I’ve been lucky to catch a star French to English translator Corinne McKay between the jobs for a brief interview. I’ve been an avid reader of Corinne’s popular blog Thoughts on Translation for quite some time and couldn’t miss an opportunity to ask her a few questions this year—2012 is the year when Corinne celebrates her 10 years of success as a translation professional. With her blog being a go-to source of powerful information about translation, over 5,000 copies of her book How to Succeed as a Freelance Translator sold, and her online training course receiving great customer feedback, Corinne is undoubtedly a respected thought leader in our industry. So, I was excited to know how she feels about her career after reaching a 10-year milestone, with a particular interest in some of the challenges we all face as translators. This post includes the first 10 questions of the interview.

1. Knowing what you now know, would you consider starting a translation career today in 2012 despite the increasing competition from machine translation and downward pricing pressure from translation buyers?

A: Yes, absolutely! There is still a huge volume of work out there for really good translators who market themselves assertively, provide excellent customer service and focus on the high end of the market. I do think that for translators who produce “good enough” translations, machine translation is a threat. If a client is happy with a “good enough” translation, it’s a lot more appealing to get it for free than to pay for it. But I think that for those of us who work at the high end of the market, for clients who really see translation as critical to their business, there is more work out there than we can handle. For example the US Bureau of Labor Statistics just predicted that the need for translators and interpreters in the US will increase over 40% in the next 10 years. So whatever the influence of machine translation and price-obsessed clients, there is a ton of work out there.

2. Do you believe that at some point in the future, perhaps after hundreds of years, machine translation will get so good that human translators will no longer be able to compete profitably?

A: I’m not really sure! I think that right now, most documents that are machine translated fall into two categories: content that is so tedious that humans don’t want to work on it, or content that would never have been translated before machine translation existed. Honestly, high-end translation work is so hard for humans to do that I can’t imagine a computer doing it successfully, but in 50 or 100 years, who knows. I’m 40, so I tend to think in terms of the next 30 years of my working life, and I don’t see machine translation squeezing us out anytime soon.

3. Being in a service industry, do you feel like you strike a right balance between great customer service and your own satisfaction with work (e.g. you may dislike that an overseas client calls you at 10pm, but put up with it anyway to make the client have their way, hence ensuring quality customer service)? How often do you have to sacrifice one for another?

A: I am fairly protective of my personal time and my non-work life; I do work at night fairly regularly, but only because I choose to spend time with my daughter in the afternoons rather than working. However I do not work on weekends unless absolutely necessary, and then I try to limit it to maybe a couple of hours on Sunday night. For my best clients, those that pay very well and treat me very well, I will go above and beyond when they really need me. But I think that it’s acceptable and even necessary to have a life outside of work so that we are truly energized about our jobs when we are working.

4. What tips can you share about how a translator can get through the periods of little or no work both financially and emotionally? Is it right to accept projects at a lower rate when desperation sets in?

A: A few years ago I wrote a post for my blog entitled “Lowering your translation rates, why or why not?” and it generated a lot of discussion. I think it’s a hard choice: in one sense, working is better than not working; in another sense, if you look for lower-paying work, you’re likely to find it. And then what happens when the higher paying work comes back and you don’t have time for it because of the lower-paying work? I think that the best defense is a good offense: translators love to complain about the feast or famine cycle of freelancing, but how many freelance translators really keep up a steady flow of outbound marketing? For example if you asked 100 freelancers how many of them send out at least one inquiry per week to a prospective client even when they’re busy working, I would guess that maybe 2 or 3 of them would say yes. The other 97 or 98 market only when they don’t have work, or rarely market at all. So I think that if you set a goal of sending out 5 inquiries to prospective clients every week, whether you are busy or not, you won’t have to deal with the issue of cutting your rates to find work. And always remember, you only need enough work for you: you don’t have to find enough high-paying clients to keep 10 people busy!

5. Do you quote on a project when you know that the client also requested quotes from several other translators who are likely to offer lower rates?

A: Sure. Preparing a quote only takes a few minutes and I provide one to anyone who asks. If a client wants to pick the cheapest person, that’s their prerogative.

6. What kind of translation projects do you particularly like?

A: I do a lot of international development translation for entities that fund development projects in French-speaking countries in West Africa. This is my favorite kind of translation for two reasons: it combines a lot of different subject areas (public health, agriculture, demography, hydrology, social psychology, etc.) and it has a tangible outcome that I feel positive about.

7. What kind of translation projects do you particularly dislike?

A: In general I love my job, but I really prefer projects that require good writing. Dry, technical documents are really not my thing.

8. What percentage of your work motivation is financial?

A: I think that lots of freelance translators feel that it’s unacceptable to say that they do their job for the money. I love translating and working with words, but I wouldn’t do my job if I didn’t get paid for it, or if weren’t paid well for it. If I were making mediocre money as a translator, I would rather do something more physically active or more social. For example I’d rather be a service dog trainer or a gardener. Part of what I love about translation is that I can make a healthy income and still have time for my non-work interests (like my family, outdoor activities, animals and gardening!).

9. How often do you translate a part of a project while the other part is being translated by another translator?

A: Fairly often. I work on a lot of large international development projects that are translated by large teams. As long as you use a good TM that someone cleans after every project, and a good glossary that one person oversees, it works!

10. Would you like to see your daughter become a translator one day?

A: She’s more of a science and engineering person so I think that’s unlikely…but in general, yes, I would encourage young people to go into translation and interpreting!

Stay tuned for more insights from Corinne in the second part of the interview coming next week!

As has been the case with all recent major updates, OmegaT 2.5.4 released last week introduced a few very important improvements. Let’s take a look at some of them to find out how they can make a difference in your daily work as a translation professional.

Automatic Number Replacement

Perhaps, the greatest improvement is having the numbers replaced automatically when you insert a fuzzy match with numbers that differ from those in the current source. This feature is available in other translation memory tools, and you’ve been probably longing for this feature in your favorite translation program just as I have. Here you go! You can find this new option under Options > Editing Behaviour > Attempt to convert numbers when inserting a fuzzy match.

I remember a German to Russian translation project from the last year where not being able to replace the numbers was particularly painful because the source file included so many segments that were different only in numbers. I decided to return to this translation now to test-drive the long-awaited feature.

I started by checking the new feature on standalone numbers:

1 Niederdrucküberwachung 4 Kreis 1

2 Niederdrucküberwachung 5 Kreis 2

3 Niederdrucküberwachung 6 Kreis 3

After translating the first phrase, I proceeded to insert the translation into the other two. OmegaT replaced the numbers correctly in the third segment, but in the second one, it got the order wrong. Based on this test and other translations I checked this feature on, I conclude that this feature works very well, but it might not be perfect. “Attempt” in the name is obviously there for a reason. So, don’t rely solely on it and keep checking your translations for number errors with your favorite translation QA program such as CheckMate.

Another situation is where numbers are glued to words and it might be a difficult one. For example, the popular program SDL Trados wasn’t able to replace this type of numbers back in the old days:

Strom L1

Strom L2

Strom L3

I found that at this point, OmegaT doesn’t replace this type of numbers.

To summarize, with this new feature available, I estimate that I could save at least 20% of time on that German project—quite an astonishing result for just one improvement. I know you are also longing to know whether this feature also applies to numbers to tags. Well, it doesn’t, at least for now. Here is an example:

Select <t0/>Yes<t1/> to restart the system.

Select <t2/>Yes<t3/> to restart the system.

In this case, when you insert a fuzzy match in the second segment, OmegaT won’t replace the numbers. This would be a very nice feature to have in a future version, just as the ability to replace entire tags, e.g. <x0> and <x1> by <t3> and <t4>.

I also hoped that this new feature also extends to the statistics, but it doesn’t. The Statistics function recognizes similar segments with numbers as completely new. And the Match Statistics function continues to recognize them just as fuzzy matches—not 100% matches as you’d expect.

Auto-Propagation in TTX Files

Another long-awaited feature implemented in OmegaT 2.5.4 is the ability to use auto-propagation with bilingual files such as TTX or TXML. In fact, we even suggested a workaround to avoid the underlying problem in a recent post about preparing TTX files. Previously, when you loaded a segmented file, OmegaT recognized all segments as alternative translations, which prevented auto-propagation of repetitions. You had to change each repetition manually. This is no longer an issue. If you load a translated or segmented TTX now, you can go ahead and change any repetition—all other repetitions will change automatically.

It’s my opinion that the current approach still has a few minor limitations. All segmented texts in your TTX file, including those where source is equal to target, appear as translated in the Editor pane, which might be a little bit confusing for those of you who use OmegaT on a regular basis. If you delete any of these translations, it will reappear after reloading the project. These translations also display in the Fuzzy Matches pane, taking up valuable space. It would be great to see improvements in this area in future releases.

Auto-Propagation Now Also Works in TXML Files Processed with Okapi’s Filter

I also tried this new feature with TXML files. They must be segmented as well, and Okapi’s Wordfast Pro TXML filter used to have the same problem as above. OmegaT, however, provides a native Wordfast TXML filter, which didn’t have this problem. So, if you are using Okapi’s filter, you are also going to benefit from this new improvement. One reason to use Okapi’s filter is that because unlike the native one, it doesn’t hide the tags in the beginning of the segments, which makes it impossible to move the tags in the translation as may be required. Here is an example:

Wordfast: {ut1}XYZ{ut2} support staff are well-mannered.

Native filter: XYZ<u0/> support staff are well-mannered.

Okapi’s filter: <x1/>XYZ<x2/> support staff are well-mannered.

In this segment, the direct word order of the Russian language requires that we put the translation of “support staff” in front of “XYZ,” hence having the ability to move the opening tag is crucial. Okapi’s filter provides this ability by displaying both the opening and closing tag while OmegaT’s native filter doesn’t.

Changing Save Interval

You can now set the automatic save interval by selecting Options > Save. It used to be 10 minutes, but now you can select a shorter interval if you want. For example, a shorter interval can help you retain more translations in case OmegaT or your PC crashes. Additionally, when several translators are collaborating on the same project and you are frequently copying project_save.tmx files to a network folder for sharing the translations, a shorter interval can increase the speed of making those translations available to the team.

With all the great improvements happening with OmegaT recently, it’s really wise to give it a try if you still haven’t. Go to OmegaT’s download page for the latest version. Or check out the marvelous OmegaT community site on Yahoo, which is a source of incredibly fast and comprehensive support and already provides a wealth of information about using the program.

Recently, we’ve had a privilege of providing substantial discounts for two different projects. The discounts resulted from unexpected availability of the translation memories: after accepting the projects, we realized we had already translated similar texts in the past. The first project was a patient education brochure for a U.S.-based medical center. It turned out that we had translated a very similar brochure for another institution, which was a member of the same healthcare provider network. The second project was a website translation. Some time ago, we translated a website for an American school, and this new project included additional information about this school’s branch. Leveraging the existing translation memories made our job easier and allowed us to provide significant discounts, about 15% and 30% respectively.

Why TMs Get Lost

It’s a rare occasion when we have a translation memory from a previous project, but our translation agency client doesn’t. One reason for “losing” a TM is that an agency’s project manager originally thought the previous project was too small to maintain a TM. Another reason is that the PM doesn’t know there was a previous project in the first place, e.g. in case of a new PM. Also, the PM might be aware of the TM, but decide that any savings resulting from leveraging the TM aren’t worth the trouble.

Anyway, regardless of whether PM recognized it or not, we make it our job to recognize when a project is similar to something we already translated in the past. It’s really just too painful to realize this too late in the process, say at the editing stage. But at the same time, remembering a project from one or two years ago is admittedly a challenge, especially if you are an agency PM handling tens of thousands of words daily.

How to Increase Your Chances of Finding Existing TMs

Ideally, a PM recognizes that a current job is similar to a previous one, locates the respective translation memory, and assigns the job to the original translator. To avoid relying solely on the PM to notice the text similarities, we maintain a simple database of all our translation memories. It includes each our translation starting from 2005. Here is how it works when it comes to finding similar previous texts. Imagine that neither the agency’s PM, nor our people recognized the text similarities. In the course of translation, a linguist, working without any existing TM, refers to our TM database to find previous translations of individual words or phrases. At some point, the translator stumbles upon a sentence very similar to the one they are currently translating and realizes we already translated a similar project. The translator then notifies the PM, and the PM “officially” adds the translation memory to the project and re-calculates the price.

Xbench as a Translation Memory Database

Currently, we are using an Xbench project as a TMX-based translation memory database. It’s extremely simple to manage and makes searching easy thanks to a keyboard shortcut. You simply select a word or phrase and press Ctrl+Alt+Insert to search the database. While this solution worked perfectly initially, we’ve found over time that as our TMXs grow in number and size, the database performance dwindles. The project loads longer, search takes more time, and the program also consumes quite a lot of RAM (4 GB appears to be a minimum requirement for us). For this reason, we are looking for a different solution.

Why the Discount?

I know that some translators wouldn’t provide a discount in a similar situation because they tend to take all the credit for maintaining, and successfully recognizing the availability of, a TM and, therefore, believe it’s only they who should reap financial benefits. Others don’t provide any TM-based discounts at all. I don’t think it’s fair, though. It’s our experience that a TM helps reduce translation time and costs much more often than not. I believe these savings must be shared with clients. In fact, our general policy in this regard is very straightforward: we always charge the actual cost. Where possible, we include a discount in our original quote. If the price has already been approved, we either inform the client about the savings later in the project or return them in a form of a discount off a future project. The latter option is often a better choice because it makes things easier for the client: no cumbersome changes are required if the PM has already entered the price in the project management system and sent a PO.

Summary

To summarize, I think recognizing that a project is similar to the one translated before and reducing the costs accordingly is a win-win solution. First and foremost, it makes clients happier by cutting costs unexpectedly. Someone might disagree, saying we are, in fact, losing money on these “unnecessary” discounts and should rather keep the savings to ourselves. I believe what’s more important here, however, is that this policy puts us in a great light as a supplier and builds trust. One benefit for us is that next time when we need to increase the rate for a specific project because it’s more challenging than usual, our client will be more likely to agree because they trust us to always charge the actual cost and know we have their best interests at heart.

With so many offerings of cheap translation services available today, buyers are often tempted to go with the cheapest solution. After all, why would you pay more when it’s so easy to pay less—it’s just a matter of changing the recipient’s email in the To field. In a recent post, I compared choosing a translation agency to choosing your investment management company. This new post provides yet another analogy along these lines—you need to be very careful about your vendor choice. A cheap translation can be an excellent way to make yourself feel good because you cut costs, but it’s important to understand that there’s always a catch.

I think choosing between expensive and cheap translation vendors is like choosing between Windows and Linux (I will use Ubuntu as an example). Just like a high-quality translation, Windows is a reliable, best-of-breed operating system, but an expensive one as well. At the same time, just as a cheap translation, Ubuntu is not as good and trouble-free, but it’s a very compelling choice financially.

When Lower Cost is the Primary Consideration

When you need an operating system for your PC and you know that you can immediately download Ubuntu for free, it might be difficult to consider another option that will actually require paying money. Even if you recognize that Windows is generally better, you might be so cost-conscious that the prospect of saving some money by getting the OS for free might outweigh all other reasons, however strong they might be. Likewise, when it comes to buying translation, you may receive quotes from two different vendors. One of them may ask for $500, while the other may suggest a $1,000 fee. Knowing that the second vendor will do a better job might not be a good enough reason for you to pay twice as much. As with Ubuntu, the first vendor’s translation is likely to be worse, but because low cost is more important, you decide that you can live with that.

Lower Reliability

When you buy Windows, you can trust that Microsoft cares about you as a customer and wants to provide you with a great user experience. With Ubuntu, you are essentially on your own—no one is actually committed to serving your needs and you are using this software at your own risk. For instance, when Ubuntu 11.04 was released last year, it had a frustrating issue with AMD video drivers, making it brutally hard to use it on PCs with certain AMD Radeon graphics cards. Simply put, the OS was released with a major issue, resulting in a disappointing experience for many folks. Can you imagine Microsoft shipping Windows with a major issue like this? I can’t. In a similar vein, anyone who buys cheap translations must be prepared for various types of problems simply because a bottom feeder doesn’t have time to care about you as a customer. This type of translators have to make up on volume what they lose on the price. First and foremost, this approach results in substandard quality. Next, it means unprofessional behavior such as missing the deadline or ignoring your calls. Finally, if you have any questions or something goes sideways after translation was delivered, you might not get a quality customer service from your translator because they are too busy with the work at hand.

Pretty on the Outside

Although Ubuntu may look great and shiny on the outside, it’s not a trouble-free experience on the inside. To me, the biggest problem is the limited choice and functionality of compatible software. Often, a program you need is either not available for Linux at all or its functionality is limited as compared to similar software for Windows. By the same token, a cheap translation may appear fine at the first glance, but when you look closely, you may notice a flood of literal translations, mistranslations, and other types of errors. An experienced translation professional can often tell a cheap, low-quality translation from a good one in a matter of minutes.

Summary

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that it’s inappropriate to buy cheap translation or install Ubuntu, for that matter. In fact, as a strong believer in supply and demand forces of the competitive marketplace, I agree that when translation quality is unimportant, it might be unwise to pay a high price for translation. Rather, my point is that, just as with free Ubuntu, you need to clearly recognize the risk associated with a lower price. Think about it: why would your translator work for a price below market average? Is it because this translator likes to earn less than competitors? Or, perhaps, there’s a good reason why they can’t ask for a higher rate?

P.S. Make no mistake, I believe Ubuntu is a great product. In fact, we use it on a file server. I just think that it has limited applications and Windows often provides better value for money.

As of this writing, the latest version of OmegaT supports SDL Trados TTX file format through Okapi plugin. While this is a great way to handle TTX files within your favorite translation program, it has two limitations. One possible workaround is to use Okapi Rainbow to create a translation kit for OmegaT and then post-process it after translation. In case this won’t work for you and you need to process your TTX file directly in OmegaT, this post suggests another easy-to-use workaround to overcome the current limitations. But let’s look at them first.

Segmented TTX File

If you open a segmented TTX file in OmegaT, all repetitive segments (internal repetitions) are marked as the so called alternative translations; that is, identical segments supposedly translated in a different way. You can confirm this by looking at the Multiple Translations pane, which will display several translations for such segments. This behavior doesn’t allow auto-propagation of translations. If you edit any repetitive segment, you change just that segment while other identical segments will remain unchanged. You will need to edit each of them manually. Because the Multiple Translations feature was introduced in OmegaT 2.5, you can avoid this behavior by using an older version such as 2.3, but to me, this is not an option because too many great features have been added since then.

Unsegmented TTX File

The above problem doesn’t apply to the unsegmented TTXs. But currently OmegaT creates a paragraph-based segmentation in the target TTXs instead of a sentence-based one, which is unacceptable more often than not. For example, your client may want TTX segmentation based on their own SDL Trados segmentation settings. If the paragraph-based segmentation is fine with you and your client, you can translate an unsegmented TTX file with the latest OmegaT safely. If not, you can only work on a segmented TTX.

Possible Solution

Now for the workaround part. My colleague Vladimir came up with this solution and it has worked reliably for us so far. We noticed that if you take a segmented TTX file and replace each target segment with just one space, OmegaT will understand this space as if the segment is untranslated—therefore, no “multiple translations” problem. At the same time, OmegaT will keep the existing segmentation intact, which means no paragraph-based segmentation. With this workaround, you can use the latest OmegaT to work on any segmented TTX file directly.

1. You need a fully segmented TTX file. You can ask your client to provide one. Or you can segment your TTX yourself using the free trial version of Wordfast Pro or SDL Trados. If your file has any 100% matches, you can either keep them or replace them with the source segments as well. We keep them when a client doesn’t want us to check them at all. As a result, they are labeled as alternative translations in OmegaT, but that’s okay because they won’t require any changes. If they need checking, however, we replace them with the source segments as well.
2. Open your TTX file in any text editor that supports regular expressions such as Notepad++.
3. Open the search and replace function, enable regular expressions, and make the following replacements:

<Tuv Lang="EN-US"> => ‰

You can input ‰ by pressing Alt+0137. In fact, you can use any other rare character of your choice, just make sure your TTX file doesn’t originally contain it.

<Tuv Lang="RU-RU">[^‰\r\n]*</Tuv> => <Tuv Lang="RU-RU"> </Tuv>

Note the space between the tags in the replacement string. I am using English to Russian translation as an example, but you’ll need to use the language codes found in your TTX file.

‰ => <Tuv Lang="EN-US">

This replacement simply reverts the one made in the first step.

4. Save your TTX file and open it in TagEditor or Wordfast Pro. Look through the file to check whether all source segments were correctly replaced by the spaces. If you didn’t replace the existing translations (100% matches) by the source segments while segmenting your file, those existing translations will remain unchanged.
5. Translate this TTX file with OmegaT.

Summary

This short workaround enables you to work on the segmented TTXs using the latest OmegaT. Before trying it, please note that we’ve tested it on a limited number of TTX files. The chances that you’ll experience problems are quite high. Please check your TTX file after making the replacements and also check whether OmegaT saves the target TTX file properly before you actually proceed with translation. Additionally, I am no expert with regular expressions so you might be able to improve the suggested replacements.

If you choose to use this workaround until the current limitations of processing TTX files with OmegaT 2.5 are solved, we’d love to hear you feedback so please leave a comment below.

It’s not uncommon for a translation buyer to have two similar texts that require translation. For example, the first text can be an operation manual for a basic version of a product while the second one is a manual for an extended version of the same product. In this scenario, translating both texts at once may cost you more than translating them individually (i.e. sending the first one for translation, receiving the translation, and then sending the second one). Some of the similar phrases in these two texts, the so called internal fuzzy matches, may be slightly different and won’t be recognized as internal repetitions, which are eligible for a discount. As a result, you will pay full rate for these matches despite a very high degree of similarity. Suppose, you have two sentences below, #1 in the first text and #2 in the second one:

#1: I am a very good swimmer

and

#2: I am a very good swimmer.

The only difference is in the dot, which requires little translation effort. If you send both texts to your translation services company that charges you $0.15 per source word, you’ll thus pay for 6 words in each sentence, i.e. 6 x $0.15 + 6 x $0.15 = $1.8.

However, if you translate just the first text, create a translation memory after translation, and then analyze the second text against this TM, the sentence with a dot will appear as a highly similar fuzzy match (99% degree of similarity). This kind of a match is eligible for a significant discount, say 50%. You will therefore pay 6 x $0.15 + 6 x $0.075 = $1.35. Clearly, the second option makes sense economically, but is it really the path to top quality? In fact, when quality is of outmost importance, it might be wise to send the two texts for translation together. Here are four reasons why:

1. Context is everything for translation professionals. Providing two texts for translation at once makes a huge difference in this respect. The ability to see terms in different contexts makes it easier to understand them and pick translations that will ideally fit most situations. To see how important the context is, try to send a word with multiple meanings such as “hub” to your translator—you’ll be very likely to receive a request for more context. You might argue that the same result can be achieved by simply providing the second text for reference. While this does help, it’s not as effective as when you send both texts for translation. A translator is more deeply involved with the text being translated than with any reference materials.
2. Needless to say, you get a higher degree of translation consistency both at the term level and sentence level. It’s much simpler to maintain consistency when you translate two similar texts in a single job as compared to processing them as two separate jobs with a time gap in between. You also have the assurance that a single translation team will handle both texts. If you send the second text after translating the first one, however, the original translation vendor might be unavailable, which might force you to place this second project with someone else. And the new team will almost inevitably create inconsistency because a new translator is tempted to “improve” the original stuff.
3. If your translator spots any errors in the first translation while working on the second text, correcting errors is extremely easy. It’s quite common for a linguist doing the second translation to realize that a previous translation was inaccurate. If the first translation is already on its way to the end users, making this kind of correction can be brutally hard or costly. Receiving a call from your translator asking you to recall the previous translation due to an error can be a little disappointing, to say the least. Translating both texts together makes this problem irrelevant since your linguist can make improvements to the first translation immediately and without causing any disruptions to your business affairs.
4. Finally, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you won’t get a discount for similar phrases at all. An intelligent translator is likely to recognize that two texts are similar and reduce the price. For example, we return this kind of savings to our clients by lowering the translation rate, e.g. from $0.15 per source word down to $0.13, or simply by providing a straightforward discount.

Summary

When you have two similar texts to translate, you can either send them for translation individually or together depending on what your priority is—a lower price or top quality. If you prioritize low costs over quality, translating them individually can help reduce translation costs because as soon as the first one gets translated, the internal fuzzy matches eligible for a discount will become visible in the second one. When exceptional quality is vital, however, providing two texts for translation at once can be a better option since you might pay more, but you are more likely to receive a high-quality translation.

By the way, there is also a highly controversial way to make the internal fuzzy matches visible before actually translating the project. You can pre-translate (segment) the first text, create a “translation memory,” and analyze the second text against this TM. As a result, the internal fuzzy matches will appear in the analysis and you can try to request a quote from your translator based on this analysis. This is not an industry practice, though, and I can’t recommend using it.

What is your experience with translating similar texts? Do you feel it’s best to handle them as a single batch?

I installed Windows 8 Consumer Preview 64 bit on a PC we are planning to upgrade. I was primarily interested in checking whether the new OS supports OmegaT and offers any additional efficiencies for translators as compared to the current Windows version. Although this is a beta version carrying risks typical of software that is still under development, Windows 8 has proved to be quite stable. If you are considering an upgrade to Windows 8, I think it’s quite safe to give it a go.

Running OmegaT in Windows 8

I didn’t install OmegaT, but simply copied its installation folder from another PC. This is our preferred way to update the program since it makes sure the latest plug-ins and scripts are also included. I also copied the OmegaT configuration folder to c:\Users\user name\AppData\Roaming\OmegaT\.

However, the program didn’t launch initially. The command line gave this error:

Java is not recognized as an internal or external command

This is how I fixed it:

1. In the panel that appears if you hover over the low right corner of the Start Menu, choose Settings > Control Panel > System > Advanced system settings.
2. Go to Advanced tab and click Environment Variables.
3. In System Variables, locate Path and click Edit.
4. Add a semicolon and insert the path to the bin folder of your Java installation folder. In my case, this is c:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre6\bin\.
5. Click OK three times.

Other than that, I’ve had no problems running OmegaT under Windows 8 so far.

Other Translator Tools

All major productivity and language tools we use on a day-to-day basis have been working fine under Windows 8. Here is a list of them:

• Abbyy Lingvo x3. In fact, we’ve experienced a performance improvement as compared to Windows 7.
• QA Distiller
• ApSIC Xbench
• LibreOffice
• Foxit Reader
• Punto Switcher
• Built-in remote desktop feature

The only software I haven’t been able to run under Windows 8 so far is Okapi tools.

Russian Translators

The good news for the Russian translation professionals is that although Windows 8 is not available in Russian yet, it doesn’t seem to have any problems with Russian text. With some of the programs, you might need to manually switch the GUI to Russian (if necessary), though.

Summary

Because Windows 8 Consumer Preview is activated until 2012, it’s a compelling option for those translators who are planning to upgrade from Windows XP. You can use it for free for almost a year and then buy the new version. For those translators who use Windows 7, I’m not completely sure yet if an upgrade makes sense because we haven’t noticed any major advantages that could justify the investment.

Parkinson’s Law says that work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. This law seems to apply to translation extremely well because of its project-based nature. Unless a translator plans a project or doesn’t stick to the plan, the project will likely expand to fill the entire time allotted. And the next thing you know, you have to work in a rush or even end up missing a deadline. Many even come to like the stress and energy boost associated with the urgency. Perhaps, by realizing that a universal law is at work here, we can admit this is a problem, which is the first step to recovery.

What are Some of the Consequences of Parkinson’s Law?

1. I can relate to the problem stated in PL very well. Early in my career, after moving from an in-house position to a freelance translator, making the deadlines was a challenge for at least a year. It took me years to improve my planning skills and concentration. Today, it’s no longer a problem, but it’s difficult nonetheless. Our planning at Velior is quite good on most projects, but we’ve noticed that each time there is a planning error, the project virtually always tends to fill the time allotted. Without creating and following a schedule, a project manager can simply forget about a project due to other urgent tasks. A translator unaware of the schedule is likely to spend more time on translation than they would otherwise. An editor can underestimate the time required for the translator to check the suggested changes to the translation. And before you know it, the deadline is around the corner.
2. Perhaps, an even better example of how Parkinson’s Law applies to translation is proofreading. I’ve seen a proofreader take as much time as 6 hours to proofread 10,000 words, but then, a day later, take just 2 hours to proofread 14,000. Because a proofreader knows they can double or even triple productivity under pressure, it might be tempting to start on a proofreading task in a more relaxed way.
3. A more sinister consequence of PL is pure procrastination. The longer the deadline, the higher is the risk that you’ll procrastinate due to unproductive distractions. In a translation team setting like ours, this problem is often non-existent because of the great levels of accountability—everyone knows that any delay on their part of a project will make things more difficult for others downstream. For a translator who works from home and isn’t part of a team, this can be a bigger problem, though. Translators often admit this in their blogs. And our experience confirms this, too: about 50% of freelance translators we worked with missed deadlines occasionally.

It’s a Law, But You Can Beat It

1. Project planning is key to beating Parkinson’s Law. Even with our relatively simple, single-language projects (we mainly translate from English into Russian or from German into Russian), planning makes a huge difference. Depending on a project scope, we schedule three to seven steps. Each project includes at least translation, editing, and review of the suggested edits. Taking the time to work out and communicate a schedule upfront helps everyone to be on the same page, stay focused, and plan their personal schedule more efficiently. A plan also provides a bigger picture of all projects in the pipeline, making you fully aware of your current capacity. For instance, without a plan for Tuesday, you may not recognize that you need to spend the entire Tuesday on your current project, or else you won’t be able to complete it. As a result, you may accept another job for delivery on Tuesday only to realize later that you don’t have time to do this new job at all.
2. Another valuable tool is establishing your performance criteria and making a habit of meeting them in each project. For example, as an editor, I edit about 500 translated words per hour. I found that having this kind of a productivity standard makes it much easier to avoid delays. I track my progress and avoid distractions almost unconsciously. It works because I know that staying within the limit is the only way I can do my best job. Anything below that will translate into lower quality, which, being a quality fan, I can’t tolerate.
3. General self-improvement principles can be very helpful, too. I find these three principles most useful in fighting Parkinson’s Law:

• Begin with the most unpleasant task.
• Focus single-mindedly on the task at hand.
• Start earlier, work harder, stay later so that you always have a cushion of time.

Summary

Understanding that your natural tendency to work in a more relaxed way or postpone translation until the very last minute is actually a universal law can help you take a hard look at your work ethic and then develop self-discipline to improve it through planning, having clear performance criteria, and concentrating on one task at a time. Working as a part of a virtual translation team or a translation agency is another great way professional translators can beat Parkinson’s Law.

Glossary

This one is for those who value efficiency and like to put their translation glossaries in order. It’s now possible to specify a glossary file to add new entries to in the course of translation. You can select this file location in the Project Properties window. Previously, the program created this file automatically and named it using the “Project name-glossary.txt” pattern. We maintain a single glossary for each client, e.g. “Client-glossary-English-Russian.txt.” In the old days, after translation, we had to manually transfer the new entries from the “Project name-glossary.txt” to the main glossary and delete the former. All we need to do now is just specify the main glossary at the outset. Merging two glossaries after translation is no longer required.

Notes

Since the version 2.5.1_1, users have been able to navigate between the segments with notes using the Next Note and Previous Note commands in the Go To menu. You can also set custom shortcuts for these two commands. The latest version takes this improvement further by allowing to highlight all segments with notes. You can do this by selecting the View menu and checking Mark Segments with Notes. This highlighting has priority over the Mark Translated and Mark Untranslated. The View menu entries now also have sweet color icons representing the actual colors used for highlighting.

Non-Breakable Spaces

You can now display non-breakable spaces by selecting View > Mark Non-breakable Spaces. In the past, you could add non-breakable spaces in a standard way (Alt+1060 under Windows), but they wouldn’t appear in the editor. Now that they display in gray, it’s much easier to insert and check these spaces.

Insert Source Tags

Available through the Edit menu or the Ctrl+Shift+T shortcut, this command does exactly what its name says. It’s useful when you deleted one or more tags in the translation and want to insert them quickly rather than copy manually from the source. Until recently, this command erroneously added a space before the first inserted tag. The space is no longer added.

Search Window Title

The Search window title now changes to display the search criteria. This improvement comes in handy when you have several Search windows open and need to go back and forth between them using your operating system’s task bar or Alt+Tab task switcher.

Summary

Not only is OmegaT packed with excellent productivity features, but its development team is also committed to bringing out updates regularly and listening to the users’ requests. As a result, OmegaT is getting significantly better with each new version, keeping its fan base excited. I remember how in the old days, we had to wait a year or more for an update of the software we used back then. Thanks to OmegaT, this is history. The constant improvement process also adds to my motivation as a translator and editor because I love to explore the new features and realize the benefits of higher efficiency. I encourage you to at least give it a try. You can get the latest version at the OmegaT download page at SourceForge. More information is available at the OmegaT community site on Yahoo.

Have you already checked this latest version? What are some of your experiences?

Quite a few translators in Russia service clients overseas and get paid in foreign currency, mainly U.S. dollars (euros too, but I’ll refer to dollars for the sake of simplicity). There is nothing wrong about this currency, but if you have to convert dollars to Russian rubles so that you can spend them in Russia, you might be noticing that each month what you earn in dollars is worth much less in rubles than it used to be. Just as many other Russian exporters of goods or services, you are suffering from the unfavorable behavior of the dollar exchange rate which has remained essentially unchanged over the last 12 years while the ruble inflation has been fierce all along.

If this thought is new to you, a simple example below can be eye-opening. Admittedly, the calculation is approximate, but it doesn’t need 100% accuracy to drive the point home:

• Back in 2000, the exchange rate was roughly 1 dollar for 30 rubles. At the same time, a loaf of bread cost 2 rubles. If you made $1,000 back then, you could buy about 15,000 loafs. The calculation is (1,000*30)/2=15,000.
• Fast forward to 2012, the USD/ RUB exchange rate is essentially the same, 1 to 30, but a loaf of bread now costs about 6 rubles. If you are still making the same $1,000, you can buy just 5,000 loafs, i.e. three times less than you could in 2000. The formula is (1,000*30)/6=5,000.

In other words, while a loaf of bread increased in price by more than 200% over 12 years, the price of the U.S. dollar remained unchanged. What are the implications of this unchanging rate for those translators who live in Russia and have to convert their dollar income into rubles to pay living or business expenses?

Implications

1. Each year, the dollars you earn are losing their purchasing power in Russia at a dizzying pace, much faster than they do in the U.S. This means that although you make the same or even larger amount of money in USD, you are finding that you can buy less after converting it to ruble. In fact, you are likely to be better off spending at least some of your dollars in the U.S. now. Quite a few things are already cheaper over there such as electronics and gasoline, just to name two.
2. To maintain your current quality of life requires either working more or increasing your U.S. dollar-based translation rates by the percentage of Russia’s inflation rate. Working more for less due to local currency inflation is a rat race by my standards, so let’s consider just the second option. While it may appear economically reasonable to you, increasing your rates can be a challenge in reality. You may have hard time explaining Russia’s inflation to your U.S. clients. They might wonder how inflation can be as severe as 10 or 15% per year. And then they might ask why another currency inflation would cause you to raise the U.S. dollar-based rates in the first place. Clients can also suggest that you spend your money outside of Russia and, personally, I wouldn’t take it as an offense because technically it makes sense, however impractical that might be in your current situation.
3. But if you don’t raise your rates, you might be setting yourself up to fail financially unless the USD/RUB exchange rate changes favorably which isn’t something I’d bet on after more than a decade of essentially stagnant rate.
4. But then, if you keep raising rates, you are becoming less competitive than those translators who live in other countries and don’t need this kind of drastic increase. They don’t convert their earnings into ruble and enjoy steady purchasing power that declines much less quickly. Raising rates can therefore result in a financial failure due to losing some of your business to competitors. Talk about catch-22!

What Practical Recommendations Come to Mind?

1. Pay in the U.S. dollars where feasible to avoid losing purchasing power.
2. If you want to maintain your current quality of life, you should closely monitor the ruble inflation rate and adjust your U.S. dollar rate accordingly. However weird this might seem to you or your clients, this is current reality for the Russian translation professionals.
3. You need to come up with very smart explanations because your U.S. clients might have hard time understanding Russia’s high inflation rate.
4. You should be looking for new clients much more aggressively than your competition since you are more likely to lose clients due to higher rates.
5. Note that raising rates might be particularly difficult with translation agencies because larger agencies are under increasing pricing pressure from clients and competition.

Note that these recommendations are applicable in the current situation only. Should the USD rate increase significantly, your purchasing power will also increase. It might as well go through the roof someday! Also, I used USD as my primary example, but all considerations apply to euro, too.

If you live in Russia, what do you think and do about this issue?