The "WordPerfect Computer"

A recent discussion on a closed CAT tool forum on Facebook reminded me of an encounter with a school secretary some 23 years ago. At the time I was an Apple Education Sales Consultant and systems engineer for a couple of computer dealers in the Los Angeles area, advising educators on what to do about all the technology that was beginning to accumulate at their institutions.

One of the incidents I'll never forget from that time is an encounter with a school secretary who was getting a new computer for her duties. Actually, I have forgotten most of the incident.

What I will never forget is how she mourned the loss of her "WordPerfect computer". At first I was utterly baffled by what she meant, and then when I understood that she meant her old, dead IBM PC which had WordPerfect installed on it, I thought, "What a stupid person" and patiently tried to explain how the hardware was from IBM and WordPerfect was merely one of a number of applications installed on it. All in vain. For the entire length of my visit, she continues to speak of her WordPerfect computer. And how great it had been.

I was the stupid one, of course. I was a technically savvy 20-something, utterly deaf to the fact that she was giving me an important lesson in brand experience. For her, the experience of working with WordPerfect was so significant that all those other programs - Lotus 1-2-3 (an old spreadsheet application), Harvard Graphics (the pterodactyl to the bird PowerPoint) and so on - were merely other, less important things to be found on that WordPerfect computer.

As translation management servers from Kilgray, SDL, Across and others have spread among language service resellers and corporations wanting to manage their own large-scale translation resources, I am seeing some things that remind me of the secretary so many years ago.

The first encounter that many users have with a particular CAT tool is now very often in an online project. An online project with a host of problems. Very often the companies operating the server are inexperienced and haven't a clue how to operate their new platforms properly. The translators time is wasted and their work is compromised as resources are mismanaged, connections are difficult and the value proposition remains totally opaque to those doing the work. "Linguistic Sausage Producer" is probably one of the nicer thoughts entertained about an LSP at such times, as translators feel themselves chopped up virtually like bits of meat and extruded into some oozy gray mass of words in which a few specks of color and globs of fat can be dimly identified.

When a translator has had such a first experience with memoQ or SDL Trados Studio, for example, and engages in discussions with colleagues about the tool, there is often very little real communication. the victims were usually thrown at the tool like bits of meat stuffed in a grinder, trained for little, if anything other than the most basic mechanics of how to be part of the sausage (if that), and when I read their words in forum posts I see a lot of confusion, frustration and occasional rage. Except for cases like an obviously worthless tool like Across, that's really a shame. A lost opportunity in so many ways.

Who is to blame? Everyone can probably take some share of the blame, and certainly everyone suffers the consequences to some extent sooner or later. The providers of the translation environment tools should be more aware of and concerned about the experience of translators with their online tool and do more to ensure that these first experiences will be good ones. Train the language sausage producers, language service providers and corporations who buy their technology better and encourage best practices, which have an equal part of human concerns and psychology with the technology. Very often these translation servers are bought based on word-of-mouth from translators talking about their good and bad experiences.

My good experiences with memoQ as a desktop application led rather directly to a number of significant server software sales although I hadn't a clue about that environment. And I have experienced some well-managed online projects with companies that understood their memoQ Server well and used it appropriately. But I have had other server experiences that would have burned a very ugly mark on the Kilgray brand if I had not had good experience before and elsewhere. I haven't been terribly impressed by what I have seen from SDL server users, but I am trying to keep an open mind about where the problems lie. Across? (Well, the evidence is clear for Across, and we can just write it off as a lost cause.)

There are so many issues tangled up here with so many parties that there will not be an easy, packaged solution to all of it. Not even in TIPP format ;-) But most of the problems can be resolved well enough in ordinary learning processes if we make a conscious effort to be patient, to treat our business partners, clients and suppliers as reasonable people should, and if we commit ourselves consistently to better communication and education. Companies selling technology could be more aware that even after the deal is closed and the price is paid, the payables and receivables for karmic interest can continue quite a long time. The best thing SDL could hope for would be that some day some happy translators might innocently refer to their "Trados Studio" computers.

The certified rates they are a-changin' in Germany

As a sworn translator for the German courts, for many years, I have provided those outside Germany who have asked for cost estimates for certified translations with an English translation of the law governing such services to official bodies. The government never bothered to have the JVEG translated into English, but I found it useful to do so as a guideline. While the law was only binding for certain clients, it offered useful benchmarks for quotation, which were very much in line with the usual rates charged by qualified, experienced translators. And in fact these rates were a bit low - lower than the prior law I'm told, and certainly too low for some of the hassles involved in the process of certifying documents. (I occasionally found myself working rivets with a hammer and anvil. I'm a translator, not a damned blacksmith.)

After long negotiations and delays, the German federal government has now updated the rates for compensating language services. Some information I received by e-mail is given below (in German), and there is a link to the current law. I will get around to making this available soon in English for my clients and prospects.

The base rate has increased  by about 25% - which in fact does not keep up with the inflation rate in the period during which the old law (JVEG) applied. It is now € 1.55 per 55 characters. Texts not provided in editable electronic form in common languages are subject to a 20 euro cent surcharge per line. For more details, read below or check the link.

*******

Das Zweite Kostenrechtsmodernisierungsgesetz wurde am 23.07.2013 vom Bundespräsidenten unterzeichnet. Das Gesetz ist im heutigen Bundesgesetzblatt Nr. 42 vom 29.07.2013, S. 2586 ff. veröffentlicht worden (http://www.bgbl.de/Xaver/text.xav?start=%2F%2F*[%40attr_id%3D%27bgbl113s2586.pdf%27]&skin=pdf&bk=Bundesanzeiger_BGBl&tf=xaver.component.Text_0&hlf=xaver.component.Hitlist_0).

Danach ergeben sich ab dem 1. August 2013 für Dolmetscher und Übersetzer, die für die Justiz tätig sind, insbesondere folgende Änderungen:

Vergütungssätze Übersetzungen:

Das Honorar für eine Übersetzung beträgt 1,55 Euro für jeweils angefangene 55 Anschläge des schriftlichen Textes (Grundhonorar).

Bei nicht elektronisch zur Verfügung gestellten editierbaren Texten erhöht sich das Honorar auf 1,75 Euro für jeweils angefangene 55 Anschläge (erhöhtes Honorar).

Ist die Übersetzung wegen der besonderen Umstände des Einzelfalls, insbesondere wegen der häufigen Verwendung von Fachausdrücken, der schweren Lesbarkeit des Textes, einer besonderen Eilbedürftigkeit oder weil es sich um eine in Deutschland selten vorkommende Fremdsprache handelt, besonders erschwert, beträgt das Grundhonorar 1,85 Euro und das erhöhte Honorar 2,05 Euro.

Vergütungssätze Dolmetschen:

Das Honorar des Dolmetschers beträgt für jede Stunde 70 Euro und, wenn er ausdrücklich für simultanes Dolmetschen herangezogen worden ist, 75 Euro.

Maßgebend ist ausschließlich die bei der Heranziehung im Voraus mitgeteilte Art des Dolmetschens.

Ausfallhonorar:

Ein ausschließlich als Dolmetscher Tätiger erhält eine Ausfallentschädigung, soweit er durch die Aufhebung eines Termins, zu dem er geladen war und dessen Aufhebung nicht durch einen in seiner Person liegenden Grund veranlasst war, einen Einkommensverlust erlitten hat und ihm die Aufhebung erst am Terminstag oder an einem der beiden vorhergehenden Tage mitgeteilt worden ist. Die Ausfallentschädigung wird bis zu einem Betrag gewährt, der dem Honorar für zwei Stunden entspricht.

Bitte beachten Sie, dass für die Rechnungslegung nach neu oder alt das Datum der ursprünglichen Beauftragung (für Übersetzungen) bzw. des Termins (für Dolmetschleistungen) maßgeblich ist.

...
 

Für den Bundesvorstand

André Lindemann

Präsident des BDÜ

Spanish-to-English translators wanted for dissertation research!

Dear readers, I received the request below tonight, which I would like to pass on to my colleagues who work as translators from Spanish to English. I don't think we have enough good research in many areas related to the tools of our trade; I hope you can find the time to assist Mr. Mellinger in his work.

*****

My name is Chris Mellinger and I am a doctoral candidate at Kent State University. I am conducting a study that will help me collect data for my dissertation, which will examine effort in translation when using computer-assisted translation software. This study is being conducted by Dr. Keiran Dunne, principal investigator, and co-investigator, Ph.D. candidate Christopher Mellinger, and it has been approved by the Kent State University Institutional Review Board.

I am currently looking for Spanish-to-English translation professionals who receive some or all of their income from the language industry to participate in this study. The study consists of two parts. The first part is a survey that will be used to determine your eligibility to take part in the second half of the study. The survey questions are about your work as a professional translator, and should take approximately 5 minutes to complete.

Should you qualify, the second part of the study consists of translating a text of approximately 400 words from Spanish to English using a web-based computer-assisted translation tool and without using any external resources. This translation should take no longer than 90 minutes to complete.

If you are a Spanish-to-English translator who receives all or some of your income from the language industry, I would greatly appreciate 5 minutes of your time to complete this survey, and if you qualify, 90 minutes to complete the experiment. Please click on the following link (https://kent.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_2bninsg4a8DYKu9) (or cut and paste it onto your internet browser) to complete the survey.

Thank you very much in advance.

Best regards,

Chris Mellinger