Oron Peled wrote:
On Friday, 28 בOctober 2005 13:46, Uri Bruck wrote:
I don't know what you've seen, but since I actually am a translator I'm
sure I've seen more translations than you have, both good and bad.
I'd like to split this to separate issues:
- Crappy work exists in all professional fields -- you can bet I've
seen enough shoddy programming code written by keyboard monkeys
just like you've seen "translations" done by the neighbour's son
for a bargain price of 10NIS/page.
(actually I've seen enough of these as my wife happen to be a
translator [non-technical though...])
- There are many people that can do quality work without belonging
to the specific profession -- I've encountered some very good
physicists that wrote quality programs. Likewise we all know there
are people who can do quality translation even if their day to day
work is selling insurance policies.
Naturally.
I was responding mainly to two things:
- if a a grant is requested to this end, what costs to expect. (and I
do know how to avoid getting the wrong people and how to avoid creating
a mis-managed project)
- mindless bashing of work the basher seems to know nothing about.
So the fight against lowering the quality bar is common to many fields
(translation included), and using only "professionals" with some title
for a specific job does not, regretfully, provide any guaranties.
The terminology resources a technical translator has are larger than
what you've managed to piece together. Not all those resources can be
placed on the web.
For our mission, the ideal translator has:
- Mastery of the source language (better than my mediocre English).
- Mastery of the target language.
- Knowledge of the problem domain.
One important advantage in (free)-software translation is the
incremental improvement that exist through the lifecycle of
the program (both in code and translation). This means we can
try to improve the quality incrementally (Just like Wikipedia does).
I see professional translators (and linguists for that matter) as very
helpfull in:
- Setting/improving the framework we work by -- so we don't miss important
language aspects.
- Experts for consultation in tough places.
- High level QA -- not check individual translations (it's a waste of
a scarce resource, as we don't have many of these people),
but rather check our guidelines, dictionary schema etc.
Want to jump on the bandwagon?
I contribute the occasional advice on the relevant mailing lists. In
some contexts my modest contribution is accepted for what it is. The
more common response is :" don't criticise me, I'm a volunteer."
There's also that weird notion that terminology should be up for a vote
on hamakor discussions list. What's that about? Do developers put their
source code up for a vote? This works when the voting group is
well-balanced with respect to the project. This is not the case here.
These are all nice words Oron, and I'm sure you mean them. In practice,
I'm getting the message that my presence near the bandwagon rains on
some people's ego-fest parades.
The three points above are things I may be able to contribute to.
--
Thanks,
Uri
http://translation.israel.net
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