Surprises from the IAPTI 2014 conference in Athens

I stopped traveling last year; the stress of dealing with ridiculous airport security and my uncertain resident status in the country of my choice (Portugal, resolved in April of this year) simply were not worth any benefits I could perceive from attending professional events or even visiting family. Thus from autumn last year until spring of this year I battened down the hatches and waited for the weather to change. In that time I declined some seven or eight speaking invitations for language service and technology events, even skipped the memoQfest in Budapest for the first time. My withdrawal from public presence in the world was also facilitated by a growing dissatisfaction with the same old suspects at conferences, saying more or less the same things - often with the same script - and the creeping transformation of these platforms into vehicles for sales and seldom-interesting corporate success stories better read in a brochure or blog post somewhere. Events which were formerly inspiring sources of useful technical and business information had become corporate echo chambers of declining value or simply boringly repetitive. This feeling was shared by others, including one friend organizing premium workshops and conferences who is determined to break the dull mold in which too many events are now set.

I had been aware of the International Association of Professional Translators and Interpreters (IAPTI) since the organization was founded in 2009, when I was asked to join the ethics committee and declined for lack of time. After that I could not help but note some of its development given how small the world of translation is, but although its ranks grew to include a number of colleagues who have earned my greatest respect for their skills and conduct, some actions like nagging letters to various governments about the shocking situation of native interpreters stranded in conflict zones in Iraq and Afghanistan and the somewhat confused battle over HAMPsTr work made me wonder whether the organization's energies were well-focused. Nonetheless, my ongoing discussions with colleagues in the group made it clear that many of the assertions in strangely biased EU publications, private forum discussions and public media statements by some persons with particular corporate interests were not entirely accurate.

So it was the spirit of investigation which led me to accept the keynote invitation soon after receiving my Portuguese residence approval which gave me a permanent base in a Paradise too often disrespected by the frigid North. It was not entirely unlike my decision to travel often to the old German Democratic Republic many years ago to be a witness to the real conditions there and not rely on the reports and opinions of the ignorant or those with particular political agendas. And the Athens meeting proved to be quite a surprise. An excellent one.

I am reminded time and again how careful we must be of third-hand "knowledge" and impressions formed through social media. As an example, I had certain impressions of a colleague whose social media contributions and mentions I had followed vaguely for four or five years on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and various blogs. I knew this person as a young attorney, recently graduated, of South American origin and bright, but.... Wrong. The colleague in question proved to be a Ph.D. engineer of European (non-Latin) origin with quite a different background and impressive depth for one so young... and who, in fact, proved to be about 15 years older than I thought. I identified a number of other, similar mistakes about colleagues and the IAPTI organization as I took a careful look in the days I was their guest in Athens. And the openness of the organization's officers with details of past events involving ethical positions resolved the last questions I had.

In the past when some friends asked my advice about joining professional organizations, I consistently advised them to focus on the large, established groups such as the ATA, ITI, IoL, SFT, BDÜ, AdÜ Nord, etc. A big part of this is my belief in the concept of "think global, act local". Considering the utter uselessness of organizations like the FIT (an umbrella organization for professional associations whose purpose is unclear even to many of its members), I was highly skeptical of a young "international" organization like IAPTI to exert much real, positive influence on the professional experiences of its members in a way that involvement in local organizations can. In my own primary market (Germany), the BDÜ has put in efforts for resolving problems involving the compensation of court-sworn translators and interpreters which I could never expect from any grouzp spread across the globe. And local meetings, training events, etc. in so many national organizations offer value to new and experienced professionals which I could not really see happening with a group officially domiciled in Argentina, no matter how wide a distribution of local members it claims.

I was, of course, overlooking some obvious parallels, including a certain commercial organization which too often serves interests contrary to the well-being of translating professionals. And when I formed my opinions of the importance of local (national) involvement versus fuzzy-headed internationalism, I had not given full consideration to the growing cross-border nature of the language professions and the need to consider its implications. Nor was I fully aware of the extent of ethical compromises in some of the major professional organizations and the stubborn insistence of some leaders in these to continue to support ethically and morally debased individuals and professional practices, including the unprofessional hampsterization of translation with inappropriate applications of MpT technology. 

What I found in Athens, upon closer examination and many hours of tiring but encouraging discussion, was an organization with clearer concepts than were apparent in much of the public banter and one with an ethical foundation which I believe to be among the soundest I have observed in associations of language service professionals. I still take issue with some thingsa, but these are minor matters, and the willingness of the IAPTI leadership to engage in honest, transparent discussions of differences is very encouraging. One executive at a major translation company commented that I had chosen to speak to "the Shiites" by agreeing to the talk in Athens, which was surely meant to say that I was putting myself in league with crazed fanatics - though if I'm not mistaken, most of the suicide bombers have Sunni ties of some sort. Not a helpful comparison in any case, as even my valued Sunni colleagues are unlikely to blow up anything more than balloons for their kids' birthday celebrations.

This blog has been fairly quiet in recent months because I've been occupied with resettlement on a lovely small farm and various personal arrangements, and I was growing tired of engaging in the same arguments with advocates of inappropriate machine pseudotranslation (MpT) according to the principle of not arguing with fools, because others might be unable to tell the difference. But - despite a rather nasty flu resulting from the stress of travel - I have returned from my time in Athens with more professional inspiration than I have felt in years, which will likely result in a number of blog posts as I examine some of the interesting matters discussed at the second international IAPTI conference in Athens last weekend.

My current understanding of IAPTI is that, despite its relative "youth" (about 5 years of existence), it is a professionally and ethically credible organization worthy of serious attention by translators and interpreters. Unlike some other organizations (such as the ATA) it does not serve multiple masters by trying to include corporate members (my own association, the BDÜ, is also admirable in this regard, allowing only individual membership by qualified translators or interpreters, although these individuals may in fact head translation companies of any size). The concerns of translation companies and related organizations are not de facto in conflict with those of individual service providers, and indeed I have always considered boutique agencies operated by qualified individuals with a good understanding of professional practice to be among the best allies of freelancers. But I think a separation allows for a better focus on the particular needs of each, and those of us with a foot in both worlds are well enough able to follow the paths of personal and organizational growth as we need in these separate organizations.

The level of professionalism and the relevance of the content presented at the IAPTI 2014 conference in Athens frankly blew me away. I cannot say how pleased I was to have delivered the second-worst talk I attended on the first day. I even heard a presentation by a young attorney describing in a carefully limited scope possible approaches to protecting the profession against unqualified and harmful intrusion in the provision of medical and legal translation services. When people start talking about "regulating" the profession of translation, I generally mutter something like "yea, yea, wordworkers of the world unite - fuck you" and excuse myself from a pointless, naive discussion. This guy carefully differentiated areas in which restrictions were both desirable and legally feasible and distanced himself from ridiculous ideas that all of translation itself could or should be restricted by some sort of silly national or international guild.

Most of the presentations were on a much more practical level and would have fit well at any professional event I have attended in the last 15 years. All were presented with a consistent competence and relevance which has been sadly missing at other events. Too much time is wasted at a great number of events, where the purpose of a presentation is clearly sales or bragging about some server integration or corporate success story of limited interest to freelance service providers. Such presentations are not worthless by any means and may indeed be exactly what a corporate department or translation agency manager needs, but often the mix of these with content more focused on individual interests results in a brew which satisfies the legitimate interests of neither group. What I saw in Athens was a conference which was uncut, mainlined nourishment for the interests of individual translators and interpreters without denigrating the interests of others with sound ethics and business practices.

So watch this space... there are many thought-provoking matters from the conference in Athens which I feel are worth discussing on this blog. And based upon my experience I would recommend the next IAPTI conference to any of my professional peers.

See also:

Anmerkungen des Übersetzers: IAPTI 2014 in Athens and the Day After

What I did before, during and after IAPTI’s Conference in Athens: Confessions of a freelance translator/mother-of-two.

IAPTI 2014 Athens tweets "storified"

A post on InGreek Translations

It's 2013: the latest BDÜ rate survey!

It's been two years since I last reported on the rate survey which Germany's largest association of translators and interpreters (the BDÜ) conducts. Since 2008 the organization has contributed some of the most valuable hard data on what is really happening "out there" for average qualified professionals. Others, such as the ITI, seem to be moving in a similar direction and offer interesting variations on the collection and analysis of data, but the BDÜ have a solid five-year data history that is so consistent and plausible that it shows most clearly the likely self-interested deficiencies and distortions of less professional surveys and claims by the machine translation lobby and its paid agents such as TAUS and the Common Nonsensers.

The data clearly show that, while rates are not keeping up with what I feel real inflation is, they are not generally declining in absolute terms. On the whole, the qualified professionals reporting in Germany's survey seem to be doing well enough in these troubled economic times.

Unfortunately, the only record I have of the previous years is what I have published on this blog in past years. I gave my previous surveys away to various friends who were not in the BDÜ to show them the averages charged by large numbers of colleagues who actually make a living from translation.

This year, I received not only the usual rate survey - this one conducted in 2012, covering 2011 rates - but also received a small correction booklet in which the BDÜ republished some tables found to contain errors. So I will discuss a bit of these data. And because I am particularly concerned with my own main languages, German and English, my discussion will be skewed toward that. Sorry. But for a mere 15 euros you can order yourself the full story for all language combinations reported from the BDÜ publication department. This investment is worth it!

The BDÜ are a clever bunch, but not yet clever enough to realize that many people who don't read German will care about this publication or their many other excellent works. So the publications page (unlike the multilingual main page where the database of translators can be searched) is in German only. However if you click HERE, a copy of the Honorarspiegel (literally, the mirror of rates) will be put in your virtual shopping cart, and you can proceed to checkout (Zur Kasse gehen), running the gauntlet of more German pages and login requirements until you are ultimately rewarded with a purchase. I do hope my German friends find a way to make this easier for the rest of the world; I can only think of about half a dozen viable approaches. Nonetheless, somehow my very monolingual American mother manages to navigate the Teutonic thickets of Amazon.de to give gift certificates to me and her granddaughter in Germany, and if she figures all that crap out without a single error in a decade, I figure the occasional professional linguist can manage too. And I do find it odd that Amazon, for all their commercial savvy, don't seem to offer an easy way to give gift certificates to friends and family in other countries with a friendlier user language interface. So the BDÜ could theoretically easily blow away Amazon in that point of commercial savvy. The world is full of wonders.

So what are the hard data for my language pair and direction (German to English)? Here are the latest averages:

The rates cited are in euros. Alessandra Muzzi's Fee Wizard provides a convenient way of recalculating these target line rates into word or page rates that might be more understandable to you.

And, last but not least, here are a few data for other directions and combinations:

There are averages. If you are a top-quality translator in one of these pairs and charge on the average considerably less, perhaps a bit of reflection may be beneficial.

The full rate survey from the BDÜ contains a lot more data, including average interpreting rates, hourly charges and word rates accepted, so it really is worth spending a bit and seeing the whole picture.

Another translation jobs portal? No thanks.

After I published my recent note on online proZtitution and the race to the bottom on commercial translation portals, I received a polite e-mail from someone who is working to build a better "jobs board" for translation projects. I've received quite a few messages like this in the past four years since I started this blog.

But I fail to see a compelling case for yet another intermediary site for job auctions or anything of that sort.

There is certainly good sense in professional associations with a vetted membership upgrading their directory sites and making them easier for potential clients to find and use, and for some time now I have felt that the leaders of major organizations like the ATA, ITI, IoL, SFT, BDÜ, etc. ought to link their directories and allow better international searches as a counterweight to the less than optimal listings one finds on PrAdZ and other sites.

There's even more sense in individual language service providers improving their online presence in ways that helps prospects find them and recognize a good fit.

The largest commercial portal for translation job auctions has become increasingly irrelevant to all but the low-end commodity market that is probably better off with Gargled Translate given its expectations. The predominance of Indian, Chinese and Eastern European language sausage purveyors (LSPs) on ProZ has driven many serious brokers and service providers elsewhere; a decade ago, even five years ago, a number of interesting inquiries came through that channel, but today they inevitably find me via the BDÜ directory or other channels I more or less control.

So I wish all the aspiring intermediates success with their planned sites and hope they can in fact make a difference in some useful way, but for the most part, translators should look to "home remedies" for curing what may ail their businesses.

Would you certify sewage?

Good afternoon, Mr. Lossner,
   We have received the attached document from a patent attorney. An English translation of it has already been prepared by the attorney's office, but it must be certified. Thus in this case it would be necessary to check it in order to issue the certification.
  Could you please inform us of the cost and time required to certify this translation? The customer has also informed us that there will be further translations in the future, particularly for patents. Thus we would be interested in working together long-term. Thank you for your consideration of this matter.

Best regards,

Your Expert Translation Agency

I always get a sinking feeling when the customer thinks he's able to translate a document himself and get me or some other court-sworn translator to rubber-stamp it as "true and correct". Any certification would require a very careful word-for-word review of the translation, comparing it against the source text. Anything else would be unethical. Of course there are colleagues who don't care about such niceties and send stacks of pre-stamped paper to their agency customers for use with God-only-knows-what-translations. On their heads be it. My stamp and signature put my reputation, such as it is, at stake, and I don't see the need to do that in support of work by King Louie & Co.

In twelve years of commercial translation work, I have yet to see a single patent translation submitted to me for review that could pass without heavy editing. Even the best translators can have a bad day, but it seems that the patent translators some of my clients and prospects use never have a good one. I assume that the translator who did this particular piece of work had just had his dog run over by a steam roller.

The first line gave me a bad premonition of things to come. It started out like this:

Huh? A quick look at the original text revealed the monkey's tail:

OK... well, anyone can substitute a word by accident when distracted, but... the rest of the first paragraph wasn't much better. It read a bit like Tarzan's first, painstaking steps with the English language, learning from picture books and guessing at words. The second paragraph continued the tour de farce:

I'll let you, Dear Reader, take a wild guess at that one. A quick scan at the remaining 13 pages showed the same level of expertise in every paragraph my unfortunate eyes glanced upon.

My response to the inquiry was perhaps less patient than it could have been, but the day was rather a hectic one, and if I am to embark on a long-term collaboration with a service broker, I expect this broker to be able to tell liquid manure from drinking water. I figured it was time for a lesson in colloquial American English, so I opened with

No way, José!

(in normal font color and at ordinary size for courtesy) and suggested that a retranslation of the patent might be advisable, as there was not a single sentence I saw worth recycling as text. Alas, I fear the client prefers British colloquialisms or insists on "saving" money with his fine translation skills, for I heard not a further word in response to my proposal.

I feel sorry for the inventor. The poor fellow put his trust in an attorney who surely is not cheap, and said attorney probably charged him a fortune for that dog's breakfast "translation". In this case, it's obvious that machine translation played no role; Google Translate would have offered an improvement of the mess I was given.

These days, it doesn't take a lot of effort to find a qualified translator to translate a text like this. Professional associations like the BDÜ, ITI, SFT and the ATA offer directories of translators and their special skills or qualifications, including those able to prepare sworn translations. Or there's always Google and relevant keywords. Often, the worst thing that can happen is to put your trust in an attorney or other agent who in turn passes the text elsewhere, and from there on further it goes and ends up with a cranky guy like me who is likely to have a stroke trying to patch the holes in that moldy Swiss cheese.

Those who need translations for important purposes should do themselves a favor by hiring a professional to to a professional job. It's almost always cheaper to get it right the first time.

Who's afraid of the BDÜ?

A recent publicity stunt by the German Association of Translators and Interpreters (BDÜ) has provoked some interesting responses, most of which, I think, reveal the personal agendas and prejudices of the respondents and miss the point entirely. In a brilliant bit of political theater, financial translation wizard Ralf Lemster was pitted against The Machine loved and feared by many: Google Translate.

Well-known MT pundits like Kirti Vashee know this isn't "fair" and uttered the expected objections and protests. I imagine the details of their criticisms are correct, or largely so. But they are also largely irrelevant. They are all too aware of the Imperial Elephant in the room: public perceptions and how too many private individuals, corporations and - to their great shame - language service brokers apply machine translation in ways that are entirely inappropriate.

All the talk of controlled language, fit-for-purpose, quality-is-what-the buyer-thinks-it-is and "it's here to stay, so deal with it" and all the other noise generated by MT's sycophant choir reminds me a bit of the old carnival shell game, except that the ones taking your money there are a bit more honest in their game than ones who tell you now to "get on the MT boat or drown".

Off-hand comment? Bollocks. It was a prepared keynote speech at memoQfest 2012 and carefully calibrated to play on the fears, uncertainties and doubts of listeners and drive them down the drain of the post-editing sewage cycle. It is a far cry from the restrained, responsible approach to machine translation promoted by technologists I know who understand the extremely limited scope of MT and never oversell its performance or potential (at least not within my hearing).

The MT carnies know instinctively why the ludicrous BDÜ "case study" is brilliant. It is short of fact and science and follows a familiar lightweight format we all know from modern "news" reporting. And however much better custom, optimized MT engines are said to be, it is Google Translate more than any other which casts the biggest shadow across the translation landscape.

I remember a few years ago how Kilgray once objected on ethical principle to officially supporting a Google Translate plug-in for memoQ, because of the very real violations of confidentiality and often law which occur when translators send their clients' content to Google for processing. This promiscuity with the intellectual property and privacy rights of others is not excused by the frequency of its practice any more than the widespread practice of unsafe sex in countries devastated by  double-digit AIDS infection rates makes the risk of illicit mingling any less.

But SDL, long an ethical "innovator" in the world of translation (remember how the Trados gang brought you the Big Lie of how translators prefer to give fuzzy discounts - long before most translators had CAT tools or even knew what a fuzzy match was), apparently had no such reservations and made the tools to facilitate breaches of confidentiality more accessible to translators and wannabes, so Kilgray as well as many others gave in to popular demand and indifference to the law and released its own Google Translate plug-in officially. (Of course I support the right of SDL, Kilgray, Atril and any other company to make such tools freely available. A Google Translate plug-in no more violates intellectual property rights than guns kill people. We all know and accept that it is humans and their weak nature which are at fault, and we can do nothing about that but let things take their course, right?)

Reactions from translators who understand German were fascinating. Some pointed out that the New York Times had already "gone there" (not really - the translations of literature snippets are even less relevant I think... I want to see real-life risks shown with electrical repair instructions and instructions for surgery or the use of pharmaceuticals), others criticized the BDÜ for not showing side-by-side comparisons of the machine's erroneous spew and Ralf's correct text. But I think the Devil's distraction is in the details.

The BDÜ is generally rather hidebound and out of touch with many aspects of modern translation practice; the pages of nonsense in the online registration for their recent conference in Berlin tried my patience to the point where I decided to stay home and make jam for the second time. But this time they got it all right I think.

A good guerrilla knows that the battle is about hearts and minds, and since most of the public is a bit short in the latter capacity, it's best to go straight to the heart of the matter with an entertaining show. A week after watching the "report", few will remember the details. But they will remember the emotions evoked and the air of authority projected. MT will lose every battle of fact on the fields where its carnies pitch their tents and the public crowds gather, but the shysters have a very sure advantage and exploit it at every opportunity: the naive confidence of the scientifically illiterate that "progress" will continue and things will always get better, MT included. I hear this all the time from colleagues. The less they understand the technology they use, the more they are willing to be used by it, and the greater their confidence that it will inevitably infiltrate their necessary professional activities.

A similar confidence once existed for the impending discovery of the Philosopher's Stone to turn lead to gold, occupying even the greatest minds like Sir Isaac Newton. Skeptics like me were most likely laughingstocks to go against such wisdom.

The way to win this "war" is not with facts to be forgotten in a day. The path to the victory of good sense and the human spirit lies in a bit of theater like the BDÜ has offered and perhaps some good jokes like the late Miguel Llorens so generously shared at the expense of dishonest MT promotion.

That is something which the carnies have good reason to fear.

Lies, damned lies and CSA data baiting

The Common Sense Advisory (CSA) has announced another rates survey for translation providers - would anyone like to hazard a prediction of the results that will be reported?

As a child, I was subjected to the annual school ritual of standardized testing, as most of those who pass through the US school system are. Around the third or fourth grade I noticed something rather odd about the tests. Aside from a puzzling tendency to repeat the same question material from year to year,the answers were often obvious even for questions I didn't understand. My scores on these standardized tests were more a reflection of my memory and ability to perceive bias than they were of any understanding of the subjects tested. The makers of the test had no particular stake in my choice of any given answer; it's just devilishly hard to avoid pushing someone toward what you perceive as the "right answer". Any good teacher knows how hard this is. That's also why we have double-blind testing and other methods in our often unsuccessful attempts to avoid experimental bias.

If honest people have a hard time constructing a valid test or survey, how much harder is it for those who have a particular agenda to do so? Do they even really try? The CSA bills itself as an independent Massachusetts-based market research company ... [which helps] companies profitably grow their international businesses and gain access to new markets and new customers ... [with a] focus ... on assisting ... clients to operationalize, benchmark, optimize, and innovate industry best practices in translation, localization, interpreting, globalization, and internationalization. Wow. Quite an orgy of jargon to describe what many perceive as a predetermined agenda of special interest propaganda. Like the sellers of another Watchtower, in recent years, the CSA appears to offer salvation.

As I'm sure they do. But for whom? I see the CSA quoted most often by industry shills for machine translation, those who follow the old formula of repeating lies often enough that they are eventually taken as gospel. Rates are dropping, rates are dropping say some of the self-selecting four percent who have responded to past CSA surveys. The fact that my own observations confirm at least the German part of the CSA statement that language pairs involving French and German were the only ones to escape substantial price drops is not prima facie evidence that anything else happens to be true or even that my own observation is generally correct for all market subsegments. In fact, some I know would argue that German translation prices have indeed been depressed in recent years. Statistics drawn from a tiny opt-in minority in a survey are simply incapable of offering any real insight into the truth of either undifferentiated statement, and one would have to be foolish or dishonest to maintain otherwise.

Now the CSA has sent out the call for the four percent and perhaps a few more suckers to share their financials, with the support of agency associations such as the Dutch VViN (formerly ATA, the bunch that try to convince translation agencies that they must get on the MT boat or drown with propaganda fests like the conference in Ede in the Netherlands) and others. The current survey is an "honor system" attempt (i.e. unverified, unaudited) to draw out the details of price policies from participants (freelancers and translation agencies are among those targeted - the CSA rejects the definition of an LSP in the EN 15038 standard and applies it only to companies with a certain number of employees). But there is no mechanism to prevent some monkeywrencher from filling the survey out any which way and skewing the results to paint a picture bearing no resemblance to reality. And even if there were, the tiny participants sample is hardly representative of industry trends as a whole. If I were to look for more reliable sources of data, I might start with some of the mandatory reporting data in certain national jurisdictions, such as that gathered in Germany by the Statistisches Bundesamt. Or try something approximating a recognized method of random sampling or introduce some kind of data auditing. If I felt that these data had any more value than to promote a set, self-interested charlatan agenda of machine translation, I might make an effort to gather credible data.

Rate surveys without a particular ideological or commercial agenda from the ITI and IoL in the United Kingdom and the German BDÜ have larger samples of service providers in many languages, and they mostly tell a story of stable or slightly increasing rates for language service providers.

But if I were paid to get results for my co-conspirators....

BDÜ Honararumfrage nochmal (rates survey)

The  BDÜ rates survey is being conducted once again this year. Here are the details and the link to the survey (in German):

 *****

Auch in diesem Jahr führt der BDÜ eine Erhebung der im Vorjahr von Sprachmittlern mit Sitz in Deutschland erzielten Honorare für Dolmetsch- und Übersetzungsleistungen durch. Teilnehmen können alle Anbieter von Übersetzungs- und Dolmetschleistungen mit Sitz in Deutschland. Erstmals laden wir auch angestellte Dolmetscher/-innen und Übersetzer/-innen zur Teilnahme an einer speziellen Umfrage zu ihrem beruflichen Status und ihrer Einkommenssituation ein.

Auf Grundlage der erhobenen Daten wird im Rahmen der kartellrechtlichen Vorgaben ein "Honorarspiegel" veröffentlicht, der die Honorarsituation für in Deutschland erbrachte Sprachmittlerleistungen widerspiegelt.

Bei den in diesem Honorarspiegel angegebenen Honoraren handelt es sich nicht um Honorarempfehlungen, sondern um eine Zusammenstellung marktüblicher Honorare für Dolmetsch- und Übersetzungsleistungen. Auch sind die darin genannten Preisdaten keineswegs eine "Obergrenze" oder Richtschnur, denn in vielen Gesprächen und Diskussionen hat sich gezeigt, dass es bei den tatsächlich erreichten Honoraren eine sehr viel größere Schwankungsbreite gibt, als sie in dem Honorarspiegel dargestellt werden kann.

Die Ausgabe des Honorarspiegels für 2009 hat die BDÜ Weiterbildungs- und Fachverlagsgesellschaft mbH über die Mitglieder des BDÜ hinaus an ca. 550 Freiberufler, Industrie- und Wirtschaftsunternehmen sowie Übersetzungsunternehmen verkauft. In den letzten Jahren hat sich der Honorarspiegel schon fast zu einer "Institution" entwickelt - das zeigt die große Anzahl von Bestellungen, die jeweils unmittelbar zum Jahresanfang eingingen.

Im Zusammenspiel mit den enthaltenen Erläuterungen zur Honorarkalkulation sowie den seit Jahresbeginn vom Bundesvorstand veranstalteten - für BDÜ-Mitglieder kostenfreien - Online-Seminaren ("Webinaren") gibt der Honorarspiegel Hilfe und Anleitung für die Kalkulation der eigenen Honorare.

Wir haben den kompakten Online-Fragebogen der letzten Umfrage beibehalten, der in 10-15 Minuten beantwortet werden kann. Vor dem Hintergrund der aktuellen Diskussion zu einer verpflichtenden Altersvorsorge für Selbstständige haben wir einige wenige Fragen zu dieser Thematik hinzugefügt.

Wichtig: Sämtliche Daten werden anonym erhoben, persönliche Daten werden nicht erfasst. Daher bitten wir Sie bereits jetzt um Verständnis, dass wir Sie im Laufe des Monats wahrscheinlich mit einer Erinnerung kontaktieren werden - auch falls Sie die Umfrage bereits beantwortet haben sollten.

Die Online-Umfrage läuft noch bis zum 7. Juli 2012, die Ergebnisse erscheinen auch in diesem Jahr wieder als Broschüre. Wir bitten Sie, sich an dieser Umfrage so zahlreich wie möglich zu beteiligen, damit auch in diesem Jahr wieder aussagekräftige Ergebnisse zustande kommen!

Gerne können Sie den Link zu der Honorarumfrage auch in Ihren Netzwerken bekanntmachen. Wir freuen uns über möglichst viele Teilnehmerinnen und Teilnehmer.

Hier geht's direkt zur Honorarumfrage: www.bdue.de/honorarumfrage

Noch Fragen? Gerne (für Mitglieder): https://www.mein.bdue.de/viewtopic.php?t=11722

Herzliche Grüße

Ralf Lemster

Vizepräsident

Bundesverband der Dolmetscher und Übersetzer e.V. (BDÜ) 

Bundesgeschäftsstelle 

Uhlandstr. 4-5

10623 Berlin

Tel.: 030 88712830

Fax: 030 88712840

BDÜ Übersetzer/Dolmetscher-Treff in Potsdam

am Donnerstag, den 16. Februar 2012 ab 19.30 Uhr

im Restaurant & Café Heider,

Friedrich-Ebert-Str. 29 (direkt am Nauener Tor)

14467 Potsdam

www.cafeheider.de

Liebe Kolleginnen und Kollegen in Brandenburg und Berlin,

wie schon im Berliner BDÜ Rundbrief mitgeteilt, findet wieder ein Übersetzer/Dolmetscher-Treff in Potsdam statt, zu dem wir Sie herzlich einladen.

Im Café Heider ist ein Nebenraum reserviert, in dem wir uns in lockerer Runde austauschen können.

Informationen zu Speisen und Getränken entnehmen Sie bitte der oben genannten Homepage.

Eingeladen sind Übersetzer und Dolmetscher aller Sprachen und Fachgebiete, die Mitglied im BDÜ sind.

Gerne berichten wir von der JMV im Januar in Berlin oder von anderen Aktivitäten unseres Landesverbandes. 

Für Rückfragen erreichen Sie mich unter: Schloemer-Kaerger (at) bdue.de.

Mit kollegialen Grüßen

Bärbel Schlömer-Kaerger

Dipl.-Übers. Spanisch & Englisch

Mitglied des Vorstands BDÜ LV Berlin-Brandenburg e.V.

Are professional organizations worth the bother?

There are two broad categories of professional organizations potentially of interest to language professionals such as interpreters and translators: those which are intended specifically for providers of language services, such as freelance translator and interpreters, and those which are not. The latter, which would include chambers of commerce, business clubs, technical societies such as the American Chemical Society and so on are clearly of great value. They are a means to stay abreast of new developments in areas of interest (perhaps an earlier profession) and perhaps to meet potential direct clients.

What about the other kind, professional associations for editors, translators, interpreters, terminologists and other language-slinging rabble? Well, as one reader from Putinland commented on my post about finding good translators, she saw no single benefit to her membership in that country's largest translators' association. She was aghast at the idea that someone might cancel a ProZ membership, because she assumed that corporate clients would not look for professionals but instead would only work with agencies, and these agencies in turn would cast their nets at The Translators Workhouse. (I looked up Cravy's profile at The Workhouse and when I saw the wealth of information there, it was hard to imagine how agencies would not be dueling each other for the opportunity to offer her work. But that is not the right profile - see the comments. That is an ongoing problem with ProZ and other portals - anyone can set up a profile under nearly any name or pseudonym, with no verification that the person behind the registered e-mail address is real. This is why the portals are often playgrounds for scamsters.)

Fortunately, the real world isn't quite as Dickensian as that, though perhaps a bit darker and more Satanic at the wordface in some parts of the world. But King Henry's sockpuppet is partly right: all organizations are not created equal. They exist in a particular social context of the countries in which their members live or do business, and they are very much dependent on the efforts of their members.

The professional translators' organization of which I am a member, the German BDÜ, can be a real mixed bag at times; one fellow I know who places enormous value on professional conduct quit his local chapter in disgust a few years ago, referring to it as the Hessian Housewives' Association. Since then, however, he has come back and contributed to the serious business focus of his state chapter, and across Germany the organization offers first-rate continuing education seminars, free legal counseling, affordable liability insurance, an excellent private forum for members to exchange information and job requests, a superb online search tool for translators and their specialties and more. To say that I get my money's worth out of membership would be a huge understatement. I don't have to like everything the BDÜ does, but I applaud a great deal of it.

As I was compiling the list of professional organizations for freelance translators and interpreters which provide online search tools for potential clients to find a service provider, I was a little shocked at how parochial and unprofessional some of these venerable organizations appear on the Internet sites. In a discussion of that list on a private site, one colleague commented that it is a shame there isn't some sort of meta search engine to serve up the data from a great number of professional sites around the globe. I'm not really sure that would be a good thing if it were possible, and a quick look at the search tools for a few of the association sites quickly makes it clear that a programmer attempting such a task would soon turn to the bottle. There is no consistency at all in the lists of specialties used; some organizations simply list members in a given region with no statement of the types of text they feel they are fit to translate. Appalling.

I think that attracting an international clientele is important to many translators in this age; for those living in countries with developing economies, this is one of the keys to the best rates. But in order to do that, it is necessary to offer the site in languages which are probably understood by potential international clients. The Germans do it. So do the French. The Swiss and Italian associations I looked at failed this test. If you are a member of a professional association for language service providers, has your association given due attention to this point? If not, get out the thumbscrews or find and organization that does. (That's called "voting with your feet", an option familiar enough to some who live in parts of the world where that is the only effective vote.)

Linking online search engines for the associations would require using the same list of specialties or at least subsets thereof to be effective. But what chance of that is there with an organization that feels it is important to list beekeeping but nothing to do with chemistry or chemical technology? Quite a lot, I'm sure. Unifying and merging search tools might be a good project for groups like the Canadian umbrella organization I listed. I was not happy to see that I would have to go to each individual state organization to do my search. Really!

This is the 21st century, but some organizations for language specialists seem to be stuck in the 19th. The disorganization one can see in some areas, even in developed countries where one might expect better, make it obvious why even a highly flawed commercial portal that many serious professionals avoid like herpes can be a "success". But fortunately, there are some organizations, big ones, that get it and offer a hunting ground that is generally happier than the portalZ with their spotty or non-existent identity verifications for members and silly aliases. Mind you, I eventually adopted an alias myself on ProZ, but that was to avoid having information I wanted to present about myself or my business get buried in spammy pages repeating my commentary for Tamil, Swahili, Tagalog, Urdu and other languages at the center of the world stage.

So are these professional organizations for language service providers such as freelance translators, interpreters and editors worthwhile? Definitely. If you choose the right one.

BDÜ workshops (German): technical documentation & journalistic/advertising translation

Im März veranstaltet die BDÜ Weiterbildungs- und Fachverlags GmbH zwei interessante Workshops zu den Themen Professionelle Textproduktion für technische Dokumentation in deutscher Sprache (02.-04.03.2012) und Übersetzen journalistischer und werblicher Texte (30.03.-01.04.2012)

Aus dem Programm "Professionelle Textproduktion für technische Dokumentation":

-              Einführung: Anforderungen an technische Dokumentation

-              Textanalyse und Textproduktion: Fremdtexte bewerten und verbessern

-              Sicherheitshinweise: normative und rechtliche Anforderungen

-              Terminologiearbeit

Die Referentin Susanne Murawski arbeitet seit 25 Jahren als Technische Redakteurin, Projekt- und Abteilungsleiterin für Technische Dokumentation.

Aus dem Programm "Übersetzen journalistischer und werblicher Texte":

-              verschiedene journalistische Darstellungsformen

-              Text- und Übersetzungsanalysen

-              Übersetzen vs. kreatives Texten/Copywriting

-              interessant und verständlich Schreiben - Regeln und Tipps

-              Übersetzungsübung eines journalistischen Fachartikels

Die Referentin Jutta Witzel ist Fachjournalistin, Projektleiterin und Trainerin. Seit 2004 ist Jutta Witzel hauptberuflich Fachjournalistin für die Themen Sprache, Interkulturalität und Diversity Management. Die journalistische Qualifikation erwarb sie durch Seminare beim Deutschen Journalisten-Verband, dem Deutschen Zeitschriftenverlegerverband und der Bayerischen Akademie der Presse.

Die Seminare finden in Berlin statt. Der Frühbucherpreis beträgt für BDÜ-Mitglieder 525 Euro pro Seminar (Der Frühbucherpreis ist gültig bis zum 2.2.12. für das Seminar zur technischen Dokumentation und bis zum 1.3.12 für das Seminar zum Übersetzen journalistischer Texte).

Im Preis enthalten sind Tagungsgetränke, Kaffeepausen, Mittagessen (inkl. 1 alkoholfreiem Getränk), Skripte sowie die gesetzliche Mehrwertsteuer.

Weitere Informationen sowie die Möglichkeit zur Online-Anmeldung finden Sie auf www.seminare.bdue.de

Finding good translators

Over the past decade I've spent many hundreds of hours helping clients and colleagues find suitable translators to collaborate on their projects, mostly involving German and English, but occasionally venturing into other languages such as French, Spanish, Russian, Chinese or even Vietnamese and Sinhalese. Unfortunately, it can be said that "many are called [translators], but few... [should be] chosen." For various reasons.


In desperation, many turn to public commercial portals such as ProZ aka PrAdZ aka The Translators' Workhouse or perhaps more benign incarnations of the same concept. Some of these pretend to screen "professionals", but as in another old commercial profession, the main criterion in proZtitution is to see if a trick can be turned and a Google Ad dollar made or the like. One of the Zertified Red Pros I've seen on PrAdZ is well known to me from the twenty hours I spent preparing an expert opinion for possible legal action by his client due to gross incompetence and damage to business relations; others are of similar caliber. Yet many translation agencies continue to drink from those soiled troughs, where anyone with an Internet connection and a knowledge of the URL http://translate.google.com/ can hang out a virtual shingle as a translator; occasionally a corporate client unknowingly falls in and drowns as well.

Mind you, there are still a few very good translators to be found in such places, but they are getting fewer and fewer, verra hard tae find. The few grains of wheat are buried in a mountain of chaff and bird dung.

Many clever translation buyers (translation agencies, corporations great and small, law offices, and individuals) know the open secret to finding a better class of translator: professional association directories. Sure, you can find rotten eggs in those nests too, but on the whole, these are far more serious professionals, most of whom actually make a living as translators and perform to standards that will enable to keep them doing so as long as they like. Not the desperate unemployed, the frustrated actors or journalists who can't get enough work to pay the rent, starving studentZ or bored house hubbies.

Where do you find contact lists for these professionals to find the "right" one with the special knowledge you need? Here. I'll keep a running list of professional organizations around the world and links to their online directories. I know only a few myself, because my interests are limited to a few languages and countries; some of these have been kindly provided to me by international professional colleagues who know the organizations intimately and are in some cases involved with running some part of them. If you are looking for competent people, certified or otherwise, these are very good places to start your quest. It is more likely to have a happy end or a happy working relationship for the years ahead.

Note that while I list these organizations by country, most or all have international members and language combinations that go beyond those one might expect from that country, so even if you are in Mexico, it might pay to browse a French directory for a Russian to Italian translator :-)

I'll add listings as I receive them and perhaps a short comment by members I know if they care to share them. When these organizations mention certifications, it means something more than a little red pee.

Australia
AUSIT - home page - online directory search (badly designed form, no specialty selection possible)
NAATI - home page - online directory search (see the note in the comments)
WAITI - home page - online search directory (odd search wizard, no specialties)

Austria
Universitas - home page - online directory search (in German)

Canada
CTTIC - home page
Here there are links to the regional organizations and their directories (print or online). It's a bit fragmented; the group in British Columbia, for example, has separate directories for "certified" and associate members. Too bad they can't offer a nationwide directory in this modern age, but as they say, "seek and ye shall find", and the findings are surely better than what one would typically turn up at a commercial portal without standards.

Finland
SKTL - home page - online directory search (in English)

France
SFT - home page - online directory search (in English here)

Germany
BDÜ - home page (in English here). National scope. The site's programming is primitive (still uses HTML frames!!!), so the directory will have to be accessed from the home page. You can't miss it though: a link with a big magnifying glass at the top of the page and large, bold words that say "search online for interpreters and translators". The cream of the German crop will usually be found here.

ADÜ Nord - home page (in German). More focused on the northern region. The online search form for translators is on the home page, impossible to miss. There are great language service providers to be found here.

VÜD - home page (in German) with an integrated search form for translators and interpreters at the top

Ireland
ITIA - home page - online search form

Italy
AITI - home page - online directory search (mostly in Italian, unfortunately - appalling, incomplete localization)

Netherlands
NGTV - home page - online directory (unfortunately all in Dutch still; I really expect less parochialism from my colleagues there! Still, this is a good place to find quality)

Bureau Wbtv - home page - online register search for sworn and certified translators(in English)

New Zealand


NZSTI - home page with a search box at the top 


Spain


Asetrad - home page - online search with specialties (in English)
MET - home page - online search (this organization includes language specialists for all aspects of English) 
APTIC - home page - online search - the English pages for the association of translators working with Catalan


Sweden
SFÖ - home page with online search form by language combination & subject (in English)
Kammarkollegiet (authorized translators) - info page - online directory search (in English)


Switzerland
ASTTI - home page - online directory (the links here are to German pages, but the site is available in Italian and French as well)

United Kingdom
ITI - home page - unfortunately, these Brits are just as primitive with their HTML site structure, so the online directory must be accessed in a frame on the home page. Still, the link is at the top of the page and easy to find, and there are a lot of excellent translators to be found here.

IoL - home page - online directory

USA
ATA - home page - online directory search