(Not So) Quick No-Nonsense QA/QC for Legal Translation

This will be one of the apparently very few posts here that do not involve the 'politics' of the translation 'industry'.

So, this is to give you some pointers as to what and how to check for, hence a sort of QA/QC checklist, for legal translation:

• Unless you have perfect memory and consistency, write down a glossary, either a general one or a specific one for every larger project, to make sure that you translate the same term or significant, meaningful expression (not necessarily legal, by the way) consistently throughout the text. This includes especially making sure that, as far as it makes sense, you use no more than one equivalent of the same term and translate no more than one term with the same equivalent. The goal is not to impoverish your translation repertoire or slavishly stick to word-for-word translation but to simply avoid the kind of unnecessary inconsistency that results from randomness. And randomness typically results from short memory.
• Go through numbers, addresses, dates, prices, etc., at least but not necessarily only once, to make sure that they follow the correct format and always indeed the same format. There may be an exception where the original uses different date formats in different places, for example because of varying the register or quoting from some other document, in which case you should not be overzealous, as the 'industry' wrongly tries to teach you, to standardize.
• Make sure you got them all right, numbers and formats e.g. no confusion between decimal separators and thousands, no zeroes (or other numbers) added or missing, that you've got the right currency or unit of measurement etc.
• Make sure numbers written out verbally in your translation agree with the verbal numbers in the original, not with the digits you've only just typed. Note that this means the words in the translation have to agree with the original, not that the words have to agree with the numbers in the translation if they did not in the original. Use CTRL+F for this purpose and check them all one by one. Iconsistencies between the digits and words are not for you to fix, no matter what the 'industry' would have you believe in its embarrassing lickspittle desire to employ translators as (ever underappreciated) ghost editors and janitors for original writers.
• Apply similar steps to the names of parties to the contract or dispute or whatever else you're translating, such as Buyer and Seller but especially something like Lessor and Lessee (use Tenant and Landlord if possible; afterwards you can Find & Replace All by CTRL+H), interviewer or interviewee etc. Just to be sure, CTRL+F all occurrences one by one, going by the original or by the source or both, using some sort of formula that makes sure you always get them right.
• It's probably worth checking specifically for any missed negations. 'Not' is about the easiest word there is for a tired translator to miss. You can trust me, it happens to the best of us and more often than you'd think. I translate and revise this stuff all the time.
• Speaking of which, things need much more checking and much more scrupulous attention if you are (or were) tired, sick, hurried, distracted or thrown off your usual balance in any other way.
• Actually read everything, every sentence, every word, out loud if you can. Make sure the syntax is correct and clear. Sometimes being clear is more important than being correct, let alone aesthetically pleasing. Many graduates these days, including BA/MA grads and professional writers, struggle with syntax and grammar, largely because of how the education system fails to teach such old-fashioned and unnecessary subjects correctly or at all. You don't have to be perfect, but you do in fact need to do better than most. But the main problem is not correctness per se, as in compliance with the rules, but the way in which non-standard communication impedes or outright prevents understanding.
• Avoid producing gibberish, sometimes known as 'translatorese', especially if the original is both correct and clear. Check with the client if necessary. Your client won't bite, or at least shouldn't. An agency that shuns questions from translators and won't forward them to the client to avoid having to ask for some attention is not acting professionally. Professionals don't act like scared puppies. Acting like a scared puppy can have serious ramifications because being intimidated by your client is no defence against accusations of malpractice.
• Pay especial attention to subjunctives, conjunctives, conditionals, future-in-the-past sort of structures, formulaic expressions, customary archaisms and anything else you don't use in everyday speech, especially if you never even read that kind of language. If in doubt, stick to familiar structures, however less elegant. Simplicity is always more elegant than trying to use sophisticated language and failing miserably.
• If you can do so without altering the meaning, keep it simple, keep it real and even (gasp!) cut the crap. Don't sacrifice content for form, but do think whether you really need all those words. Leave anything in that you think could have some meaning (presume you can never be certain), don't spend too much of your time sanitizing an overly verbose original, but resist the urge to translate mere meaningless ornaments word for word, and avoid real pleonasms and tautologies (if in doubt, leave them in).
• Don't, however, fall into the trap of thinking — or being made to think — that an extremely challenging original, complex and convoluted, requiring a lot of education, both general and field-specific, somehow has to result in a translation that is easily understood by a child. That's not your job but the lawyers'. Non-legal editors in LSPs who argue with you on this point are wrong. And in fact delusional. They could in fact pose somewhat of a threat to the project due to their lack of the kind of specific intellectual rigour that is needed in legal translation and precludes going full-on social justice warrior on the original.
• Try to get familiar with modern drafting in the target language, but don't go on a crusade and translate legalese into an honest working man's language.
• Identify any spots where you are about to markedly depart from the last vestiges of formal equivalence (viz. your choice of grammar, syntax and vocabulary is completely different from the original while hoping to preserve the actual sense). Make sure you aren't suffering from a disastrous bout of boredom that prevents you from listening to your self-preservation instinct.
• Speaking of which: do listen to your self-preservation instinct. It exists for a reason. At least hear what it has to say, and make an intelligent decision.
• If you're catching yourself being afraid of intelligent literal translation and going to great lengths to avoid literal translation even where it does in fact supply the best of all equivalents possible, then you should probably avoid legal translation and switch over to literature or marketing. Legal translation is not uncreative, but sacrificing too much fidelity out of a sort of primordial fear of being wrongly accused of overly literal translation malpractice, plain and simple.

Hope this helps. If it makes you think of legal translation as something only a special sort of nerd would enjoy, you're spot on. Consider that most translators — and I'd say most legal translators — aren't in fact cut out for legal translation. You'd better just like the job, and if not, then avoid it. There are days or even weeks I have to do something else to avoid going insane.

Disclaimer: This is not intended to be legal or professional advice, and in any case it does not establish any lawyer-client or consultancy type of relationship.

Will Machine Translation Displace Only Those Humans Who Translate Like Machines?

Here is the text of the popular Internet meme, coined by dr Arle Richard Lommel of the German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence, himself a freelance translator:

Machine translation will displace only those humans who translate like machines

There is also a less known second sentence, which I don't see in those memes, and which reads:

Humans will focus on tasks that require intelligence.

I'm not sure if I actually disagree with dr Lommel, but I disagree with what I think the meme is likely to be typically understood to mean. Which is that only low-skill unimaginative human translators will be displaced by MT.

In the world around you, do you or do you not see MT used in the wrong place, for the wrong purpose or reasons or both?

In real life MT is used where it's not up to the task and where a human translator would do a better job.

The longer explanation is that people don't really know how translation works, human, machine or otherwise. They aren't necessarily motivated to learn, either, or even capable.

But what everybody can see — and what they are guided by in their decision-making — is that MT is cheap or free of charge, fast, or rather instantaneous, and readily available.

Choices made by clients in real life are not made the way the meme seems to imply that they are, i.e. objective reality + poetic justice. Objective reality is something they may or may not be aware of, and poetic justice is, well, poetic. So don't allow sentiments to get in the way of your logic.

Clients makes their decisions rather on the basis of what they know and what they want to do and what they ultimately do do with that knowledge.

Hence, rather, MT can displace human translators:

(i) for those clients who:

• can't afford the higher cost of human translation (if it is higher), or
• don't know the difference and don't have some other reason to stick with human translation (whatever that might be), or
• know the difference but don't see it as worth paying for, or
• know the difference, see the value but still go for MT for other reasons (whatever those might be) 

(ii) in that type of translation in which:

• MT produces results that are fit for the purpose, and
• human translation doesn't offer any benefit the client is interested in (or, more precisely, willing to pay for), whether that's more-than-fit quality or something else

This could be understood to mean that in at least some of those cases we all translate like machines. But that's not necessarily true — it only means we achieve the same results that a machine can achieve.

And machines can do amazing things with enough processing power and the ingenuity of, surprise, surprise, human engineers.

Next, 'even' structurally bound rule-based translation that relies on substitution as a method is not necessarily a task that doesn't require intelligence. It's only a task where artificial intelligence may be sufficient and in some cases superior. Just because Kasparov lost to Deep Blue doesn't mean chess doesn't require intelligence, does it?

Finally, MT with human post-editing (PEMTing) is not the same as MT without it, in terms of risks. Human-assisted MT is more of a threat than pure MT.

Make no mistake:

• Just because you don't see yourself as a low-skill translator, or just because you objectively aren't one, doesn't mean that rules-based MT with good input data, good rules, a lot of processing power (millions of operations per minute etc.) and especially human assistance (PEMTing or otherwise) can't produce results that are x% as good as yours in x% of cases, for example 80% as good in 80% of the cases. Don't kid yourself, not everybody wants or even needs[1] the double 100% figure, nor can you actually achieve it (it's humanly impossible). It may be helpful to read up on bounded rationality, i.e. full optimization versus satisficing, and maximizers versus satisficers. As a translator, you are probably more likely to be a maximizer than a satisficer (100% pure maximizers probably don't exist, so it's not a 0/1 matter, more like, say, 0.9/0.1). An economist, business manager or IT person — or PM for that matter — is more likely to be a satisficer than you are (there are exceptions, some of them notably quite annoying, e.g. in the literal reading of some translation agency contracts only 100% of the best theoretically possible result will do, else they'll reject your translation; how does that feel?). Most people use simplified heuristics in their decision-making. This means they make 'approximate decisions' and accept certain risks in exchange for time and cost savings. You aren't immune to the 'like machine' just because you're good, let alone if you should be merely not too bad at what you do.
• In real life MT displaces human translation just like bad human translators displace good human translators. Read Paul Sulzberger's interview with Luigi Muzii to get a better understanding why (Gresham's law: bad money drives out good), though it's not just the price. Some of the people who would otherwise be your clients will go for MT just like some of them go for cheaper translators or DIY translation, for all sorts of reasons.

Get proper context. You're only immune if a machine can't translate like you. And if you can convince your clients that the difference is worth paying for.

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[1] It's important to note that fit-for-purpose quality — one of the core concepts behind MT, or at least behind its more responsible incarnation — is not fundamentally flawed. Simply put, it's not true that nothing is good enough unless it's absolute best. We can argue how good is good enough, or how beneficial it would be to go beyond the enough. We can — and should — protest when the bar is set too low. But we can't pretend that only the absolute best is ever good enough. Reductio ad absurdum: Most of us would be unemployed if only the best translators and translations were good enough for any client and any job. And most of us would be spending n times more time editing and QA'ing.

Ten Things Translators Are Doing Wrong

1. Pictures. Few things have the potential to do as much good or ill to a professional's professional image as, well, images. Remember the meaning of 'code' in 'dress code' — it matters how people see you. If you prefer to keep it laid back, that's fine, too, but you can still put a real photographer behind a real camera. It will cost many times more than a simple ID picture, but it may well be one of the best investments you will ever have made. Make your picture representative of where you are or where you realistically want to be.
2. TMI. This may be different if you translate for fellow freelancers or creatives, but lawyers and bankers who work 120 hours a week days won't be thrilled to hear about pyjamas and slippers and bath robes. Members of the general public who toil away in offices and at construction sites won't either. This connects with your image just like your picture: You won't be taken seriously if you can't make yourself look serious.
3. Entry-level language-related imagery. We don't deal at the entry level, either. Ideally, all translators should be native or near-native in both the source and the target language.
4. Broad references to all languages. We don't do 20 foreign languages, in most case we stick to one, two or three. We don't specialize in translation project management and traffic direction, either. In short, we are translators and not tiny translation agencies.
5. Teaching paraphernalia. We don't teach. This is not a language school where a business exec can get from Elementary to Intermediate. This is real life.
6. Your wish is my command. No kidding, This a direct quotation from a real translator's headline. May it stop already. This is not a concierge industry.
7. Tech focus. Let's put things in perspective: it's your talent, study and experience that have shaped you into however good or bad translator you are, not your CAT tool. You don't want to emphasize your CAT tools any more than you want your clients to focus on them.
8. 'You', 'me' etc. There is a trend for more personal touch in business-to-business copy, but let's keep some perspective: we aren't making Facebook friends, we're working.
9. Errors and poor writing. As embarrassing as this is to note, translators' websites abound with errors and poor writing, which is one of the reasons it's so hard for the entire profession to be treated seriously and build a high profile.
10. Piecemeal rates. There isn't much one can do on the agency front in this regard, but direct clients are often puzzled and sometimes put off by how typical translation pricing works, and they would be happy to pay per-project fees, recognizing that our work is more than the sum total of the words we type. 

Legal CATing Checklist

Here are some ideas as to how to make it easier for you to stay on top of large legal translations in CAT software. It's the same with tech translations and anything else which just might be litigated. Or just might kill someone or run up huge damages. Obviously medicine comes to mind. And finance. But it can be anything, not only because of the subject but also and especially because of the intended use.

First of all, forget widescreen CATing unless you're positively certain that paragraphs stretching all the way horizontally are actually easier for you to manage than narrower and tighter, more densely packed boxes (preferably in a small font size). In Windows 7, you can just drag the CAT window to the left or right edge of the screen to make it take the left or right half of the screen.

If using your CAT on one half of your screen only, make sure you don't have a distracting wallpaper, such as a highly detailed photograph (like the nebulae from Spitzer which I used to use). Rather, go for a soothing medium green with a hint of blue, such as R 13 G 104 B 107. Okay, this is a bit more blue than it is green, but I wouldn't have guessed. It's probably close to 'cadet blue' and traditional Windows desktop colours. This:

Next, crank font size down. Down to size 12 on a huge >20'' monitor in 1920x1080 screen resolution. Larger fonts are easier on the eyes — too easy, in fact!

In essence, you're forcing yourself to pay attention and to follow details instead of just following the flow. Stuff that doesn't matter in literal or even marketing translation can wreck a legal contract or tech specification.

It depends on the eye, and 12 does hurt mine. But 14 and 16 makes me feel like I'm reading a novel or something, basically a literary mood which invites fantasy. Which is not what we want here. Better this little headache than the worse headache when you miss something that doesn't make much difference, ever, except in that one particular situation your client is or gets himself in.

If it hurts, you won't be dozing off.

You gotta read very carefully. The more slowly you can, the better. Naturally, this doesn't make you happy at six cents per word or something, you basically gotta charge some solid rates to make all this nitpicking pay for itself.

Use the CTRL+F a lot. If you have a couple of separate but related documents on your place, don't put things off until later. Just go and fix the problem you've just found in all other documents. Don't presume it isn't there. If you're sure it isn't there, still go check. It will take more than a minute of your time to set things straight if you miss something at this stage.

Don't make notes and put things off until later — unless you really are comfortable working that way, keep saving the notes in case electricity dies or your Windows decides to restart when you're away from keyboard. Better turn off any such automatic restarting, with or without prompt and wait — I've had the thing reset on me after leaving it unsupervised for more than 10 minutes. And make sure you actually do anything you put off till later.

Don't allow it to become an excuse and a hope that you just might forget and spare yourself the hassle. Just go do it. Like a good labourer. Because this is like physical work at a construction yard, but it still needs to be done. It will become easier and more 'native' to you as you force it to become a habit.

Oh, and just in case: challenge any presumptions and generally don't put things off till later anyway.

And keep track of everything you do.

As for specific things to look for, try to keep a list. If you end up correcting something or having a proofreader or client spot it for you, note it down, make sure you check for it specifically. Even if your checklist grows to be long, it's still much shorter than thinking about all those things would be if you didn't have the checklist.

You don't need to show that checklist to the client or PM or anybody else, so it isn't as potentially humiliating as the checklists you perhaps receive along with POs, some of which are pretty obvious or sound like patronizing.

Numbers. Always get the numbers right. Money, and phone numbers, and any other numbers. And measurements. Measurements along with units. And any unit conversions you want to or are expected to do.

Get the punctuation right. In some languages you are allowed to use optional commas to 'assist the reader'. So do. It will assist the reader.

Don't go high fantasy on the legalese. Subjunctives, inversions etc. have their place, but you often want to KISS. Just make it legible and transparent so that it's easier to revise (for you, among other people), update or follow. Or understand — if the reader is not a native speaker or college grad. Or a tired person. Tired translators, too, misunderstand and misinterpret things. And you might be doing just that right now as you're translating — if this is your eleventh hour or something.

By the way, don't hurry, and know your limits. Go to bed, wake up in 8 hours, resume. There are still only 24 hours in a day, you can't make more. Get some rest, you'll be more efficient and less error-prone. And your motivation will improve, which is crucial when you need to look at thousands of boring paragraphs scrolling down before your eyes.

Slow down and don't be too schematic. This is a bit challenging because you need to be just schematic enough to follow patterns and stay consistent — and simple — but you really need to avoid false cognates and other false, too easy associations. Watch your homophones. Try to have the entire scope of meaning of those words and phrases in mind, not just the one you supposedly need or the one you think the source has in mind.

Think about misunderstandings. Avoid them. Don't translate in ways which are open to misinterpretation. KISS helps, but don't overdo it. When you really go too simple, it no longer is simple. (Just like the 'plain language' which some drafters use and which makes sure nobody can understand the drafting any more and pinpoint the meaning.)

I didn't mention any specific words, but keep a list of them, particularly anything you might be prone to forgetting in your translations in general or the one project you're doing right now. Those will be different words from person to person and from project to project, so I won't cite any to avoid anchoring.

Just remember to CTRL+F the thing until it no longer exists anywhere (CTRL+H for 'seek and replace' in some other software).

Finally, you may want to read up on economics, healthy work habits (taking breaks, looking out the window every now and then, washing the coffee down with some water etc.).

And turn down projects if you aren't in a good shape or if the situation gets risky and you aren't sure you'll manage to set aside some time for contingencies.

Don't Flatten the Quality Scale

Lawyers already are there. How can you measure the quality with which a law suit was won?

They have two things to show: results, and client service.

You could always grade a lawyer's writing prowess, rhetorical skill, you could put him on some scale of intelligence, adroitness, courage, book smarts and streets smart. Everybody does, to some extent, but put people want results and many also want service (or experience). The other things either project something in connection with these two expectations or just help establish an emotional connection.

Then there's the economy of scale and the economy of scope for where those two matter, such as with huge corporate clients who need all sorts of things done into all sorts of languages and don't care to just recruit the inhouse translation department they need. And security, which, again, is a specific projection of the expectation of results, although sometimes it's also a gluteal protection device. As in, you can't be liable if you hired the best and even the best could not deliver. Culpa in eligendo won't work. Plus, huge firms — just like huge agencies — have the deep pockets in case they need to be sued.

But quality of the actual, core work... uhhh. Subject change attempt detected!

And the same is menacing our own translation sector, especially the so called bulk segment of it, as some of our colleagues graciously refer to large volumes, short deadlines and low prices.

Isn't there QA, you may ask. Sure there is. But, honestly, ask yourself, and I really mean it, is the quality of your work really about keeping the tags in place in a CAT tool, remembering to convert the numbers and such like? To some extent, yes. But that's more like tidiness. Sort of like sweeping and vacuuming in an art gallery. Perhaps terminological consistency refers to something substantive, though. But who said and at which point, in the first place, that QA is or should be about applying some sort of debatable quality measure to the evaluation of youor work as opposed to just making sure there are no embarrassing trivial slips in the material the client gets? Anybody get the difference between quality assurance and quality control?

People may also say quality can't be measured in a fully objective way. The follow-up is: So why bother trying. We'll discuss the consequences in a minute.

Some other people may say that with a professional quality is a given. This may sound attractive to you at first, but if it does, then you need to exhale, inhale, whatever, count to 10 and think again. Let me give you a pointer:

As someone who actually knows something about translation, would you say that quality is a 0/1 thing or is there a scale, let's say from passable, through decent and good, then excellent, to near-perfect (perfect doesn't exist)? Obviously there is a scale! But when quality — rather than a certain minimum level of quality — is taken for granted, then it becomes a yes or no matter, a 0 or 1. And that can take two shapes depending on where the threshold is set:

• Adequate or not. No hope of premium for being good. No point becoming better. No perspectives of advancement, other than acquiring more years of experience and eventually bigger names for clients.
• Perfect or not. If this flatters you, think again. The bar's there not because your work is held in such high esteem, it's because your client thinks he deserves nothing short of absolute perfection, or absolute satisfaction. Or something less absolute, but you get the idea.

Either way, if you allow the quality scale to become flattened, the quality of your work will not be respected. And you won't be paid for it because it's immeasurable. Besides, why pay more for even a verifiably superb job if only adequate was expected? All the more, why pay good rates for a job that's lacking perfection if you were allowed to dictate perfection as the only acceptable standard?

And if you say that properly understood quality is immeasurable — meaning the quality of rendition between languages and the capacity so to render highly skilled writing — then apart from the question of why the client should need to pay for something that can't be measured (along with an illusion of thus not properly receiving it), we'll be left with QA as the only semblance of a quality standard available. The rest will simply be the quality client service. And turnover, and quantitative experience.

QA as quality means checklists, with tag consistency and number formats being the sole measure of quality of our work. Expect being asked to address inquiries or even complaints alleging all sorts of 'inconsistencies' such as selecting a context-appropriate word or form. For example, when you translate one-word headers from English or French into a language that has noun cases. And obviously these, i.e. one-word English segments, are discounted or excluded from your scope of work and untouchable as CM's or 100% matches. Can words describe how this degrades our profession?

With client service as the measure of quality, chance is emphasis would fall on responsiveness and flexibility. In a saturated, competitive market responsiveness just might entail picking up calls at 2 a.m. on a Sunday and flexibility actually agreeing to take that work. You probably already know a thing or two about Friday evenings and Saturdays. Alternatively, 'responsiveness' could mean preserving or reconstructing the source formatting pixel-for-pixel because that's what the client 'needs', and flexibility doing the footwork personally, to heck with your advanced degrees, published works and what else!, or, for that matter, the fact the client — or agency — could and should use a secretary or intern for that kind of work. Except that the freelance translator just might be the cheaper or less qualified resource. (Somebody who isn't paying for your time, can't be guaranteed to respect it, anyway.)

Without a quality scale, our work will be judged, and our rates driven, by client service, QA checklists, turnover, sheer quantity of experience, and verified avoidance of actionable slips. And that means a low-key job, basically data entry.

A progressive scale of translation quality is necessary for our profession to be respected.

Also, if you are a highly qualified translator, especially one who can verifiably deliver higher-than-average quality, you should move up rather than keeping the less experienced or plain average colleague down. Entry level is not your place after 10, 20, let alone 30 years in the workforce (or business, if you prefer).

Does a Bad Source Ever Justify a Bad Translation?

Short answer: No, it doesn't.

Long answer, beginning with 'but': But translation is not the same as target text. Whether a bad target text is justified — or even required! — by a bad source text depends on the intended purpose of your translation, the so called skopos, and your arrangements with your client.

Suppose you're translating a love letter a certain mademoiselle has received from a certain mister. Mademoiselle pronounces weekend and basketball in a funky way, and mister can never get entrepreneur straight, or even au pair. In short, there is no hope of communication — without you.

Well, we're pretty much all sure that mademoiselle would very much like to receive a stunning pretty letter, be swept off her feet with butterflies and all, but if you turn mister into the next Abelard, will mademoiselle not, in the end, have become his Heloise under false pretences? Hmmm?

Also a court of law may need the information conveyed by the writer's or recorded speaker's idiolect, mannerisms, any twitchy behaviour, and even perhaps things such as dialect features, markers of a certain education or origin, all of which can have some kind of significance in some kind of case.

Similarly a publishing house could possibly (and had better) want to know the foreign manuscript for what it really is, not what it can be made into by a generous translator.

If your agreement provided for editing or transcreation, or at least your client has asked you to fixed some things as you go, then that's a different matter altogether. In case of doubt, ask. Don't presume.

And don't contribute to getting translation clients used to the thought — or sensation rather — that translation is supposed to bring nirvana to them as they read what was a poor source. Because translation is not about serotonin.

And don't teach lazy authors, publishers and others that a translator will carry the brunt of their workload, either.

Afterword. I really mean ask them. Spawning the nicest possible text for publication is not the only purpose of translation that exists. For information is a legitimate purpose and one which is frustrated by a translator who puts golden lacqueur on a worn truck.

Alternative Solution to Houston Baggage Complaint — Moving Complaint Desk Farther Instead

A while ago Houston airport faced a huge volume of complaints about baggage wait times. According to NewYork Times's article, the cause of the problem was psychological, as was the solution. Namely, it boiled down to a very short walking distance from arrival gates to baggage claim, resulting in about seven minutes of passive waiting for the baggage to come, after one minute of walking. Eventually, instead of assigning more employees or upgrading the machines, the management decided to move baggage claim farther away from arrival gates. Now passengers walked seven minutes and waited only one minute. Complaints stopped coming. This may look a little cynical to you — 'complaints stopped coming', like it's all that matters. However, I wish to stress that the clients' psychological well-being improved and the problem they had been experiencing before disappeared.

I suppose we could adapt this experience for translators' business needs — rearrange the process to eliminate idle or otherwise more odious waiting periods in favour of something more agreeable and make the clients feel better. So for example ask what deadlines they need as opposed to decreeing a schedule. Name longer deadlines and sometimes deliver early rather than giving them shorter deadlines but sometimes failing to deliver. Do not unnecessarily teach them to expect a fast turnover only to disappoint them when your bookings become a bit more complicated. And make rush fees look like compensation for your hard and dedicated work rather than a penalty for their bad scheduling (or especially for things they have no control over).

All valid points, but that's not what I wanted to talk about.

When I first came across the Houston story I was shown a 'meme' which I looked at in a cursory fashion and misinterpreted as suggesting that Houston airport management moved baggage complaint farther away from baggage claim. Or perhaps it was a satire. I don't remember. Anyway, with more walking distance between baggage claim and baggage complain people would trouble themselves if they cared enough about an issue to walk a couple of minutes to bring it up with the staff. Most notably, impatient individuals would not be tempted to vent their frustration at a complaint desk situated right whey there were waiting, right when the waiting started feeling too long. I associated that mental image with a certain problem we face in the translation business.

Like in any other professional service market, clients are not normally qualified to judge the merits of our work, only perhaps the quality of service associated with it. There is a reason why they need a translator in the first place, just like there is a reason why they need a lawyer when there is a lawsuit or a doctor when there's a bug that won't go away on its own.

To assess accurately the quality of a professional's work takes a lot of focused learning which normally only specialists have accomplished. And they accomplished all that because it was supposed to become their job and the source of their livelihood, in which they later gained practical experience and so on, which makes all the incentive. They clients may well have made a similar investment but in a different field, one in which they are competent and their doctor or lawyer or translator (etc.) is not.

Unlike lawyers and doctors, however, linguists generally seem to encourage clients to try and directly evaluate translation anyway. Many take their belief that the client is always right so far that — in their mind — the client is not only always right about the facts stated or the needs stated or even the quality of service received, but actually about the quality of the translator's work. And there not even only style and preferential matters but also about things such as actual errors. Or failure to have done this or that which was their obligation to do, as opposed to a simple difference of opinion. Some clients are assertive enough to push a translator in that kind of frame of mind.

This said, however, the typical client does not even necessarily wish to become involved in such a manner. Some clients expressly wish to be kept out of anything too directly connected with your translation work. This is something I realised all the more strongly when reading an old blog post by my colleague Marta Stelmaszak that's not even available on her website any more (or at least I can't find it). She got a direct client to talk — or she played the role convincingly herself (I don't remember, it was long ago) — and the result was to the tune of (I'm paraphrasing)

I know about clothes selling, not about translation. I don't want to be solving translation problems. You deal with them.

In fact, the client may experience decreasing confidence in his translator — because te translator does not, apparently, feel confident enough in his own professional field. The client may thus be led to think:

Why again am I paying those guys if they need me to solve their own translation riddles for them which they supposedly went to some school to learn and I did not?

Awful, isn't it. Well. If you need a qualified opinion, ask a translator colleague. If you need a lot of such opinion or need to make it more formal — talk your client into hiring an editor (not because you're bad but because team work brings better results). If you want unqualified opinion, ask your spouse or non-translator friend (and such opinions have value because they are often closer to what the target audience may think like). But don't ask your client or project manager or agency boss unless you really know what you are doing.

(Or unless your contract is such that you are the translation workforce but the agency takes responsibility for the final outcome and the editor is effectively your supervisor — which is, by the way, not at all shameful to admit and a good arrangement when you prefer to gain some experience in a more controlled environment first before taking larger responsibilities on your shoulders. And also the arrangement you should seek if you feel insecure.)

Probably the most obvious manifestation of the problem we're discussing here are the so called 'free rewrites' requested often by arbitrarily dissatisfied clients guided by their own preference rather than objective standards or at least previously communicated requiremens, and sometimes encouraged by tolerant or meek or hard-pressed agencies.

If you don't want your workload to include a lot of free rewrites don't pursue client feedback and satisfaction guarantees so aggressively, especially don't invite the client's input where the client is not really in the best position to contribute constructively. Don't make your client your reviewer and final arbiter. The client may not like it, and you may not like the results. It's hard to project the appearance of a confident and respected professional if just about any somewhat educated person is better qualified to do the job you've spent decades learning and doing.

Be responsive, of course, but don't shove your clients straight to your complaint desk. Don't encourage a negative mindset. Don't ask for constructive feedback when their emotional balance is temporarily a little off. Don't solicit unqualified opinions about the quality of your work or they will give you just that and start thinking that you really need their guidance.

Rather ask what else you could do for your client (and I'd make it new areas or types of service rather than added services or the kind of added value that only pretends to be 'added' while it really drives the price or interest) or even what you could better (and yeah, what you could do better rather than what you're doing wrong), but only where the client is not unqualified to give you an assessment. Don't put your client in a position of being hard-pressed to find a quarrel in a straw. Or you'll get just that.

Self-Administered QA

Dull and boring QA is not the sharpest tool in a translator's shed, but it may very well be one of the most important for survival and a more fulfilling professional life.

For starters, let's point out the single most prominent fact about translation quality. This is also one fact that modern linguists frequently ignore or possibly even choose to ignore. Without further ado:

Clients are not normally capable of judging the quality of the translation they receive. Clients can evaluate their own experience with your translation, but that's not the same as evaluating your translation.

To use a familiar point of reference — everybody knows how the KudoZ system works on Proz.com. People ask their questions, other people reply, and then the asker or in some cases the community chooses one of the proposals as the best one, awarding a certain number of KudoZ points to the author of that answer.

But how many people stop to think that perhaps askers — with their professed lack of knowledge if not about the entire field then about that specific little thing which they are needing help with — are effectively by their own admission not the most qualified judges of the matter?

It's the same with your clients. Perhaps just like KudoZ askers, some of your clients will have a bit of a background with languages and the various fields of knowledge involved in your translations. They may even be fellow translators, current or retired. The chances of this are obvious higher when you work for agencies.

Normally, though, clients mostly see your CV and your testimonials, they listen to you talking or read your writing, they assess how credible you sound (this largely basing on how much confidence you project), they can try and judge the logical consistency of your reasoning, and its elegance. All of which are superficial aspects, even though they often turn out to be reliable guides.

So not only are your clients not equipped with the right tools to judge the quality of your translation, they will also focus and even overfocus on what they can actually see and judge, which includes any 'QA issues' their highschool French or German just might be enough to spot. This is why even a single isolated minor issue can rise to the rank of, if not really a serious problem, then certainly the primary object of your client's attention for a while. Even someone who will not make too much of a typo may still end up registering a suboptimal and disproportionately flawed translation experience compared to what experience would have been registered if there had been none such issue with the translation you gave him. Whether one will make or less of this depends in the individual personality or relationship.

Speaking of which, it's much worse in adversarial relationships. A direct client may be forgiving in the light of how common errors are in business writing without really affecting the business purpose, while a fellow linguist may sympathise with you, having walked a mile in your shoes. However, a potential competitor for full-rate translation jobs, or a reviewer from some agency the end client pits against yours, will possibly not be so lenient, especially in the absence of a strong sense of ethics. Don't hand such a 'someone' your own head on a golden plate with an opportunity to rant about how you 'didn't even' do this or that, made all the worse by how easy the purportedly missing step would have been.

Bottom line, QA issues are the translator's Achilles heel.

Yes, a stupid tip of a heel on an otherwise immortal hero impenetrable anywhere but for that particular spot where his mother's hand held him when bathing him in the river Styx to make him immune to damage. That was also the exact same spot where an enemy archer's poisoned arrow got him, leading to his death. And it was poison which did the job; taking an arrow to the heel doesn't kill a warrior.

Eliminate the Achilles heel. Eliminate it, and you won't die to cheap shots.

Do your QA even if you aren't paid for it, even where it's expressly excluded from your scope of responsibilities. Even where there is a dedicated proofreader, editor, reviser, or any or all of them, you're probably still better off being complimented rather than excused (or saved or reversed) by them.

Even where the absence of QA would be justifiable, it's easier to win an argument than it is to win a happy client. Or any client, for that matter, who keeps coming back for more of your services.

Even where you won't be paid more, your services will look better. That will give you more desirability and more leverage, and more trust, and less replaceability, leading to more jobs and better pay. You will also receive nicer referrals, and your referrals are the living blood of your marketing because word of mouth is still the best and most important.

Beyond the spell-checker

Learn and master the spelling and punctuation of your target language, and also read up on whatever aspects of grammar and syntax you find yourself less than comfortable with. Memorise any applicable conventions governing numbers, currencies, units of measurement and such like, or just print them and hang them on your wall or stick post-it notes to your monitor, whatever it takes. Use more advanced tools as you progress.

Also, read your text again. And again if you must. Preferably on another day, with a fresh eye. Ask another person to take a look if your confidentiality clauses and non-discolure agreements do not prevent you from doing so. If things are too confidential, you might be able to get your client's relevant input or decision before the deadline.

You don't have to enjoy it, just do it

QA isn't nearly as bad as some of the student jobs we've worked. Once you get used to it, it won't take up so much of your time and it can become your second nature, making it less of a bother perhaps as well. You might be surprised to discover what kind of life-savers your QA steps can be — for example you can spot actual errors or mistranslations while applying surface polish — and how much they can improve your clients' experience, and your own (more on this at the end).

Retaining existing clients is easier than finding new ones — pretty much every marketing consultant will tell you this, or even an experienced business person. Satisfied clients keep coming back to you even when they have other options. Plus, like I said just a moment ago, there is no better advertising than your happy clients talking to other people. Even high-octane TV ads which corporations pay big money for still tries to fake this natural word-of-mouth coming from plain satisfied customers. Well, you don't need to pay for enthusiastic testimonials. You can earn them while doing your job.

Damage control

If you're going to be giving your clients the time anyway — as you can't really leave complaints unaddressed nor should you — better give it up front and with a smile, make it core or even added value rather than... damage control. Plus, if you are targeted by a scammer for a bogus complaint it had better not contain any real issues. As you know, translation is subjective, and it's always easy for any reviewer to come up with a list of preferential changes and even a couple of genuine improvements and legitimate minor issues. What you spot on your own won't kick you back when someone else spots it.

More importantly, nobody will lose his life or limb or property or good name if nobody proofreads, edits or revises the translation after you at all or with sufficient attention and competence.

Profiles and CVs, and forums — not only your actual translation jobs count

Don't be the shoemaker's child who goes barefoot, even when you travel a country road. Translators and translation agency often have errors and poor writing right on their websites and in their most important marketing materials. In your case, unless you're a very established or marketing-savvy translators, those are still online profiles and CVs. Bad spelling, bad grammar, lousy syntax, uninspired or outright literal translations, even unnecessary spaces before punctuation marks, you name it, it's all there. The same goes for forum posts and Facebook comments.

So, how hard is it at least to run your documents — or even forum posts and comments on Facebook and blogs — through a spell-checker before sharing them with othes? I'd rather not presume that clients, PM's and agency owners will ignore the issues they spot when interacting with you even on Facebook or a blog or a professional forum. Where else to interact with you anyway?

Plus, it'll be easier for you to write well in general if you don't restrict your nice writing only to situations in which you absolutely can't avoid it. On the bright side, you will see it pays back when clients and agencies start contacting you precisely because of the quality of your writing they come across wherever they do, including forum posts.

When I was barely starting to be a professional translator, something as insignificant to some colleagues as keeping the standards while posting on forums is how I earned that loan of confidence from one of my best agency clients which led to some high-profile jobs pretty fast and for better rates than the usual. You can do the same.

Afterword — back to that more fulfilling life

You'll feel better. You'll hear less complaining. You'll face less misunderstanding. There will be more compliments and happy comments and perhaps even enthusiasm in some cases. This should be worth giving a little more of your time. Or so I tell myself.

Later, I will write about keeping deadlines, picking up calls, writing back and some other things which affect a client's perception of the quality of service.