Poll: Which of the following comparisons is most commonly misunderstood in our profession? Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
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This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "Which of the following comparisons is most commonly misunderstood in our profession?".
This poll was originally submitted by Iulia Parvu. View the poll results »
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I just call all of editing, revising, proof(read)ing and any similar type of checking process "reviewing" now, 'cos I ain't sure what's what any more
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| Comparisons or misconceptions? | Jun 13 |
More common misconception? Probably the use of the terms “translation” and “interpretation” interchangeably as if they were synonyms...
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Alba Gila
Spain
Local time: 11:59
English to Spanish
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| Translation vs interpretarion | Jun 14 |
I would say it's the use of translation and interpretation as if they were synonyms and meant the same thing. More than once I've had to explain this difference to people when I talk about my job. I've also heard journalists and newsreaders use it wrong in the news several times, so in my experience I would say it's pretty common.
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| Language fluency vs. professional competence | Jun 14 |
This. And what about the puzzled looks you get when you say you translate into your language. 😭
[Edited at 2024-06-14 07:10 GMT]
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Charlie Bavington wrote: I just call all of editing, revising, proof(read)ing and any similar type of checking process "reviewing" now, 'cos I ain't sure what's what any more
Same here, although I’ve always just called it “checking” and I’m too old to change now.
Similarly, I still have to force myself to call customers “clients” on here.
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| As a "linguist"... | Jun 14 |
Christopher Schröder wrote:
Similarly, I still have to force myself to call customers “clients” on here.
...you better should do so, especially when you are a "member" of a translator platform.
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Baran Keki 
Türkiye
Local time: 12:59
Member
English to Turkish
Christopher Schröder wrote:
Similarly, I still have to force myself to call customers “clients” on here.
Is client an American English word? Is there a difference between customer and client?
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| more than 1 at different levels | Jun 14 |
People who do not work in the industry: Translation vs. Interpreting
Some clients: Proofreading vs. Post-editing
The entire world (I have a friend who studied XXX at Uni, and he can do it for a few euros): Language Fluency vs. Professional Competence
The entire world (oh well you can do it with google translate! - this is not even a job with all the software you have!): Machine Translation vs. Human Translation
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Lingua 5B
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Local time: 11:59
Member (2009)
English to Croatian
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Baran Keki wrote: Christopher Schröder wrote:
Similarly, I still have to force myself to call customers “clients” on here.
Is client an American English word? Is there a difference between customer and client?
Client buys advice, solutions and services, while customers buy products and services.
Client is typically in the B2B world, and customer in B2C.
However, in real life, colloquially, they are used interchangeably.
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| Clients and customers | Jun 14 |
Baran Keki wrote:
Is there a difference between customer and client?
Yes and no. It's complicated.
In theory, one buys products and one buys time. So then you have the issue of whether translators supply a product or a service.
To my mind (based partly on my age/background/personality possibly), translators supply a product, and calling our customers clients is a bit pretentious, like we think we're hot-shot lawyers or something. (This is a little ironic, of course, because I definitely consider myself at least on a par with a hot-shot lawyer, but there we go.)
Clients are also what prostitutes have, which is kinda appropriate given the similarity between prossy/prossie/prozzy and how I naturally want to pronounce ProZ. Although obviously I call them sex workers these days. Or mistress.
But as our Balkan friend kindly explained, the two are pretty interchangeable.
(On a side note, I do the accounts for one end-customer that insists on dividing the people that pay it money into customers, clients and (bizarrely) contractors, when they actually mean clients, patients and buyers. But that's Swedes for you.)
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Daryo
United Kingdom
Local time: 10:59
Serbian to English
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| A bit more complicated that that ... | Jun 14 |
Some people genuinely don't know the difference, some are just careless with words, and some deliberately pretend that they don'y know the difference.
Like when they call a job "proofreading" to mean in fact "rewrite this pile of garbage into something palatable, and if it means translating it from scratch, we don't want to know, we won't pay you for that".
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