Poll: Do you sometimes feel that quality of your translation has become worse due to improper revision? Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
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This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "Do you sometimes feel that quality of your translation has become worse due to improper revision?".
This poll was originally submitted by Marzieh Izadi. View the poll results »
| | | | R. Alex Jenkins 
Brazil
Local time: 07:45
Member (2006)
Portuguese to English
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| The absolute opposite. | Jun 6 |
The longer I've been working, the more I revise, revise, revise... it's almost like an illness.
I'll probably log into this page again in a few hours to check everything again, like just now  .
[Edited at 2024-06-07 12:25 GMT]
[Edited at 2024-06-07 12:26 GMT]
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3 of my long-standing customers send me the edited text for my approval. Contrary to what I have been hearing from my peers here I haven’t had bad experiences with editors/reviewers/proofreaders. Most of my translations are proofread in-house and my clients know this (and pay for it). I work with a few translation agencies that have their own editors but over the years we managed to develop a very pleasant and fruitful relationship. For the last 10 years or so, I have been working with three d... See more 3 of my long-standing customers send me the edited text for my approval. Contrary to what I have been hearing from my peers here I haven’t had bad experiences with editors/reviewers/proofreaders. Most of my translations are proofread in-house and my clients know this (and pay for it). I work with a few translation agencies that have their own editors but over the years we managed to develop a very pleasant and fruitful relationship. For the last 10 years or so, I have been working with three different agencies that employ the same editor, this means that we know each other work quite well and we trust each other. I must say that we only had a slight disagreement once. The only issue I had related to edition was some 15 years ago when one of my long-standing customers (a Japanese company) decided to pick a Spanish editor for the texts I translate (I translate exclusively into European Portuguese) and it took some time and a LOT of emails back and forth for him to understand that Spanish and Portuguese, though related, are quite different. On another instance an editor replaced the Portuguese verb “hesitar” by “exitar” [for those who don’t speak Portuguese a correct verb was turned into a non-existent verb in PT(pt)]. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Paul Lambert
Sweden
Local time: 12:45
Member (2006)
Swedish to English
+ ...
However, the question is "Do you sometimes"....
Yes, and it is annoying when the reviser clearly does not know formal grammar or other conventions. I have seen versions of my work revised to include split infinitives and sentences ended with prepositions. Worse is when the reviewer clearly was not familiar with a word or phrase and could not be bothered to look it up (yes, I am ending a sentence with a preposition here - oh the irony)!
Again, this is rather rare, but i... See more However, the question is "Do you sometimes"....
Yes, and it is annoying when the reviser clearly does not know formal grammar or other conventions. I have seen versions of my work revised to include split infinitives and sentences ended with prepositions. Worse is when the reviewer clearly was not familiar with a word or phrase and could not be bothered to look it up (yes, I am ending a sentence with a preposition here - oh the irony)!
Again, this is rather rare, but it does happen.
[Edited at 2024-06-06 20:50 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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Paul Lambert wrote:
Yes, and it is annoying when the reviser clearly does not know formal grammar or other conventions. I have seen versions of my work revised to include split infinitives and sentences ended with prepositions.
Both of those “rules” are outdated now, though. If that’s all you get, be happy.
My work is rarely revised, but I imagine it ends up slightly better as we’re all human.
| | | | Lieven Malaise
Belgium
Local time: 12:45
Member (2020)
French to Dutch
+ ...
Christopher Schröder wrote:
My work is rarely revised, but I imagine it ends up slightly better as we’re all human.
Exactly.
| | | | Paul Adie
Germany
Local time: 12:45
German to English
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At least from Spanish into English, I have seen that a lot of reviewers like to completely rejig the translation and say that you got it wrong. This week I nearly ended working with an agency as their reviewer had said that I had introduced several errors into the text. This particular reviewer reworked certain sections to the extent that they created a new text inspired by the original, not an actual translation per se.
Examples of so-called errors from the reviewer:
T... See more At least from Spanish into English, I have seen that a lot of reviewers like to completely rejig the translation and say that you got it wrong. This week I nearly ended working with an agency as their reviewer had said that I had introduced several errors into the text. This particular reviewer reworked certain sections to the extent that they created a new text inspired by the original, not an actual translation per se.
Examples of so-called errors from the reviewer:
Translating "banca" as banking and not bank
Translating "entidad" as institution
The verb "to sophisticate" does not exist in English
"Professional profile" is not common in English
I complained to the agency and then they agreed with me in the end, but it was so much of a hassle that I said that they shouldn't contact me unless the jobs were long and, of course, not to put that reviewer on my jobs.
The agency uses a hellish portal and it's a bit of a headache to work with them - they'll more than likely be dropped soon enough.
I have worked with reviewers who were excellent and they caught things I didn't see - we are only human. ▲ Collapse
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Two of my long-standing clients have introduced an extra step in their workflows, where they often ask me to check the final version of a text in a PDF, with all the formatting in place.
It´s like the good old days before Trados, when we checked a printout for bad line breaks, ´orphans and widows´, picture captions in the wrong place, and all sorts of other details. In an earlier life I worked with a proofreader at a printer´s. She drove me mad at the time, but I respected her!<... See more Two of my long-standing clients have introduced an extra step in their workflows, where they often ask me to check the final version of a text in a PDF, with all the formatting in place.
It´s like the good old days before Trados, when we checked a printout for bad line breaks, ´orphans and widows´, picture captions in the wrong place, and all sorts of other details. In an earlier life I worked with a proofreader at a printer´s. She drove me mad at the time, but I respected her!
I can also see - and correct - any errors that slipped through the first time, or disagree if the text has been revised by someone else. Occasionally I can note improvements and use them myself another time!
In fact, I think it pays off, because when a rushed job comes, and there is no time for several layers of revision, it is easier to get it right first time. ▲ Collapse
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... but more often than not, quality has become better. This is what the four-eyes principle is for. Though I regard myself as a good translator - and fortunately, most of my clients agree - I'm only human and therefore make mistakes. So it's great to have a good proofreader who improves the quality of my work. I, on the other hand, like doing the same for fellow-translators; proofreading is in fact one of my favourite tasks 
| | | | Adam Warren
France
Local time: 12:45
Member (2005)
French to English
| Mishandling by a reviser | Jun 7 |
"Do you sometimes feel that quality of your translation has become worse due to improper revision?
I take this enquiry to mean "has one's (input) translation been mishandled by a reviser?".
I distinguish this from obeying a client's style guide.
Yes, in some specific cases, I found that one particular client had a duff (questionably competent) reviser: a reviser inflicting bogus punctuation and syntax rules unwarrantably criticised my translation.
Another client went to the inordinate length of unpicking all my carefully-placed hyphens, which obeyed Fowler's hortatory pronouncement that where a sense group is adjectival to a term which follows it, a hyphen may be placed between its component words to improve readability, e.g.:
X company is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Y corporation (adjectival - judiciously hyphenated);
conversely:
X company is wholly owned by Y corporation (a verb construct: no hyphen here).
In some rare instances, I was revised unfairly by some revisers who invent errors, seeking to assert themselves at my expense in order to win a client away from me. I dismiss clients who, despite my justified remonstrances, persistently permit such unruly actions.
A case, at times, of having to revise my revisers.
If, on the other hand, one's own revision of one's translation is involved, then I largely disagree. One should always carefully review one's draft. If, however, one spends too much time trying to untangle a knotty problem, then one should begin by conducting one's own terminological and stylistic research. If all else fails, then one must ask first, one's colleagues and then, only failing this, the client. Blind guesses are permissible only if one has exhausted all the foregoing lines of enquiry, and those conjectures must be documented in a translator's note, or in a queries table if there are several issues.
[Edited at 2024-06-07 13:44 GMT]
| | | | | Almost but not quite | Jun 7 |
Adam Warren wrote:
Another client went to the inordinate length of unpicking all my carefully-placed hyphens, which obeyed Fowler's hortatory pronouncement that where a sense group is adjectival to a term which follows it, a hyphen may be placed between its component words to improve readability, e.g.:
X company is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Y corporation (adjectival - judiciously hyphenated);
I had this happen to me: an Italian proofreader took out every single hyphen of this kind in a catalogue for an exhibition that hit the headlines in Italy and ultimately led to the sacking of the Minister of Culture (for his statements, not my translation, fortunately). However, I'd say you didn't choose a good example in "wholly-owned". My copy of Fowler's is in a packing case at the moment but Oxford, the British Museum, Carnegie Publishing, MHRA, the Guardian, Princeton University, the EU and the National Museum of Australia all agree that, to quote Oxford, "Do not hyphenate adjectival compounds beginning with adverbs ending in -ly: happily married couple, newly discovered compound, [...]". Apart from obvious cases such as "a small scale factory" (a factory that makes small scales), it also mentions "an ad hominem argument" (foreign phrases not hyphenated in the original), "an ad hoc decision" (foreign phrases that have become part of the English language without the hyphen, unlike "laissez-faire" for example), "British Museum staff" (capitalized words) and "liquid crystal display" (scientific terms tend not to be hyphenated in technical contexts).
To dot another i and cross another t, Paul Adie says that "The verb "to sophisticate" does not exist in English". I imagine he's absolutely right for his context, but "to sophisticate" does of course exist in English, meaning (from Webster's): 1) to adulterate, 2) to deprive of genuineness, and 3) to make complicated or complex (as in "sophisticate the mechanism of a watch")
| | | | | Which quality is that quality? | Jun 9 |
I mean, that quality? Talking about quality in general, I don't believe it depends at all on subsequent revision work (if any). The person who does this work never has all the keys to my translation like I do. So, if the manager sends revised work back to me, I can always quickly fix it so that quality is not impaired, but if I don't get to see the revision, it's no longer my work so I don't care
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