| 话题中的页数: < [1 2] | Poll: Have you ever read your own published translation, and not been happy with the quality of your work? 论题张贴者: ProZ.com Staff
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neilmac
西班牙
Local time: 19:38
Spanish西班牙语译成English英语
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Not really. Usually if the journal or entity publishing the work considers it acceptable for publication, that is enough justification for me. However, I have also seen some very poorly written/translated articles published in what are supposed to be respectable and rigorous publications.
On the other hand, what does get my goat is this. I often translate and revise/correct articles for publication. Some journals prefer the American English variant, whereas others accept either Amer... See more Not really. Usually if the journal or entity publishing the work considers it acceptable for publication, that is enough justification for me. However, I have also seen some very poorly written/translated articles published in what are supposed to be respectable and rigorous publications.
On the other hand, what does get my goat is this. I often translate and revise/correct articles for publication. Some journals prefer the American English variant, whereas others accept either American or British English, but not a mixture of the two. Whenever possible, I prefer to work in the latter. The other day, I came across an article that I had translated, in a different journal from the one that had originally been submitted to, and it was now all in US English. I was not amused.
Sometimes the reviewers from journals are not native speakers, and assume that if their US English spellchecker underlines words in red, they must be "errors", and send the article back to the authors for "correction". As the authors are only worried about getting their articles published, I usually just keep mum and let it slide, rather than writing a letter to the editor pointing out the error of their ways. Which doesn't mean I'm not livid at the time.
PS: Of course, you can always tweak a text to improve it, as long as the deadline permits, but usually, if not always, I'm happy with the work that I deliver and consider it fit for purpose. Interestingly, this morning I finished the second draft of one article for publication, and when looking at the target journal's instructions for authors, found a link to a site that runs a quality check on articles free of charge (https://secure.aje.com/en/researcher/grammar-check/details/fcaeef20-d001-4d64-a0b9-58fb81b0fc9f). Out of curiosity, I ran my translation through it and the result was "Congratulations! Your document is well written and does not need language editing."
So, If it's good enough for them, it's good enough for me
[Edited at 2021-07-13 15:21 GMT]
[Edited at 2021-07-13 15:21 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | marlene Le Duc (X)
法国
Local time: 19:38
English英语译成French法语
| Released of my first book translated whitout any proofreading or editing | Jul 13, 2021 |
For my first literary translation, I assumed that the editor would have a proofreading and editing services.
When I bought the paperback, I discovered so many typos, and spelling mistakes, that I was really ashamed to see my name printed on it.
I did contacted the edition company, they withdraw the book, and I corrected everything with a strong and efficient tool called Antidote (available in French and English)
Since then, I always propose a delay of several monthes just to m... See more For my first literary translation, I assumed that the editor would have a proofreading and editing services.
When I bought the paperback, I discovered so many typos, and spelling mistakes, that I was really ashamed to see my name printed on it.
I did contacted the edition company, they withdraw the book, and I corrected everything with a strong and efficient tool called Antidote (available in French and English)
Since then, I always propose a delay of several monthes just to make sure this won't happen again. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Commiserations | Jul 13, 2021 |
Kay Denney wrote:
In that I'm improving all the time, of course any previous translation is not as good as what I can do now.
I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of an ancient translation once, though, so maybe I'm not improving as much as I thought, since I wasn't as bad as I thought...
My pet peeve though is seeing that clients introduce mistakes. I think it's often the layout guy: he'll copy and paste big chunks of text, but will just type little bits himself. Unfortunately the little bits of text are often in the biggest fonts, because they're headings. I just saw one thing like that in a website I did, the layout guy had forgotten to put "Description" instead of "Descriptif" in French. I was credited as translator for that website and was hoping to send the link to potential clients as a prime example of my work. Grrr!
[Edited at 2021-07-13 12:51 GMT]
Surely you can ask them to change that though? It's in their interests to get it right as well.
| | | | LIZ LI 
中国大陆
Local time: 01:38
French法语译成Chinese汉语
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| Another poll suggestion | Jul 14, 2021 |
Teresa Borges wrote:
The source text was so badly written that I couldn’t understand even whole sentences...
Here comes another topic for discussion:
What will you do if the source test is badly written?
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| What is happiness? | Jul 14, 2021 |
When I send off a finished translation, I do so knowing that if I could go over it again after a week or two I would find things to improve. However, that doesn't mean that I'm "not happy" with the quality of the translation I've delivered. Life isn't perfect. You do the best you can and then move on.
And I rarely if ever read published versions of material I've translated. Once I've delivered the work to the client and been paid, the job is over.
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