Dec 1st, 2004 | Agencies, Interviews | No Comments
By Anna Schlegel
Founded by Karl Klaussen in 1972, NCTA Corporate Member Biotext LLC (www.biotext.net) has been operating under its present name since 1999 and provides a wide range of translation services in the fields of health care, pharmaceutical trials, medical equipment, and biotechnology research. A native of Germany, Karl has lived in the U.S. since 1964. He joined NCTA in 1996, has served on the Board of Directors, and in 2000, along with Tony Roder and Jeanette Ringold, helped establish the Translator Certification program at UC Berkeley Extension.
Tell us a bit about yourself.
KARL KLAUSSEN: I was born in Aachen, Germany. I left the country in 1960, lived in Sweden on and off for a few years, and then traveled around the world until I emigrated to the U.S. in 1964. I lived in Santa Monica for four years and moved to San Francisco in 1968. I received my BA from UC Berkeley in 1974, my MA in 1976, and my Ph.D. in 1986, with a dissertation on interlingual transfer in technical and scientific texts.
While I was a student at Berkeley I got into the restaurant business, opening my first restaurant, Café Mozart, in San Francisco, in 1981 with a partner who left shortly thereafter. I later opened two other S.F. restaurants, Haymarket in 1986, and Aubergine, in 1990, before quitting the business and going into translation full time. I’ve been married to my wife, Patricia, since 1970; we have one son, an active naval officer, and one daughter, a teacher.
What were your beginnings in translation?
My first translation job was in 1973, while I was a student at Berkeley. It was the translation of a paper from German to English entitled “The Development of the Olfactory Sense in Hymenopterous Insects.” Small jobs followed. I tried my hands at technical and business texts but became more and more interested in medical translation. Jobs included the translations (into English) of “Freud, Biologist of the Mind,” by R. Sullivan, in 1979; and “Spoerri’s Descriptions of Psychotic Speech,” in Speech Pathology and Schizophrenic Disorders, edited by J. Darby, M.D., in 1981.
After I left the restaurant business in 1996, I started a translation company, Syntaxis, with offices in Vienna, Virginia and San Francisco, in 1997. In 1999, my East Coast partner and I decided to simplify things and came to the amiable agreement that he would continue to operate on the East Coast as “Syntaxis,” while I established a new company, Biotext LLC, in California, devoted to medical, pharmaceutical, and biotech translations.
What languages do you deal with the most?
Chinese, Spanish, Japanese, and German. However, we recently worked on a large project in over thirty languages, among them Pashto, Maori, Niuean, Tonga, and Cook Islands dialect.
Where are your translators based?
We do lots of business outside of California, and we contract with translators in Florida, Canada, Germany, Iceland, France, Greece, Italy, New Zealand, Argentina, Brazil, Sweden, Turkey, Belarus, and the Czech Republic—and of course California! On occasion I consult the ATA list to find translators in the U.S.
Describe your ideal translator.
Everybody makes mistakes once in a while and I can forgive a translator’s errors (that’s why we have editors). However, I can’t forgive late deliveries and sloppy work. My ideal translator would always meet deadlines and deliver well-executed translations without omissions or sloppy formatting. As for interpreters, although I retain them for established clients (usually law firms) on an infrequent basis, punctuality and a very professional demeanor are again, musts.
What mistakes do translators most often make in your field?
Translators most frequently make terminological mistakes, especially when it comes to abbreviations and acronyms. I expect the translator to ask questions so that I can contact the client if there are abbreviations that are unfamiliar to the translator.
What are your current challenges?
Convincing clients that the cheapest way is not always the best way; balancing the need to be competitive with other companies who employ cheap labor overseas, and still employ local translators whose rates are comparatively high. An ideal situation would be where translations are done overseas and edited locally. That way I could offer competitive rates to my clients while still employing local translators.
Words of wisdom for a translator starting out in the business?
Stay informed about the latest developments in your field and read, read, read.
Where do you see the translation business in 10 years?
I see a potential for the business to increase dramatically.
Sep 1st, 2004 | Agencies, Business | No Comments
By Catherine Theilen Burke
Translators are hired based on their knowledge and mastery of language. Part of NCTA’s mission is to provide information and professional development opportunities for translators. The following article reviews how ISO 9001 standards affect translators, and how translators can position themselves to offer their services to agencies having received ISO 9001 certification.
The ISO 9001 standards originally represented the efforts of 148 countries to agree to norms in regards to the production and manufacture of technical products. Although translation is regarded as a service, a process of certification has nevertheless been developed and implemented to verify the integrity of an agency’s internal processes, thereby allowing clients of ISO 9001-certified companies to enjoy an increased level of confidence in the services—high-quality, accurate translations—they obtain.
The ISO 9001 standards are updated from the ISO 9000 standards to reflect a more modern understanding of quality and current business practices. These new standards differ from the originals in several important ways. First, the role of the client in the relationship is expanded, incorporating from the very beginning the client’s needs and wishes. Communication is emphasized between agency administration and personnel. Staff training is a critical component; everyone must have access to information. And all steps of a project—and the people handling each step—are accessible.
ISO 9001 also requires an agency to have implemented sophisticated, accessible project management software systems that include all relevant information about a translator, such as technical expertise and area specialties. In addition, a business with 9001 certification must also demonstrate ongoing progress toward process improvement through feedback from staff, clients, and vendors.
For translators, ISO 9001 mandates a formal hiring process that includes such steps as applications, tests, and reviews. An agency must change from a subjective model of intuition to an objective list of requirements. The translator becomes a vendor, whose work is now one step in a series of procedures toward the end product of a quality translation. A file for each translator is established by the agency, containing documentation of that individual’s credentials and qualifications—data that ISO 9001 inspectors would verify during the agency certification process.
It is important to note that ISO certification is not just a stamp of approval; by encouraging agencies to comply with established best business practices, the process is designed to help organizations improve productivity and efficiency, which in turn results in a host of benefits including lowered costs (work doesn’t have to be redone as frequently) and therefore higher profits, access to new markets, and, ultimately, attractiveness to customers—some of whom are even beginning to request certification.
The process of certification for an agency is not without cost, however, in terms of both time and money. The application process is very elaborate, and involves literally adding a bureaucratic layer to an organization, including dedicated staff to manage all administrative matters pertaining to the application process, to audit and review all procedures for developing products, and to create all systems of review. This represents a substantial investment in personnel and resources for a small agency.
What’s more, any insufficiencies revealed in the audit must be corrected before the application can go to the next step in the process of certification. For example, the editing process is described in detail: Who is responsible? At what level? How is fact checking, proofreading, and formatting performed? How is each step reviewed and checked?
Because of some or all of these considerations, not all translation agencies believe certification is worth the investment involved, including those agencies that know they produce quality translations with their current systems and processes, and have excellent reputations. What’s more, fear of revealing practices that required large investments over the course of time can also deter some organizations from seeking certification; these agencies tend to regard their work methods as proprietary, and require anyone working at the agency to sign a confidentiality agreement to not disclose the systems and processes used.
For agencies, the need for certification is still an open question: a balance of the investment vs. the marketing opportunity that the endorsement implies. For freelance translators marketing themselves to ISO-certified agencies, an understanding of the standards and requirements can be useful, in terms of a knowledge of the process and a willingness to be tested. And once a translator has worked for such agencies, satisfactory performance may be used as an endorsement in applications to other agencies.
ISO certification is an annual process, so translators can be assured that the agency has made a commitment of striving to meet high quality control standards. The agency will have in place methods of reviewing work, a designated editing process, and opportunity for feedback—all of which is always a good sign for a translator.
For further reading:
http//www.iso.org — The official website of the ISO.
http//www.the 9001store/intro-to-ISO-9001 & http//www.isoeasy.org — Commercial websites selling products that aid in understanding the standards.
Sep 1st, 2004 | Agencies, Interviews, NCTA Members | No Comments
By Anna Schlegel
Founded by Dagmar Dolatschko in San Carlos, California in 1991, NCTA Corporate Member Peritus Precision Translations (peritustranslations.com) offers a full range of language and globalization services including translation, interpretation, software localization, linguistic quality assurance, and international brand name analysis. A native of Germany, Dagmar is certified as a translator by the Bavarian Ministry for Education and Culture, and has a graduate degree from the highly accredited European language institute “Sprachen- und Dolmetscher-Institut,” in Munich.
How did your business get its start?
DAGMAR DOLATSCHKO: Peritus began as an “international trade consulting side business” in 1991, although it has since evolved into a focused translation agency. Originally, it was the outcome of my work in export/import and the desire to start something of my own after obtaining my MBA. It was called Peritus International at the time and, strangely enough, was founded in San Carlos, CA, where we landed again in 1999, after having been in Massachusetts for some time. In the first year of our new agency, in 1996, I had already won a few projects that required up to seven languages. Today that number is at 70 languages, with about 50 percent of our business coming from California, and the rest from all over the U.S. and some from Europe.
What languages do you deal with the most?
The majority of our work is in the standard business languages, such as French, Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, Chinese, and Korean. This is probably true for most agencies, and is determined by economic need for those languages. But we also work in Nordic and Eastern European languages, as well as Vietnamese, Russian, Khmer and Lao.
What does the name of your translation agency stand for?
Peritus is Latin; it describes a person who helps others with their knowledge; an expert, a qualified professional. That was fitting for the image I want the firm to portray.
Describe your ideal translator.
My ideal translator is solid in two or three languages. He or she either studied the languages and/or lived in countries where those languages are spoken. This translator truly knows his or her mother tongue, is specialized in a number of related fields, and has the professionalism to say no to work in areas that he or she does not feel fully comfortable in.
We use quite a lot of translators who are excellent examples of what I expect of our profession. Besides the professional, linguistic background and experience, I am also looking for certain characteristics such as great attention to detail, commitment to quality, flexibility, willingness to follow instructions, technical capability to use today’s software as necessary, willingness to accept feedback to learn and grow, and the ability to work on a team with an editor or other translators (on large projects).
Describe your ideal interpreter.
My ideal interpreter meets criteria similar to the translator’s from a linguistic and professional background. But the best interpreters also have quite a few years of experience, have diplomacy and sensitivity, can adapt easily to change, and always come across as true professionals. A translator can often hide behind the computer and has more time to figure things out. An interpreter is on stage and needs to perform the way an actor performs. Another aspect I find very important for both translators and interpreters is the willingness to speak up if you find errors or oversights in the source language. This is more the case for translators—interpreters have to handle such issues with great tact. This shows that the translator is really engaged and has thought about the work and did not just mechanically translate the text.
What are your current challenges?
Client education—making sure clients understand why there is a certain price for good work and at the same time dealing with the ever-increasing price pressures from low-cost translation vendors, both in the U.S. and overseas. That is probably the biggest challenge. It makes it hard for all of us professionals, to see the low price at which the art of translation is traded in some circles.
Where do you see the translation business in 10 years?
I see more and more mergers and acquisitions. The big fish will get bigger. The small fish will have to find their niches and diversify or specialize. Using tools such as MT can no longer be avoided and will be an important part of the survival of the fittest. I don’t think that machine translation will be a challenge to high-end, high quality translation, however. There is no substitute for the subtleties of the human mind.
