| Pages in topic: < [1 2] | Job poster contact information will be shown exclusively to those who meet quoting requirements Thread poster: Henry Dotterer
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| Disagree with the change too | Mar 29, 2008 |
Hi everyone,
I am a French native married to an Irishman. I have been living in Ireland for the past 8 years.
Before the change, I could bid on jobs requiring a native English speaker for the following reasons:
- I am fully able to translate from French into English (most of my education and business experience took place in Ireland)
- ALL my translations into English are proofread by my husband or by fellow native English speakers - without any ex... See more Hi everyone,
I am a French native married to an Irishman. I have been living in Ireland for the past 8 years.
Before the change, I could bid on jobs requiring a native English speaker for the following reasons:
- I am fully able to translate from French into English (most of my education and business experience took place in Ireland)
- ALL my translations into English are proofread by my husband or by fellow native English speakers - without any exception
My clients were happy and satisfied with my job.
Now, since the change I cannot bid anymore on this kind of job despite the fact that I can deliver quality translations into English.
I am sure I am not the only one working from and into one same language. Others might find themselves in the same situation... ▲ Collapse
| | | | Kristina Kolic 
Croatia
Local time: 00:55
English to Croatian
+ ...
SITE LOCALIZER | I don't see the need for secrecy, but... | Apr 2, 2008 |
Personally, I don't see the need for secrecy. Job postings showing the name of the agency and eventually the country in which the agency is established are in fact a good promotion for the outsourcer, since translators who are not eligible for a particular job can notice the agency and get an idea about its "value" on the market. In such a way, outsourcers are advertising the name of their agency for free and have the opportunity to be noticed by many translators who then might wish to work with... See more Personally, I don't see the need for secrecy. Job postings showing the name of the agency and eventually the country in which the agency is established are in fact a good promotion for the outsourcer, since translators who are not eligible for a particular job can notice the agency and get an idea about its "value" on the market. In such a way, outsourcers are advertising the name of their agency for free and have the opportunity to be noticed by many translators who then might wish to work with an agency because it has become familiar to them.
Why would they need to hide their identity? Besides a number of agencies with a questionable Blue Board record, which, by the way, are or should be a minority, I can only think of one reason why "good" agencies would like to hide their contact details. I assume that some outsourcers could feel annoyed when "bombed" with a huge number of quotes that actually do not meet the criteria for the job. And in this respect, I fully understand their need to hide their contact details, but not their identity (meaning the name of the agency). As I see it, there should be some way to prevent unsolicited e-mails from translators who do not meet the criteria. Perhaps it would not be a bad idea, instead of hiding the identity of the agency, to consider the implementation of a code that would only be visible to eligible translators and that would be required to quote for a particular job.
I assume that one of the most usual annoyances for outsourcers could be to receive unsolicited quotes from non native speakers although they required native speakers only. In this respect, I must say that I fully disagree with Nataša Čubrilović and Eva Straus when they imply “that ‘ex-Yugoslavs’ are often right to claim they have more than two mother tongues” or that “speakers of former Serbo-Croat are now fluent in 3-4 languages”.
Although it is indeed possible to be fluent in more than one language (and these persons have the possibility to declare more than one native language on Proz and thereby to be notified of jobs posted for their language pairs), because they grew up in another country or because they have parents of a different nationality, or because they studied this other language, in the a/m case of the countries of former Yugoslavia there is definitely no automatism since children at school are only taught the language of the country in which they are living. The mere fact that they probably can understand each other to some extent does not mean that they can provide a grammatically correct written translation in all these languages. Both the Croatian and the Serbian language have their own standard, terminology, language style guide, grammar… In case of similar languages, there is always a danger for an outsourcer to get an artificial mixture that eventually sounds funny and that might be returned by the client.
Therefore, I do not see any problem with not being notified of or not being able to see the contact details of an agency that posted a job for which I do not meet the language criterion.
As an illustration, I had a similar experience with an agency, which assumed that there were no major differences between these languages and was then returned a translation by a Croatian client because it was in fact a Serbian translation and not a Croatian translation and was therefore unusable on the Croatian market. The translation had to be completely rewritten overnight and in spite of its apologies for not being aware of the differences, the agency lost a big client because it failed to meet the deadline and to provide a quality translation into the requested language.
Note also that all official documents (including diplomas, birth certificates, etc.) delivered in Serbia and to be used in Croatia have first to be translated into the Croatian language by a sworn translator in order to be valid and this cannot be done by any sworn translator but only by a sworn translator for the Serbian language. ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Henry to accept [...] who declared Serbo-Croat ..mother language, [...[ permitted to modify... | Apr 3, 2008 |
Kristina Mijic wrote:
Although it is indeed possible to be fluent in more than one language...
Therefore, we'll kindly ask Henry to accept that all of us who declared Serbo-Croat as mother language, are permitted to modify their data, in order that FIVE mother languages are put down: Serbo-Croatian, Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, Montenegrin. I mean, it'll be facultative for anybody, not an obligation. There are those who sucked their mamma's milk together with Serbo-Croat language, without being tainted with any politics. Also, remember how Predrag Matvejevic got newly acquired criticism on his behalf, when he said in an interview for a Croatian media, that each croatian baby immediately on birth becomes bilingual? This for the sake of the joke.
As an illustration, I had a similar experience with an agency, which assumed that there were no major differences between these languages and was then returned a translation by a Croatian client because it was in fact a Serbian translation and not a Croatian translation and was therefore unusable on the Croatian market. The translation had to be completely rewritten overnight and in spite of its apologies for not being aware of the differences, the agency lost a big client because it failed to meet the deadline and to provide a quality translation into the requested language.
There are similar examples of the worst kind, where a translation, in order to be done in good and linguo-politically correct manner, is being filled with utmost nonsenses, while, semantically, the translation is a trash.
Note also that all official documents (including diplomas, birth certificates, etc.) delivered in Serbia and to be used in Croatia have first to be translated into the Croatian language by a sworn translator in order to be valid and this cannot be done by any sworn translator but only by a sworn translator for the Serbian language.
That's why the translators exist for. Certificates come out of Serbia, destinated for usage in Croatia, and then, why not, some Croatian translators should get engaged into translation from Serbian. Therefore, let translators translate. As well, they can ask a kudoz query, here, in order to distinguish the differences. Unftnly, Drobnjak's Razlikovni, is sold out, so how can poor people be sure?
All the best to Neretljanska, d
[Edited at 2008-04-03 11:27]
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Williamson
United Kingdom
Local time: 23:55
Flemish to English
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| Correct specs | Apr 21, 2008 |
The drawback is that if the outsourcer erroneously introduces the false spec, you can not quote:
Job posting : English>Dutch and English>French and SdlxTrados and native language French (?) required, because the subject is a code of conduct to be translated into both Dutch and French
However, I do not understand why you have to be a native of French to translate from English>Dutch.
Apparently, the outsourcer wanted both, so he should post twice with the correct ... See more The drawback is that if the outsourcer erroneously introduces the false spec, you can not quote:
Job posting : English>Dutch and English>French and SdlxTrados and native language French (?) required, because the subject is a code of conduct to be translated into both Dutch and French
However, I do not understand why you have to be a native of French to translate from English>Dutch.
Apparently, the outsourcer wanted both, so he should post twice with the correct specifications or look for a bilingual Belgian. Now, I can not see the contact details or bid for the job although English>Dutch (native) and TradosSdlx available are the requirements and I meet these requirements.
[Edited at 2008-04-21 14:55] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Bad for business and bad for proz | Apr 26, 2008 |
Dear Henry:
I was born in the UK, but have lived most of my childhood in northern Spain and I am completely trilingual (English-Spanish-Catalan). I frequently work into Spanish and Catalan and have undertaken numerous projects for the EU, the Catalan Autonomous Government and Spanish government offices. I can now not bid for over 70% of the jobs that are being posted in language pairs. This month, I have only earned about 15USD in jo... See more Dear Henry:
I was born in the UK, but have lived most of my childhood in northern Spain and I am completely trilingual (English-Spanish-Catalan). I frequently work into Spanish and Catalan and have undertaken numerous projects for the EU, the Catalan Autonomous Government and Spanish government offices. I can now not bid for over 70% of the jobs that are being posted in language pairs. This month, I have only earned about 15USD in jobs generated by www.proz.com, whereas my average tends to be over 1,000USD.
I don't see how this is going to benefit us, and, in fact, it is already having a very negative impact on my business. Two of the biggest translation projects that I won via www.proz.com were from English into Spanish, so what does that say?
Please, reconsider this change. I think the balance of comments supports this.
Regards,
Dr Amanda Tozer ▲ Collapse
| | | | Ragnar Egilsson
Iceland
Local time: 22:55
Member (2008)
English to Icelandic
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| Is that why work has dried up? | May 27, 2008 |
Since I became a paying member of proz.com, I have seen the amount of relevant jobs posted (my pairs are: Icelandic>English/English>Icelandic) steadily decreasing. I got the membership a couple of months ago, around the time you were implementing the change. There are a number of possible factors that could play into the lack of jobs posted, economic downswing in Iceland being one of them, but I can't help feeling this could have something to do with it.
Before I became a paid member there... See more Since I became a paying member of proz.com, I have seen the amount of relevant jobs posted (my pairs are: Icelandic>English/English>Icelandic) steadily decreasing. I got the membership a couple of months ago, around the time you were implementing the change. There are a number of possible factors that could play into the lack of jobs posted, economic downswing in Iceland being one of them, but I can't help feeling this could have something to do with it.
Before I became a paid member there was plenty of work to lure me into joining, and since then...close to nothing.
I do not want to see my possibilities limited in any way, I want to have the possibility to bid on any job relevant to my language pairs, regardless of what I have specified in that blessed profile.
These changes seem geared towards increasing revenue for proz.com at the expense of its users.
The way things are going now, I doubt I will renew my membership. ▲ Collapse
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