Try this but wait until you are alone; it could seem odd to onlookers.

Turn on the radio and find the news or a talk show.

Listen carefully to every word you hear, then repeat them out loud.

If you can keep up with the broadcast, you’ll have a sense of Isabelle Olesen’s job.

She’s a simultaneous interpreter, which means everything that she hears in English comes out in French, her native language.

Olesen, a Kansas City resident, doesn’t work at the United Nations. She interprets business seminars, sales meetings, training sessions and similar events.

It means sitting in a booth at the back of the room, broadcasting the French version of what’s happening in English. Her audience — those in the room who need a French interpretation of the presentation — wears headphones.

Language has become big business in the world of business. The recession has only slowed its growth.

And as sales-hungry businesses increasingly turn to foreign markets for new customers, their need for help with new languages and cultures will mean more business. President Barack Obama’s pledge to double U.S. exports in five years will further expand the need.

“The more combines that are being sold, the more cars that are being sold, the more electronics, computers and the like — all this drives demand for more information in what we call local language,” said Don DePalma, founder of Common Sense Advisory.

His firm estimated that companies, individuals and governments globally will spend $26 billion this year to change their words — spoken and written — into the native tongues of their target audiences.

The total does not include the work that companies rely on their own employees to do. For example, Cerner Corp. has 22 translators and interpreters on staff, including seven in Kansas City and others in Ireland, Germany and France.

Most of the industry’s work involves translation, the industry’s term for changing written material into another language. Interpretation involves spoken words.

Doris Ganser has been doing both in Kansas City for 35 years. Her company, Transimpex , earns two-thirds of its revenue from translation work and one-third from interpretation.

Most of the translation is for business clients. Her company’s name combines the words “translate,” “import” and “export.”

Translators can work directly with companies or through the advertising agencies or printing companies that the companies use. Translators also often find work through translation agencies, such as Transimpex , that serve as a project manager for the client and hire from the available pool of freelance language workers.

A translation service’s access to freelancers gives it the ability to work in any direction. For example, Exact Words is helping a French company translate material from its plant in Hungary into French and English, said Shenon Bone, president of the Olathe-based firm.

“There’s no limit to the language directions we can work with,” Bone said.

Sets of eyes

The effort to convert a user manual, assembly instructions, contract or other document into a second language follows a path of checks and rechecks to ensure accuracy.

First, the preference is to find a translator whose native language is the same as the target language, what the final document will be in. That means the translator is familiar with slang and other informal usage, as well as cultural meanings and habits of those who’ll read what’s produced.

The same is true for interpretation of spoken words. For example, the English phrase “soap and water” is reversed in Spanish, as “water and soap.”

Ideally, the translator also has lived with the language and within the culture of the document’s original language to understand its subtler meanings and practices.

Most of the time, however, being fluently bilingual is not enough.

Translations of medical, legal, engineering and other documents require a technical knowledge of the subject. Technical accuracy can even become the overriding factor in choosing a translator.

Lenexa-based Icop Digital Inc. sells its mobile video equipment to law enforcement buyers overseas. It stopped using translation services, President Laura Owen said, because the few mistakes they made were too many. The equipment generates evidence used in court proceedings, allowing no room for any errors, Owen said.

Now the firm searches first for technical expertise and then for the language match.

For example, a Florida professor with whom the company works handles some of Icop’s translation work for markets in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. He was raised in the Middle East, so he meets the preference for being a native speaker of the target language.

Finally, Icop sends its translated materials to its dealers in the target markets as a final step.

Owen said the company wanted to be sure the translation was acceptable in all markets that would use that material. That means balancing formality and familiarity so that each market can easily understand the translation but that neither regards it as dipping into unacceptable slang or other language.

“The way Spanish is spoken in Mexico is 180 degrees from Spanish in Colombia,” she said.

Translation services routinely use editors in addition to translators on a project. The editor meets the same standards as the translator but provides a check on the words. Editor and translator, however, usually work independently of each other and deal directly with the service’s project manager.

Ganser said she was the third set of eyes at Transimpex .

“I sign off on everything,” she said. “I put a lot of hours in.”

Medical meaning

Understanding technical terms is critical with medical interpretations. It is why even bilingual doctors rely on interpreters.

Truman Medical Center employs 17 Spanish interpreters who have gone through rigorous screenings, said Shane Kovac at the Kansas City area hospital. They receive more than 180 hours of classroom and clinical training to become health care interpreters. Part of the reason is that medical terminology is difficult to express in a second language. Speaking the language isn’t enough.

“Look at us. We speak English, and we can’t pronounce all the medical terminology and explain things,” Kovac said.

Cecilia Abbey, head of interpretation and translation at the University of Kansas Hospital, said even knowing the right words didn’t mean the patient would understand them. Abbey has to be able to explain the words, too.

Sometimes she encounters a medical term new to her. She tells the patient that the doctor or nurse used a word she doesn’t understand and will ask for an explanation. Abbey then interprets that explanation.

Abbey said a few providers at KU Hospital could work without an interpreter but only after proving their mettle as interpreters. Their skills are tested the same way any other interpreter’s would be. They also shadow interpreters as part of the process.

Kansas City’s medical community is a big consumer of language services. KU Hospital handled 31,749 interpretations in the past year, an average of 87 a day. About 80 percent of that helped Spanish-speaking patients understand hospital staff and vice versa.

Most of that work is handled by three interpreters on staff, including Abbey, and a half dozen contract interpreters. One interpreter handles American sign language.

Truman Medical Center employs not only 17 Spanish interpreters but also two who interpret Arabic, two who interpret Somali, and one who does both.

Kovac said the mix reflected the patient language needs that the hospital runs into most frequently. Of 51,000 interpretations in 2009, he said, 10 percent were in Somali and 12 percent in Arabic.

But the array of language needs is much broader than either hospital’s staff can handle.

“We have had a request here for British sign language,” Abbey said.

Whenever interpreters can’t handle a patient’s spoken language needs, they’ll call an interpretation phone service. Both hospitals have specially adapted phones with two handsets, one for the patient and one for the medical staff, so both can hear and talk with the interpreter at the other end.

In the first half of September, Abbey said, she dealt with Russian, Arabic, Nepalese, Somali, Burmese, Vietnamese, Swahili, Hmong, Karen, Laotian, Italian, Mandarin, Chuukese, Korean, Kirundi, Portuguese and Cantonese interpreters for patients.

Personal needs

Although governments and businesses are the big users of translation and interpretation services, individuals may need them, too.

Bone, who owns Exact Words with her husband, said a child adopted from a foreign country might bring along school records and other papers that need to be translated for use in America. Marrying a foreign national also can trigger translation needs, she said.

The Mid-America Chapter of the American Translators Association has nine corporate members who are based in the Kansas City area. Two others are based in St. Louis. Its 118 individual members include several locally and others from Spain and elsewhere.

The national association also provides contact and detailed professional information about its members online at www.atanet .org. Users can search for providers based on their own ZIP codes. A recent check found 20 interpreters and 29 translators, many of them the same individuals, within 50 miles of downtown Kansas City.

For most work, however, distance isn’t an issue.

The local list included Olesen, who recently moved to this area from Chicago but normally travels to the conferences where she provides simultaneous interpretation.

By the way, that radio trick really is a way to test your skills at the difficult work Olesen does. Don’t feel bad if you fall behind the broadcast fairly quickly.

Even professionals have to work in tandem with another simultaneous interpreter.

“Typically an interpreter will not interpret more than a half-hour at a time,” Olesen said. “It’s extremely exhausting.”

Language services glossary •Translation: Changing written information from one language to another

•Interpretation: Changing spoken messages from one language to another.

•Simultaneous interpretation: Repeating a live presentation for listeners in a different language.

•Consecutive interpretation: Assisting a running conversation between speakers who don’t share a common language.

Where to find translation and interpretation help •The American Translators Association at www.atanet.org

•Mid-America Chapter of the American Translators Association at www.ata-micata.org

Plenty to sort out Interpreters helped patients and staff at the University of Kansas Hospital handle language barriers 31,749 times over the last 12 months. That’s an average of 87 patients a day. Most patients needed someone who understood Spanish, but interpreters handled many other languages, too.

Patient’s language Percent of total interpretations Spanish 80.0% American sign language 3.0% Russian 3.0% Vietnamese 2.6% Burmese 2.0% Somali 1.3% Mandarin 1.3% Arabic 1.0% Nepalese 0.8% Swahili 0.7%

Source: University of Kansas Hospital
Section: News
Page: D1
Provided By: The McClatchy Company
Index Terms: Cerner Corp.; Icop Digital Inc.; Truman Medical Center; KU Hospital; American Translators Association
Location(s): Kansas City; Ireland; Germany; France; Hungary; Florida; Egypt; Saudi Arabia; Middle East; Mexico; St. Louis; Spain; Chicago
Personal Name(s): Don DePalma; Doris Ganser; Laura Owen; Shane Kovac; Cecilia Abbey
Record Number: f8ca39ad0d7ecc0075eb996fe9c9e72b
Copyright (c) 2010 The Kansas City Star

John Wycliffe translates the Bible into English: “Now if only I’d bought that $349 Elsevier Dictionary!”Contributed to the Capital Translator by Translator Isabel Leonard, Watertown, MA.

John Wycliffe

(c. 1328 – 1384)  In his early years, Wycliffe was a brilliant Oxford scholar. He was a doctor of the church and a leading professor at the University.  Wycliffe became an outspoken and formidable debater during a turbulent time in the church when there were multiple popes fighting for power and wealth in Europe.

John Wycliffe

Wycliffe believed the Scriptures to teach that human authority comes from God and as such, human authority is to be characterized by the example of Christ who was a servant, not a ruthless task master.  Wycliffe was able to speak out boldly against Papal abuses because there were multiple Popes competing for power (Great Schism), so the papacy was in dissaray and so there could be no unified voice to condemn Wycliffe.  A key point in Wycliffe’s doctrine was that the true church was not to be sought in the pope and his hierarchy, but rather it was made up invisibly of all the elect.

Wycliffe believed the Scriptures were to be returned to the Church – the elect of God – and his labors inspired later generations of heroes to accomplish that task, in spite of heavy persecution.

John Wycliffe translating the Bible into English

Even though Wycliffe’s teaching earned him many enemies throughout England, his views were respected enough that he spent the later years of his life as a small parish bishop.  Wycliffe died in full communion with the Roman church, but later at the Council of Constance, he was declared a heretic and his body was dug up and burned.  His ashes were cast into the river Swift.

Wycliffe’s followers were called ‘Lollards’ and won many converts to Bible Christianity, both in England, and also in Germany and especially Bohemia.  Truly, John Wycliffe was a reformer and the very morning-star of the Reformation.  His teaching had a profound affect on those later reformers who finally freed the church of Christ from Babylonian captivity.

2. Secure a commitment from top management to overcome the initial difficulties and financial requirements of exporting. Although the early delays and costs involved may seem difficult to justify in comparison with established domestic sales, the exporter should take a long-range view of this process and carefully monitor international marketing efforts.

3. Take sufficient care in selecting overseas distributors. The complications involved in overseas communications and transportation require international distributors to act more independently than their domestic counterparts. Don’t just select them “because they speak English.”

4. Establish a basis for profitable operations and orderly growth. Although no overseas inquiry should be ignored, the firm that acts mainly in response to unsolicited trade leads is trusting success to chance. Be selective in the countries you choose; research well, start small, don’t try to conquer the whole world at one time.

5. Devote continuing attention to export business when the U.S. market booms. Too many companies turn to exporting when business falls off in the United States. When domestic business starts to boom again, they neglect their export trade or relegate it to a secondary position. Also develop an attractive website to display your product or service.

6. Treat international distributors on an equal basis with domestic counterparts. Companies often carry out advertising campaigns, special discount offers, sales incentive programs, special credit term programs, warranty offers, and so on in the U.S. market but fail to make similar offers to their international distributors.

7. Do not assume that a given market technique and product will automatically be successful in all countries. What works in Japan may fall flat in Saudi Arabia. Each market has to be treated separately. Focus specifically on each country.

8. Be willing to modify products to meet regulations or cultural preferences of other countries. Local safety and security codes as well as import restrictions cannot be ignored by foreign distributors. Be ready to meet the demands of a growing market. Be aware of cultural differences in the way meetings and negotiations proceed.

9. Print service, sale, and warranty messages in locally understood languages. Translations from the Internet are not suitable for such purposes. Understand foreign language contracts before signing. Use a reliable translation service.

10. Provide readily available servicing for the product. A product without the necessary service support can acquire a bad reputation quickly.

From Business America, slightly updated by Doris Ganser

Because the profession is controlled by few internal or external regulations in the United States and translator/interpreter training remains inadequate except at a few well renowned universities, everyone is free
to hang up a shingle, everyone can call himself or herself a professional in this field. So translation firms guard the names of good translators they discover like gold, although they might occasionally share a name with a good colleague-friend in a mutually beneficial relationship.

By now most translation users/clients know that the translation process does not end with translating. The editor — alternatively called revisor — assumes the brunt of the responsibility for every translation, checking existing copy against the source and reverifying every detail that is not absolutely obvious. This includes determining whether all the legal or technical details were, indeed, correctly understood and clearly reflected by the translator.

Editing/revising is a difficult job and not one for beginners. In addition to linguistic abilities, it requires tact and diplomacy since some points may have to be discussed with the original translator, with the client or with additional outside consultants in the specific subject area involved.

Some manufacturers, engineering companies and lawfirms selling or assisting sellers of goods and services in the international marketplace have one or two in-house linguists, who are responsible for translating a wide range of material to English and often even to foreign languages, whether they are “native” to the language in question or not. Such translations are seldom verified or verifiable in-house and reach the overseas contact in their raw state, occasionally causing problems with the end user who cannot follow incomprehensibly translated operating instructions.

The foreign person addressed may fail to fully understand the legal implications of an inadequately translated agreement. This is so because a single brain and a single pair of eyes have been involved in the work, often an enormous burden of responsibility for a lone in-house translator operating in “splendid isolation” inside a huge company, someone who has little contact with the outside translation community, in which a lot of cooperation takes place, translators “helping each other out” directly or in public forums.

Even where one or more editors/revisors are available in-house at a manufacturing plant or engineering firm, editing/revising another’s translations
frequently causes personality conflicts between the persons involved, especially if they have other jobs within the company where the one revising a translation today is actually subordinate to the one translating the rest of the time within the same company. This means that on an ordinary business day, today’s revisor may be a junior engineer editing the translation done by his superior because of their dissimilar linguistic abilities.

A particular disadvantage lies in the fact that most translators actually don’t like to edit and revise, and even many of the best translators are actually not very adapt at editing and revising the work of others because the activity requires an enormous amount of patience, knowledge, experience, organization, concentration, connections, and more.

The best translation companies in the country have not only the best translators, they also have the best editors and revisors available anywhere, and sometimes even a best friend will have trouble getting the name of one of those out of his or her colleague. Editors/revisors are the ones they guard not just like gold but like their lives.

The answer is easy: Most translation companies not managed by professional translators don’t
invest the same amount of effort into its translation as we do at Transimpex; their employees or
freelance editors often don’t know what matters and what to look for, and after the translations
are returned to such companies edited, often they still cannot verify what the editors/revisers
incorporated or changed.

Compared to freelance translators, the answer is even easier: In most cases, you buy entirely
unedited translations, just like we do. It’s what we do with the “raw material” by forging it into
the equivalent of polished stainless steel that will withstand all scrutiny.

One way that other agencies cut costs to deliver cheaper translations is to use untested or
uncertified bilinguals or even students to perform the translation. It is not surprising that
translations provided by students in certificate translator or language training programs, often
taught by instructors who are linguists but not translators, seldom measure up.

“One stop shopping” makes sense, particularly when a 100-page manual needs to be translated to
several languages in time, of course. The translation company project manager coordinates the
work of several teams of translators and editors/revisers who must all deliver to meet the client’s
deadline. The project manager also shields the client from having to answer the same questions
from several translators. In addition, he or she has the difficult task of coordinating all efforts to
assure terminology and style of the individual professionals involved match or deciding when a
final editor must re-review all the work again.

Additionally, project managers must frequently cope with the reluctance of some translators to
use prescribed terminology because many display highly individualistic behavior and also tend
to disagree with each other on terminology. So, from among the available excellent translators
and editors, for each specific job, the project manager must select those who are most able and
willing to cooperate, while accepting all the rules that the translation company must implement
to arrive at the very best possible translation. The project managers at Transimpex are capable of
performing such small miracles.

BEIJING — After a hard day’s labor, your average upscale Beijinger likes nothing more than to shuck his dress shoes for a pair of Enduring and Persevering, rev up his Precious Horse and head to the pub for a tall, frosty glass of Happiness Power.

Or, if he’s a teetotaler, a bottle of Tasty Fun.

To Westerners, that’s Nike, BMW, Heineken and Coca-Cola, respectively. And those who wish to snicker should feel free: the companies behind these names are laughing too — all the way to the bank.

More than many nations, China is a place where names are imbued with deep significance. Western companies looking to bring their products to China face a problem not unlike that of Chinese parents naming a baby boy: little Gang (“strong”) may be regarded quite differently than little Yun (“cloud”). Given that China’s market for consumer goods is growing by better than 13 percent annually — and luxury-goods sales by 25 percent — an off-key name could have serious financial consequences.

And so the art of picking a brand name that resonates with Chinese consumers is no longer an art. It has become a sort of science, with consultants, computer programs and linguistic analyses to ensure that what tickles a Mandarin ear does not grate on a Cantonese one.

Art “is only a very, very tiny piece of it,” said Vladimir Djurovic, president of the Labbrand Consulting Company in Shanghai, which has made a business of finding names for Western companies entering the Chinese market.

Maybe. But there is a lot of artistry in the best of the West.

The paradigm probably is the Chinese name for Coca-Cola, Kekoukele, which not only sounds like Coke’s English name, but conveys its essence of taste and fun in a way that the original name could not hope to match.

There are many others. Consider Tide detergent, Taizi, whose Chinese characters literally mean “gets rid of dirt.” (Characters are important: the same sound written differently could mean “too purple.”)

There is also Reebok, or Rui bu, which means “quick steps.” And Colgate — Gao lu jie — which translates into “revealing superior cleanliness.” And Lay’s snack foods — Le shi — whose name means “happy things.” Nike (Nai ke) and BMW (Bao Ma, echoing the first two sounds of its English and German names) also have worn well on Chinese ears.

Still, finding a good name involves more than coming up with clever homonyms to the original English.

“Do you want to translate your name, or come up with a Chinese brand?” said Monica Lee, the managing director of the Brand Union, a Beijing consultancy. “If you go for phonetic sounds, everyone knows where you are from — you’re immediately identified as a foreign brand.”

For some products, having a foreign-sounding name lends a cachet that a true Chinese name would lack. Many upscale brands like Cadillac (Ka di la ke), or Hilton (Xi er dun), employ phonetic translations that mean nothing in Chinese. Rolls-Royce (Laosi-Laisi) includes two Chinese characters for “labor” and “plants” that more or less have become standard usage in foreign names — all to achieve a distinct foreign look and sound.

But on the other hand, a genuine Chinese name can say things about a product that a mere collection of homonyms never could. Take Citibank, Hua qi yinhang, which literally means “star-spangled banner bank,” or Marriott, Wan hao, or “10,000 wealthy elites.” Or Pentium, Ben teng, which means “galloping.” Asked to introduce Marvel comics to China, the Labbrand consultants came up not long ago with “Man wei” — roughly phonetic, foreign-sounding and eminently suited to superheroes with the meaning “comic power.”

To introduce Clear dandruff shampoo to young Chinese, who are already inundated with foreign brands, Ms. Lee’s firm decided to focus on the shampoo’s image. “It’s not about where this product comes from; it’s about the benefit it can bring to you,” she said. The ultimate choice, Qing Yang, combines the Chinese words for “clear” and for “flying,” or “scattering to the wind.”

“It’s very light, healthy and happy,” Ms. Lee said. “Think of hair in the air.”

“Clear” is one of a select number of Chinese words that carry unusually positive connotations, and that find their way into many brands’ names. Others include “le” and “xi,” or happy; “li,” meaning “strength” or “power”; “ma” or horse; and “fu,” translated as “lucky” or “auspicious.”

Thus the name for Heineken beer, Xi li, and the many automobile brands — Mercedes, BMW, even Kia — that include a horse in their Chinese names (one Kia sedan is named Qian li ma, or “thousand-kilometer horse,” an allusion to strength).

Precisely why some Chinese words are so freighted with emotion is anyone’s guess. But Denise Sabet, the vice general manager at Labbrand, suggests that the reasons include cultural differences and the Chinese reliance on characters for words, rather than a phonetic alphabet. Each character is a collection of drawings that can carry meanings all their own.

Then again, some meanings are best avoided.

Microsoft had to think twice about bringing its Bing search engine here because in Chinese, the most common definitions of the character pronounced “bing” are “disease,” “defect” and “virus” — rather inauspicious for a computer product. The revised name, Bi ying, roughly means “responds without fail.”

Peugeot (Biao zhi) sounds enough like the Chinese slang for “prostitute” (biaozi) that in southern China, where the pronunciations are especially close, the brand has inspired dirty jokes. And in China, the popular Mr. Muscle line of cleaners has been renamed Mr. Powerful, (Weimeng Xiansheng). The product’s maker said in an e-mail that it had forgotten why.

But it could be that when it is spoken, the name Mr. Muscle has a second, less appealing meaning: Mr. Chicken Meat.

Adam Century and Li Bibo contributed research.

While preparing to send the committee files to Gabor, I came across a note concerning my own appointment last year: “How could the ATA possibly allow an agent to become the head of the ATA Ethics Committee?” the translator inquired, full of indignation.

In the past, I often rang bells warning translators against the ruses of unscrupulous agents, but the time has come to stand up for the other side. I feel competent to speak up for that side too, since I have been and continue to be on both sides of the translation business.

Few translation bureaus, agencies and firms were established by outsiders as purely commercial operations, and I venture to say that it is mostly those that have given the “translation agent” an undeserved, bad name in the translator community. Many of us other “terrible agents” were professional translators long before becoming agents, in fact at a time when many translators of today were still learning their mother (or father) tongue. We did a good job for out clients so that we began to have an overflow of work; we were happy to refer it for free to less fortunate free-lancers who had presented themselves to us as professionals perfectly capable of translating at least as well as we could.

What a surprise and embarrassment when the customers called after such a referral to say that our work had been excellent, but that they had been very disappointed by those to whom we had referred business.

In disbelief, we cautiously asked those “perfect” translators to let us review their work before the passed it on to the client so that a “few shortcomings” could be eliminated. Soon we were not only editing translations but also arguing for hours with “perfect” translators about blatant errors and not so blatant inadequacies. Thus we were not only providing free editing services to them but also free training. Eventually we decided to eliminate the return of the translation to the original translator and to charge for turning raw material into a salable product. Yet, many of us continue to translate full-time.

It was a rude awakening to realize that in the minds of many translators, all agents, bureau and service owners and managers are the same, and that translators like Gabor and I were resented by free-lancers as a class of exploiters of the poor translator that we were obviously all seen as unethical because we charge for the selling, editing, revising, proof-reading, and other work we do to the raw material we buy. Yet, it is often the agent who “rescues” the translation and the translators who were on the verge of making a fool of themselves, had the unedited material been turned over to the customer.

A few years ago, I wrote to a colleague that the translators are the lifeblood of the agency; that still holds true. Yet so many free-lance translators would not be able to function effectively in this country without the assistance of the agency (by any other name), and many would not have any work at all, were it not for the agent.

A very obvious difference between the translator listings in the phone book in my native Germany and the United States is that in the former, only a few agencies are listed, yet numerous individual translators have their names and languages in the equivalent of the Yellow Pages. The reason is obvious: For years, American translator users – Exporting manufacturers, international consultant and accounting firms, engineering companies, attorneys, and many other organizations – lacked sophistication to determine the quality of the translations they were (often reluctantly) buying. The relative insularity of this country had causes a blatant disinterest in the learning of foreign languages, and an attitude of “let the rest of the world learn English” had prevailed. In contrast, Europeans, many close to the borders of several countries, had always been aware of the advantage of speaking the language of the customer. Thus European companies were (and still are) able to buy translations intelligently and selectively from individual translators. In contrast, the concept in the United States has often been termed “one-stop-shopping”; the translation supermarket won here over the “corner grocery store.” That some of us who are more enterprising have taken advantage of this supermarket opportunity and continue to do so is a simple economic fact, and in economic circles it has never been considered unethical to respond to the market demand with a legitimate product.

The lack of foreign language knowledge on the part of the translation user has not been the only cause for the development of a different translation buying system in the United States.

Historically, two groups of translators prevailed through the sixties – Immigrants who arrived, often with no salable skill other than their foreign language, and teachers of foreign languages. The former worked for low rates, dictated by those who had begun to take responsibility for translation – typesetters, printers, advertising companies and similar firms – without any pride in the skill of the translator and essentially uncomfortable about having to handle this type of business. The rates were accepted by those who operated in an economy which supply exceeded demand because everyone who spoke a foreign language was considered capable of translating. The other group, mainly in academia saw no great need to excel in commercial translation. Contacting schools and universities for translations was (and often still is, as a recent publication from the Small Business Administration showed) the first thing that came to mind when someone was needed to “convert a foreign language.” The agent paid the professor something, and the professor was happy to have made a few brownie points to add to the resume. The agency concept became ingrained. ATA was still in it’s infancy at that time and experienced growing pains, although some of those first dinosauric visionaries attempted to improve the quality of translator training. At a German university towards the end of the fifties, we had some good laughs about supposedly German, French, Italian, and Spanish brochures from American companies (this was the time, when many American firms began to establish their European subsidiaries).

The rise in the degree of education, training, and professionalism of the individual translator has been extremely slow, but Patricia Newman’s survey made it clear that the average translator today is indeed quite well educated. So has the agent outlived his/her time of usefulness? Is the average translator ready and willing and capable of marketing his or her own skill? Is the average translator able to produce what the market needs?

From my personal observation of the inquiries in the volume of translation needed at all levels, John Bloke Translator would not be able to keep up with the demand of the market. Many projects have become so enormous in scope that one translator working alone would be busy for one or two lifetimes on a single job, such as a set of computer manuals. At the same time, deadlines have become shorter and shorter, because the manufacturer in the international marketplace is in a constant race with competitors to hit the world market before another one captures a portion of the market his management has calculated he should gain. No individual market translator can maintain this pace. Instead of disappearing, many agencies have become larger than ever and have taken on the new role of coordinators of large size projects. Surely we cannot consider that unethical!

“Alright,” I hear Lolita Bright Translator say, “I have just bought this new word processor, I do like to be in my cozy room surrounded by my dictionaries, I receive this stuff from the agent by fax, and I get to send it back by a courier who picks it up, so that I hardly ever have to venture outside, and I never have to deal with the end user. I do like that. But I feel exploited by the agents. They are unethical because they pay me only 8 cents, and I hear they charge their customers 20 cents and more (per word) into the language I translate. If I were to work for the customers direct, I could offer 13 or 14 cents, I would make some real money for a change, perhaps take a trip to the Bahamas next year, and that customer would still save a bundle of money that the agents now pocket for doing nothing except selling the job, sending it to a bunch of translators and to the client when I have done all the work. I recognize that salesmen are entitled to a commission, really, and I don’t mind giving them what salesmen normally get, 10 or 15%; I’d even throw in a few bucks to pay for postage, but not all the extra money they are making off of my perfectly good translation!!!”

While some so-called “translation” mills may truly operate as forwarding agents and nothing else, they are fortunately few and often short-lived in a translation market that is gaining in sophistication. Translation mills oversell inferior quality because of their lack of knowledge of the product they are buying. Eventually something they buy is bad enough so they don’t get paid, they stop paying the translators an disappear. To keep this type from resurfacing under a new fictitious name, ATA will hopefully find a way to adopt an official or unofficial grapevine or Better Business Bureau system. In the meantime translators should heed warnings previously published in the Chronicle under the subject “Translators Beware!”

But how about the others who are not translation mills? Why should they get all the money they make from the translations over which Lolita and Joe have sweat? Well, they coordinate a translation project, that’s really all, and they assure timely delivery. So what’s so complicated about that, again, why all the money?

Let us look at what happens at Agency Supertrans one bright morning: The phone rings, Mr. Smith of Softstuff Company Macrochop in Wildwoods inquires about Super’s capability to handle a translation project consisting of 12 Softstuff manuals. How much material? “Well, maybe 50, maybe 75 pages each, we are still getting some bugs out of the Softstuff, so we don’t have a final English version yet. But they are not super technical. We had some similar manuals translated in Europe last year but we thought we’d give you a try because of the dollar rate…” When will they be needed? “Oh, we’ll give you lots of time, you can probably have 2 or 3 months, that’s when they will be needed for a product show in Europe.” What languages? “We thought we’d start with German; we haven’t decided on the other languages. We can probably tell you in a  week or so. We’d like to discuss the projects with you. Can you come to Wildwoods tomorrow morning? … Ok, see you then.”

Supertrans, a translator himself, watches the sun rise after a 90-minute drive to Wildwoods. He spends the better part of the morning waiting for Smith who had briefly shaken his hand and promised to be right back after what had gone wrong with the Softstuff overnight would be fixed. Picking up some of the foreign language company literature in the reception area, he tries to entertain himself by becoming better acquainted with the firm and its products. The English reads like Swahili, a leaflet in German does not appear to say the same as its English counterpart right next to it.

Finally Supertrans is taken to a room filled with manuals, and Smith presents him with part of the material to be translated. “We need a quote right away because we have to get approval from our Belgian rep who is responsible for Germany, and the Germans are paying for part of the translation. They will also review the translations once they are done.” Super finally obtains permission to take along an earlier version of the manuals to allow him to prepare a quotation in more leisure than sitting at the customer’s office. He has to sign a nondisclosure agreement to take the material he promises to return the same week. A man from the plant helps carry the manuals to Supertrans’ car. Nice gesture!

On the way back, by now late at night, Supertrans does some preliminary mental calculations about the number of translators needed to do a job of the size involved, 12 manuals x 50 pages, maybe 75, nothing drastic having 2 or 3 months for completion.

The next morning, Supertrans and his staff get to work assessing the scope of the requested quote. For a moment, Supertrans’ thought wander back to the project that has just been pushed out the door. He was hoping that all the work and expense involved in preparing this new quote would bring results–so much time and money were wasted almost daily because after all that goes into calculating words and prices, many a customer happens to find a place to buy more cheaply or shelves a project into which hours had been invested counting, contacting potential translators to determine their availability and rate validity to incorporate concrete figures into the Supertrans quote, calculating a margin of profit to allow paying bills such as the $300 courier and $650 telephone bills he ran up on that last project, contacting the customer for clarifications of misspelled English terms, contradictions in the copy sent for translation, repetitions, things incomprehensibly expressed, and similar headaches, the salary of the compiler of glossaries (which many of the translators had neglected or decorated with question marks), the new $3000 Bond fax he installed because the old one had finally gone out, when the last installment had just been paid, the hundreds for the computer maintenance contract…

Supertrans’ thoughts were interrupted by a cry of disbelief. “How many manuals and pages did you say there were?” asked Jack. “I just got through counting one, and there were some 250 pages plus some extra charts and graphics in the back, and I counted 14 manuals, not 12. And did you look at their English? This will have to be practically translated to English before it ever goes out to a translator! And they appear to be using new acronyms for the same thing every ten pages or so! There are so many corrections in the illustrations, we better find out whether this is the best they can do. They want camera-ready copy, don’t they? Hours will be spent on reformatting, even if the translators all use the margins we tell them to use and stuff like that, but so many of them don’t seem to read their instructions at all! You sure, Mr. Supertrans, that we want this job? Sounds like it may turn into another headache. when I was free-lancing, I never had to worry about stuff like that. I did a translation, and that was that. Here, they want all these extras, graphics neatly pasted or scanned in, headlines typeset, margins here, margins there, and a different margin somewhere else, make sure the translation fits exactly into the same amount of space that the choppy English page takes, and that with all those long German words! And, I almost forgot, Macrochop’s Mr. Smith wants you to call him back right away, he said something about reducing the deadline to 1 month, and he now needs everything in several other languages within the same period of time. Oh, he also mentioned that he gave you a couple of wrong manuals but forgot to give you three others. He found out when Extrasupertrans called him back…so Macrochop is shopping around on top of everything else…!”

That night, Supertrans had a beautiful dream: He was a free-lancer again. He had just bought a new word-processor and sat in his cozy room, surrounded by his dictionaries, received translations from an agent by fax, sent them back by courier, and he was taking a vacation in the Bahamas next year.

Reasons underlying the lack of Spanish content include worries that it will spark complaints, although Hasselwander cites marketers with a Spanish Facebook presence report that such content has not impacted sales adversely. Levine recommends that developers of Spanish-language pages invest as much time in them as they do with English Facebook pages. “Communicators need to have their messaging developed by native speakers who understand what makes Latinos tick,” he says. “Some messages may hit home with the general market but not bring in results for the Latino market.” Latinum recommends engaging and interacting with Spanish-speaking customers online and using human translators.

Panel Members:

Esther Diaz (panel moderator), Vice-President of the Texas Association of Healthcare Interpreters and Translators
Elena Langdon Fortier, chair of the National Board of Certification for Medical Interpreters
Mara Youdelman, chair of the Certification Commission for Healthcare Interpreters

Details:

Date: October 13, 2011
Time: 12 noon US Eastern Daylight Time
Duration: 60 minutes
CE Point(s):1

National certification for healthcare interpreters is finally a reality. While not yet required in Missouri and Kansas, other states already require certification. It’s time to find out what is required and whether you’re ready to pursue certification. This 60-minute webinar will help you decide which training and certification programs are right for you.

Registration will open September 7. For more information, please go to: http://www.atanet.org/webinars/

Esther Neblina, eneblina@ymail.com | Professional Development Committee | Interpreters Division of ATA
California Certified Court Interpreter | Conference & Media Interpreter | Collegiate Professor and T&I Trainer
Member, National Association of Judiciary Interpreters and Translators (NAJIT) www.najit.org

Thanks for your support to the Interpreters Division of ATA!

More Webinars for Interpreters will follow!