IrinaN
IrinaN
United States
Local time: 04:36
English to Russian
+ ...
Hi Kay, Jun 27, 2019

Kay Denney wrote:

That would be a Tourist Board.

But no, the proofreader went with Tourist Office. Google must be wrong then.

[Edited at 2019-06-27 07:54 GMT]

[Edited at 2019-06-27 07:54 GMT]


Please forgive the intruding non-native, but if your translation was intended for the US audience, or your proofreader was American, then for the majority of Americans, Tourist Board would immediately bring to mind a bulletin board at the entrance to some entertainment/recreation area. What is called the Board here: "an official organization in a country or area that encourages tourists to visit that country or area", in the US would be referred to as Tourism Council or, on a smaller scale, Visitor's Center. In a nutshell, the proofreader might have sensed a non-American flavor but still chose the wrong term:-)

https://www.visitfrederick.org/partners/about-us/staff-and-board/
STAFF & BOARD
Visit Frederick (Tourism Council of Frederick County, Inc.)

We have so much in common, except for the language...


 
IrinaN
IrinaN
United States
Local time: 04:36
English to Russian
+ ...
Editor is a separate profession Jun 27, 2019

This simple truth seems to be dead and buried by the mankind (humankind:-) ), at least by the translating part of it.

In the beginning of my career I was incredibly lucky to be blessed with working under true EDITORS, people who worked as such for the top scientific and literary publishing houses, magazines etc. for decades. A true editor is an entity I worship. Names like Klimzo and Plakhtiy will say a lot to my experienced Russian colleagues.

Those people had no need
... See more
This simple truth seems to be dead and buried by the mankind (humankind:-) ), at least by the translating part of it.

In the beginning of my career I was incredibly lucky to be blessed with working under true EDITORS, people who worked as such for the top scientific and literary publishing houses, magazines etc. for decades. A true editor is an entity I worship. Names like Klimzo and Plakhtiy will say a lot to my experienced Russian colleagues.

Those people had no need whatsoever to replough everything just because; they did not scream: "Water" and did not demand another month to rewrite even the worst cases. They knew how to make chicken salad out of a chicken poop with a few strokes of Raphael's brush. They did not have that non-destructible urge to spray their own markings over translator's, and leave their own footprint and their own legacy in every sentence... They had justified their existence long before I finished high school.

Unfortunately, this disease is non-curable in at least 85% of translators turned editors, no matter how great they are as translators themselves. Is it an accusation? Not in a slightest, it's a simple and proven fact of translator's nature. As soon as I hear "I would say it differently" after a first glance at a third sentence of a 20K-word job, I know what to expect and simply move on. Please, say whatever you want. I have my final copy saved.

That is why I prefer not to see any editing anymore for as long as I get my Thank you and timely payment. I only demand to be notified of any errors in technical fields since I am not an engineer and, with all my hands-on experience, I never submit any technical jobs without an absolute guarantee that it will go the desk of a technical editor first. Whether that editor can write better than me in general, may be questionable, but that part is of no consequence to me.

Another thing that makes me... at times laugh, and at times - cringe, is modern editors' complaints about an outrageous fact that they actually had to edit!

Once in a while, when I go to my own final files for references, I notice occasional mishaps in punctuation, typos!!!, stylistic hiccups, missing spaces etc. Mostly in rush or very large jobs. Never, not once any of my true editors have bothered me with that, or complained to anyone! For one, they knew that I know better and it was nothing but a mishap under pressure:-). To mark a few spots like that, to send it back to a translator with a lecture, to get it back and to recheck it again - what a waste of everyone's time and money! They simply did their job and the file went to the client. I know that they did that job. What else are they there for?? what else do they get paid for???? Any other tactics is but a part of killing a competitor or collecting the evidence of how attentive and thorough they are:-). Ridiculous.

Disclaimer: those were the times when the translation world has not yet been flooded with swarms of people who have as much right to translate as I - to sit on the Chinese Emperor's throne. That's why I certainly give some slack when it comes to today's editors' pain and suffering:-)

[Edited at 2019-06-27 18:39 GMT]
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Liviu-Lee Roth
Mijo Schyllert
Syrtos
 
Metin Demirel
Metin Demirel  Identity Verified
Türkiye
Local time: 12:36
Member (2018)
Italian to Turkish
+ ...
preferential Jun 13, 2023

Today I was asked to confirm or reject some changes made by a reviewer in a project I had delivered last week.

The reviewer did many preferential changes (which I can agree with) and some grave errors. I also noticed a double-space error, which had escaped the reviewer.

I listed the reasons for my objections to the changes. But the PM told me that the reviewer said he changed those segments because they seem to differ from the correct meaning, but he did not prov
... See more
Today I was asked to confirm or reject some changes made by a reviewer in a project I had delivered last week.

The reviewer did many preferential changes (which I can agree with) and some grave errors. I also noticed a double-space error, which had escaped the reviewer.

I listed the reasons for my objections to the changes. But the PM told me that the reviewer said he changed those segments because they seem to differ from the correct meaning, but he did not provide details as to why they seemed to differ from the correct meaning. I was also asked to confirm the segments as I deemed fit.

Since I believe I am entitled to be informed on the errors I made, I disregarded them all (except the double-space error, which he had missed) and resent the package.



[Edited at 2023-06-13 14:46 GMT]
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Mijo Schyllert
 
Kay Denney
Kay Denney  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 10:36
French to English
. Jun 13, 2023

IrinaN wrote:

Kay Denney wrote:

That would be a Tourist Board.

But no, the proofreader went with Tourist Office. Google must be wrong then.

[Edited at 2019-06-27 07:54 GMT]

[Edited at 2019-06-27 07:54 GMT]


Please forgive the intruding non-native, but if your translation was intended for the US audience, or your proofreader was American, then for the majority of Americans, Tourist Board would immediately bring to mind a bulletin board at the entrance to some entertainment/recreation area. What is called the Board here: "an official organization in a country or area that encourages tourists to visit that country or area", in the US would be referred to as Tourism Council or, on a smaller scale, Visitor's Center. In a nutshell, the proofreader might have sensed a non-American flavor but still chose the wrong term:-)

https://www.visitfrederick.org/partners/about-us/staff-and-board/
STAFF & BOARD
Visit Frederick (Tourism Council of Frederick County, Inc.)

We have so much in common, except for the language...


Irina, I translate into British English only, and the leaflets etc that I translate for the travel industry cater mainly to Europeans, the native Brits but also the Dutch, Germans, Swedes etc who have all learned British English.

But even if we factor in US English, you don't say that Americans use "Tourist Office" in any capacity, so the "correction" to my translation would still be blatantly wrong. The person who reviewed my translation was very obviously French, and they obviously wanted it to resemble the French text more than they wanted it to be meaningful to English-speaking readers.


 
finnword1
finnword1
United States
Local time: 05:36
English to Finnish
+ ...
YES Jun 14, 2023

I used to translate directly for a major US manufacturer, until someone in the upper management got a brilliant idea to contract one agency for the translation part and a DIFFERENT agency to do the reviewing. Of course the latter one found many things to change in order to show their superiority. Needless to say, I quit.

Tom in London
Matthias Brombach
Nikolay Novitskiy
 
Dan Lucas
Dan Lucas  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 09:36
Member (2014)
Japanese to English
Shot in own foot, by self Jun 14, 2023

Kay Denney wrote:
The person who reviewed my translation was very obviously French, and they obviously wanted it to resemble the French text more than they wanted it to be meaningful to English-speaking readers.

I get this a lot. Sometimes the (Japanese) reviewer will agree that my translation is correct, and that the suggested alternative is at best awkward and often just plain incorrect, but in certain cases they push for the latter because they believe the end client will prefer it. Obviously the end client can decide whatever they want given that it's their document, but I'm not sure they actually understand what is at stake, because my own client isn't prepared to be honest with them.

This cultural quirk of not wanting to dispassionately explain to a customer that their linguistic preconceptions are actually misconceptions explains - in my opinion - a good amount of the bad reputation for English that the Japanese have built, brick by painstaking brick, over the past 70 years or so.

They are getting better, fair play to them. But I can totally see where Kay is coming from with her French reviewer.

Regards,
Dan


Becca Resnik
Rachel Waddington
Nikolay Novitskiy
Kay Denney
Laura Kingdon
 
Mijo Schyllert
Mijo Schyllert  Identity Verified
Local time: 10:36
English to Swedish
+ ...
Well...:-) Jun 19, 2023

Sometimes. I am a reviewer as well as a translator and I do stick to non-subjective changes. But for me, the worst is when you work with a large company and your translation has to go through middle managers (most not Swedish-speaking) and they DO comment...Example: "This word has not been translated". Reply: "Well, that it's because it is the same word in Swedish and English...".
My favourite was one when a person (not Swedish) commented on a PDF file (after countless rounds of checks) th
... See more
Sometimes. I am a reviewer as well as a translator and I do stick to non-subjective changes. But for me, the worst is when you work with a large company and your translation has to go through middle managers (most not Swedish-speaking) and they DO comment...Example: "This word has not been translated". Reply: "Well, that it's because it is the same word in Swedish and English...".
My favourite was one when a person (not Swedish) commented on a PDF file (after countless rounds of checks) that: "This doesn't look like Swedish" (on a perfectly formed sentence). I mean, I laugh now, but then...hm.
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Nikolay Novitskiy
 
Nikolay Novitskiy
Nikolay Novitskiy  Identity Verified
Russian Federation
Local time: 14:36
Member (2018)
English to Russian
Reviewing and you: a path to success Jun 20, 2023

When you get a text to review, always find a lot of critical mistakes - no matter how real they are:

- Replace errrrything with synonims!
- The of the words order - change it!
- Make hillarious corrections which wouldn't come to any person's sane mind!
- Write long mind-bending explanations on each correction. Use complex linguistic terms!
- Turn preferential changes into minor ones, minor ones into major ones, and majors - into criticals!
...
...
... See more
When you get a text to review, always find a lot of critical mistakes - no matter how real they are:

- Replace errrrything with synonims!
- The of the words order - change it!
- Make hillarious corrections which wouldn't come to any person's sane mind!
- Write long mind-bending explanations on each correction. Use complex linguistic terms!
- Turn preferential changes into minor ones, minor ones into major ones, and majors - into criticals!
...
...

- Offer them your translation services and subcontract the job for peanuts!
- PROFIT!!!
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Christopher Schröder
Michael Newton
Matthias Brombach
 
Christopher Schröder
Christopher Schröder
United Kingdom
Member (2011)
Swedish to English
+ ...
Svenskar Jun 20, 2023

Mijo Schyllert wrote:

Sometimes. I am a reviewer as well as a translator and I do stick to non-subjective changes. But for me, the worst is when you work with a large company and your translation has to go through middle managers (most not Swedish-speaking) and they DO comment...Example: "This word has not been translated". Reply: "Well, that it's because it is the same word in Swedish and English...".
My favourite was one when a person (not Swedish) commented on a PDF file (after countless rounds of checks) that: "This doesn't look like Swedish" (on a perfectly formed sentence). I mean, I laugh now, but then...hm.

Thank your lucky stars you don't translate the other way, and literally everyone thinks they know your language. Of all the Scandies, the Swedes are by far the worst.


 
Robert Rietvelt
Robert Rietvelt  Identity Verified
Local time: 10:36
Member (2006)
Spanish to Dutch
+ ...
Wrong question! Jun 20, 2023

Do you feel some reviewers make changes to translations "just to change something"?

Almost all the time!

The question should be: 'Are most reviewers capable to 'review'?'

What we seem to forget, is dat 'reviewing' is a trade on itself, which is learned by years of experience.

I encounter mostly three kinds of reviewers: Those who should go back to grammar school to learn their grammar/language properly (unfortunately the biggest group), those
... See more
Do you feel some reviewers make changes to translations "just to change something"?

Almost all the time!

The question should be: 'Are most reviewers capable to 'review'?'

What we seem to forget, is dat 'reviewing' is a trade on itself, which is learned by years of experience.

I encounter mostly three kinds of reviewers: Those who should go back to grammar school to learn their grammar/language properly (unfortunately the biggest group), those who make preferential corrections, and those who know what they are talking about.

We are only human, and we all make mistakes, me too. I don't mind being corrected, but please correct a mistake, not a total correct sentence!

[Edited at 2023-06-20 21:53 GMT]

[Edited at 2023-06-20 21:54 GMT]

[Edited at 2023-06-21 21:19 GMT]
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Poll: Do you feel some reviewers make changes to translations "just to change something"?






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