The Fake Translator's CV, what is the purpose of it?

As a translation agency, we usually receive around 40-50 unsolicited resumes a week from translators looking for freelance work. Not that I am complaining, I like to think that it implies that we are a desirable translation agency to work with. But recently we have started to see a huge increase in resumes that are quite obviously fake. At the same time we have recently seen a significant number of recurring translation tenders on several online tendering sites where the contractor requests a full CV for any applicants; these contractors are posting multiple projects over several months, all purporting to have pay rates well beyond industry standards, yet the contracts are never awarded. Is this CV harvesting perhaps related to the fake resumes we are receiving?

Before I go into how we are spotting these fake resumes, I wonder what the sender has to benefit from sending me a resume for a task they are quite obviously unsuited for? Several opportunities to profit arise.

1. The sender could hope to get on to an agency database untested (or even if tested they could very well pay someone else to do the test and then present the work as their own), receive some work, pump it through a machine translation tool, send it back, and hope to get paid before they got found out.

2.  I suppose the sender could also be a competitor (although I think it highly unlikely, as if they were in the business their resumes should be of a lot better quality). By getting through the verification and testing process they could learn a fair bit about our systems, as well as if they receive work from us they could potentially identify some of our customers.

3. Or could it be some trojan or virus embedded in the attachment posing as a CV? Yet we run multiple levels of virus detection software, that is constantly updated on the fly, and have never had an infection in 12 years of doing business.

I can't really see what the benefit of it would be? Firstly, we would never use a translator untested and unverified. And every translation has a second editor and a proofreader, so any machine translation would be quickly identified and the perpetrator deleted. So what is the benefit for these people sending me fake CVs posing as a translator???

As to how we are spotting them, while I won't give away all our secrets, here are some of the most obvious errors found to date in a few fake Japanese resumes received recently.

- A translator referred to themselves as "(surname) kun". "Kun" is a Japanese honorific that, like "san", is never used for oneself, only in reference to another person. Straight away I know the person is not Japanese because no Japanese would ever make such an error.

- A translator put their address as "Hamamatsu City, Toyama". There is no Hamamatsu in Toyama, it is in Shizuoka.

- Very poor English and Japanese writing skills, resumes riddled with typos, spelling mistakes and bad grammar.

- Receiving multiple emails from supposedly different people on the same day, with the same subject and body text, but with different resumes.

- Finally, when searching the name of a translator who claims 15 years freelance experience, I found zero reference to them in any of the major online translation freelance portals.

I would love to hear from other agencies who have been receiving such fake emails, really just to try to understand the purpose of it all. Any ideas anyone?

An open letter to Freelance/Contract translators

I kid you not, we get at least 10 emails a day from freelance translators looking for work. Of those 99% of them go straight in the trash bin (we would reply to maybe 3 a week), yet maybe a lot more are actually quite good translators?

It is actually quite infuriating to see how so many professional translators are so inept at the business side of the relationship. At the same time I don't want to waste your time asking you to fill out a profile, enter skill-sets and qualifications etc. if I am not likely to have work for you in the future. In many language pairs we have a really good hard-core of people who we use constantly. Yet other times we will be looking to add to our existing crew.

So I thought I would write this up and give you some pointers; if you want to approach translation companies for work as a freelancer/contract translator, here are what I would consider the basic minimums.

1. State your language pair. Honestly, I cannot count the number of cover letters I get on a weekly basis that DO NOT mention the language pair, or if they do it is as a footnote at the bottom of the CV.  Quite literally, WTF????

2. State your specialities. Anyone who says they can translate any field and any subject goes straight into my trash bin. Impossible. I am a reasonably well educated and well read English speaker, fluent in Japanese. But I cannot for the life of me understand a real estate sales and purchase contract, nor could I comprehend a nuclear facility evacuation protocol, let alone translate one. Get real, people.

3. State your rates in a format you are comfortable with. Pick A: a measure (e.g. source words), B: a currency, C: a ratio for rush rates D: a lower and an ideal rate, and state that clearly. Understand that different markets have different rates, and if you overbid I am not going even look at that.

4. Finally, spell check and proofread, and get your terminology right. Last week (and I kid you not), I got a letter from a translator in China promising perfect EN-CN translation, because she was fluent in "Margarine". Now we all know she meant Mandarin, but the unfortunate fact is Mandarin is not a written language, it is a spoken one. The scripts are called Traditional, Simplified etc. Chinese. There is no such thing as written Mandarin (or Margarine).

Can I suggest to all contract translators sending out resumes that they use the following format for the first three lines of the cover letter:

Language Pair: e.g. EN>ES, or EN< >ES for both directions
Specialities: spell it out! Marketing, Nuclear engineering, genetics etc.
Rates: >0.06, =0.12USD. i.e. the minimum acceptable is 0.06, the ideal is 0.12USD

Then both you, and the agencies, will save a hell of a lot of time and effort filling out forms, creating log-ins etc. that you will never use again.

Are Malaysian and Indonesian the same?

Lesson #2 for Kiwis: Malaysian vs Indonesian.

We often get the question, "Aren't Indonesian and Malaysian the same language? I mean, they both use the term "Bahasa" don't they?"

Short and simple, they aren't the same language. Strongly related, mutually comprehensible in certain situations, yes, but not the same.

"Bahasa" just means language in both Malaysian and Indonesian. It does not imply any mutual comprehensibility. In fact the word "bahasa" has a Sanskrit base, and is used in languages as diverse as Javanese, Thai and Khmer to mean the same thing; "language".

So where, and when should you be using these different languages, and what, if any, other languages should you be considering?

Let's look at Malaysian first. Malaysian of course is the first language of Malaysia, yet which confusingly originated in Sumatra. It is also an official language in Singapore and Brunei, and is widely used in Western Sumatra. Historically Malaysian was the trade lingua franca of South East Asia and across the Indian Ocean; there are still communities speaking dialects of Malaysian as far abroad as Southern China, Vietnam and Cambodia, while Malagasy, the national language of Madagascar off the east coast of Africa, is of Malaysian origin.

Indonesian, by contrast, is linguistically termed a dialect of Malay. It is the official language of the nation of Indonesia, used in government, trade and education. Yet of a nation of 240 million only 23 million call it their first language; over 140 million people designate themselves as second language speakers (although they may well be fluent in Indonesian as well as their first language). This leaves some 60 million Indonesians who either term Indonesian as a third language or who cannot speak Indonesian with any degree of confidence.  Compare this with Javanese (the language of Java, the main island of Indonesia), which boasts as many as 85 million native speakers. However, given that Indonesian is the official language of education, expect that over time the use of the national language will increase.

While both languages have absorbed many Sanskrit and Arabic terms, Indonesian was strongly influenced by Javanese and also Dutch languages, the Dutch having ruled Java and many of the islands of Indonesia since the 16th Century. Malaysian, by contrast, received more influence from Tamil and Hindi, and also English.

So should NZ exporters consider one translation for Malay and Indonesian speaking customers? If your translation is for front end marketing purposes, then short answer is no. Aside from the actual language differences, as with all close neighbours there is always a certain amount of tension, and using a Malaysian translation in Indonesia (or vice versa) may not go down to well. And be aware, that particularly in Indonesian, a very strong slang exists often using word plays and borrowings from other native languages (Madurese, Javanese etc.). For documents such as operating manuals etc. then if cost is a serious consideration, then possibly it can work.

Postcript:
On a further review of previous customer enquiries, please don't confuse Malaysian with Malayalam. Malayalam is the language of the Kerala state of south-west India, and has nothing to do with Malaysian.

Language Lesson #1 for Kiwis

Right Kiwis. After more than 20 years living in various places in Asia, and more than 10 years running a translation business, I am constantly amazed at the lack of knowledge Kiwis have on foreign languages. So forgive me for preaching, but time to issue some lessons.

Lesson #1. Mandarin is a spoken language, NOT a written one.

Given the FTA with China and the focus on both selling to China and receiving Chinese investment, I am constantly gob-smacked by the general lack of knowledge in NZ about the Chinese language.

I constantly get asked for a translation from English to Mandarin, the assumption being there is one written language for all Chinese speakers.

Guess, what? We cannot translate to Mandarin. No-one can. Mandarin is a spoken language, not a written one.

Yes, Mandarin is the official spoken language of mainland China (PRC) and Taiwan (ROC), as well as amongst the diaspora in Singapore, the USA, here in NZ etc. Note there are multiple dialects and separate languages as well such as Hakka, Pinghua, Cantonese etc. but most NZ exporters need not worry themselves with those as they will be focussed on translating their written materials.

Can I make it clear that Mandarin is NOT the name of a written language.

There are in fact two written scripts for Chinese, with one of them having two different main "flavors".

Script#1 - Traditional Chinese (TR-CN): This is the old script of Chinese, pre-Communist era. It is used in Taiwan (ROC), Hong Kong, Singapore, and amongst most of the older Chinese diaspora (some Chinese language newspapers in NZ use Traditional script).

Flavor: TR-CN-HK Variant: While in Hong Kong TR-CN is the core, there are some unique characters used in writing not used in Taiwan (in tune with the Cantonese spoken dialect). At the same time, colloquialisms, difference in phrasing etc. can mean a translation done for Taiwan may be inappropriate for Hong Kong, and vice versa.

Script#2 - Simplified Chinese (S-CN): after the revolution, the Communist party went about "rationalizing" the Chinese script (written language). They removed a lot of characters and made others much simpler to write and read, and introduced Pinyin; the use of Roman characters to represent Chinese sounds, whereby literacy went from <50% to almost 100% within 30 years (not a bad effort for one generation eh?). So "Simplified Chinese" is the script used in Mainland China (PRC).

So what is "Mandarin"?

Mandarin is the spoken language. So people from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore etc, can speak the same language, but they write their language differently. Kind of like I spell "colour" with a "u", but an American spells it "color" (no "u"), but on a whole different level. A person in China will say a word e.g. "Green", and a person in Taiwan will understand them. But they will both spell it differently (i.e. use different characters).

What does this mean for you preparing your materials for your Chinese speaking audience?

Well, first you have to decide where your audience is. Mainland China? Hong Kong? Taiwan? Where your audience is will decide what script you use. But note also that as languages stay apart, they diverge. So there are different "turns of phrase", different styles of saying things, different phraseology, so you need to have translators who are au fait with the current local lingo.

One word of warning. There are various software applications out there that claim to be able to convert Simplified to Traditional and vice versa. Few do it well, and they forget that as time progresses, the "style" of writing diverges. Use with caution.

Here ends Lesson #1. Like for Lesson #2: Malaysian vs Indonesian.

Oh dear

This is what happens when you rely on computers to do your translation for you.

On choosing a translator or translation agency: Part 1, Analysing the translator's business

I have been in the translation industry for over 10 years now, and over that time have seen more than the odd translation disaster. In fact, as a business, a significant amount of all our work is re-doing someone else's translation or taking over where the original contracted translator is unable to complete. So how do you avoid falling into that situation?

Now no two translators will ever agree on anything. Most professional individual translators get into the industry because of their love of language, and all of its intricacies. By nature, translators tend to be highly opinionated, supremely confident in their own skills, and hellishly stubborn! Mistakes do happen from time to time, that is the nature of being human, but what we often see in our remedial work (where we are asked to fix up or take over part way through someone else's translation) is that the issue lyes, in part, with the original translator selection process.

I want to outline some tips here for translation buyers of what they should consider when choosing a translation provider. There are two parts to this selection process; the business of translation component, and the language skills component (to be discussed in a second post). When selecting a translator, for most translation buyers I believe you should start with the business questions first before moving to the language skills questions. In this discussion, unless otherwise stated, "translator" refers both to an individual translator contracted by you and a company providing translation services.

Part 1: Analysing the business of a translation provider.
The translation industry is not small. Globally it is estimated to be worth some USD $23 billion in 2013. The scale of the players runs from multi-language corporations doing 100 million dollar turnovers to individual single language freelancers. So what criteria should you apply from a business perspective when trying to select a suitable translator for your project?

Can the translator cover down time caused by sickness or other unforeseen circumstances?

This a problem we see often. Client A chooses a translator to take on a project with a set deadline. But something unforseen occurs; a person is sick, a scheduled holiday is forgotten about, a file format is un-openable. You need to verify what will happen if the individual translator assigned to the project is unable to complete, or your whole project could come unstuck very quickly. While most translation agencies will have established redundancy systems, individual translators often do not. If time is of the essence, this needs to be taken into consideration.

Can the translator scale their workforce to meet your future volume and timeframe requirements?

Usually, translation is not a one-off. You may translate your initial content, then require ongoing additions/edits as content is expanded or updated. Often a customer will start with a small amount of content to translate when testing a certain market (e.g. an introductory brochure), and all going well, will then need a much larger volume done at a later date (e.g. a full operations manual and website, ongoing email translations etc.)

Ideally you will form an ongoing relationship with the translator, not least because that translator will then build up knowledge about your content, enabling a better understanding and a more consistent translation. Can the translator you select handle an expansion in volume to translate? What are their capacities? What happens when you need to ramp up volume and/or compress timeframes?

Understand that time and quality have a direct relationship

Sometimes there is no getting around it; you need the translation yesterday and the translator is going to have to rush. But accept that in these circumstances the chances of clumsy translation or inaccuracies will increase. The less time available, the more the risk of error.

It is also important to understand that, while translators may quote standard turn-around capabilities (e.g. "3000 words per day"), that doesn't mean they can do 3000 words right now for delivery within 24hours! All translators will have work booked up in advance, and translation companies don't have translators sitting around waiting for work. More accurately, the translator should be saying "3000 words per day from an agreed start time".

Allow the maximum possible time to your translator. And your translator will love you for it!

Does the translator have the technical language (i.e. jargon) skills to draw on?

I think I am a well read and well educated person, with a pretty good command of the English language. I recently sold a house and attempted to read the actual legal contract for the sale. Within 5 minutes I was reaching for the whiskey. 

Most industries have "jargon" (specialised words or phrases) associated with them that may not be familiar to the lay person. Often the problem is, you, as the customer, are so familiar with the jargon in your industry that you don't recognise it as being jargon, you think of it as "common knowledge". 

You need to ensure that the translator has the technical language skills to competently translate your content. In some cases, that may mean that while the person does not have a formal qualification in translation per se, their in-depth knowledge of the industry far outweighs this.

Any translator that claims they cover "all fields" is not being truthful. For example, we as an agency generally do not cover pharmaceutical, chemical/chemical engineering, or patent translations; we don't have the individual translators with the necessary background and competencies to translate these competently.  Beware those that claim to be all things to all people.

Can the translator work across the range of file formats you require, such as tagged (XML, HTML etc.) or common DTP formats?

Most translators can handle working in most standard office work formats (e.g. .doc, .xls, .ppt). But what about your brochure (created in InDesign)? Or your mobile web files (built in HTML5)? One major source of error we often see is where a translator cannot work directly in the original source files. No problem says the translator, I can cut and paste from an InDesign document to a spreadsheet, and then your DTP staff can cut and paste the translation back into the InDesign document. 

Don't do it! This is the source of so many cut and paste errors; the DTP operator does not know the target language, doesn't understand the rules around punctuation, word and line breaks in that language, misses one or two letters here and there in the process etc. Always insist that the translator works directly in the original source files, and if they can't, find someone else.

Does the translator provide full, independent checking of their translation?

It took me a couple of hours to write this blog post and I probably re-read it 3 or 4 times, but no doubt there is still the odd typo and not-quite-right phrase in this post. No-one is perfect (and auto-correct can sometimes make us less so!). Every translation should be checked by an independent translator (i.e. not the individual translator who performed the original translation). 

There are two basic kinds of checking; editing and proofreading. Editing is where a second translator reviews the translation for accuracy against the original text. Proofreading is where the translation itself is checked for typos, spelling errors, punctuation etc. Preferably you will do both, but of course this has cost implications.

Now as I mentioned above, no two translators will translate anything exactly the same, each will have their own turn of phrase/style, and judgement calls must be made from time to time. But without checking, you risk at the least things like a missed decimal point, an "off" translated to an "on", an error of date, a measure not converted from Imperial to metric etc. A translation is only as good as its lack of errors, and just one error can make all the difference.

Does the translator carry full professional liability/indemnity insurance, and under what jurisdiction does it apply?

NOTE: I am not a lawyer and the following does not construe legal advice but is merely opinion. 

Probably the single most overlooked issue in the translator selection process. In NZ all the service providers I contract, whether they be my accountant, my web hosting company, the BPM consultant etc. are required to carry liability insurance. For you, the translation consumer/purchaser, you should insist that your chosen translator has full insurance to cover any issue that may arise from the translation. Not just for the actual value of the insurance, but just by holding such insurance it shows that the translator is professional and committed to what they do. 

Furthermore, you need to ensure that said insurance covers the translation wherever it may be used. This is of particular concern when you contract an off-shore translator; does their insurance apply to New Zealand and to any of the countries where you may be releasing the translation? In the event of a claim, under which jurisdiction will the claim be heard?

I hope this has given you some food for thought the next time you go to contract a translator. I will follow this post up with a second one on assessing a translator's language skills, probably the hardest of things for a non-translator to do.

Thanks for reading.

Mark Berghan

A2ZTranslate Ltd.