Job posting

[Bart Holladay]

We are looking for J>E translators for a fast-moving, high volume project. The subjects are electronics, business documents and financial documents. If you are interested in joining a highly committed gorup of language professionals and can work at a high rate of output for the next 5 weeks this is a good job for you. Minimum output is 8000 words per week. THERE IS NO MAXIMUM - WORK AS MUCH AS YOU CAN! Please provide a bi-text sample of your work, your rate per English word and your potential output of words per week to pmit...@linguist.com . Thanks!

--
Bart Holladay

[Jeremiah Bourque]

I'd like to confirm the identity of the business this job posting
concerns... what business is it? Name and URL would be quite adequate.
Thank you very much.

Jeremiah Bourque

[Peter Dunning]

It is Linquistics System Inc. in Boston

http://www.linguist.com/

Peter Dunning

[Matthew Hammill]

I've been getting tons of these "super high volume" project job offers lately, usually with very low rates.  What is the deal with these...is this some new trend?

Matthew Hammill

[martha mcclintock]

I was JUST about to write exactly the same thing Matthew!

I am not in legal/patent/finance/technical translation, so only VERY rarely do agencies contact me, and I have suddenly had three this week from an agency in Germany and one just now from an agency in Singapore. 

Both were addressed to me by handlers who had been in touch with me before, not general "Dear All" translator mailings. The German agency was offering 1-3 US cents a word, the Singapore 4 cents a word... 

And the Singapore place said 

 "The work is for internal company documents, and is for translate only, so not a big thing on the quality focus, more on the turnaround."

who is ordering these MASSIVE amounts of text and not caring about the quality...? 

It suddenly struck me, is it some new legal requirement in some country that certain places have their documentation "in English" that they can show someone, regardless of whether it is readable or not??

truly puzzled

Martha McClintock

[Karen Sandness]

I think there are some lawsuits (or one REALLY big one) going on. 

Landscape appraisingly yours,

Karen Sandness

Landscape ascertainingly yours,

Karen Sandness

[Fred Uleman]

Re rates, however, I note that this latest does not offer low rates but asks interested translators to tell the agency what they charge.
Such is not, of course, to say that they will happily pay whatever the translator wants to charge, but still ...

--
Fred Uleman

[martha mcclintock]

yes, that was the ONLY one recently that has had such a question in
the request, rather than stating up front the rate they would pay....

[Kuma-kid]

To all on this reply list I must say that I identify with your
comments. I am a J>E business/legal freelance translator myself. My
day job is in business development for Linguistic Systems in Boston.
Yes, this job has to do with a large legal matter that is very
important to the Japanese party defending itself. No, the client has
no interest in the kind of quality that 1-3 cent per word will garner.
Reap what ye sow! Yes, we are limited as to what we can pay but if you
quote this job you will find that there is far more interest in
quality translation and output quantity than in holding to some
arbitrary margin. I think you will be pleasantly surprised at what you
will be able to make in working with us. The project is listed at 5
weeks but most of these I have ever been a part of continue on longer
as one side or the other needs more time and the judge extends
deadlines.

BTW - I am new to HONYAKU but a longtime ProZ member ... nice to be a
part of this group.

Cheers,

Bart

> > Fred Uleman- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[Doreen Simmons]

Hooboy -- how sweet it is to get a client coming out of the woodwork to
tell us what is really happening --
just as we were getting close.

Welcome aboard, Bart. You will find that this is one of the most savvy
groups around, and one of the most congenial and helpful.

Doreen still ruminating on 'negakaku' -- and close to exploding

Doreen Simmons
jz8d...@asahi-net.or.jp

[Pamela Ikegami]

On Apr 24, 2009, at 1:51 AM, martha mcclintock wrote:

who is ordering these MASSIVE amounts of text and not caring about the quality...? 

As Karen previously mentioned, they are most likely discovery documents for litigation. Both sides need to make relevant documents available to each other, but they don't have to make it easy to find what is relevant. They flood each other in paper (or electronic documents these days) and make it the other guy's problem to wade through to find what is relevant to the case. The translators often are not told what they case is about, so it is very possible that most of the translated documents will never be used in the litigation. I have been told that if a document appears to be highly relevant to the case, it will be retranslated for higher quality assurance.

Regards,

Pam Ikegami

with a genuine paralegal certificate from Franklin Pierce College

[Kuma-kid]

Pam is right about discovery and though this is not technically
litigation discovery in the LSI job I can say that there are also laws
about government investigations. Because translation is required to be
in compliance with the law it is planned by the client with all the
care one usually puts into painting the boiler room. This is not a
lot. The docs must be read and understood but are not valued for their
ability to stir thought or emotion in the reader - there is no
interest in the quality that some of our periodical, education and
publishing clients have. There is no art here. Just industry. That
being said, and to Doreen's kakakuteki na mondai, the wheels of
industry are providing a decent rate - not stellar - but decent. The
benefits are 1) unlimited work, at least through May (and client told
me yesterday that the deadline may be extended) and B) LSI is trying
to beat the standard net 30 payment with a net 7 or 14 days payment.
Drawbacks are that the client is fiercely lobbying to get around the
law and not have to translate (reducing the work), the material is
pretty dry and the rate is less than what you might be working for in
a perfect situation.

We are trying to make it very easy to do this job with a web self
service pickup/dropoff window for the work. Does anyone have any
experience with such?

Please give me a heads up on your feelings on what makes your work
easier or more enjoyable. I am all ears.

I hope this job fits into your work schedule at some point over the
next few weeks.

Kuma no ko

[Richard Thieme]

Hmmm. Does the quality have to be better than machine translation?

I wonder about that seriously. If they just "have to be in compliance with
the law" maybe no one will read it anyway. In which case Babel-fish would be
a good bet.

Regards,

Richard Thieme

----- Original Message -----
送信者 : "Kuma-kid" <bart.h...@gmail.com>
宛先 : "Honyaku E<>J translation list" <hon...@googlegroups.com>
送信日時 : 2009年4月25日 21:14
件名 : Re: Job posting

[Kuma-kid]

MT quality would be unacceptable. The law is that it must be
translated so that it can be comprehended. The gist level
comprehension provided by MT would not satisfy the regulation. It is
my belief that MT + PE (post-editing) would work if this was anything
other than Japanese. I have found the time savings from PE in the
JPN>ENG language pair to be far behind what is found for Western
European languages into English. Has anyone ever tried post-editing of
MT with JPN?

On Apr 25, 8:21 am, "Richard Thieme" <rdthi...@gol.com> wrote:
> Hmmm. Does the quality have to be better than machine translation?
>
> I wonder about that seriously. If they just "have to be in compliance with
> the law" maybe no one will read it anyway. In which case Babel-fish would be
> a good bet.
>
> Regards,
>
> Richard Thieme
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
>

> 送信者 : "Kuma-kid" <bart.holla...@gmail.com>

> 宛先 : "Honyaku E<>J translation list" <hon...@googlegroups.com>
> 送信日時 : 2009年4月25日 21:14
> 件名 : Re: Job posting
>
> Pam is right about discovery and though this is not technically
> litigation discovery in the LSI job I can say that there are also laws
> about government investigations. Because translation is required to be
> in compliance with the law it is planned by the client with all the

> care one usually puts into painting the boiler room.- Hide quoted text -

[David Hanna]

Yes, I have tried to edit MT of Japanese text. It's hopeless. Full short.

Best regards,
David G. Hanna

[Bart Holladay]

Agreed if the object is accuracy on a level with what a human can do. The idea of getting to some higher degree of accuracy than the MT. For example correcting the subjects and verbs only can shed some light on otherwise dark output. Ever tried it?

2009/4/25 David Hanna <david...@verizon.net>

--
Bart Holladay

[David Hanna]

The first step is showing the MT to someone that does not know the source language and asking them, "Can you make any sense at all of this?"  With MT of Japanese text, the answer is invariably "No."  Therefore, there isn't a need to go further than that.

[Richard Thieme]

----- Original Message -----
送信者 : "Kuma-kid" <bart.h...@gmail.com>

宛先 : "Honyaku E<>J translation list" <hon...@googlegroups.com>

送信日時 : 2009年4月26日 1:26
件名 : Re: Job posting

>
> MT quality would be unacceptable. The law is that it must be
> translated so that it can be comprehended.

Well is the client actually getting that? Or is no one checking?

Regards,

Richard Thieme

[Joel]

As far as I know it's all bits of the same job: a mega-merger between
2 electronics giants that requires a sh#t-ton of due dilligence in a
very short period of time.
Lots of agencies involved.

Joel

On Apr 24, 2:45 pm, Matthew Hammill <matthew.hammill...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> I've been getting tons of these "super high volume" project job offers
> lately, usually with very low rates.  What is the deal with these...is this
> some new trend?
>
> Matthew Hammill
>

[David Hanna]

Who says that all that has to be done in a very short period of time? The
administrative agencies and/or the courts? If so, yes, the pertinent orders
must be followed explicitly. Or the client on its own? If so, yawn.

Best regards,
David G. Hanna

----- Original Message -----

[Bart Holladay]

David,

 

I am not sure I agree. A gist level of comprehesion (at least doc type ID) can be gleaned from the MT - when compared to staring at a page of unintelligible kanji characters MT is quite enlightening. Everything is relative. Your point makes sense however you may have missed mine. A brief edit of the MT output by a language professional can dramatically increase the reader's comprehension. In cases where the audience is "internal review" this can be effective. On the whole Japanese performance is lower than most other languages.

 

Best,

 

Bart

2009/4/25 David Hanna <david...@verizon.net>

2009/4/25 David Hanna <david...@verizon.net>

--
Bart Holladay