Emergency quashed!

[alexpgp]

That "emergency" translation that had to be edited today came in on the dot of noon, the deadline, but it took me a full 45 minutes to absorb the impact of just what, in the name of anything, had been dropped in my lap.

I found about a half dozen serious errors within the first 15 minutes of editing, which covered something like 300 words of the overall 9,500 words in the project. A number of the pretranslated segments were apparently not looked at. There were a number of places where text was copied and pasted, owing to the similarity of sections of source text, but the job of fixing the pasted text to match the source was botched.

There were pretranslated segments in the file, but the remaining source was translated "in place," i.e., without using TRADOS or anything compatible. That put me in the unenviable position of having to switch my attention between three screens (when I only have two, and small ones at that). At one point, I enlisted Alla 's help to have her read the source text on one screen while I compared what I heard to what I saw in the translation, and then attempted to edit fast enough—with occasional references to a separate machine, which displayed the original document the source was taken from—to fix the, um, inaccuracies.

At one point in the source document, which featured a table with images of text pages in the left-hand column and the corresponding text in the right-hand column, some of the table cells were empty, and some of the cells contained graphics but there was no corresponding text in the source, nor any translation of the text in the images. Since I couldn't tell whether this was by design or by malfunction, I just powered on through and fixed what was there.

I'm betting that tomorrow, I'll get a couple of emails asking me to fix some stuff related to this project, but I won't mind losing that bet (plus, it's with myself, so it really doesn't matter! <grin>).

I am completely frazzled. Time to rest, if I can remember how.

Cheers...

Comments

[velvet-granat.livejournal.com]

Gods, what a horror... I think I'd demand something extra in the pay for this, simply because it sounds like you had to re-translate parts of it from scratch!

[alexpgp.livejournal.com]

As editing jobs go, this was worse than what I expect to see. It's why I generally avoid editing jobs, especially those assignments in which the agency decides not to give me the translation work but offers to let me edit the result of farming the work out to a team of translators who agree to work for two cents per word, provided I don't mind doing it for some ridiculously meager editing rate.

As a matter of fact, however, I do have a little quid pro quo I plan to pursue. <grin>

Cheers...

[velvet-granat.livejournal.com]

That sounds very familiar indeed, I've a couple of clients like that too... small scale, but it all adds up. ;) Thankfully, they have finally clued on that paying my translation rate, higher than Russian rate though it is, is actually better for them - the theory being, if you pay someone competent to check your translations, you don't have to pay ANYONE to check THEIR translations, right?

Actually, I don't know if that's exactly how it works. But they paid me when I chucked a nana and said that certain texts must be re-translated.

[alexpgp.livejournal.com]

Who or what is this 'nana', and why did chuck it (and did it go far, and did it hurt when it struck whoever you were throwing it at)?

And do they sell 'em in the States? :)

Cheers...

P.S. Well, not having to pay to check work done by competent translators is the theory, but even Homer nods from time to time. The fact is that it's cheaper to pay someone to proofread work done by a competent translator (where the job includes authority to make small changes) than it is to pay everyone next to nothing to do work in no time at all and then shove the resulting mess at an editor and expect anything other than smoothed-over mess.

[velvet-granat.livejournal.com]

A nana may fly as far as a thrown hissy fit, I will have to check that for you. :) It may only be available in the Down Under. One can also have a nana, from what I understand, and not chuck it. It may lose its potency then, from what I hear.

P.S. That does make more sense than anything, but as you and I know... well. It would make even more sense to pay both translators and editors a very good wage, so that they would be more motivated to work better, but despite being a much-chewed over topic in translators' forums, this is still something that clients don't always understand.

[velvet-granat.livejournal.com]

Chucking a nana is also related to spitting the dummy, if one becomes a nana and still has to use a dummy, which is just unfortunate.

I should probably go and get myself another mug of coffee. It's too early in the morning for comparative linguistics!