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While still “hung over,” after celebrating so much the Translator’s/Saint Jerome Day, I read some very interesting posts on Ccaps Blog. Inspired by Anderson’s post and to carry on the joke, I wrote a piece myself as these are issues that I noticed have happened rather frequently in these 14 years of work as a translator and localizer. Shall we take a look?

Some requests for a localization engineer/project coordinator:

1. Dearest localization engineer, could you be so kind as to send clear and precise instructions, especially when we are to take part in a project with more complex technical? If the process has 5 steps and you forget to include step 4, we will get stuck there… As you know, there are setup processes and procedures that are so hard that not always can we guess what the step 4 would be on our own.
2. Do not pretend that you know something when you actually have no idea. In this case, just say you do not know and that you will do some research to help the translator. Messing around is never a good practice and hardly welcome, especially in these situations as both of us will be spending time for nothing. Speech full of technical jargon just to make me feel even more lost is not cool either. Our profile and knowledge is not as technical as yours; remember. We are linguists. We know some technicalities due to the experience acquired, but this is not always enough to solve the puzzles our clients create.
3. Do not tell us to repeat the same steps that led us to bad results in the past when installing products for instance. Even if you do not believe it, we have already done over and over the steps you recommended before we asked for help. When you ask us to repeat the procedure, you not only doubt our word but the problem is also not solved. I am not saying that the translator is always right, much on the contrary, she probably is. Yet, as I mentioned in topic 2, as are linguists and sometimes find ourselves trapped, unable to find a solution. The installation process is stuck too: whatever mistake we are doing, we will do again and again as we are unable to find a better solution ourselves.
4. Be patient when we ask questions that seem repetitive. Oddly enough, we work with some 1357 tools and spend long periods without using any of them. When we do have to use them, the processes are not always fresh in our brains. In some cases it is easy as some tools are similar to each other, but others have such features that are hidden is such obscure places that we have to ask again for your help. Besides, if we ask questions at the beginning of the project, no matter how repetitive they are, this will probably save time and rework for both of us at the end, if you take some time to answer them.
5. And the final stab: For Christ’s sake, never say to a translator, “this only happens with you!” This sentence is a heavy weight on a translator’s soul, who feels them unluckiest and most incompetent creature of all. Not only the problem only happens with her, she also cannot solve the problem alone and had to bother the “poor engineer.”

Shall we make a deal? You help me and I will help you with everything that you asked. Teamwork now and forever! Let us repeat the translator and engineer oath? Here we go:

As a translator, I promise to:

- Spell check all files before delivery
- Read and follow all instructions received in the handoff email
- Inform with at least 48 hours in advance of any delays
- Deliver the files in the same structure received and
- Try not to ask the same questions about the same tool.

As an engineer, I promise to:

- Send very clear and precise instructions for the translators
- Never pretend to have the knowledge of something that I actually do not
- Objectively help the translator who is facing difficulties instead of telling her to repeat the same procedure she was unable to do
- Have the minimum level of patience with the translator who asks a silly or repetitive question, as this can avoid rework at the end of the project.

There! Now both sides only need to respect the deal and we will have a much more pleasant relationship.

May Saint Jerome keep sending blessed projects for us all!

Claudia Moreira is a journalist, translator and reviewer with 14 years of experience in technical translation/software localization and has been working with Ccaps since its early years. In her spare time, she likes to listen to heavy metal, travel and attend rock concerts!

In a post-modern globalized world, it has become fashionable to elect the muse of the year, the gaffe of the year, the movie of the year and so on. Even the Oxford Dictionary has jumped on the bandwagon.

Every year, the Oxford lexicographic team monitors the changes that the English language goes through. The neologisms are analyzed and those that reflect the ethos of the moment and demonstrate firepower and cultural relevance become strong candidates for “word of the year.”

In 2009, the elected word was “unfriend.” This word is not actually a neologism, as it existed for many years. It appears in the 1913 edition of the Webster‘s dictionary and means “enemy.” Moreover, it often appears in science fiction novels of the celebrated American writer Andre Alice Norton, in particular the best-seller The Crystal Gryphon.

Ok, just a reminder: neologism is the use of new words derived from others, or is the allocation of new meanings to existing words, as taught in the Concise Oxford Dictionary. Neologisms have always existed. Nothing against them! After all, no living language can be immutable. There are neologisms in all areas, but those in the media are obviously more detectable.

Unfriend was elected “word of the year” because it circulated the web not as a noun, but as a verb. Now it defines the elimination of undesirable people from your friend list on Orkut, Facebook and others.

If you make use of social networks, maybe you have already “unfriended” someone, or worse, have been “unfriended.” If so, how about you distract yourself a little from this by learning other neologisms less voted for, but that are fairly common online?

There is hashtag (a # [hash] sign added to a word or phrase that enables Twitter users to search for tweets that contain similarly tagged items and view thematic sets), there is intexticated (distracted because texting on a cell phone while driving a vehicle) and many more… Check the list at http://blog.oup.com/2009/11/unfriend or read more about the subject at http://www.worldwidewords.org/turnsofphrase/tp-unf1.htm.

And if you don’t put a comment here, I might end up unfriending you! =)

Eneida Vieira was a Language Specialist for Ccaps and currently works for the company on a regular basis. With a Degree in Liberal Arts, she worked for a very long time at Cultura Inglesa and at Colégio Pedro II. She has previously dedicated to literary translation and has many works published by large Brazilian publishing houses such as Rocco, Martins Fontes and José Olympio. In 2006, she won the Monteiro Lobato award from the National Foundation of child and Youth Literature (FNLIJ) for the best translation for a young audience.

I particularly think that the literary incentive is very important for our country. To write is to expand one’s horizons beyond the boundaries of writing and let creativity take the reader beyond the limits of imagination.

A poem, when well written, will take you on a journey of “rhymes of invented prose” that flow in synchronicity in an attempt to sharpen the feelings of the reader towards sensations and feelings.

In October 2009, the National Journey of Literature occurred in Passo Fundo, Rio Grande do Sul. The show was dedicated to the theme “Art and Technology: New Interfaces” and is symbolized by a book robot.

In the middle of the circle of participants is the Book Robot, the mascot of the event.

The Journey discussed other forms of art such as music, theater, dance, architecture and literature and counted on the presence of personalities like Pierre Lévy, Nélida Piñon, Guilherme Arriaga, Fernando Bonassi, Zuenir Ventura, Clara Averbuck and others. In the figure above, they appear in clockwise order, beginning at the top.

As an incentive, there was an award of R$100,000 for the best Portuguese novel published in the past two years. Incentives like this not only acknowledge the quality of artist’s work but also magnify the soul of the reader and the culture of the country.

And without Culture, Pen and Memories, no human being can achieve success. Because while Culture positions us for the future, the Pen is what draws out our present and Memories are the pieces of our history that we bring from the past.

For more information about the event, click here.

Natália Pessanha

Natália Pessanha worked as Localization Engineering Trainee at Ccaps from April 2008 to October 2009. She has a degree in Chemistry from a Technical High School and obtained a degree in Information Systems. Her work at Ccaps involved the preparation of files for translation, QA and client handback. When she is not at work, Natália spends time with her friends, listening to music, going to the movies and doing courses.

The translator always has to keep his/her eyes wide open and maintain a sharp sixth sense. In the case of subtitles, where translation errors are right there for the entire audience to see, the situation is even more delicate.

One of these errors, which has become quite famous, appeared on the successful movie “What Women Really Want.” Mel Gibson’s character watches a basketball game on TV and, when the player is about to shoot the ball, he says: “Miss, miss, miss!” The translation? “Senhorita, senhorita, senhorita”! (or “Lady, lady, lady!”).

We, the devout spectators, start to look for the invisible lady! Obviously, the translation should have been something like: “Erra, erra, erra!” or “Perde, perde, perde!”

For the more understanding of us, perhaps this was not even a good example of a faulty “doubter meter”. It could enter into the category of “lack of context”, another dilemma we face in the translation business. It is very hard to define a translation with no context, without knowing to what it refers or where it will be used. In this case, it is not fair to the translator! Unfortunately, this is never the attitude adopted by the public or the critics.

For them, it’s always the translator’s fault! Or the reviewer’s… But this is discussion for yet another post.

Nevertheless, the lack of context or a “doubter meter” also has its positive side: The mistakes are funny! For a good laugh then, click here (sorry, only in English).

What about you? Do any of you have any other example?

Natália Botelho

To learn more about Natália, please visit her previous post.

Many people fail to understand what the job of a localization engineer is. I often talk to them people about it and explain what my work involves to hear things like “Oh, so you speak all these languages?”

I most certainly don’t. Engineers do not need to understand (let alone, speak) the languages with which they work. However, with time and practice, we become capable of distinguishing Japanese from Korean and Chinese and of learning that, in certain languages, “strange things” are supposed to be that way (in French, for instance, people separate the punctuation with a space at the end of a sentence).

What then does an engineer do? We are in charge of all the work involved in the analysis, preparation and verification of the files before and after translation. A translator’s job is to translate only (which is quite a lot, when we take into account how much they are paid for this nowadays…) The engineer receives the files from the client and converts them into a format that can be analyzed with the translation memory (many times, we have to make up a way of doing that). Then, the files are converted into a translatable format and the non-translatable parts are blocked — or deleted, depending on the case.

What is most interesting about the job is the lack of routine. The client sends the files in the most diverse formats, such as software, help files, web pages, Word documents, images, and others. We even receive printed documents and hard copies from time to time!

The engineer has to come up with a way of turning the batch received into a translatable format and, after the files have been translated, change everything back to the format requested by the client. Check whether everything is in order before the handback to the client, while finding and correcting occasional bugs created during the process. Not to mention that we have to answer the technical questions translators might have… All this under extremely tight deadlines, as it is common in our industry.

Therefore, next time you hear of localization engineering, do not think that we have some sort of extensive language capabilities, only because we work with several languages. This is actually your job!

Marcelo Moraes, Localization Engineer, worked at Ccaps from 2006 until 2008. With a degree in Free Software Environment Management from Estácio de Sá University, he assisted with project preparation and analysis and translation memory and localization tool management. At his free time, Marcelo enjoys being in contact with nature, surfing, rock climbing and spending time with his daughter, Ana Maria.