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Reviewing Quality of Translation and Vetting Good Linguists
Thread poster: Laura Coyt Zavala
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 16:01
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
@Laura Jul 20, 2022

Laura Coyt Zavala wrote:
In the past, we have considered having translators proofread each other's work and let us know if the quality is good, but more often they just tear each other apart. We don't know who to believe!

You have my sympathy -- both a good and a bad translator may tear apart both a good or a bad translation (or praise it).

Your task is to try to guess whether a translator is a good translator based on external factors (e.g. their age, their qualifications, their KudoZ score, whether people often disagree with their KudoZ answers, their profile completeness, whether they've passed an accreditation exam, membership to societies, and just generally how they behave themselves in their e-mails to you) and hope that you don't trust the wrong person from the start.

Are you quite familiar with the services of ProZ.com? I mean, do you know what KudoZ is and where to find the directories?

I understand they are competing for work so of course they'd say the other is no good...

A professionally behaving translator will tell you if another translator's work is good; they won't lie to you and tell you the other person's work is bad simply because they want to keep you (their client) for themselves.

[Edited at 2022-07-20 08:06 GMT]

Christopher Schröder
 
Christopher Schröder
Christopher Schröder
United Kingdom
Member (2011)
Swedish to English
+ ...
Find an expensive third party? Jul 20, 2022

If, say, you were looking to pay translators 10 cents then you could ask someone who charges 15-20 cents to give an opinion, as they will not have any interest in competing for your work.

Very clear guidelines should help.

Your existing translators may be able to recommend better translators for you in the first place.

Remember that most translators are not very good. When I vetted financial translators for one of the big European companies, I only passed 5... See more
If, say, you were looking to pay translators 10 cents then you could ask someone who charges 15-20 cents to give an opinion, as they will not have any interest in competing for your work.

Very clear guidelines should help.

Your existing translators may be able to recommend better translators for you in the first place.

Remember that most translators are not very good. When I vetted financial translators for one of the big European companies, I only passed 5-10% of the test translations they sent me. ▲ Collapse


Kevin Fulton
Adieu
 
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Reviewing Quality of Translation and Vetting Good Linguists







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