language translation

October 27, 2016 by maswebproductions@gmail.com

The Importance of Communication in Translation Services

communication

the act or process of communicating; fact of being communicated.
the imparting or interchange of thoughts, opinions, or information by speech, writing, or signs.

A few weeks ago I attended a conference as a translation services expert in which most of the speakers were foreigners; therefore, there were some interpreters around. I checked the booth and did not recognize any of the interpreters; to be honest they were so young that they did not even realize I was there. They were so nervous and taking notes from every single slide they had, that they forgot about one of the most important things: Supplies; as in water bottles and snacks. The first speaker was interesting, the second I really did not care for, so I decided to go to the booth and pay a visit.

They were so tired and out of themselves that I decided to introduce myself and lend them a hand, not interpreting of course, but rather with advice. “How to deal with pressure 101” One of them knew who I was, which made things easier. They asked me to check the presentation and in that moment I discovered what was wrong. The organizers gave them the very first draft for the presentations, rather than the ones being used on stage. Every effort would be futile since the order of the slides was wrong and most importantly, the information had substantially changed. There was new terminology, new as in “the scientists on stage came up with those terms two weeks ago” (so, there was nothing to do). I gave them a few tips, they relaxed a little bit more and ended up having fun. When their shift ended, I took them to the pub. At the pub, they asked me about those of conferences that are meant to be a failure, and how often a translator-interpreter will run into them during its career.

This is how this story begins:

In the spring of 2014, I was hired to go to the state of Tlaxcala, in Mexico. Tlaxcala is the kind of place in which most things go slower than usual, everything seems to be so far away, and for some reason, a dear friend of mine told me to stay close to a pirul tree (Schinus molle) because, “there are witches everywhere”. So, I was hired as a translation services expert to interpret for an American who was supposed to introduce some new technology at a conference. As I have said before, most translation agencies will never get the slides/material and they will blame the client; and vice versa.

When I arrived to the hotel-convention center, one of the members of the staff greeted me and right before I had a chance to make a question, he said: “I would like to inform you that there is no internet available in here”. I was going to ask him for a few bottles of water, but it is good to know that in some places, the absence of Internet is considered some sort of achievement. Minutes later, I realized that my phone was dead, so, it was going to be a real demon ride scenario; since any kind of “support” was discarded before starting the conference. I checked the booth that I was going to use, it was in the middle of a massive white hall, with large windows, around two hundred chairs and a tiny podium. On the right side of the hall, there were twelve industrial sewing machines. Textiles. Oh yeah!

The term GIGO (Garbage in, garbage out) is one of best terms that I could have ever learned from my methodology professors at college. It is so simple and there is no way to contradict it. Although there is always that person who tries to change the order of things and ends up failing… brutally.
GIGO is some sort of action-reaction, that unfortunately will always end up in an indirect lynching of the agency-translator-interpreter, a series of fights over the telephone/e-mail and some degree of stomachache and acidity for a couple of days.
Many colleagues in the interpretation & translation business are so good that they are capable of taking a defective piece of text and transform it into something that flows like water. But some others, specially the rookies, are not so lucky. This business is wild; and one bad interpretation-translation, will put a mark on everybody, that mark has the shape of a thought, as in the clients thinking that these services are more of an expensive and useless luxury item.

I am talking about building commercial relationships, doing what each party knows best, without interfering with one another. I am talking about healthy business relationships.

Why am I telling you this? What happened to those industrial sewing machines? Well, most of the textile companies that I have worked with are very jealous of their technology, designs, materials, etc. In fact they have nightmares in which their technology filters to the outer world, ending up in a Chinese sweatshop. The problem is that most of the time, this mentality works against them. In this case, the interpreter (me) received three outdated pages… in “portuñol” (portuguese-spanish).
But don’t worry, the speaker was an Ohioan and we ended up creating some new content.

-Art

September 29, 2016 by maswebproductions@gmail.com

Translation Service Agency – Stories

When an interpreter-translator thinks about the reach of his work, he has two options: either to pretend that nothing happened and move on, or to throw up and faint. In 2013 I was invited to the state of Aguascalientes to work on a forum on “sexual diversity”. I do not know how it happened, but the person in charge of logistics must have a very sick sense of humor to pair up an interpreter who could easily be a heavyweight MMA fighter with a 4 feet 9 inches tall woman who happens to be a very well respected sexologist (who also has the best manners that I have ever seen and that definitively is part of my Top 10 for tender smiles).

It all happened so fast that I just remember speaking in front of more than two thousand people, and what made it epic for me was the fact it did not feel like a conference at all, it was more like a stand-up session with curricular value for the audience. That means that there were statistics, history, jokes, deep thoughts and a gratuitous use of the F word. To this day, I have not met a single interpreter that has been asked to swear as much as I did that day, and I got paid.

That same night I met “Hollywood”, he was working in another convention and I guess fate wanted us to become friends. We met at the only bar in town that was showing Game 6 of the World Series (Go Red Sox!) and also the only “narco-free” bar around. We have worked together several times in the last three years (and now that I think about it, it is interesting how fast time goes by in this business), that is why when I talked to him about the project for the translation service agency Language Translation Tech, he accepted immediately.

The meeting that we were to provide translation services for took place at a convention center in Mexico City, in one of those massive events that only a cosmetics company (one of the big ones) can afford. It was a celebration for 15,000 women, with bright lights, pink velvet, and flashy stands with even more lights, artists, luxury prizes that come with accessory prizes, cameras, gala dinners, tiaras, flashy jewelry and lots of makeup for everybody.

When I arrived to the mezzanine, I identified myself as “Hollywood’s Consiglieri”. Of course they did not understand the “Consiglieri” joke, but “Hollywood” did ring a bell and they called his assistant. Yes, one of the most charismatic interpreters that I know has an assistant. I wish I could tell you his name, but unfortunately his Christian name does not favor the guy’s rock star-like attitude, it is something similar to the “Fogell-McLovin” case. The Client assigned a person to be Hollywood’s assistant and she is the one who took me backstage to meet him.

The assistant, Sandy, is a beautiful young woman from Monterrey who was extremely excited about the upcoming show. She told me that it was her first gig, and her boss made it very clear that her job was to guarantee that Hollywood, being the rock-star that he is, was comfortable. “He is resting for the great event tonight, you know?” she says, while I imagine him lying on the floor, eating pizza like a Mexican Axl Rose.

We got in and I started looking around. There were a couple of sofas, three round tables, one table for catering and fridge, one table with floral arrangements, lockers, two television sets with a live broadcast from the conferences taking place upstairs and one television showing the main venue. Hollywood is laying down on one of the sofas, trying to reach a sandwich from the catering table while he hums the star wars theme. Sandy passes the tray to Hollywood while he looks at me and says: “Did I ever tell you that story in which a chiropractor started rapping in the middle of his conference and I had to translate the rhymes as fast as possible?”

Hollywood keeps working on his Jedi mind tricks trying to “manipulate” Sandy into getting him a can of soda. “I don’t think so, bro”, I say while I get a sandwich. “Yeah, it was “Shoop” by Salt N Pepa. The chiropractor was talking about someone’s lumbar vertebra and suddenly he started rapping out of nowhere. He even got the audience to stand up and clap while he was rapping”, he says while opening the can of soda.

On the back I can hear a very loud “1-2, check” and also the a couple drum rolls from the band that is getting its gear ready to rock on stage. We can see the band rehearsing on TV, while the production team plays with the aerial cameras.

We finished our sandwiches and went to the “pits” to fulfill the interpreter ritual of “booth inspection”. It is just like a Formula 1 pilot inspecting his car, every interpreter must talk to his technician and approve the booth… trust me, even the chair is critical. While Hollywood talks to his “roadie” about the schedule and list of speakers, Sandy gets a couple of bottles of water and I decide to take a look at the venue.

It is impressive! I am not going to say that it is the biggest I have ever seen in my life, but for interpretation purposes, it is massive. I see an army of ushers getting ready to accommodate all those women, the audio speakers are in the front and middle sections are like the ones I have seen at concerts. I take a photo of the place and a crew member shows up to tell me that all photos are banned… right. So, I use my Jedi mind tricks on him, and not only he forgets about the photo I took, but he tells me that everyone is so excited because the pop act “OV7”, a very important band from the 90s, is going to perform at 6 pm.

Hollywood is getting ready, so I approach the booth. “I have an addiction problem, bro” he says. He puts his notebook and a pen on the table, where there are already two bottles of water, a packet of bubblegum, his phone, and a few magazines.

“Addiction?” I ask. “Addiction”, he says.

When an interpreter has been around the block a few times without innovating its act, magic tends to dissipate and frustration will take over. Ryszard Kapuściński used to say that a cynical person should not write about the world. I say that a cynical person should not even be allowed to own a pen, and for all translators and interpreters, there has to be a greater motivator other than money, something that will keep them fresh and alive. Something to keep them dreaming… to be continued.

March 28, 2016 by maswebproductions@gmail.com

Translation Services in a Global Economy

In the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis and the global recession that followed it, it is such a rare thing to be able to say that any industry is a growing one, let alone a fast growing one. However, that is precisely the case with the translation industry. Over the last dozen or so years, the globalization of economy and business, rapid advancements in technology and the rise of the Internet have all led up to the booming demand for translation services worldwide. Apart from the fact that this provides a great opportunity for translators to increase their workload and enrich their knowledge of the foreign language, it also means that there are now more various and perhaps more challenging translation services needed.

Whether you work as a freelancer or for a professional translation agency, sooner or later you will be presented with a technical document that needs to be translated. Nowadays, the majority of documents that are being professionally translated are technical ones. So, what exactly constitutes technical translation? If for the most part the document which is being translated consists of specialized vocabulary that cannot be easily understood and often requires definitions and explanations, then the translation is probably technical. However, specialized vocabulary is just one of the criteria for labeling translation technical. More importantly, it is the subject matter that counts. Technical documents deal with technical subject matters, are written by technical writers and have the purpose to explain the practical use of scientific and technological knowledge. Usually, these are operating and safety manuals, instructions for use, patent documents, engineering specifications, medical and pharmaceutical documents, etc.

One of the most challenging tasks for a translator is to stay faithful to the original. This is especially difficult when it comes to technical translation. First of all, you must be able to fully understand all the technical terms that are used in the original document, or the technical jargon. In order to do that, you should have specialist knowledge of the subject matter in both your native and the target language. General knowledge here simply is not going to be enough. Sure, a translator’s job today is much easier than it used to be. You can always turn to the all – knowing Internet for help, or use computer software for assistance. There is a wide selection of tools at your disposal. However, translation is based on context, and no computer can help you interpret the underlying meaning of a piece of writing. Also, not all texts are written in a clear and concise manner. Sometimes, technical descriptions and manuals tend to use long sentences with connecting clauses which can easily be lost in translation. This is where a technical translator often takes up the role of a technical writer or editor. After all, one of the most important tasks of a technical translator is to make the document comprehensible to a wide range of readers. Finally, there is the “technical” part of technical translation. It goes without saying that a translator nowadays must be computer literate and use all kinds of software and tools in his / her work. But, once in a while a document for translation will come along which will have either complicated formatting or embedded images that cannot be displayed properly. Not to mention the graphics with which the translation must fit. This can be quite challenging at times, especially if there is a short deadline to be met.

However, none of the above-mentioned presents such a challenge as the need for accuracy. In the case of technical translation, one mistake could spell disaster. Just think about medical documents, safety and operating manuals, instructions for use or engineering specifications. Even the tiniest mistake in the translation could lead to system failures, equipment breakdowns or, in the worst case, putting people’s health and lives at risk. It cannot be stressed enough just how important it is that technical translation is done by a professional translator who has an in – depth knowledge of the subject matter and who is more than familiar with the specialized terminology and conventions for writing technical documents.

For the above mentioned reasons, Language Translation Tech uses highly educated, native speaking, professional translators. 100% human translation.