The present Miss France is future interpereter!!!!!!!!

This good news has come from this post of not just another translation blog from our French colleague Laurent.


For our francophone colleagues no problem, go and read directly in French that post. For others, I give below the English translation.


Your kind attention please, exclusive information! Yours truly has sacrificed his Saturday evening for a highly cultural transmission. He is now giving you this hot news in advance: the new Miss France is an upcoming interpreter!

The news arrived just now: Malika Menard, a girl from Normandie, who is anything but a cow, was elected as  Miss France 2010. The 22 year old lady is studying in the third year of the licence course in Applied Foreign Languages (Licence L.E.A.), English-Italian (well, I am reminded of my young days) at Caen, with the idea of becoming conference interpreter.

With such talents, no marks for guessing that whispered interpreting will have a bright future!


Now back to Dondu N. Raghavan. The allusion to a cow may be incomprehensible to the non-francophones. Actually it is word play in the original French blog post. The sentence in original reads, "Malika Menard, une Normande qui n'a rien d'une vache, a été élue Miss France 2010". I was a little foxed by the reference to a vache in this context. Then I took recourse to my colleagues in the word reference forum. 


The query raised therein along with the responses can be seen here. Here I was informed that the word Normande refers to a lady from Normandie as well as a cow of the breed Normande.


Hence my allusion to the cow in my translation. Now I went to the original French blog post and gave a comment referring to the word reference forum in question.


Laurent was kind enough in coming to the concerned word reference forum and clarifying as follows.


"I am the author of the original blog post. I was contacted by Raghavan to give some explanation about my sentence. I never meant to make fun about that young lady : I simply made an allusion to the fact that she's from Normandy, but looks nothing like a Normandy cow (Nicomon perfectly understood this).

But anyway, I'm gonna have to correct my blog post: it is not the new Miss France who wants to be interpreter, but Miss Côte d'Azur, who came 6th".

Well, well, even the Miss Côte d'Azur will make a nice whisper interpreter, says Dondu N. Raghavan. :)))

Regards,

Dondu N. Raghavan


"

Penny wise pound foolish

The other day a new client of mine called me to his place for discussions. It seems he wanted a menu translated from English into German as well as into French. He represents a 4-star hotel, here in Chennai.

The requirement for translation into French was straight forward enough. He wanted the entire menu translated. But for translation into German he wanted to economize. He told me that the new menu in English was just a slight modification of the existing menu, whose German translation was already with him. I was to translate only the modifications. I asked him to give the modifications in a different color font. He agreed and emailed me the English menu.

I took up the French translation first and sent him the finished translation. Then I took up the second part of the assignment and then sent him the German translation duly incorporated in the original English menu. All he had to do was to copy paste from the existing German version the entries into the new menu so that he can get at the revised menu in German.

Here he ran into rough weather. It seems that the new menu in English is a fully revised one and bore no resemblance to the original version in matters of sequence or even formatting. He quietly sent me the old German version and asked me to insert the suitable German translations into the new revised menu.

I refused. I told him that this is entirely a different work and as the German words are already existing and my work was just to hunt them and put them in proper places in the new English menu, this work was not susceptible to straight forward word counting. I suggested that I come to his place, sit with the manager in charge of the menu and put the words in proper places, carrying out any further modifications in the format as might be found necessary by the manager at that time. After hearing my hourly rates and learning about the minimum billing for two hours as well as other conditions such as to- and fro taxi fare plus food while working, he became quiet. Though the conversatin was being conducted over phone, I could almost hear his mental gears moving around and meshing into place. He quietly asked me about the possible additional cost were I to translate the entire menu into German, not bothering about the old translation. Here there was no problem as I was already aware of the full word count of the English menu, on which I based my bill. The difference was not much and he said he would let me know. That was yesterday. He is yet to give me his decision. But the reason for my posting this rests elsewhere.

Trouble comes with clients, who try to cut corners and economize. I will not blame the person negotiating with me as he is just an employee of the organisation in question and his instructions are just to get the work done at the cheapest price. So the client goes into rigmaroles to restrict the work. He forgets that by just getting the entire package translated, he saves a lot in terms of time and avoidable botheration. Let me give a few examples.

One officer negotiating with me said that his Director knows French and at a pinch he can very well look after the visiting French expert. Hence I should reduce my rates. I just took a few minutes to demolish his assumption. The French expert was supposed to work with the Indian workers giving them training. Did the officer expect that the company's top official will sit with them and do interpreting? I told the officer that that person was expected to manage the company on the whole and not lose himself in a lower-end job as far as he was concerned. The officer quickly agreed and we proceeded with the rate negotiation.

In another firm, there was a bunch of German drawings. The officer entrusting the work to me marked a few words in each sheet and told me to translate just them as he undestood the other words. I obliged without argument as it was a job paid on an hourly basis, finished the work as instructed and got paid. The trouble was, the concerned officer left the company soon afterwards. His successor was not so knowledgeable and he wanted the meaning of words that were left untranslated. You guessed it correctly. Another work for me. Needless to say, the company ended up paying me much more.

There was this client, who expected me not to charge for interpreting while accompanying him and the visitor to a five-star hotel for wining and dining. He was of the opinion that I should be content with five-star food. I told him politely that I am not enamoured of five star food, in fact was just fed up with them! (pun intended!). Either he pays me for my time or I do not go. He said that he would manage the hotel visit himself and asked me to come for technical interpreting the next day. But things took a differeent turn the next day. The visitor had eaten something, which was not suitable for his stomach. He was an European and there are many spicy Indian foods about which I always caution the visitor. Well, in this case I was not there. The visitor had bouts of vomiting and loose motion throughout the next day. He had to be taken to a doctor, who put him on drips. Naturally I sat by his side and interpreted between him and the doctor, as well as the pretty nurse, whom the expert found to be nice. However the client was not amused, as the expert's daily rate was way higher than my interpreting fees for the three hours spent at the five-star hotel. The client became very thoughtful afterwards.

Then there are clients not wishing to pay for numbers, proper nouns, repetitions etc. They just serve to give concrete examples of penny wise, pound foolish!

Regards,
Dondu N.Raghavan

Disturbing thoughts: Is translation a non-value activity?

At times I am asked to come to the client's premises to do translations, whenever the work is of confidential nature and/or is too cumbersome to handle at home. In the case I am going to cite here, there were bundles of French technical drawings in hard copy and I had a merry time translating them.

Enough of background. The contact officer and I were discussing the company's translation requirements. He told me that his bosses wanted him to make do without translation, as the work was at a preliminary stage and one was not sure of getting the order. Hence cost has to be cut. Here the offending word comes in. The bosses said to him that translation is a "non-value service", as it does not bring in money directly. Though taken aback, I was delighted with the opportunity to talk and talk about translation.

My arguments in a nutshell:
Translation is vital, as the client has to understand in the first place the principal's requirements expressed in another language. At this point of time, it is an investment and as is the case in all investments, there can be no 100% guarantee of getting fat returns. After all, the principal may not like the client's rates and not give the order. It is not the fault of translation. Without translation no meaningful offer can be given.

The above mindset of a typical client results in there being no budget provision for translations and in the translation activity not finding a place in the bar charts. Everybody assumes that translation involves just copying into another language and it is just common sense. This is an important drawback for projects involving two parties speaking different languages. Poor fellow, the contact officer had a glazed look after nearly 30 minutes of my onslaught of words.

A few words about the situation obtaining in India. Indian companies have English as the working language and this language is known to many people in Europe, especially in the German and French speaking countries. The top people going to Europe for negotiations get by almost without interpreters and if at all any interpreter is required, the host looks after that. Foreign visitors to India do speak acceptable level of English and more often than not interpreters are not required.

This situation is the main reason why our entrepreneurs are lulled into a sense of false security. Because they were able to pull along without interpreters, they think that their engineers and other officials in the next rung of management can do the same thing. Unfortunately this does not apply to translations of the vast documentation and they are obliged to hire us. But this is bothering them and hence they give statements such as those indicating that translation is a non-value activity. They try to use this argument to browbeat us translators into accepting low rates. This cuts no ice with me, as given half a chance, I start waxing eloquent in favour of my profession. And I stand firm and manage to get good rates.

The reason for this posting is to share my thoughts with my friends in a sympathetic atmosphere and get more points in favor of our case. I request my translator / interpreter colleagues to give more inputs on this question that touches us all.
Regards,

N.Raghavan

Reverse translation

We translators are supposed to translate into our mother tongue only and not away from it. In this connection, let us be clear as to what is meant by mother tongue. Let me take my own case.

My mother tongue is Tamil and I studied in Tamil medium till the 9th standard. All subjects other then English were taught in Tamil only. In my 10th standard, the situation took a 180 degrees turn. I had opted for the bifurcated course in engineering. Now except for Tamil all the other subjects were taught in English! Fortunately, thanks to my mother and my 8th Standard teacher Mr. Jayarama Iyengar, I had a strong foundation in English grammar. And I am a voracious reader. These factors helped me in coping with the changed scenario. I had however a small problem in spoken English, which I solved within a few months thanks to constant practice. Sorry for the digression but then this explains my statement that I consider English too as my mother tongue for all purposes.

Hence as per the conventional wisdom, I am supposed to translate from German or French or Italian into English and not vice versa. Well, I do not accept jobs translating into Italian but I do accept assignments translating from English into German or French.

During the first six years of my translation activities starting 1975, I translated into English only. But then in the year 1981 I joined IDPL as Design Engineer cum French translator, a unique designation without any precedent, but more about this later. In retrospect I see that it was good that I was not aware of this restriction concerning reverse translation. Right from the day one of my stay in IDPL, my bosses started giving me jobs of translation in the pair French<>English. So in this case there was really no choice about declining reverse translation jobs. It was either doing the job as demanded or being shown the door!

Contract specifications in French will come from Algeria. I will translate them into English. Our engineers will then go through them and give their quotation in English. I will render them into French and the whole thing will be sent to the Algerian principal. Here my engineering knowledge stood me in good stead. Not one French translation was returned by the Algerians alleging incomprehensibility. This was actually the routine when my predecessor was there. She was an MA in French and nothing more. Not at all in touch with technical jargon. She had a very bad time.

Now my two cents about reverse translations in general. At the outset let me say one thing. This restriction is a must for literary translations. Hence I will not dream of translating Harry Potter books into German or French! Nor will I be very enthusiastic about translating into German or French the Websites, which will be viewed by native German or French people. The native touch will just be missing in that case.

But then the translation assignments that I usually come across are, more often than not, concerned with technical literature. These are to be read by specialists, who will be more interested in the technical information and less in the language nuances. Here I take the plunge and till date I have been getting along without mishaps.

Another aspect is the question of pricing. In India, the cost of living is less than in advanced countries. Hence our rates are on the lower side. This acts as attraction especially for the Indian clients, who otherwise will have to pay more and that too in foreign currency to native German or French translators.

There is another side to this question. The Indian client will require me to translate from Indian English into German or French. Indian English is a class in itself. It is affected by the mother tongue of the Indian writing the text in Indian English. In that case an Indian translator is more apt to understand the nuances of the original text.

The combination of the above two points is mainly responsible in our getting such reverse translation assignments. Needless to say in my profiles of Proz.com, Translatorscafe as well as Go translators I offer only translations into English and not into French or German. Thanks to my exposure to the views expressed by other translators in various translators' fora, I have started drawing the Indian client's attention to the necessity of his getting such reverse translation jobs done by native German or French translators. In addition, I bring his attention to the fact that the native touch will be missing in reverse translations done by me. Once the client still decides to give me such work, I take a lot of pains to render them as native as possible.

Regards,
N.Ragahvan

INSDOC

The Indian National Scientific Documentation Centre (INSDOC) is a component of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Government of India. It was by chance that I heard of Insdoc for the first time in the year 1976. At that time I was not to know that this chance encounter was about to bring about a radical change in my way of life.

I was at that time on the lookout for some translation assignments. I knew German and I was working as electrical engineer in the Central Public Works Department of the Government of India. This article about Insdoc appeared in the Sunday edition of The Hindu. It described the Insdoc activities concerning translations from foreign languages especially into English. It employed a battery of fulltime translators translating from European, East Asian and other languages. The article mentioned among other things the translators panel maintained by Insdoc covering freelance translators translating from those languages.

On an impulse, I took an inland letter and dashed of an application to be included in the Insdoc panel. It was a handwritten letter and cost me just 0.20 rupees. Within a week I received a letter from one Mr. Swamy, Translation Coordinator, Insdoc. He sent me a test piece for translation. I did the translation and sent it back. Next week I received confirmation of my being included in the panel accompanied by a small job. It fetched me Rs.81 (Rs.9 per page)! Since then I received jobs from time to time. These and the other Chennai jobs gave me confidence and I was able to land the job of a full-time French translator (I had learnt that language too in the meantime) in Indian Drugs and Pharmaceuticals Limited (IDPL) in New Delhi. Now this shifting to Delhi reinforced my Insdoc contact and I did a lot of work for them as well. This continued till 1995, when Insdoc activities were very much reduced on account of globalization and people favored private agencies to Insdoc on account of its bureaucratic slowness in returning jobs.

By that time a lot of water had flown down the Yamuna and I developed a lot of contacts including agencies and direct clients. But in retrospect I feel that all these developments were initiated with the help of a single inland letter sent by me nearly 30 years back. My gratitude to Insdoc is ever green in my memory.

Regards,
Dondu Raghavan

Life before Internet

An interesting question was raised the other day in the French forum of the translator portal Proz.com. A member was curious to know how translators got along before the advent of Internet. For the younger generation of translators the very idea of not having the Internet and computers is quite unthinkable. But oldies like me remember well the life before Internet. This is what I wrote in that topic in English after excusing myself for writing in English in a French forum.

I remember very well the life before Internet. Since March 1975 when I started and till Feb 2002 when I purchased a computer, I have been translating manually. I will write the translation by hand and get it typed by a job-typist. We were expected to deliver the translations in duplicate, typed in double space. Each page was expected to carry 30 lines at 10 words per line. These were the specifications prescribed by INSDOC, a government agency in India.

As I gained confidence and my clients became numerous, I started delivering just the handwritten manuscript and charged by the words in the translated text. Needless to say, I did not have anything to do with a computer, much less the Internet. Counting was done manually. Thus, when in the year 1998 I borrowed a book on translation from the local British Council library, I was amazed to read that having a computer is the first requirement for a translator! In those days, the agencies which gave me work would accept the handwritten manuscript and type the same on the computer. I was asked to proofread the typed copies and that was that.

But things were slowly changing and the clients wanted me to deliver soft copies. But I persuaded them to accept my services as described above. As by this time I had become a full time freelancer, I offered to come to the client's premises for the day and do the translation. I used to point out that since typing is done directly on his computer, the confidentiality of the documents will be maintained. Clients liked this argument. On a typical day at the client's premises, a typist will be assigned to me one hour after I start writing the translation by hand and she will go on typing the sheets on the computer. At the end of the day, the typed copies will be proofread and the corrections carried out. The combination of a fast translator and a fast typist was really explosive. Gradually I used to do the editing in the computer. My typist taught me the art of mastering the keys of the computer.

But things could not continue in this manner and in Feb 2002 I purchased my computer. The first translation was to be done in Excel and with the help of the typist I managed to type the translation by myself. What a relief! Since then I have not looked back. With the advent of the computer in my life, Internet cannot lag behind. In fact it has been a big technology leap for me. At present I do work without any paper being involved. I download the file to be translated, take its save-as copy, tile both the files horizontally and edit the top layer file by reading the bottom layer file. At the end of the day I get two documents that are identical in all respects except the language! During the translation I keep a few online dictionaries open for consultation. One google page too is kept opened.

Looking back, I wonder. What made me tick? Things have happened to me and fortunately all of them were favorable or I was able to turn them to my advantage. Even now I can do the translation in handwritten manuscripts. In fact I still do it now and then. There is this client who is having bunches and bunches of engineering drawings. I go to his place and start doing the translations by hand on the blueprint itself. One draughtsman is assigned to me who incorporates them with his CAD software. I charge by the hour and believe me it is a very good rate. Main thing is, both the client and I are happy with this arrangement. Here too I tell the client to place me near a computer with an internet connection, which I consult for difficult terms. I carry my dictionaries with me of course.

Regards,
N.Raghavan

P.S. The French translators welcomed my contribution but the main consensus was that it would have been better had I posted in French. Here my colleague Lien came to my rescue. She translated my post in French! Here it is:

La traduction (enfin... a peu pres) Jun 16, 2004

Je me souviens très bien de la vie avant Internet. Depuis mes débuts en mars 75 jusqu'en février 02, ou je me suis payé un ordinateur, je traduisais tout à la main et je le faisais taper par une dactylo. J'étais censé remettre les traductions en double, tapées en double interligne. Les pages devaient faire 30 lignes de dix mots par ligne. Ces exigences étaient dictées par le INSDOC, un organisme du gouvernement indien.

Comme je prenais de l'assurance et que mes clients devenaient de plus en plus nombreux, je me suis mis à rendre directement les manuscrits en faisant payer au mot le texte cible. Inutile de vous dire que je ne connaissais rien aux ordinateurs et encore moins à Internet. Je comptais les mots un par un. Donc, quand en 98 j'ai emprunté un livre sur la traduction à la bibliothèque du British Council, j'ai été étonné d'apprendre que de posséder un ordinateur était la première condition pour être un traducteur ! A l'époque, les agences qui me donnaient du travail acceptaient mes manuscrits et les retapaient sur ordinateur. On me demandait juste de relire et corriger les copies, était tout.

Mais les choses ont commencé à changer, et les clients ont voulu que je leur remette des textes faits sur ordinateur, mais j'ai quand même pu les persuader de continuer à travailler à ma manière. Comme à l'époque étais devenu un traducteur indépendant à plein temps, je leur ai proposé de venir une journée dans leurs bureaux et de faire la traduction sur place. Je m'en tirais en leur disant que, puisque je faisais directement la traduction sur leur ordinateur, la confidentialité des documents était respectée. L'argument plaisait aux clients. Dans une journée normale au bureau, on m'allouait une dactylo qui arrivait une heure après que j'aie commencé la traduction à la main et elle la tapait au fur et a mesure sur l'ordinateur. À la fin de la journée, les copies étaient relues et corrigées. L'association d'un traducteur et d'une dactylo rapides donnait des résultats spectaculaires. Peu a peu je pris l'habitude de relire sur l'écran. Ma dactylo m'avait appris l'art de taper sur les touches.

Mais les choses ne pouvant plus continuer comme ça, en février 02 je me suis offert un ordinateur. La première traduction était en Excel et avec l'aide de la dactylo je réussis à le faire tout seul. Quel soulagement ! A partir de ce moment la je n'ai jamais eu aucun regret. Puisque l'ordinateur était entré dans ma vie, Internet ne pouvait plus se faire attendre. En fait, pour moi, cela a été un grand progrès technologique. Maintenant je travaille sans plus aucun papier. Je télécharge le fichier à traduire, j'en fait une copie, je travaille avec deux fenêtres sur écran l'une au-dessus l'autre, je traduis dans la fenêtre du haut en lisant dans celle du bas. A la fin de la journée j'ai deux documents identiques en deux langues différentes. Pendant que je traduis, j'ai d'autres fenêtres ouvertes pour les dictionnaires en ligne dont j'ai besoin. J'ai aussi une fenêtre pour google.

En y repensant, je me demande : qu'est-ce qui me fait courir ? Il m'est arrivé des tas de choses et heureusement étaient des bonnes, ou j'ai fait en sorte qu'elles tournent à mon avantage. Même maintenant je pourrai refaire des traductions à la main. En fait, j'en fais encore de temps en temps. J'ai un client qui a des tas et des tas de dessins techniques. Je vais chez lui et je fais les traductions à la main directement sur les plans. J'ai un dessinateur qui les saisit sur ordinateur avec son logiciel CAD. Je me fais payer à l'heure et croyez-moi que ça rapporte. Le plus important de la chose, c'est que le client et moi nous sommes tous les deux très satisfaits de cet arrangement. Là-bas je demande être près d'un ordinateur relie a Internet pour pouvoir faire des recherches pour les mots difficiles. J'amène aussi mes dictionnaires, bien sûr.

Amicalement,
N.Raghavan