| Pages in topic: [1 2] > | Poll: How do you deal with a poor quality TM sent by the customer when working on a translation? Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
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This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "How do you deal with a poor quality TM sent by the customer when working on a translation?".
This poll was originally submitted by Susanna Martoni. View the poll results »
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I don’t! This is another question that presumes that we all work with CAT tools, when there are (still?) a good number of non-users. What really annoys me most about CAT tools is the notion generally accepted here that they are essential for translation these days. They are not.
| | | | | I would inform the customer, ...... | Jul 26, 2021 |
..... and reject their fuzzy-grid.
| | | | Susanna Martoni 
Italy
Local time: 08:49
Member (2009)
Spanish to Italian
+ ...
To tell the truth, I do not remember a poll like this.
I would not post it now, so it should have been sent several time ago.
Ciao
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Susanna Martoni wrote:
To tell the truth, I do not remember a poll like this.
I would not post it now, so it should have been sent several time ago.
Ciao
"Et tu, Proz?"
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I don't accept poor quality TMs from clients at all.
I do in fact receive some very useful TMs from clients, but I reserve the right to ignore them if necessary.
One in particular sends technical TMs, which are useful for references to the end client's products, but often not directly applicable for the texts I work on, which are usually employment contracts or sales agreements.
My clients try to keep their TMs updated, so I notify them if I discover anything that... See more I don't accept poor quality TMs from clients at all.
I do in fact receive some very useful TMs from clients, but I reserve the right to ignore them if necessary.
One in particular sends technical TMs, which are useful for references to the end client's products, but often not directly applicable for the texts I work on, which are usually employment contracts or sales agreements.
My clients try to keep their TMs updated, so I notify them if I discover anything that is no longer relevant. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Danielle Crouch
Germany
Local time: 08:49
Member (2019)
German to English
+ ...
| Inform the client, specifics depend on instructions received | Jul 26, 2021 |
I inform the client if there are errors in the TM segments that I am expected to use and I wish to deviate from the TM, unless I have been given explicit instructions otherwise, such as "the termbase takes priority over the TM." Several clients I work with have given this instruction, in which case I edit any terminology discrepencies to match the termbase, even in exact matches, without explicitly notifying the client.
Some of my clients have their own reporting procedures establi... See more I inform the client if there are errors in the TM segments that I am expected to use and I wish to deviate from the TM, unless I have been given explicit instructions otherwise, such as "the termbase takes priority over the TM." Several clients I work with have given this instruction, in which case I edit any terminology discrepencies to match the termbase, even in exact matches, without explicitly notifying the client.
Some of my clients have their own reporting procedures established for errors found in the TM or suggested edits of terminology, etc., such as filling out a spreadsheet or form If a client has requested a specific procedure like this I follow it.
Those scenarios cover most of the cases I've come across, and otherwise I email the client if the segments I need have specific errors that change the meaning of the translation. If the segments in the TM are factually and grammatically correct but stylistically poor, I grit my teeth and use them anyway. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Turning this question on its head... | Jul 26, 2021 |
Has anyone ever received a TM that is not of poor quality?
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Mario Freitas
Brazil
Local time: 03:49
Member (2014)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
| Inform the client + don't use it | Jul 26, 2021 |
I inform the client, of course, but I also inform them I'm not using that TM to translate. I'll use mine, and add my translation to their TM when I'm done.
| | | | Arianne Farah
Canada
Local time: 02:49
Member (2008)
English to French
| The bane of my existence | Jul 26, 2021 |
It happened recently.
It was not only a bad TM linguistically, but the formatting had been mangled at some point and there were things like backslashes in front of apostrophes. Largeish project, about 60% matches and fuzzies.
Went back to the PM offering to retranslate the fuzzies and matches if they were counted as new words since I had the time (lovely client, lovely PMs, over a decade of collaboration). Nope. Client wanted no changes other than what had changed in t... See more It happened recently.
It was not only a bad TM linguistically, but the formatting had been mangled at some point and there were things like backslashes in front of apostrophes. Largeish project, about 60% matches and fuzzies.
Went back to the PM offering to retranslate the fuzzies and matches if they were counted as new words since I had the time (lovely client, lovely PMs, over a decade of collaboration). Nope. Client wanted no changes other than what had changed in the source. Re-confirmed that I was only to update the fuzzies and wouldn't rewrite them (it was the company/product name that changed mostly so high matches), left a note to the editor in the comments about how I offered to rewrite them and was instructed not to touch them (before they started ripping their hair out in frustration and rewriting everything).
Sometimes you can't fix what's broken, you just have to be 100% clear about the scope of the work you're contracted to do. You do your thing to your personal standard and who knows, maybe the clear, accurate bits of new translation will prompt a rewrite in the future since it'll make the badly written translation all the more apparent. ▲ Collapse
| | | | R. Alex Jenkins
Brazil
Local time: 03:49
Member (2006)
Portuguese to English
+ ...
| A difficult one to answer | Jul 26, 2021 |
Based on all documents being gradually converted into some form of digital format over time, more and more translations of even the shoddiest PDF originals are appearing in TM formats, with customers aligning as much of the translation as possible with existing TM matches to economize on the fee and to be more competitive. This means that we sometimes get a document, of let's say 1,000 words, that might easily have 500 matches based on a previous TM that is simply awful, which gives us the choic... See more Based on all documents being gradually converted into some form of digital format over time, more and more translations of even the shoddiest PDF originals are appearing in TM formats, with customers aligning as much of the translation as possible with existing TM matches to economize on the fee and to be more competitive. This means that we sometimes get a document, of let's say 1,000 words, that might easily have 500 matches based on a previous TM that is simply awful, which gives us the choice of blatantly accepting the 100% fuzzies because we're not paid for editing them and subsequently submitting a job that will be third-party of in-house reviewed as not good enough, or doing the right thing and making minor tweaks for the sake of not handing in sub-standard work, as well as out of personal standards to make the world slightly better with less awful translation in it. Realistically, there are only two choices available: make small amounts of changes and don't fuss too much about it, or if the fuzzies are significant, talk to the project manager and explain that they are horrible and that you won't be held accountable for them and the overall quality of the translation. It can be difficult to manage and more frustrating than anything else. ▲ Collapse
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I don't use CAT tools. My oldest and most faithful client has come up with corpus of bad translations that they ask us to consult, but I ignore it.
[Edited at 2021-07-27 07:07 GMT]
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neilmac
Spain
Local time: 08:49
Spanish to English
+ ...
I don't use other people's TMs, only my own. And thankfully, I don't usually have to work with people who might oblige me to do so.
| | | | Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 07:49
Member (2008)
Italian to English
| Don't give them away | Jul 27, 2021 |
neilmac wrote:
I don't use other people's TMs, only my own. And thankfully, I don't usually have to work with people who might oblige me to do so.
Same here. Morever, never give your TMs to anyone else.
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Once, on another translator forum, someone uploaded a 100+ MB TM focusing on legal translations, and then I started receiving huge and nearly identical projects that came in as poor-quality pdfs to be processed via OCR, so there was no requirement to use CAT tools. I noticed that the text of each such project was almost fully translated in the TM I'd downloaded for free, but the translation quality was so trashy (huge sentences, completely botched) that most contributors whose names showed up be... See more Once, on another translator forum, someone uploaded a 100+ MB TM focusing on legal translations, and then I started receiving huge and nearly identical projects that came in as poor-quality pdfs to be processed via OCR, so there was no requirement to use CAT tools. I noticed that the text of each such project was almost fully translated in the TM I'd downloaded for free, but the translation quality was so trashy (huge sentences, completely botched) that most contributors whose names showed up below the entries got about a ton of curse words from me. In the meantime, those projects kept coming, and after I'd delivered two or three of the kind, I could just take time to convert the pdf into MS Word (ever so carefully) and then use my own prior translations to complete 2 days' worth of work in about an hour (no exaggerations here, all paid in full and with zero complaints from the customers; too bad I no longer have that TM – and no longer get orders like those) ▲ Collapse
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