Many of our customers ask if we can provide back-translations. Whilst we are always happy to provide the services you request, in this article I explain why using back-translations as a method of verifying translation quality is rarely the best approach. There is now a much better and more cost effective alternative.

The objective of a back translation is to check that the translation is a faithful representation of the original document. 

The process involves a second translator translating the already translated document back into the original language and comparing the two versions of the original. The logic being that if the back-translated document matches the one submitted for translation then the translation must be a good one.

Good system, right? WRONG! - Here’s why.

Common sense might suggest that the translation process is symmetric in that if a document in language A is translated into language B and then that document is translated back from language B to language A then the two versions of A should be identical (or as close as possible to identical).

Unfortunately, where language is concerned, this is not necessary the case.

You see, implicit in any translation is a level of subjective interpretation and cultural adaptation which, ironically, makes the difference between a ‘good’ professional translation and a purely literal one such as those you may have seen produced by translation software such as Bablefish or Google.

In practice, this means that by the time the translation has been completed in one direction by one translator, and then back again by a different translator, any slight variations between the source document and the translation are going to seem even more pronounced because of the involvement of a second translator with his or her own preferences of style or vocabulary.

To get technical for a moment, unlike many mathematical formulae, there is no transitive relationship between inputs and outputs in the translation space.

In short, translation is an art not a science.

So, how does one go about assuring the quality of a translation?

In 2007 a new British Standard called BS EN 15038 was introduced to our industry which, for the first time, mandated that translation companies introduce rigorous and auditable checking processes to catch errors. These process are quite involved and I won’t go into detail here, there is a detailed article on our website at:

http://www.london-translations.co.uk/quality/

We were proud to be the first UK company to be awarded this accolade for our Business Critical Translations which, in summary, means we can guarantee to achieve a better quality result than could hope to be achieved using the well intentioned, but ultimately flawed, back-translation method.

The good news is that translations produced to Business Critical standard actually work out cheaper than back-translating a standard translation. They can also be produced more quickly as there are fewer steps involved.

London Translations have some very talented writers amongst their freelance staff. We recently ran a competition for the best short article on a subject of their choice. The winner was PAUL LARKIN for his humorous recollections of dealing with a Translation agency in Hades near the Black Sea.

We’ll be publishing the runners up over the next few weeks so please check back regularly. In the meantime, we hope you enjoy the winning article.

The Project Manager from Hades
By Paul Larkin

It was the hushed tones that did it. Well, that and the warm glow she exuded down the phone as she begged me to take this rush translation job. The way she said “rrasssh”.

As a professional translator, I was always a sucker for sibilants. I imagined that she was some kind of sexy Slav and this was confirmed when she subsequently told me that she came from some place called Hades. A hot spot on the Black Sea. This rrassh job of more than 3K words needed to be done by COB that day.

That was the where the fun ended.  Hades - let’s call her Hades -  had told me that the job was in Swedish but when I opened the file the barely readable text was obviously in Norwegian. I lifted the phone because of the urgency involved.  Three thousand words in a normal working day is top drawer stuff but it can be done as long as everything is in place at the start of the translation.

Hi Hades. This translation. It’s not …

Oh hi Paul – sorry can I get back to you in five angel?

Five came and went, so did ten and twenty on my Geiger counter. I rang again and insisted that she speak to me.

It’s not Swedish. It’s Norwegian.

Oh well Paul, chill! I mean, they are fairly similar aren’t they?

I prepared my CAT for Swedish.

Your what? Paul ssweetheart – what has your cat do with anything?  Hello?

I took a deep breath and counted five beats before I spoke again.

CAT stands for Computer Assisted Translation and I have wasted a precious twenty minutes setting it up for Swedish. There’s another problem. The file you sent is uneditable.

It’s what?

My CAT cannot read it.

Oh, that’s bad.

Yes it is bad. Can you send me a clean  file in Word so that I can run it through Trados or Wordfast.

Paul dear, can you not just look at it.  You know, in the top. And type in the translation on a clean page in the bottom? It says here you have an honours degree in Scandinavian Studies?

Hades, please listen to me. Can you, or someone in your office, tell me whether you have a Microsoft Word version of the PDF file you have sent me? If I have to convert the PDF to Word myself using an OCR to make it ready for CAT then the translation will take longer and I usually charge for the extra work involved.

Tell you what Paul, why don’t you do all that stuff and we can sort the price out once we have the translation. Itsss verry urgent and there’s no need to be all sstresssed Paul. You must be quite new to translating.

Hades, I am NOT stressed.  I am simply trying to do my job.

Some six hours later, I sent the offending translation back to Hades just in time for Close of Business.  She rang me back as soon as the file landed in her email in-tray. I was expecting a big pat on the back, perhaps even a bonus payment. After all, my fingers were on fire, I was in the early stages of carpal tunnel syndrome, I was starved of all nourishment and looked and felt a mess.

Paul. The client. He is not verry hoppy.

Why? (I knew what was coming)

Your translation. It is not the same as the original.In terms of page layout you mean?

No, I think he means in the way the shape of the page is. You know. The parragrrafss, where they are. Its not exactly like the original.

At this point that I should have sat back and lit a Hamlet and allowed Hades to drone on but this is rather hard for a non smoker to do. Either way, I just didn’t care anymore.

Well if you want it to be exactly like the original PDF, you need to give me lot more time in the setting..(at this point my own sibilants were rudely interrupted)

Why didn’t you just type it all Paul! Onto a new page, like I told you!

You want me to translate 3K plus words from Norwegian into English onto a blank page and in an identical format to the PDF and do all this in 6 hours! Do you know anything at all about translation? Now you listen, and listen good. The reason I need to use translation software, or CAT, is precisely so that I don’t have to waste time and  frazzle my precious brain, not to mention my fingers and skeletal structure, using words and sometimes whole sentences that I have translated a thousand times before. All these are stored in my bloody (ok it was ruder than “bloody”) CAT software but I need an editable file so that CAT can process it. Do you not understand that?

I slammed down the phone, crossed Hades off my Christmas card list and waited for my cheque. Four months later (good companies pay within a month), I received a bank transfer and an accompanying note explaining that “due to the poor standard of presentation” in the aforesaid translation, my fee had been halved. All I could do was laugh and send a return mail instructing the company never to approach my personage for translation work ever again.  That felt good. I had taken command of the situation.

A year later and completely out of the blue, my mobile phone rang and a soft sexy voice full of sibilants breathed the magic words trransslation prrojekt into my ear.

Eets a rrassh job Paul. Can you take it angel?

ENDS.

About the author

Paul Larkin was born in Salford, England but is an Irish citizen. On leaving school, Larkin spent five years in the Danish merchant navy before taking an honours degree in Scandinavian Studies at University College London.  He graduated in 1985 with an upper second pass. In 1984 he was awarded the Townsend Prize for academic excellence in his research.

Paul Larkin now works as a full time writer and translator.  He has one book already published and he has just finished his first novel.

Monday 3rd July saw the official launch of London Translations’ new LanguageBridge instant Telephone Interpreting service.

LanguageBridge is an on-demand telephone interpreting service which connects you to fully qualified telephone interpreters covering over 150 languages in just minutes. No pre-booking is required and the service is accessible 24/7 from any phone in the world.

As expected, the service is already proving popular with the legal profession and international corporates. However, we have been pleased to receive enquiries from sectors as diverse as media and banking.

The diagram below shows how the service works but the best way to really get an impression of how easy it is to use is to listen to a sample call by pressing the button below.

(850k .wav file download)

For more details and to learn how you could get LanguageBridge for FREE, please visit

http://www.london-translations.co.uk/languagebridge/

Much debate surrounds the announcement that Brazilian manager “Big Phil” Scolari will take-up the England position from July - not least his grasp of the English language.

Today’s radio and TV broadcasts required a greater degree of concentration on the part of fans and journalists than usual to follow Scolari’s train of thoughts.

(Picture courtesy www.rediff.com)

He may not have problems with ‘Revert to 4-4-2’ but when it comes to explaining tactics and decisions on and off the pitch, we might all need some help to follow him. It comes down to culture and the localisation of words – the language of football is ingrained in us so we may need certain Portuguese ‘phrases’ interpreted by English translators.

Where might Scolari stumble over his English foot-balling terms? Can you think of any other potential areas of confusion? Why not post your comments below?

Many people ask us whether or not we can provide an “Official Translation” of their documents.

Unfortunately, there is no single internationally recognised definition of what constitutes an official translation.

This can be a complex area but there are generally two categories of translations which are required for official purposes:

1. Certified Translations
2. Legalised Translations

Each is explained in more detail in this short guide.

CERTIFIED TRANSLATIONS

Translations are normally considered ‘certified’ if they have been produced under one of the three circumstances below:

1. The document has been translated by a ‘Sworn Translator’

In some countries, translators can register with an official body as a “Sworn Translator” and by doing so be recognised by authorities such as the High Court of Justice to translate and legalise documents (often referred to as producing a ‘certified translation’).

Read the rest of this entry »

Continuing on the Chinese theme, Charles Orton-Jones has written an excellent article in the April edition of Real Business magazine which covers many aspects of trading with China.

My contribution concerns the importance of building personal relationships and the surprisingly low levels of English literacy amongst the Chinese business community.

Real Business magazine is aimed at MDs of growing firms employing 10 - 500. It has a monthly circulation of approx 42,500 copies.

Although it is more ‘high level’ then Start Your Business magazine, the writing style is very clear and accessible.

In this month’s Start Your Business magazine, I offer some advice for anyone looking to trade with the expanding Asian economies.

If you have never read Start Your Business Magazine I can highly recommend it. It is published every couple of months and has a circulation of around 40,000. It is aimed at people starting out in business and provides some great tips and explains many of the issues which magazines aimed at established businesses take for granted. I only wish something like this had been around 15 years ago when I started out!

They have just signed a deal to sell the magazine through WH Smiths so if you’d like to pick up a copy, that would be a good place to look.

Organising events using interpreters can be daunting for the uninitiated. In this article I give you some inside information and tips to help make your event a success.

Of the three different categories of interpreting (the other two being Consecutive Interpreting and Facilitating Interpreting), Simultaneous Interpreting is by far the most demanding.  

A minimum of 2 interpreters are required for continuous service of more than a couple of hours. This comes as a shock to most people. Why do we need 2 people? Surely the interpreting company is just trying to sell us extra interpreters? Read the rest of this entry »

Simultaneous interpreters provide high end interpreting services for international conferences. One person speaks and many listen through headphones. Simultaneous interpreters sit in a sound-proof booth and interpret in real-time.

Simultaneous interpreting is highly skilled work requiring many years of experience and subject matter expertise. To be successful, events requiring simultaneous interpreters need careful planning and specialist equipment.

Warning: We can’t stress enough the importance of using experienced simultaneous interpreters. As simultaneous interpreting is a real-time skill, there are no second chances once the moment is lost. If you do not have the budget to engage simultaneous interpreters, we urge you to consider whether a Consecutive Interpreter would suffice rather than attempt to cut corners and have your event ruined.