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Do you work with a proofreader?
Thread poster: Gregory Lassale
B D Finch
B D Finch  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 13:14
French to English
+ ...
I used to Nov 22, 2018

Baran Keki wrote:

I am a good enough translator in my areas of specialization and I invest a good deal of time and effort into researching before starting on a translation.
In my experience, proofreaders do little more than altering (or rather undermining) one's style by changing the sentences with their preferred wording and terminology which have no bearing whatsoever on the subject matter and context while making little to no changes to punctuation and grammar.
To answer your question with a question of my own, why should I pay someone that will undermine my style by imposing their own style?


The British Chartered Institute of Linguists advises that when proofreading you should always respect the work of your fellow translator and never make stylistic changes simply for personal preference. I note that Baran translates from Turkish into English. I hope he will excuse the suggestion that a proofreader who was a native speaker of English would find a few things to correct in the above.

I used to send my construction and engineering translations to a proofreader who was both a translator and a professional in the construction field. I found this very valuable, in spite of the fact that I had to pay him out of taxable income and couldn't claim the cost as a business expense. His charges were very reasonable and I learned a lot from his comments and corrections. Of course, I charged the client extra for that service. When he stopped translating and proofreading to concentrate on his day job, I didn't get anybody else to step in. The better agencies I work for do use proofreaders. Agencies that don't use proofreaders fail to do so at their own risk. With private clients, I try to only take on work in fields where I am confident of producing a good translation without needing to pay a proofreader. I try to proofread at least one day after completing the translation and prefer to proofread, from a printout and in a room other than my office or, even better, in the garden. One of the most important things is to know when to doubt and question your own writing and to know how to research to anything you aren't sure of. It's better to be over-cautious than over-confident. I mention to the client any points I haven't managed to satisfy myself about.

As an aside, the Dunning-Kruger effect (something that KudoZ sometimes seems designed to illustrate) is something we should all recognise as a warning that being confident of not needing your work proofread can be a danger signal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect


 
jyuan_us
jyuan_us  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 08:14
Member (2005)
English to Chinese
+ ...
I think you need to let your agency clients know Nov 22, 2018

that you will use a proofreader, otherwise it could be considered as a violation of your confidentiality agreement with them. And you may have to have a confidentiality agreement in place between you and your proofreaders.

[Edited at 2018-11-22 15:06 GMT]


B D Finch
Tom in London
 
Baran Keki
Baran Keki  Identity Verified
Türkiye
Local time: 15:14
Member
English to Turkish
You're right of course Nov 22, 2018

[quote]B D Finch wrote:

The British Chartered Institute of Linguists advises that when proofreading you should always respect the work of your fellow translator and never make stylistic changes simply for personal preference. I note that Baran translates from Turkish into English. I hope he will excuse the suggestion that a proofreader who was a native speaker of English would find a few things to correct in the above.

To be honest with you, I don't remember the last time I translated into my source language. As you know, most European translation agencies consider translating into your source language a sin. I included Turkish to English pair in my profile just to get involved in Kudoz questions when I first registered here and didn't bother to change it afterwards.
You're absolutely correct. My English is far from being perfect, and it'll never be as good as a native speaker even if I put a dodgy gray 'N' sign on my profile
Unfortunately my colleagues in English to Turkish pair make stylistic changes all the time. Apparently the recommendation of The British Chartered Institute of Linguists does not apply to them.
I think some of them do that just for the sake of appearing to have done something (thinking that the agency won't hire them again if they send the document without any changes), but some of them simply like to see their own style on the document.


[Edited at 2018-11-22 15:00 GMT]


 
Viviane Marx
Viviane Marx  Identity Verified
Local time: 13:14
German to Portuguese
+ ...
The same Nov 22, 2018

Teresa Borges wrote:

I have an arrangement with two trusted colleagues (I worked in-house for 20 years with one of them) where we proofread each other's work (mostly work done for direct clients). So far, it has worked quite well as a moneyless system but we keep track of the number of hours spent…

P.S. Quality-wise, it's the BEST decision I've ever made...


I do the same and it works very well.


 
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