Poll: Have clients told you some of their translations do not need to be high-quality? Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
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This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "Have clients told you some of their translations do not need to be high-quality?".
View the poll results »
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My clients have never asked for less than I usually deliver, but potential clients have, in particular when they say that I am too expensive. I understand that I might not be a good match for these clients…
| | | | Anna Herbst 
Australia
Local time: 13:20
English to Swedish
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MODERATOR SITE LOCALIZER
And if anyone did, I would politely remind them that I am a professional, who is dedicated to producing high quality translations. Nothing more, nothing less.
| | | | | Cheap Translations | Mar 28, 2019 |
It has been my experience, that clients who tell me that the translation doesn't have to be perfect are often looking for cheap translations.
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| Actually, this raises a profound issue ... | Mar 28, 2019 |
Well, not in so many words ... the problem is when the client wants you to adapt your translation to what they are accustomed to using/seeing in English ... even if it is wrong ... because it has become "established" in their industry or at their company.
This is quite common in Spain, where Spanglish runs rampant.
At times a kind of parallel form of English develops at companies, where they are actually more comfortable using Spanglish.
This leads to ... See more Well, not in so many words ... the problem is when the client wants you to adapt your translation to what they are accustomed to using/seeing in English ... even if it is wrong ... because it has become "established" in their industry or at their company.
This is quite common in Spain, where Spanglish runs rampant.
At times a kind of parallel form of English develops at companies, where they are actually more comfortable using Spanglish.
This leads to clients actually being surprised by proper English, and "correcting" professional translations.
This raises an interesting question: if Spanglish actually becomes a completely functional "language" ... at what point does it become legitimate?
Will there be "Spanglish" translators in the future, who make intentional "mistakes" to conform to this linguistic variation? Are there people doing this already?
Food for thought. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Ricki Farn
Germany
Local time: 05:20
English to German
I agree that people who explicitly want low-quality translations will look elsewhere (or I will ask them to).
Justin, I see what you mean - I also know people who ask for "IT-lingo Germish translatorese" translations, but they are absolutely convinced that they are asking for high quality, while I just sit there shaking my head.
| | | | | not clients, only mails | Mar 28, 2019 |
I don't have such clients.
Yesterday I've got an email promising millions of words that are so easy and do not require any special knowledge to translate, and they do not want high quality but require it to be still human. Of course, they are looking for as cheap translators as $0.01/word. On the other hand, there are people who are trying badly to persuade that their AI is so smart that a translator has "almost" nothing to do there. They'd better contact each other rather than me, becaus... See more I don't have such clients.
Yesterday I've got an email promising millions of words that are so easy and do not require any special knowledge to translate, and they do not want high quality but require it to be still human. Of course, they are looking for as cheap translators as $0.01/word. On the other hand, there are people who are trying badly to persuade that their AI is so smart that a translator has "almost" nothing to do there. They'd better contact each other rather than me, because they worth each other.
[Редактировалось 2019-03-28 18:11 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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Platon Danilov wrote:
Yesterday I've got an email promising millions of words that are so easy and do not require any special knowledge to translate, and they do not want high quality but require it to be still human. Of course, they are looking for as cheap translators as $0.01/word. On the other hand, there are people who are trying badly to persuade that their AI is so smart that a translator has "almost" nothing to do there. They'd better contact each other rather than me, because they worth each other.
[Редактировалось 2019-03-28 18:11 GMT]
That's also what first came to my mind. I saw this job come up in a number of places and from different companies to boot. One e-mailed me directly and offered a more generous rate than that, but still only 50% of my standard rate. Considering the source material was barely comprehensible tweets given without any kind of context, they don't have to look specifically for low quality - there's no way anyone will be able to do anything half decent with it.
A more reasonable example I've seen on occasion was customer support e-mails where the company said they didn't need the English version of their customers' e-mails to be impeccable as long as they understood the meaning. Their responses (translated back to other languages) were given a little more care. That was one instance where I didn't feel bad translating into my second tongue.
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| "Lower your standards!" | Mar 29, 2019 |
That's what a PM once told me.
| | | | Mario Freitas
Brazil
Local time: 00:20
Member (2014)
English to Portuguese
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And if it happens, they'll have to find another transaltor.
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