One important aspect mentioned there is "due diligence".

I believe that any translator who accepts work on the basis of a simple e-mail, makes a translation and then does not get paid for the work has not exercised due diligence and fully deserves not to get paid. They would not stand a chance in court.

That is one aspect that Maria is overlooking, contributory negligence on the part of the translator! Her implied proposition that translators should be entitled to assume that everybody offering translation work on the Internet is honest, competent and good-willed by default is clearly untenable. We are under no moral obligation whatever to help save the suckers from the hustlers and the dilettanti.

The first step is always to establish the bona fides of the Buyer (i.e. the translation agency) if otherwise unknown - e.g. get a creditworthiness statement from the Buyer's bank. What is that you are saying? You have no idea which bank they have their account at? You really are crying out to be scammed, aren't you!

The whole translation deal should be fully documented. That is one of the reasons why I would never touch any job labeled as being "URGENT". That label almost always means: "We recognize that the deadline is unreasonable but we are desperate and if the worst comes to the worst we can always claim that the translator delivered late. We have cut all the corners that we can and we certainly don't have any time for formalities like establishing our creditworthiness."

The more I look at this subject, the more I am convinced that Maria has gone off completely on the wrong tack. The translator's answer to Cain's question "Am I my brother's keeper?" is clearly "Certainly not if he or she has failed to take even the most elementary precautions!"

I really don't see much point in continuing this thread!

Derek

Hi Maxi,
some answers here: http://www.statsaut-translator.no/Files/Standard-15038-final-draft-en.pdf

No, the standards tackle the very problem that you mentioned, Maxi - the incompetent translation service provider (TSP). They set out certain minimum requirements for a TSP and certification provides for independent inspectors who visit their premises and check whether or not that TSP meets those requirements. It is not a trivial inspection, there are reports that it can cost a large agency as much as GBP 20,000 and take several days. And there are provisions for annual audits to ensure that the standard is maintained. I feel sure that they would immediately expose any superficial operation that existed only to scam translators.

I am beginning to feel that it is in translators' basic interest to ensure that as many agencies as possible obtain EN 15038 certification and help to squeeze out of the market all those agencies who can't or won't. Every time that translators accept work from an uncertified agency they are potentially encouraging and supporting the fraudulent, the insolvent and the dilettanti.

Translators of the World Unite! Rise up against the TSPs (translation service pirates)! Lay them in EN 15038 chains once and for all!

Of course, an inevitable side effect will be to force most of the cowboy translators out of the market, too, because an EN 15038-compliant agency would not be able to hire them!

 Derek

Now that its readership jumped up to almost 22 average viewings per post?

(BTW, I checked our 25 Most Active Threads for the Last Ten Days last night and guess what? The most viewed were posts from Translators' Encounters (427), Inside the language (320) and  Beautiful songs, beautiful lyrics (230). Tells you what people real interests are when they come to a cafe'...)

Anyway, that EN 15038, or whatever (which as an agency owner I would care less about), does it require that you pay freelancers within under 50 days which is pretty much common market practice these days (Post #96352)? What if I regularly settle within 60 days, do I lose EN 15038?

Jacek

Just to add a brief comment, I had to wonder why the website says they certify quality with ISO 9001 and EN 15038 but whe it comes to their own proofreading, they cannot spell "Deutschland" (Germany) correctly (see last entry below the German flag).

Is it not the old discussion whether an agency is only a re-seller of full TEP services by one freelance translator or, according to EN 15038, should employ their own in-house proofreaders and QA managers on every project routinely?

But that is only because TC does not allow porno.

You would care more if we downtrodden translators could picket your agency and prevent any translators from working for you until you got certified. I know that there will always be scabs but we could show up with pickaxe handles and Molotov cocktails and fight for the rights of the working class just as in the good old days!

We both know that all this has to be strictly theoretical, Jacek. Nothing is going to change in reality whatever we do. How many years now have translators been bleating about those wicked agencies and nothing has changed yet? The translators do not deserve anything better and they are going to be phased out fairly soon if Google Translations and cloud-computing take off. EN 15038 has nothing to do with terms of payment but everything to do with ensuring that the agency is run in a business-like way.

The question of payment within a certain period of time is really a big joke. The agencies do the same as I do with my income tax - I pay last year's tax out of this year's earnings. That is no problem provided I earn as much or more this year as I did last year.

As I see it, with the agencies, they have arranged their cash flow so that they pay translators for translations that were submitted a month ago out of the payments that they are getting from other clients this week. That goes well as long as they keep getting business. The crunch comes when they receive a translation from a translator and then business is slack for a while so that a month is too short, there is not enough coming in, and it gets stretched out to 50 or 60 days.

What translators need to do when accepting work is to insist that the agency takes out a bond in the full amount of the payment due and the bond ensures that the money paid by clients is used to pay the same translators who did the work and nobody else. Then if the agency cannot pay, the translators collect the amount from the bank or the insurance company who then takes over the task of getting payment from the agency. But then they would never have given the agency the bond in the first place if the agency had not been creditworthy.

All strictly theoretical, of course, it will never happen!

Derek 

Dear All,

I cannot believe my eyes having 14 notifications in my inbox because of my thread in the few hours I have been out of office today.

I picked up my son who has worked as a translator for a Dutch translation agency for three months. In-house work. He has got paid, but not for over time, and he worked basically non-stop. He has loved his job, been paid his monthly salary on time, but not for overtime and been given a contract that says he cannot work for another game translation agency for the next three years. One of his colleagues took his own contract to a lawyer who basically could not stop laughing. I really wonder why? NO, I don't.

He gave me so many funny translations that he had to correct, that I laughed so hard and much that I missed my exit from the motorway. The translations had already been accepted. Any BS EN-15038, I doubt it. 

It is just another example of the practise and the two sides of the coin. I asked my son if the agency complied with the BS EN-15038 by any chance and he said:" what?". He said; " they do not have any standards and what is the standard you are referring to? He said; the owner has become one of my best friends and even told me himself that we who work for him will not even get the credit because there is an office in the U.K who gets the work initially from the games company. They cannot handle all the work so it is given to this Dutch company that I have worked for. We are the ones who actually do the games testing and the translations." There are no proofreaders and every translation is accepted.

He said that one of the very funny translations he had come aross and, which had already been accepted was;" a striking helmet being translated as a moped helmet and also a moped home."

As for you Derek, no I have not missed the point, but I do think you live in a slightly different world than the rest of us. The EU standard may indeed have been accepted by other countries around the Globe. I doubt however that they include all the Arabic countries you mention, have you ever visited them and seen that humans, animals, sanitation and environmental issues etc. etc.  are totally neglected? That goes for most of the Arab countries and yes, I have in fact visited most of them. Do you honestly think that a European standard for translation services therefore would gather any interest or being enforced by their agencies or in their courts of law? I think not. Your world seems to be very easy and a drift on pink clouds where everything goes according to your wishes and everyone else are just plain stupid and should just shut up and live with it.

Do you know legally where you stand with a standard? Do you know what can and cannot be enforced in a court of law? Which court of law are we talking about Derek? I think it is you who really don't understand how things work in the legal and real world. I also know perfectly well about contributory negligence and you have not managed to understand what I have tried to communicate here, where as others have and easily do.

Thank you Maxi for such great support and brillant postings too. I really appreciate it as this is what we need.

I have actually stated all along that there need to be rules, not just standards, that apply to both client and translator. Quality work = payment. Any work=payment ,but reduced if crap, as you Derek has put it many times. I don't think you understand the difference between a law, regulation and standard. There are massive big differences. Secondly, just because a country ratify a law does not mean that the law has priority over their own laws. Do you honestly think Human Rights are an easy peasy thing to enforce and if no then why not? I can tell you why not. The majority of countries in the world have ratified and accepted the Human Rights and adopted it to be part of their own laws. So, why doens't it work then, when it comes to enforcement? Because they have a constitution normally that says no other law is going to have a higher force/priority than our own laws. Sharia Law is the best example in this particular case. Norway does not accept EC law as being above their own laws. They adapt where they can but nothing can take priority above their laws. It is written in the constitution.

A standard is a beginning but not a solution. A standard is rather far down on the ladder and in the hierarchi. There can be other laws and regulations that go before it. It is simply not much more than telling your kids that these are the house rules. No, go to bed!

I have to say that I agree with you here Lacek, about not giving a toss about the BS EN-15038, because at the end of the day it is not actually worth the paper it is written on. That is actually a sad fact but a truth. A standard does not have the same force in a court of Law  as a law and again, which court of law? Japan, U.S.A, Mauritania? I standard is just what the word say, a standard. Like Lacek say here, a standard does not solve the issue of payment.

The standard we refer to is; "to cover the core translation process and all other related aspects involved in providing the service, including quality assurance (translator and client) and tracebility (of what?). This standard offer both translation service providers and their clients a description and definition of the entire service". (No, it doesn't actually.) " At the same time it is designed to provide translation service providers with a set of procedures and requirements to meet the marked needs." (Where does the ordinary man in the street find these as a translator? I know, but do you?

EN-15038 was approved by the European Committee for Standardization (CEN) on 13 th of April 2006 and was oficially published in May 2006. CEN members are the national standard bodies of Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, LIthuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Nertherlands, Norway, Polan, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the U.K. What about Turkey?

I wish life was as easy as you put it Derek and I can only assume that either you are happy with earning next to nothing, considering all the checks and demands you put forward to take on a job, or this is not your livelihood as I am sure is the fact for most of us. There are in fact justified demands from companies for wanting to have a job done urgently. Lets say for the argument, that your top floor bathroom has a serious water leak and you discover it when it has gone through one floor of your house but you have another floor it can go through, expensive rugs, furniture etc. I doubt you would sit down and think; ohh let me see, I think I have to check out this plumber/company before I call him/them and if he/they comply with the standards, if he/they have a credit rating good enough for me, check testimonials from previous clients, go and check their bathrooms etc.,  before you pick up your phone and phone them to stop the damage to your house before all your values are affected. It can be the same for accepting a translation job.

Translation agencies do have urgent jobs as well as the ordinary ones but they all tend to have dead-lines and I tend to have a project I am working on when I am asked to take on a new one. Do I have time to do all your checks before I say yes? No, I don't. A job offered you is also often gone if you do not reply to the e-mail within an hour or so. They can still be from reputable companies and who comply with the BS EN-15038 standard. I had that scenario earlier this week. I worked on a project, saw the e-mail an hour too late, lost the translation job, but got the proofreading of the translation job the next day. The company did indeed meet the standards and luckily for me they are in the same country as myself.

  Agencies should know that the translator they call for urgent help is a good solid, trustworthy and respectful translator as you should be able to do so with the plumbing company you contact. or translation agency you contact. The difference being that you will contact a plumber locally but a translation agency might contact a translator on the other side of the globe. That translator is then accepting a job on the other side of the globe. What about standards, credit checks, popping around the corner to see if they are real? This is what you so fail to see Derek.

You make it so dead simple and I am happy if this is the case for you and then do drop out of discussing this issue further. This thread is not just about you, but for all of us and both clients and translators.

This thread to me seems to be very valuable and I feel that we are finally moving on and moving forward and, which was the whole intention from the start.

I posted a link to a website that I thought could be a good start,  plastic toys or not as picture, it is still a good start. Better than being a pompous" know it all and don't care about anyone else as it must be there fault anyway as nothing will ever happen to me", kind of attitude.

Nanna posted a link for reputable companies, and guess what? It isn't a link for just reputabel companies. So, what is then? This is also why we are discussing this. We do not obviously have anything solid to go by. No protection but only bla bla bla from East and West, North and South.

It just goes to prove, professional or not, a tabloid head line gets us all interested whether we like to admit that or not.

TRUE STORY!!! - "A SURGEON CUT OFF HIS PATIENTS' LEG!"

(Otherwise he could not have saved his life because of the cancer that had spread....)

My question is; do we need to work together and should we work together to protect this industri or should we should care about ourselves?

Kind regards

Maria

Hi Matthias and all,
what most of us don't seem to know is that there are some nice workarounds to avoid quality processes related to whatever standard we may think of, plus the fact that standards cannot avoid the production of crap.

I worked in an industrial company which manufactured safety-related OEM parts for the automotive industry.  I cannot recall how many times we had complete shipments rejected by some end clients, due either to nitpicking on their side (missing stickers, etc.) or to more serious issues.

Apart from that, said end clients were happy to work with other manufacturers in cheaper countries, even if the parts in question, once tested through us, would just fail rather basic fatigue tests.

So much for quality standards...  And yes, even though I think EN 15038 is a good thing, its implementation in the industry is quite another thing as the standard per se just provides a general "frame" in which each TSP can put any "picture" they like (starting with free test translations even if this contradicts e.g. the ATA's professional guidelines and ending with the fact that translators are unable to see the corrections made on their work or to comment them).

Dear Laurent,

You are spot on and so right! Thank you for your comment and contribution. You obviously have experience and knowledge and, God am I glad to see it!!

You are a star!

KInd regards

Maria

Also, for those interested in Maxi's proposed heading for this thread (above), by way of historical background see these four old threads in one: Post #115955.

And a bit on quality standards: Post #125213.