| Pages in topic: < [1 2] | No feedback provided on "failed" translation test Thread poster: xlationhouse
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Stephen Franke
United States
Local time: 15:56
English to Arabic
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| Don't do tests for free. Send releasable samples of your products instead. | Jun 10, 2007 |
Greetings.
Don't do tests for free.
Offer to send releasable samples of your products instead.
There ultimately is no such thing as a "free" test, unless the person(s) at that requesting agency who will review and assess/grade/evaluate your submitted test item will also provide that service to that firm for free, which instance is highly doubtful.
That procedure seems a slight level below the instance that a professional translator must be "ce... See more Greetings.
Don't do tests for free.
Offer to send releasable samples of your products instead.
There ultimately is no such thing as a "free" test, unless the person(s) at that requesting agency who will review and assess/grade/evaluate your submitted test item will also provide that service to that firm for free, which instance is highly doubtful.
That procedure seems a slight level below the instance that a professional translator must be "certified" (by which authority or professional association, where and for what purpose usually remain mute) for consideration for a project. That sort of a charade can often become (ahem) a self-licking ice cream cone.
Hope this helps. The business of the language services industry is business, not rendering dubious and often-frivolous tests. One satisfied client who will vouchsafe your abilities and reliability will trump any test any time.
Regards.
Stephen H. Franke
English Arabic,
Kurdish, and Persian
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia ▲ Collapse
| | | | xlationhouse 
United States
Local time: 15:56
French to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | It can still be a valid way to assess linguists | Jun 10, 2007 |
Stephen,
I fully see your point. However, again drawing on my agency-side experience, the cost of paying (usually a trusted veteran) linguist to review tests is part of doing business.
On the freelancers' side, the fact of providing a free test is also the cost of doing business, and clearly should only be done if the upside seems worth it. (It did in this case.)
I do agree with you about certification and have never put as much stock in them as on the job ... See more Stephen,
I fully see your point. However, again drawing on my agency-side experience, the cost of paying (usually a trusted veteran) linguist to review tests is part of doing business.
On the freelancers' side, the fact of providing a free test is also the cost of doing business, and clearly should only be done if the upside seems worth it. (It did in this case.)
I do agree with you about certification and have never put as much stock in them as on the job (PAID) proof of a linguist's ability.
I also agree about references and I'm diligently collecting them for this purpose!
All the best to you. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Very interesting view | Jun 10, 2007 |
IreneN wrote:
Most of the people here are strongly against unpaid tests at all or free tests longer than 150 words. Why must the agencies provide any unpaid feedback?
Well, I never wrote to an agency that before doing some job for them, I would like them to proofread a text for me for free. Have you? How did they respond?
Freelancers are free hunters. Never heard of a prey returning to explain how exactly it managed to escape. Comes with the territory. Manners have nothing to do with it, pure business.
I've heard some opinions from fellow translators that business does not require good manners or politeness. To everybody his or her own way of life. For my part, I usually do not regard my clients as prey, but as partners and I try to treat them accordingly, and expect the same from them. We all make our own world.
| | | | xlationhouse
United States
Local time: 15:56
French to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Claudia, I agree. It is not an adversarial relationship. At lease in my many years in the business, it has not been so.
Asking to see an already marked-up test (only in the case in which it is deemed "failed" is not asking the company to proofread for you! What would you do then, turn around and sell it?
Thanks for weighing in.
All the best.
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| Mechanics of sending sample translations | Jun 10, 2007 |
Stephen Franke wrote:
Greetings.
Don't do tests for free.
Offer to send releasable samples of your products instead.
There ultimately is no such thing as a "free" test, unless the person(s) at that requesting agency who will review and assess/grade/evaluate your submitted test item will also provide that service to that firm for free, which instance is highly doubtful.
That procedure seems a slight level below the instance that a professional translator must be "certified" (by which authority or professional association, where and for what purpose usually remain mute) for consideration for a project. That sort of a charade can often become (ahem) a self-licking ice cream cone.
Hope this helps. The business of the language services industry is business, not rendering dubious and often-frivolous tests. One satisfied client who will vouchsafe your abilities and reliability will trump any test any time.
Regards.
Stephen H. Franke
English Arabic,
Kurdish, and Persian
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
It sounds a good idea to send samples of one's work rather than do these dubious and often fruitless tests. However, how do the mechanics work? Surely the work we do for clients is deemed confidential (and often contains the names and/or addresses of people and companies, etc. which should not be revealed)? Would one have to edit one's translation, omitting or disguising all the names? And wouldn't one have to send both the source text and the target text to enable an assessment to be made? Would one be infringing someone's copyright by using work done for one client to send to another not-yet-client?
Prozians' ideas would be welcome.
Kind regards,
Jenny.
| | | | xlationhouse
United States
Local time: 15:56
French to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | Use published material | Jun 11, 2007 |
In the case of corporate material, such as prospectuses or annual reports, not to mention press releases, at a certain point these are published. Nonetheless if they are not truly in the public domain (as in posted on the Internet), I would ask permission, and your client will likely ask permission from the end company.
There is likely very little that won't eventually get published to a wider (non-exclusive) audience. Exceptions would be much of legal documentation, including litig... See more In the case of corporate material, such as prospectuses or annual reports, not to mention press releases, at a certain point these are published. Nonetheless if they are not truly in the public domain (as in posted on the Internet), I would ask permission, and your client will likely ask permission from the end company.
There is likely very little that won't eventually get published to a wider (non-exclusive) audience. Exceptions would be much of legal documentation, including litigation discovery documents - I would steer very clear of those.
As far as using XYZ etc. you would need to sanitize other aspects of the document and I am not sure you'll get a good result. ▲ Collapse
| | | | MariusV
Lithuania
Local time: 01:56
English to Lithuanian
+ ...
| samples of previous translations? | Jun 12, 2007 |
Dear Jenny,
But where is the sense of those "samples of previous translations"? Having in mind that:
1) one can copy-paste a text in a couple of seconds from a super level translation done by someone else or even from Queen's speech - who will know and how if it was done by John or Peter?
2) is the agency interested in the quality of "previous" translations or in the quality of the work they want to be done?
3) + non-disclosure agreements, conf... See more Dear Jenny,
But where is the sense of those "samples of previous translations"? Having in mind that:
1) one can copy-paste a text in a couple of seconds from a super level translation done by someone else or even from Queen's speech - who will know and how if it was done by John or Peter?
2) is the agency interested in the quality of "previous" translations or in the quality of the work they want to be done?
3) + non-disclosure agreements, confidential contents of previous translations, and etc. - even if there are no NDAs, and confidentiality restrictions, would you like, being a client of some translation agency or a freelancer, have your texts sent to someone else in the world, even if it is a vacuum cleaner user manual; and also - those who receive such a sample can steal the client - such info also contains brandnames and etc. (they will know that the translator was doing jobs for a certain client).
So, I do not find this "sample translation" issue neither logical, nor even ethical to ask for.
If the client is so serious and so super duper cautious about the quality, where is the problem to pay for 1-2 pages upon usual rates as not to have a loss due to poor quality job in the future in hundreds and even thousands? And if the job is paid for, so, anyone would be really willing to spend time not even on 1-2 pages, but even on 10 pages. And the agency is the will be under no obligation to give any feedback and etc. - they pay (or do not pay if the job was really terrible) and that is it. A lot of time saved on the disputes why the translation test (done for free) was bad or good.
A good point was in one previous topic. I was laughing aloud. There was an answer proposed to an enquiry for a free test translation: "Hello, can you to a 2 page test translation for us as we want to be sure about the quality you can provide?" and the answer "Maybe you could make a test payment for me for 2 pages instead as I want to be sure your accountant is really professional too?" ▲ Collapse
| | | | xlationhouse
United States
Local time: 15:56
French to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | valid points | Jun 12, 2007 |
And, good one at the end!
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RobinB
United States
Local time: 17:56
German to English
| The reason we expect applicants to do translation tests... | Jun 13, 2007 |
... is that the pass rate is so low.
Just got back from a few days' holiday, but I thought I'd add some comments on this thread.
We expect all applicants for in-house staff translator jobs to do several rounds of test translations, and I'm sure nobody would object to that.
But with very, very few exceptions, we also expect freelance applicants to do standardised, unpaid test translations (about 600 words in total for 4 passages). Please let me put things in... See more ... is that the pass rate is so low.
Just got back from a few days' holiday, but I thought I'd add some comments on this thread.
We expect all applicants for in-house staff translator jobs to do several rounds of test translations, and I'm sure nobody would object to that.
But with very, very few exceptions, we also expect freelance applicants to do standardised, unpaid test translations (about 600 words in total for 4 passages). Please let me put things into perspective: over the past 10 years, the pass rate for these freelance applicants has been less than 2% (yes, that's two percent). And that's after preselection, ie weeding out the no-hopers and those offering language or subject combinations that are of no interest to us.
We don't return marked-up test translations, and we don't enter into discussions with the applicants (we did that once and learned our lesson very quickly!).
We're not interested in seeing a portfolio of a translator's previous work because there's no guarantee that it wasn't revised (and if it is a published translation, we do assume that it has been revised). We use standardised test pieces that are the same for all applicants because they allow us to benchmark the returned translations very quickly. We know exactly what we're looking for, and because we're among the best in our business, we are confident we can sort the good from the bad and the very ugly. Of course, it can happen from time to time that somebody who did well on the test translations then turns in miserable "real life" work (in which case we never work with them again). But I'm pretty sure that a good translator never failed one of our tests.
Robin ▲ Collapse
| | | | | I take your point, Robin, but ... | Jun 14, 2007 |
RobinB wrote:
... is that the pass rate is so low.
Just got back from a few days' holiday, but I thought I'd add some comments on this thread.
We expect all applicants for in-house staff translator jobs to do several rounds of test translations, and I'm sure nobody would object to that.
But with very, very few exceptions, we also expect freelance applicants to do standardised, unpaid test translations (about 600 words in total for 4 passages). Please let me put things into perspective: over the past 10 years, the pass rate for these freelance applicants has been less than 2% (yes, that's two percent). And that's after preselection, ie weeding out the no-hopers and those offering language or subject combinations that are of no interest to us.
We don't return marked-up test translations, and we don't enter into discussions with the applicants (we did that once and learned our lesson very quickly!).
We're not interested in seeing a portfolio of a translator's previous work because there's no guarantee that it wasn't revised (and if it is a published translation, we do assume that it has been revised). We use standardised test pieces that are the same for all applicants because they allow us to benchmark the returned translations very quickly. We know exactly what we're looking for, and because we're among the best in our business, we are confident we can sort the good from the bad and the very ugly. Of course, it can happen from time to time that somebody who did well on the test translations then turns in miserable "real life" work (in which case we never work with them again). But I'm pretty sure that a good translator never failed one of our tests.
Robin
I take your point entirely about sending samples. However, I suppose that similarly it would be possible for a translator to get someone else to do the test for him/her. Unless you have your translators sit tests in examination conditions, it's still impossible to be 100% sure that it's their own work they're sending you (not that I would do that, of course).
I guess the only way an agency can ascertain a translator's true capabilities is to work with him/her. Both sides take a degree of risk with a new client or new supplier. It's a problem with no easy solution - which is why we discuss it here so often.
Regards,
Jenny.
| | | | | That might be the problem | Jun 14, 2007 |
RobinB wrote:
Please let me put things into perspective: over the past 10 years, the pass rate for these freelance applicants has been less than 2% (yes, that's two percent).
Well, you seem to have found a very good way of sorting translators, who write exactly in the standardized way you expect, from translators, who do not. That is no proof for quality. You can make any test passable or impassable. And if you only need 2% of your applicants, than this is what you would do. It is the intelligent way to act, but still it does not say anything about the quality of the translators.
We don't return marked-up test translations, and we don't enter into discussions with the applicants (we did that once and learned our lesson very quickly!).
So what happened?
We use standardised test pieces that are the same for all applicants because they allow us to benchmark the returned translations very quickly.
I do not understand how this works. You compare it to the one translation considered right and look who is closest to it?
We know exactly what we're looking for, and because we're among the best in our business, we are confident we can sort the good from the bad and the very ugly.
Of course, it can happen from time to time that somebody who did well on the test translations then turns in miserable "real life" work (in which case we never work with them again).
But I'm pretty sure that a good translator never failed one of our tests.
So you say, everybody who failed your test according to your standards is a bad translator. While your system seems to have failed in getting rid of all the "bad" translators, it cannot have failed the other way round. That is quite an attitude. It is that kind of attitude that keeps many good translators from doing tests, and for good reason, I'd say.
Well, you have developed a system that works for you and this is fine. The translators put in some work and you just use your matrix passed/failed = good/bad. That is the way you decide to do it. It still has nothing to do with real life work and cannot tell you how a translator will handle serious work and difficult situations, where he or she has to find solutions for texts that are not as standardized as your tests are.
| | | | RobinB
United States
Local time: 17:56
German to English
| The problem's not at our end... | Jun 14, 2007 |
Claudia Krysztofiak wrote: Well, you seem to have found a very good way of sorting translators, who write exactly in the standardized way you expect, from translators, who do not.
Wrong. It's a very good way of sorting translators who can translate well from those who can't. We don't expect any "standardized way", all we expect that translators get it right. And as in most cases there will always be multiple ways of getting right, of course we factor that into our evaluation of the test translations.
That is no proof for quality.
We're not trying to establish any standard of "proof" of quality, we're just looking for the same level of quality that we ourselves deliver all the time.
And if you only need 2% of your applicants, than this is what you would do.
We "need" 100%+ of applicants, because the market demand is there. But we just don't get that 100%, because there's a huge imbalance between market demand for translations of exceptionally high quality and the number of translators able to deliver that exceptionally high quality.
It is the intelligent way to act, but still it does not say anything about the quality of the translators.
It is the intelligent way to act precisely because it tells us so much about the quality of the translators.
So what happened?
Endless debate with a translator who clearly had a more than inadequate knowledge of the subject area.
I do not understand how this works. You compare it to the one translation considered right and look who is closest to it?
No, it's not a competition. But standardised test pieces help us to spot very quickly where the translator has most definitely got it wrong, and also where the translation is one of several - or even many - correct renderings.
So you say, everybody who failed your test according to your standards is a bad translator. While your system seems to have failed in getting rid of all the "bad" translators, it cannot have failed the other way round. That is quite an attitude. It is that kind of attitude that keeps many good translators from doing tests, and for good reason, I'd say.
Not "bad", just not good enough for us. We have very high standards indeed, and it's that "attitude" that ensures that 95%+ of new customers are referrals.
It still has nothing to do with real life work and cannot tell you how a translator will handle serious work and difficult situations, where he or she has to find solutions for texts that are not as standardized as your tests are.
Of course it has less to do with "real life work" than we'd like, but it does at least tell us if a translator can translate or not in a situation where time pressure is not a big issue. However, the test pieces are most certainly "serious" translations, and of course they're based on the sort of texts we translate day in, day out: they're very difficult texts, and we know it. The fact that the test pieces are standardised doesn't mean that the content is low grade or anything like that.
I get the impression that you've had bad experiences with test translations, which of course is a pity. But at least you don't come with the ridiculous "Well I'm a graduate translator so I don't have to do any tests" argument that we we get from time to time...
Robin
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