About the author: Christian Arno is a director of Lingo24, one of the UK's leading translation agencies. With operations in seven different countries including New Zealand, Lingo deliver translation services round-the-clock to market leaders in a variety of different sectors.
You can’t please all of the people all of the time, or so the saying
goes. But as any translation project manager will tell you,
that’s exactly what we attempt to do on a daily basis! On the one
side you’ve got clients champing at the bit for first class translation
at economy class rates; and on the other side you have a team of
translators being asked to produce first-rate work—often under
pressure of time—and expecting fair remuneration for their
efforts. Then, as if being piggy-in-the-middle between these two
wasn’t hard enough, don’t forget the friendly face of the finance
director peering over your shoulder, reminding you to keep costs down
so that the company stays in the black (thereby keeping project
managers and translators in work!).
But don’t get the impression that it’s all doom, gloom and
despondency. There’s a lot of humour in the translation business—and that’s before you even start reading machine translations (always
good for cheering one up in times of despair...). A quick scan of
the local Council website where it talks about keenly contested
“geometrical angle championships” (German translation of “angling
contests”) or tells you that a particular town “lies” somewhere
(translated into French as “tells untruths”), will soon have you
smiling, whatever the day may bring. The fact that some companies
(none of our clients, thank goodness!) blithely stick up machine
translations on their websites without a thought for the often
hilarious results, also provide a valuable reminder about the level of
understanding of the translation process which prevails (or rather
doesn’t)—none of which makes a project manager’s life any easier!
Understanding the issues
So what is there to understand? To the outsider, it all sounds
simple enough. Client sends text to project manager; project manager
sends text to translator; translator sends translation back to project
manager; project manager sends translation back to client. Easy
as pie! So easy, in fact, that some clients are surprised to
discover that there are dictionaries (shock horror!) involved in the
process. I’ve lost track of the number of times that—daring to
mention that I’d like to consult a dictionary—I’ve been asked
“Goodness, don’t you know all the words—I thought you spoke fluent
French?” That’s just one of a number of misconceptions held by
those outside the industry. Another old chestnut is the “OK, so
we’ve got the document we need translated, but we don’t need to contact
the translation agency until the day before we need it”… Or the Spanish
document (needed by tomorrow, por favor) which purports to be “just a
couple of pages” but multiplies miraculously in cyberspace to become
twenty pages. Not to mention the “oh, it’s not at all technical”
text which, when it eventually sneaks its way into the Project
Manager’s inbox, proves to be so jam-packed with jargon that it’s
difficult even to identify the source language as English...
And if all the above sounds vaguely familiar, there’s a good chance
you’ll also recognize the “Friday Special” syndrome—you know, that
legal document which the client has pushed around his desk all week,
only to produce it triumphantly at 4 o’clock on Friday afternoon.
Of course it’s highly specialised, is required as soon as possible, and
they want it in Kikongo (isn’t that a dance?) and Chinese. By some
freak accident of the international calendar, it just so happens to be
the Chinese New Year, so you know—even before picking up the phone—
that finding any sort of Chinese translator over the weekend is going
to be like searching for hens’ teeth. And finding one who happens
to be a legal specialist to boot, is going to make the hens’ teeth
search appear an easy option. Not to mention that you’ve still
got a competent proof-reader to find too… Meanwhile the kindly
client, disappointed that you can’t deliver by 5.30 p.m. the same day,
grudgingly accepts delivery for 9 a.m. on Monday morning, though he’s
finding it hard to conceal his obvious frustration that you expect him
to find out which sort of Chinese he requires (“Are there really two?
Well, just choose the one that you think best…”). It’s going to
be a long weekend…
Beware the “simple jobs”
Another phrase which starts the warning bells ringing is: “it’s just a
list of words”. Of course, thanks to Trados, SDL and the likes,
lists of terminology can be fairly straightforward these days—
consistency is no longer an issue, and at least you don’t need to make
a list “flow” as you do with text written in a more conventional
style. However, where there aren’t many repetitions and virtually
every term needs to be looked up individually, a “simple” list can be a
fiddly and unrewarding task, taking far longer than free-flowing text
and sometimes stretching the patience of even the most forbearing
translator. But the most insidious type of list are “word strings”—lists of “out of context” phrases which feature the additional “bonus”
challenge of character restrictions. As anyone who’s been haunted by
the spectre of character restrictions can testify, translators often
have to perform a series of linguistic acrobatics to render even the
simplest source sentence correctly within the specified number of
letters and spaces. However, try explaining to even the
most understanding of clients why you need to charge more for this and
you sense immediately that even the reasonable ones reckon you’re
over-egging the pudding.
Colleagues you can count on
One aspect of project management which must never be underestimated is
the importance of a good working relationship between project managers
and translators. Of course, this is an essentially a professional
relationship, but there’s no doubt that a strong camaraderie can
develop after working regularly with someone, and riding the highs
(euphoria of completing a job on time to a rapturous client reception)
and lows (nightmare job, nightmare client and deadline of yesterday—
preferably the day before) of the translation business. The fate
of project managers and the translators who work with them are
inextricably linked. Translators rely on project managers to deal
with many of the time-consuming administrative issues, manage
(sometimes unreasonable) client expectations and to handle the
multifarious queries which often pop up as work progresses; whilst
project managers depend on the translator to flag up any problems or
queries, produce work of (near!) perfection and deliver the final
translation by the appointed hour. Make no mistake: skilled
translators are the lifeblood of the industry. Indeed some appear
to be veritable magicians, regularly conjuring miracles out of their
bag of linguistic tricks within timescales that would appear literally
impossible to those not blessed with magical powers.
Errare humanum est
Good old Cicero certainly knew what he was talking about when he said
that “to err is human”—and unfortunately not all clients subscribe to
the theory that “to forgive is divine”. Despite the best efforts
of translators and checkers and the most efficient project management
in the world, mistakes can and do happen—for the translation industry
is no different from any other. Fortunately complaints are
relatively rare, owing to the fact that most translators are consummate
professionals and to the fact that all reputable agencies have
translations independently proof-read. Not that that is much
consolation, of course, when you have a crazed client on the phone
telling you that his German counterpart’s pet hamster could have done a
better job of translating a particular technical document. The
plot thickens when you speak to the translator and proof-reader who’ve
worked on the job, only to hear that the source text was so poor it was
probably written by the hamster in the first place, and that they’ve
both done their best to make a completely incomprehensible source text
rather more comprehensible in the target language. This leaves the
project manager with the unenviable task of “translating” this
information into suitably diplomatic terms to feed back to the client!
Another helpful client is the sort who informs you that the terminology
used in the 10,000 word report you’ve just had translated into French
for his company doesn’t really correspond with in-house style and that
his French contacts prefer the one translated by another company a few
months before. Not that he mentioned a dicky-bird about the
existence of the previous report when you invited him courteously—before starting work on the job—to forward any useful background
material…
Getting a buzz from words
There’s no denying that translation project management is not without
its stresses, yet it can be addictive too. It’s hard not to get a
rush of adrenalin when you receive a call or email out of the blue from
a high profile potential client, desperately seeking a lifetime partner
to cover their massive—but incredibly straightforward—translation
requirements. Granted, that particular “dream” scenario doesn’t
occur all too often. But when it does, it sure helps
compensate for a few of those Friday Specials!
About Lingo24 Translation Services—Much more than a traditional translation agency, Lingo24 Translation Services
provides professional language translation and other services to blue
chip companies and other translation agencies throughout the world. On
time, on budget, to the requisite standard - and, generally speaking,
with a smile thrown in for free!
