Poll: As a result of a negative review of your work by an editor/proofreader, have you:
Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
ProZ.com Staff
ProZ.com Staff
SITE STAFF
Feb 3, 2019

This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "As a result of a negative review of your work by an editor/proofreader, have you:".

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Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida  Identity Verified
Portugal
Local time: 09:29
Member (2007)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
Other (I haven’t received a negative review from an editor for a long, long time) Feb 3, 2019

Most of my translations are proofread in-house and my clients know this (and pay for it). I work with a few translation agencies that have their own editors and over the years we developed a mutual professional relationship. One of these agencies (the only one, I must admit) even sends the edited files for my final approval. I’m an editor myself and I don’t look at the editor as the “enemy”, I see his/her job as collaboration, with one linguist doing the translation, the other doing the ... See more
Most of my translations are proofread in-house and my clients know this (and pay for it). I work with a few translation agencies that have their own editors and over the years we developed a mutual professional relationship. One of these agencies (the only one, I must admit) even sends the edited files for my final approval. I’m an editor myself and I don’t look at the editor as the “enemy”, I see his/her job as collaboration, with one linguist doing the translation, the other doing the editing. Nevertheless, over the years I have been confronted with some “funny” situations, for instance, some years ago a long-standing customer (a Japanese company) picked a Spanish proofreader for the texts I translate (I translate exclusively into European Portuguese) and it took some time and a LOT of emails back and forth for him to understand that Spanish and Portuguese, though related, are quite different…Collapse


 
Thayenga
Thayenga  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 10:29
Member (2009)
English to German
+ ...
Other Feb 3, 2019

When a proofreader edited my translation to death, including building in mistakes, my client sent the work to me, surprised that a good translator had suddenly turned absolutely bad. I reviewed the work, made my correction of the edited text, and returned it to my client. Along with the next project my client informed me that she had found a new, a truly professional proofreader, hoping that we would work well together. And we did.

 
Noni Gilbert Riley
Noni Gilbert Riley
Spain
Local time: 10:29
Spanish to English
+ ...
Butchered Feb 3, 2019

Working with an agency: the client sent back the translation of a whole range of short texts for a website on the grounds that it was bad quality and not the work of a native speaker. I was "fired" forthwith by the agency, and given no opportunity to justify my work. I was incensed and for personal satisfaction I contacted an anonymous proofreader with one of the texts; it was returned with an indication that it was more than acceptable.

I did not have the time nor inclination to a
... See more
Working with an agency: the client sent back the translation of a whole range of short texts for a website on the grounds that it was bad quality and not the work of a native speaker. I was "fired" forthwith by the agency, and given no opportunity to justify my work. I was incensed and for personal satisfaction I contacted an anonymous proofreader with one of the texts; it was returned with an indication that it was more than acceptable.

I did not have the time nor inclination to argue the toss on this one, although I lost a fair amount of money in income, but my conscience is clear, and even today I get some satisfaction from reading the bad translations - undoubtedly NOT from a native speaker of English, that the end client chooses to use on its website rather than mine!
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Anne Schulz
Anne Schulz
Germany
Local time: 10:29
English to German
+ ...
Other Feb 3, 2019

There is an option missing: "... given up the job/client?"

I once received a request to commit to a regular series of translations, in tandem with one of the client's proofreaders. The first translation I did came back extensively "corrected" to an entirely different style, namely the rather literal, Denglish style which is not uncommon in our CAT era, but in my eyes did not fit the purpose (response letters to queries). After that, I asked the client to look for another translator
... See more
There is an option missing: "... given up the job/client?"

I once received a request to commit to a regular series of translations, in tandem with one of the client's proofreaders. The first translation I did came back extensively "corrected" to an entirely different style, namely the rather literal, Denglish style which is not uncommon in our CAT era, but in my eyes did not fit the purpose (response letters to queries). After that, I asked the client to look for another translator providing a better match with this proofreader. Proofreader and translator must be compatible.
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Christine Andersen
Ricki Farn
Morano El-Kholy
Caroline Rösler
Michael Harris
Maria da Glória Teixeira
 
Mario Freitas
Mario Freitas  Identity Verified
Brazil
Local time: 06:29
Member (2014)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
Other Feb 3, 2019

It's curious how in 99% of the occasions when I received this kind of complaint, the client was always trying to be smart. every single time, the client satates there were "quality issues", they refer to three typos in 20 pages, or something like that. Other than that, the changes made by revisers are 90% of the time replacements for synonyms and changing the order of elements in a sentence, just to show their usefulness.
So, no, I have never been panalized, financially or otherwise, in an
... See more
It's curious how in 99% of the occasions when I received this kind of complaint, the client was always trying to be smart. every single time, the client satates there were "quality issues", they refer to three typos in 20 pages, or something like that. Other than that, the changes made by revisers are 90% of the time replacements for synonyms and changing the order of elements in a sentence, just to show their usefulness.
So, no, I have never been panalized, financially or otherwise, in any such cases, because I always contest and explain why THEY are wrong and the translation was a lot better before they touched it.
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Thayenga
Vi Pukite
Maja_K
 
Nikki Scott-Despaigne
Nikki Scott-Despaigne  Identity Verified
Local time: 10:29
French to English
Other Feb 3, 2019

A client agency returned a piece of work I had translated from French into English, which is my mother tongue. My translation had also been proofread in-house by a fellow native speaker of English, a person who has been proofreading with the agency in question for a number of years.

The end client, a high-level civil servant whose native tongue is French, had simply gone through the first 2 of the 5 pages and "frenchified" everything that could be: conjugation, choice of tense, idio
... See more
A client agency returned a piece of work I had translated from French into English, which is my mother tongue. My translation had also been proofread in-house by a fellow native speaker of English, a person who has been proofreading with the agency in question for a number of years.

The end client, a high-level civil servant whose native tongue is French, had simply gone through the first 2 of the 5 pages and "frenchified" everything that could be: conjugation, choice of tense, idiomatic expressions, false friends, etc. You name, she had added it. Receiving the call, then the file, I was really worried. In a matter of seconds though, it was clear that this was just an individual who believed that her English was excellent. She was no doubt a confident speaker of English, but had sincerely made all the classic mistakes only a French person could. I discussed the matter with the agency who asked me to go through the client's suggested "corrections" and comment, explain, justify and so on. After a couple of hours, I was fuming and contacted the agency considering I had spent enough unpaid time on this. I replied that I would be only too happy to continue with the rest of the text, adding all the classic French mistakes I could, invoicing the agency at my usual hourly rate and adding that they might like to allow for 3-4 hours extra on the file.

The agency heard my remarks and I heard no more about it. I continued to receive work from them but eventually started refusing all offers until I finally said that I no longer wished to work with them. Low rates mean that you have to work fast to make it profitable. That means that client is getting stuff back fairly quickly for a crap rate. That's upside down business thinking for me so it was time to call it a day. Perhaps I'd have accepted the odd job now and again, but honestly, that particular piece should have been dealt with in-house first of all.

A negative review, questions, are of no bother to me whatsoever. However, when a non-native person takes all the authenticity out of a text, the thing I'm being paid to do, there is no sense to the way things are being done. It was time to part company. So, a seriously (unjustified) negative review and I'm the one who leaves!
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DZiW (X)
DZiW (X)
Ukraine
English to Russian
+ ...
Other Feb 3, 2019

I was lucky to start translation in a group where we shared the same TM and glossary, we also double-checked and cross-checked each other. That's why I learned* to have a down on even my own works)

However, there were minor remarks, especially for rush jobs, when PMs explicitly noted to do it ASAP!!! and no proofreading/editing required.

It's a pity nowadays rather many agencies seem to invent new rules and preferences after the agreements to low the rates even lower, c
... See more
I was lucky to start translation in a group where we shared the same TM and glossary, we also double-checked and cross-checked each other. That's why I learned* to have a down on even my own works)

However, there were minor remarks, especially for rush jobs, when PMs explicitly noted to do it ASAP!!! and no proofreading/editing required.

It's a pity nowadays rather many agencies seem to invent new rules and preferences after the agreements to low the rates even lower, claiming for discounts.
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Maxi Schwarz
Maxi Schwarz  Identity Verified
Local time: 04:29
German to English
+ ...
proofreader / end client / one incident Feb 3, 2019

I've only worked for one agency that employed a proofreader. One some tricky projects I've hired someone with special expertise to check my work. The agency always sent me the revised work, which was done with "track changes" so that I could reverse or comment on changes I didn't agree with. It was assumed that I knew best. I considered it a nice safety net, in case anything slipped by me. There has never been a change in the agency's behaviour due to such feedback. It's just a process.... See more
I've only worked for one agency that employed a proofreader. One some tricky projects I've hired someone with special expertise to check my work. The agency always sent me the revised work, which was done with "track changes" so that I could reverse or comment on changes I didn't agree with. It was assumed that I knew best. I considered it a nice safety net, in case anything slipped by me. There has never been a change in the agency's behaviour due to such feedback. It's just a process.

There was one incident decades ago. I sent a translation that contained German proper names, with Umlauts. Somebody along the way had an older version of Word containing less font choices. My Umlauts got changed into things like *#> in the middle of a word, on their computer. The client wrote, "This isn't a proper translator. Can't even spell German names properly." The agency phoned me up and (literally) yelled at me. I was shocked. Only time such a thing happened.

On "negative reviews" - I've seen this expression before, with the idea of a reviewer assessing how good or bad your work is, which I think is a different thing. I can't see that as terribly practical, and doesn't seem to be the right role in the translation process, but dunno.
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Poll: As a result of a negative review of your work by an editor/proofreader, have you:






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