May 1st, 2007 | Essays, Interpretation, Translation | 1 Comment
By Stafford Hemmer
In an attempt to widen the scope of qualified volunteer language professionals in the wake of the September 11th attacks, the U.S. government in 2004 instituted the Civilian Language Reserve Corps. In this first of a two-part series, we examine the CLRC’s history and mission. In the concluding segment, in the September Translorial, we’ll hear from many parties involved in this unusual effort to invigorate America’s foreign language abilities.
In July 2006, NCTA members who also belong ATA received an email appeal from ATA President Marian Greenfield. As a follow-up the ATA’s successful response to the Red Cross request for volunteers, Ms. Greenfield extended an invitation to interested translators and interpreters to consider joining the national Civilian Linguist Reserve Corps. “CLRC volunteers may be called upon during a national crisis of one sort or another, such as supporting preparations for evacuations before and after natural disasters,” she explained. According to the CLRC’s own mission statement, the Corps aims “to provide and maintain a readily available civilian corps of certified expertise in languages determined to be important to the security of the nation.”
History
The Corps is operated today under the auspices of the National Security Language Initiative, launched by the Bush Administration in 2004 as an endeavor to “dramatically increase the number of Americans learning critical-need foreign languages.” In this context, “critical need” refers to nine specific languages, including Arabic, Chinese, Russian, Hindu, Korean, Urdu, and Farsi. The NSLI is a department of the U.S. Departments of State, Defense, and Education, as well as the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The initiative is comprised of: 1) programs to encourage the learning and teaching of foreign languages; 2) scholarships, exchanges, and projects to promote international learning and exposure; 3) the creation of “feeder programs” to educational institutions, from kindergarten through university level; and finally 4) “strategic partnerships” between the national government and U.S. universities to promote instruction in “critical languages.” The CLRC itself falls under this latter prong of NSLI agenda. In fiscal year 2007, the Bush administration requested $114 million from Congress to fund this program.
The National Guard model
On the face of it, and as reflected by Ms. Greenfield’s email, this battalion of linguists should operate like the National Guard, except that it will take command of language-related issues instead of public disorder during national crisis situations. Its genesis actually precedes the NSLI itself, in a proposal to Congress in 2001 by the National Security Education Program of the Department of Defense’s National Defense University. Following the government-funded initial feasibility study, NSEP’s Dr. Robert Slater, in his testimony of April 1, 2004, asked the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence to “consider how effective and beneficial it would have been for the nation if, on September 12, 2001, the Director of the FBI had been able to request an immediate call-up of a select number of Arabic specialists who were commissioned as part of a Civilian Linguist Reserve Corps.”
Dr. Slater’s words had their effect on Capitol Hill. When the feasibility study, operational plan, and implementation plan were completed, the time had come in mid-2006 to launch the CLRC’s pilot program. Over the next three years, the Corps’ goal is to assemble a list of no fewer than 1,000 linguists by the year 2010 in the nine critical-need languages. Enrolled language professionals would be matched to the requirements stipulated by the more than 80 federal government departments, bureaus, and agencies that need their service. Reservists have to be certified not only in terms of language acumen, but also in terms of their national loyalty, in order to garner the necessary U.S. Government security clearance. With that imprimatur, members of the Corps would be available to take on sensitive defense-related work. Skills will have to be maintained and certified on a consistent basis. In exchange for the demanding level of paperwork, background clearance, and ongoing skills maintenance, the candidates in the program would be treated as federal civilian employees, receiving pay, benefits, and other incentives when finally called into service.
Mobilizing the Corps
According to a press release during the feasibility stage, the Corps was touted as an opportunity for U.S. civilians to help out during national emergencies—hurricanes Katrina and Rita being recent examples of such situations. To be clear, the CLRC would not be a military reserve; its members would have the right to refuse deployment, but should they do so, they would be required to reimburse the government for their training and education. Despite the non-military nature of the Corps’ charter, however, there appears some evidence that the Department of Defense’s intentions for this program may include grooming these language specialists to work on more delicate security matters—such as, for example, interrogations of so-called “enemy combatants” in the war on terror. Whether this falls within the purview of a “volunteer” corps is a matter for further investigation. 3
Sep 1st, 2006 | Court Interpretation, Essays, Hebrew, Interpretation, Translation | No Comments
By Jonathan Goldberg
Given the choice of offering a literal, by-the-book interpretation that you are certain the recipient won’t understand and offering a less-than-exact equivalent of the original that you are confident he will understand, what would you do? It’s tempting to speculate that most of us would opt for the latter. But are there consequences to doing this? Especially when the setting is a legal one? Jonathan Goldberg dives in.
The verb “to interpret” has two common meanings, which in a sense are somewhat contradictory. The first relates to the act of interpreting written documents or oral statements, in the sense of giving one’s “take” on them. The use of the word in this sense suggests circumstances in which a fair degree of subjectivity is permitted.
The second sense, with which NCTA members are likely to make an association, relates to the art of oral translation, whose practitioners are expected to eschew subjectivity and to render the target language with an almost scientific precision.
Translations are often chiseled out of rough source language and fashioned in their final form with the aid of dictionaries, by consulting colleagues and, as a last resort, by asking the client for a clarification of the intended meaning. Interpretion assignments, such as the cross-examination of witnesses, allow no such luxury. Rather, the thrust and parry of these verbal brawls sometimes makes one yearn for the days when one knew only a single language and life seemed simpler on that account.
While driving back from one such assignment, a Hebrew-language deposition, I was mulling over one or two of the trickier terms that the deposing attorney had been pitching across the table at his victim. The deponent for whom I had been interpreting was a flower seller. The deposing lawyer, confident that he was about to establish a case of forgery, dramatically flourished the document he held and asked the deponent: “So does this purport to be your signature?” As the word “purport” comes up fairly often in legal settings (and being myself a retired lawyer), I knew the Hebrew equivalent. But I anticipated a familiar trap.
While I had no doubt that the flower vendor could, if called upon to do so, expound at length on the subtle differences between various types of chrysanthemums, I was equally confident that he had never heard the Hebrew equivalent of “purport.” If, therefore, I rendered a translation of that word so precise as to qualify me for a top grade in any Hebrew-language test, I knew that the deponent was highly likely to reply “I didn’t understand the question.”
This kind of situation is pregnant with danger for the interpreter. At best, furtive glances are likely to be thrown in the interpreter’s direction, with all present assuming that the correct rendition of the lawyer’s question had proven beyond the interpreter’s language skills. At worst, the deponent’s counsel, looking up from his newspaper, is likely to see in the deponent’s state of bamboozlement a golden opportunity to come to his client’s defense (which he may well not have done in any juridical sense), by stating for the record “We seem to be having a problem with the interpreter,” or some such gratuitous comment.
Determined not to become a victim of the blame game, I decided, on the spur of that fateful moment, to break all the rules of professional interpreting, and to take a little professional license, by lowering the register of the question. I therefore rendered, in Hebrew, the equivalent of “So are you claiming that this is your signature?” I held my breath as I waited to see whether my self-protective, unprofessional sleight-of-tongue would have the desired effect. Would it, I wondered, elicit an answer that would demonstrate that the deponent had understood the question and if he had not, would it be he or I who would take the rap? His reply, in Hebrew, was: “Not only do I claim that this is my signature, but it is in fact my signature.” I took one more small step, if not for humanity, then at least for the interpreting profession, and rendered the answer back into English as “Not only does it purport to be my signature, but it is in fact my signature.”
My gamble had paid off. The pair of distortions had cancelled each other out. I had demonstrated beyond all reasonable doubt that the deponent’s powers of comprehension extended far beyond the realm of chrysanthemums. I had allowed the deponent’s counsel to continue reading his newspaper without the need to sort out any bothersome misunderstandings. I had in fact performed a valuable service to all parties.
I am hoping that the parties who paid me to interpret for the flower vendor are not regular readers of Translorial, because they may not fully appreciate the interpreting resourcefulness that I displayed while on contract to them. But if this frank discovery of mine (in the legal sense of that word) should elicit a complaint, or a demand to stick to the straight and narrow
path of interpreting when carrying out future assignments, I intend to plead argumentum ab inconvenienti.
May 1st, 2006 | Event Interpretation, Interpretation, Reports | No Comments
By Steven Goldstein
You are seated in a parlor—a small theater, of only 35 seats—for the singular purpose of witnessing a few curious and unusual things. A sleight-of-hand artist from abroad, renowned the world over, is about to astound and amaze you. Except for one thing: he speaks a language you don’t understand. How will you make sense of what is taking place? Meet two of the most well-known interpreters in the world of magic, Tina Lenert and Luis Iglesies.
The suave young gentleman takes the lady’s proffered ring, and places it on her open palm. “Concentrate on the happy memory that this ring evokes for you,” he says. “Think of that memory as a ray of white light.” In a moment, the ring moves, ever so slightly. “Keep your eyes on the ring,” he continues in a low, calming voice, “and enlarge this light in your mind; imagine that the light is spinning, growing, rising …” At that very moment, the ring floats off the woman’s palm, and hovers over it. Over gasps from the audience, the young man moves his hand all around the ring, now suspended miraculously in midair, and says softly to the woman, “Know that you can completely encircle this warm feeling, and at any moment grasp it”—he plucks the ring from the air—“and hold on to it for the rest of your life.” Amid cries of amazement and applause from the rest of the audience, the young man returns the ring to the astonished woman, who, with tears in her eyes, whispers into his ear, “Thank you.”
Whether a simple effect with a pack of cards or a social experiment involving a personal memento, the emotional power of a magic performance taps into the spirit of humanity that is in all of us, regardless of what culture we come from, or what language we speak. And yet clearly—except for those performances that are deliberately wordless—we need to understand what is said in order to be able to fully appreciate the effect. Enter the magic interpreter.
A fortuitous path
Tina Lenert came to the magic interpreting field along a decidedly non-traditional route. Indeed, she is the first to admit that she is not a professional interpreter. But her deep involvement with the magical arts over the years has led her—in addition to garnering fame and respect the world over as a performer in her own right—to be identified forever as the English-language voice of one of the most remarkable close-up magicians of all time, René Lavand of Argentina. (“Close-up” generally refers to sleight-of-hand magic performed for small audiences.)
Born to an American geologist working in Caracas, Venezuela, Tina grew up speaking Spanish, but largely abandoned it when her family returned to the United States when she was 12 years old. She didn’t pick it up again in earnest until the early ‘90s, when she was asked by her husband (also a magician) to interpret for a performance being given by Señor Lavand during one of his lecture tours in the U.S. “I was petrified at first,” Tina said, “but his combination of patience and artistry opened a new door for me.”
Poetry in motion
Part of the appeal for Tina was the way Señor Lavand used language. “There’s a poetry and elegance to the Spanish language,” said Tina, “and the way he puts together words is just so beautiful; they simply ring in my heart.” Interpreter Luis Iglesies echoes this sentiment about Señor Lavand: “There is no one else in the magic community who expresses himself better through poetry and refined language, full of sentiment”; a characteristic that both interpreters agree makes Tina’s task especially difficult.
On top of that, Señor Lavand’s words, notwithstanding their poetic resonance, have to be integrated into the performance of the magic itself, where the need for interpreting necessarily alters the environment. After all, as with any public entertainment, magic depends on directing an audience’s attention through the careful timing of words and action (and, sometimes, music). Isn’t this disrupted by the need to stop and wait for a phrase to be interpreted?
“Yes,” says Tina. “But it’s all about timing; about continuing a flow, almost between simultaneous and consecutive interpreting—even pausing, when it’s important to stop and not do anything. To the extent possible, it’s about becoming a part of the performance, and not a distraction. After a while, you go on instinct.” She felt that one of the best compliments she ever received for her work with Señor Lavand was from the well-known magician Harry Anderson, who said she “was like a bell ringing softly above him.”
In addition to interpreting for Señor Lavand, and translating some of his books into English, Tina has, on a more limited basis, interpreted for American magicians during their lectures in Spain. “It is a privilege to communicate these performances,” she says.
Schooled in the profession
An entirely different route to interpreting, and especially magic interpreting, was taken by Luis Iglesies. For Luis, while his interest in magic also blossomed early—as a youngster, he believed one of Spain’s most influential magicians, Juan Tamariz, had supernatural powers—his young adult life was all about language. Born and raised in Spain, he took language seriously while at school, eventually living and studying in the U.S. and Britain, and receiving a translation and interpretation degree from the Universidad de Salamanca (Spain), with French, German, and Italian on his resumé as well. While working for various financial institutions and as a management consultant, Luis began translating magic books in his spare time. This in turn led him to interpreting, and has culminated in his working for the crème de la crème of the worldwide magic community.
“I must know the tricks they will be performing,” Luis says of his preparation to interpret for a magician. “Essentially I want them to tell me their jokes and funny lines, and to define my range of movement and location on the stage. It’s like having a blueprint, or a roadmap, of the performance. Being a magician myself, I thus know where they are going, and how the routine is going to end, so I don’t feel ‘lost.’”
Being a magician oneself is obviously an imperative for anyone interpreting a magic performance or lecture. Not only for the obvious advantages of understanding the theatrics of performing, but also, again, in preparation. “Preparation also encompasses keeping up to date with magic’s most recent tricks, books, and performers, so you know what to expect. If there’s something I’ve never seen, it usually comes up during our briefing before the show.”
A sense of rhythm
Like Tina, Luis also feels that the interpreter must have a great sense of the cadence of a performance, in order to stay in sync with the artist. Although it depends on the performer, this often means working fast, but in any case it requires taking cues from the performer and offering the same emotions—enthusiasm, intensity, drama—that the performer is trying to convey, including voice inflections, gestures, and facial expressions. The result is that the interpreter is indeed not merely the conduit for what’s being said, but in fact an integral part of the performance. “If you do a good job, the audience erases you from the stage,” says Luis. “They perceive you doing lip-sync with the artist; they put your voice over his mouth … it’s as if you are the artist’s twin brother who happens to have studied Spanish.”
The magicians themselves have a responsibility for the success of their act in front of a foreign audience. “Since interpreters are part of the performance,” says Luis, “most good magicians will choose material that accommodates this situation. For example, in effects where instructions must be given to the audience, they must not be complex. It’s a difficult situation for a spectator to be in, because while physical interaction may occur between the spectator and the performer, aural (listening) interaction occurs between the spectator and the interpreter. And so things must be made as simple and straightforward as possible.”
As for the business end of interpreting, matters such as compensation are dependent, not surprisingly of course, upon the skill and experience of the interpreter. Most interpreters for magic lectures in Spain are not professionals, but those of Luis’s caliber can command above-average fees. “(Magic) Convention organizers see the audience’s response to the interpretation—the overall enhancing effect that it has on people’s appreciation of the performances—and they realize it is worth the fee.”
Who among us would doubt that? We need only think back on the performance described at the beginning of this article to see how demanding such a job would be, and how difficult it would be to do it well.
Sounds like interpreting, doesn’t it?
Feb 1st, 2006 | Continuing Ed., Interpretation, Interviews, Translation | No Comments
By Steve Goldstein
Chuanyun Bao is the Dean of the Graduate School of Translation and Interpretation (GSTI) at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. He has taught at the United Nations Translators and Interpreters Program at Beijing Foreign Studies University and for the Department of Foreign Languages of Xuzhou Normal University. An active member of AIIC, Dean Bao was a staff interpreter at the United Nations Office in Geneva before he joined the T&I faculty at MIIS.
This year marked the 50th anniversary of MIIS. Can you talk a bit about the origins of the school, its history, and the significance of this important milestone?
MIIS was founded by a group of professionals 50 years ago who had a strong belief in training professionals for international careers. The school was first called the Monterey Institute of Foreign Studies, then changed to the present name in the 1960s. The 50th anniversary marks the end of our first period of success in international education and the beginning of a new era represented by our affiliation with Middlebury College. GSTI was founded in 1968, and is unique because it is not a school that focuses on language development; students are required to already have language proficiency as they enter our programs. GSTI provides training in translation and interpretation by the highest professional standards and it is a premier school in the field of translation and interpretation in the US. It has a comprehensive curriculum that covers almost every aspect of training in translation and interpretation, including theories, techniques, professional ethics, public speaking and communicative skills, etc. 95% of our faculty are practicing translators and interpreters with training or experience in teaching.
Describe a typical student in your program.
GSTI enrolls about 95 students a year on average, for our seven language programs. We currently have 190 students, of which more than 60% are from abroad. All have a strong interest in translation and interpretation, an interest in world knowledge, and a strong curiosity in learning new things and meeting new challenges.
GSTI recently announced the new MATLM (Masters of Arts in Translation and Localization Management) program. Can you talk about the program a bit, and how it came about?
As more and more of our students have been hired as project managers for localization projects, we recognized the need for more professionals who have language and translation skills as well as knowhow in localization technologies. The MATLM program is unique in that it has three essential components: Tranlsation, Business Management, and Localization Technologies. This combination is made possible by the strong interdisciplinary nature of the programs at MIIS.
You’ve referred to T&I as being an art and a science. In your view, what is the art, and what is the science?
First of all, T&I are a science because they have their rules and norms. Professional training is a scientific and systematic process in which students learn these rules and norms and thus acquire the skills as well as the theoretical knowledge base of translation and interpretation. But it is not enough to know these rules and norms: they must be internalized to become part of your subconscious behavior so that when you use them, they would come out naturally, without much thinking. When one can use these skills as naturally as one’s subconscious self, T&I would become an art. In general, you learn T&I as a science and you practice them as an art—of course after much practice.
With the return of the Winter Olympics this month, can you speak about MIIS’s close association with the Olympic Games?
Dr. Bill Weber, a former dean of the Department of Translation and Interpretation at MIIS, has been actively involved in interpretation for the Olympics. Thanks to his efforts, faculty and students from MIIS were involved in the Los Angeles Games, the Atlanta Centennial Games, the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, and a few other winter Olympic Games. In the Atlanta Olympic Games in 1996, as many as 40% of the professional interpreters had either worked or studied at MIIS or were then-faculty members; in addition, a number of students worked as volunteers at the game.
Did you see the movie “The Interpreter”? What did you think of it?
I think it is a good movie, although some of the scenes of interpretation are not how interpreters work in real life. I like the movie because it helps the public know what an interpreter is. As a matter of fact, the original title of the movie was “The Translator.” Thanks to our interpreter colleagues at the United Nations Headquarters in New York who explained to the crew the differences between a translator and an interpreter, we now have a movie that is not only entertaining, but also an education to the public about interpretation.
Feb 1st, 2006 | Court Interpretation, Interpretation, Reports | No Comments
By Michael Schubert
Launched in 1997, the State Commission on Access to Justice is chartered with exploring ways to improve access to civil justice for low- and moderate-income Californians. The Commission’s new policy paper, “Language Barriers to Justice in California,” documents the need for increased court-interpreter resources in the Golden State.
In our profession and with our various backgrounds, NCTA members know first-hand that California is home to one of the most ethnically, racially, and linguistically diverse populations on the planet. According to data from the 2000 census, roughly 26% of California’s 34 million residents are foreign-born, representing over 220 languages! This extraordinary diversity can be a great asset to the artistic landscape and to the general marketplace of ideas and perspectives, but it also poses huge cultural and linguistic challenges for providers of government services.
These challenges become clearer when one delves further into the census data: a full 10% of California’s 2000 population arrived during the 1990s, and rates of immigration continue to rise. More importantly, 20% of Californians speak English less than “very well,” meaning that they require an interpreter when appearing in court as a defendant, litigant, or witness.
While criminal defendants, witnesses, parties in small claims cases, and parties in a narrow class of civil cases have the right to an interpreter, no such right has been recognized for parties in most civil cases, including evictions, repossessions, creditor/debtor cases, wage garnishments, and family law matters. The judge may assign an interpreter at his or her discretion, but, not surprisingly, there is usually a lack of state funds available to pay the costs when the affected parties are unable to. The issue touches on the need for written translation services as well, since most court forms are available only in English. Even where such forms exist in another language, by law they still must be submitted and filed in English.
Aggravating the growing need for court interpreter services has been a concurrent shrinking of California’s pool of qualified interpreters. Court records show that between 1995 and 2005, the number of certified court interpreters for Spanish, Korean, Vietnamese, Cantonese, Arabic, Japanese, Tagalog, and Portuguese fell from 1,665 to 1,238—a 25% drop! The decline in Spanish interpreters, who make up 88% of this pool, has been nearly 30%. In desperation, the courts have been forced to rely on unqualified interpreters, including relatives and children, with the predictably dubious results for the administration of justice that hardly needs emphasizing among Translorial readers.
Court administrators have stepped up their efforts to attract and retain qualified interpreters, including the launching of a pilot program incorporating specialized telephone equipment, workshops, recruitment campaigns, collaboration with UC Berkeley and UCLA, better cooperation with local courts, and a redesign of the court interpreter program website. The single greatest problem hampering all of these efforts, however, is the lack of adequate funding. Compensation for California’s certified and registered court interpreters currently stands at $265 per day and $147 per half day, significantly lower than rates at the federal level and far below private-sector prices.
The Commission on Access to Justice outlines five principal recommendations:
- Adopt a comprehensive language access policy for courts.
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Develop specific recommendations to implement language access policy.
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Compile existing data and conduct additional research.
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Reevaluate system for recruitment, training, compensation, and certification of court interpreters.
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Evaluate role of lawyers and bar associations, legal services programs, law schools, and law libraries.
The Commission’s full 68-page report is posted at http://www.calbar.ca.gov/ under “Reports” in the left-hand column. The Commission explicitly welcomes the feedback, suggestions, or contributions of NCTA members!
Feb 1st, 2006 | Event Interpretation, Interpretation, Reports, Sports Interpretation, Translation | No Comments
By Michael Schubert
With the Olympic Winter Games returning to the world stage this month in Turin, Italy, we take a look at what’s behind the decidedly Olympian efforts of our translating and interpreting colleagues—including NCTA members!
Survey the mainstream media for information on how translation and interpretation services for the Olympic Games are handled and you’ll find yourself tripping again and again over such tired phrases as “lost in translation” and “Babel,” interspersed with predictable anecdotes about mix-ups in the mixed zone and confusion at the conferences. Frustration with the pace of consecutive and relay interpreting at media events is another common theme. This scenario seems credible enough, given that the most recent games (2004 in Athens) drew some 10,500 athletes from 202 countries and territories.
Speak with professional translators and interpreters who have actually been in the thick of this prestigious, global, athletic megaevent, however, and a very different picture emerges. Four NCTA members with Olympic experience were of one mind that not only was the quality of the professional linguist teams top-notch but that the honor and excitement of being part of such an important undertaking eclipsed any negative aspects.
The MIIS Connection
Who recruits and coordinates these elite teams? Wilhelm (Bill) Weber and Daniel Glon are part of a common thread in the organization of translation and interpreting services for past Olympic games, as is the local institution—and NCTA corporate member—with which they share a long association, the Monterey Institute of International Studies. Not surprisingly, Mr. Weber and Mr. Glon have résumés that sparkle with not only linguistic distinction but athletic prowess.
A native of Geneva and an accomplished equestrian, Bill Weber was Dean of the Graduate School of Translation and Interpretation of MIIS from 1978 to 1992. His involvement with the Olympics goes all the way back to the 1968 Winter Games in Grenoble, and the International Olympic Committee remains an important client of Language Services International, his formerly California-based and now Hawaii-based company. When the Olympics came to Los Angeles in 1984, Mr. Weber directed International Olympic Committee officials to the incredible talent pool among MIIS students, alumni, and staff, and from these circles a total of 30 interpreters and 15 translators were hired to work in Los Angeles that year. Mr. Weber subsequently served as Chief Interpreter for the games in Calgary (1988), Atlanta (1996), and Salt Lake City (2002), and describes the Olympics as akin to a mini United Nations.
Past MIIS professor and native Frenchman Daniel Glon is a cycling buff and former racer and played rugby at a national level. Mr. Glon began translating for the Olympics at the Munich games in 1972. Most recently, Mr. Glon served as Chief Translator for the 2002 Salt Lake City games. Mr. Glon is founder and president of AILOS (Association internationale des Linguistes Olympiques et Sportifs), a non-profit working to bring together translators and interpreters with sports expertise to meet the needs of sports organizations and events organizers worldwide. He also created the French-English site www.supralingua.com. In an interview available there, Mr. Glon describes the work of Olympic translators as involving a lot of legal and medical documents as well as the official daily newspaper, the Olympic Record. He speaks of the huge glossaries that he and Mr. Weber and their teams manage—technical lingo for bobsled racing or figure skating, for example, plus terminology for newly added disciplines.
Scale and Scope
Every written document associated with the games must, according to Olympic guidelines, exist in the two official Olympic languages, French and English. This means a bounty of work for French translators like NCTA member Christiane Abel of West Point, California. Christiane holds a Master of Arts degree in Translation and Interpretation from MIIS. Her association with MIIS and Bill Weber led to her recruitment for the 1996 summer games in Atlanta. For one full month before and two weeks during the games, Christiane worked as part of team of 15 French translators in two shifts translating everything from menus, Olympic Village signage, Atlanta mass transit information and, of course, the Olympic Record. The modern office space featured workstations equipped with IBM Translation Manager software. Despite the tight deadlines, horrendous traffic and housing reminiscent of college days, Christiane savored being part of what she described as an excellent team, and formed good working relationships with colleagues that have lasted to this day.
Another aspect of Olympic translating is the big-screen information at the Olympic stadium and other venues, seen around the world by millions. Agnew Tech-II of Westlake Village, California, founded in 1986 by President and CEO Irene Agnew, collaborated with Big Screen Network Productions to translate its video board programming from English to Greek for every venue and sport at the 2004 Summer Olympic Games and Paralympic Games in Athens, Greece.
Olympic interpreters work assisting the media in interviewing athletes when- and wherever they can, at the post-medal ceremony press conferences and at meetings of the International Olympic Committee and its commissions. Interpreters must prepare by familiarizing themselves with the rules and regulations of the various Olympic sports, the names of previous medal winners and current favorites, athletes’ biographies, and more. But the most challenging interpreting work may be in the so-called “mixed zone,” the area through which athletes pass between their performance venue and the locker room. Media hounds hungry for a word from the star performers jostle for a front-row spot here; shouting is common and even fistfights have broken out. The chaos of this scene naturally exacerbates the job of the interpreter.
Depending on the infrastructure and budgeting/organizational priorities set by the local committee, interpreting at the post-medal ceremony conferences will be simultaneous, consecutive, or even relayed. Where no budget or obligation for professional interpreters exists, volunteers pick up slack. Some sports are so competitive and culturally significant—basketball and soccer, for example—that the national team will hold a press conference regardless of whether it won a medal.
NCTA Olympians
In addition to Christiane Abel, several other NCTA members have Olympic T&I experience on their resumés. Andrea Hofmann-Miller is a German translator and interpreter, and an alumnus of MIIS as well, where she earned the degree Master of Arts in Translation and Interpretation. While there, she met Bill Weber, who recruited her for the games in Atlanta (1996) and Salt Lake City (2002). Before and during the games, Andrea provided both simultaneous and consecutive interpreting services, mainly into her native German. She remembers with fondness the ebullient atmosphere before the opening ceremony and at the pre-Games interviews, when no one had yet been branded a “winner” or “loser.” The presence of many international luminaries and their social and environmental involvement were another highlight.
NCTA member and newly elected ATA board member Jacki Noh, a professional Korean interpreter, was contracted by Bill Weber for the games in Atlanta (1996), Sydney (2000) and Salt Lake City (2002). She describes the highlight of her Olympic work as simply “being there,” and she enjoyed cheering on the Korean teams. Jacki interpreted for both the North and South Korean contingents. Compensation for professional Olympic interpreters is according to terms of the International Association of Conference Interpreters (AIIC), and Jacki describes the pay as competitive, though less so for her Sydney stint because of the exchange rate of the Australian dollar. Despite the stress and travel, however, Jacki regards her involvement with three Olympiads to be a highlight of her career.
Yet another graduate of MIIS, NCTA member Shan Young Tsen, was also recruited by Bill Weber, and worked as a simultaneous interpreter in her native Mandarin in Atlanta (1996) and as a consecutive interpreter in Salt Lake City (2002). The experience was an enjoyable one that she would definitely do again and recommend to others. Shan recalls her self-study crash course in ice hockey terminology and her delight in watching her first-ever ice hockey event as the Chinese women’s team competed.
Shan has no insider information on the 2008 Beijing Games but presumes they will wish to draw first on local translators and interpreters. The press conference hall for Beijing 2008 has already been equipped with a wireless simultaneous translation system. Though the Chinese translation market has grown in leaps and bounds recently to keep pace with China’s growing importance as a global business power, reports indicate that the country still faces an alarming shortage of high-quality professional translators.
Related sites
www.olympic.org Official site of the Olympic Movement (English, French)
www.torino2006.org Official site of the XX Olympic Winter Games in Turin, Italy (English, French, Italian)
http://en.beijing-2008.org Official site of the Games of the XXIX Olympiad in Beijing, China (English, French, Mandarin)
www.aiic.net International Association of Conference Interpreters, Geneva, Switzerland (English, French and selected content in additional languages)
www.miis.edu Monterey Institute of International Studies, California
www.lsiusa.net Language Services International, Inc., Hawaii
www.agnew.com Agnew Tech-II, Westlake Village, California
Dec 1st, 2005 | Continuing Ed., Getting Started, Interpretation, Localization, Reports, Translation | No Comments
By Raffaella Buschazzio and Peter A. Gergay
Getting Started in T&I
On October 15th, NCTA welcomed over 50 people to our workshop, “Getting Started in T&I.” Norma Kaminsky, an M.D. and an ATA-certified English-Spanish translator in medical, pharmaceutical, and other health-related subjects, opened the workshop by sharing basic concepts for beginning translators, presenting the pros and cons of working for agencies, direct clients, and in-house, and the resources translators need, from office space to computers and software, to a well-stocked library.
Jacki Noh, a Korean translator/interpreter specializing in a variety of fields, continued the workshop by focusing on interpretation. She began her presentation by underlining how essential it is for an interpreter to be truly bilingual and bicultural, and to have intellectual curiosity. Then she explained the distinctions between modes and types of interpretation, going into detail on how to become a court and healthcare interpreter.
The workshop ended with a presentation by Karl Kaussen, founder and proprietor of Biotext LLC. Dr. Kaussen focused on the translator-agency relationship, providing useful advice on how to be competitive, how to build up a good reputation among agencies, and how to discuss rates – a ticklish question and not only for newbies in the field! R.B.
Introduction to Software Localization
Some 40 NCTA members attended an informative “Introduction to Software Localization” seminar on October 29th, led by Angelika Zerfass, a recognized leader in the industry. Ms. Zerfass spoke about the concept and practice of localization (l10n) currently sweeping the translation market. She defined localization as “the process of adapting a product or software to a specific culture or geographical area so that the translation flows naturally to the users in that particular region.”
Ms. Zerfass emphasized the need to have a valid localization plan, a project structure, and access to current and valid files, to counter the many things that may go wrong in the areas of templates, translation memories, abbreviations, and more, sometimes due simply to plain inattentiveness to seemingly minor but essential details.
Our shrinking world and an ever-expanding global marketplace clearly point to localization as the wave of the future – something, Ms. Zerfass indicated, that many good translators have been doing in their work already, without being aware of the formal name of the process. P.A.G.
Dec 1st, 2005 | Agencies, Interpretation, Reports, Translation, Web services | No Comments
By Stafford Hemmer
In September, NCTA members were invited to participate in a 25-question online survey of their experiences and opinions of translation and interpretation broker sites. Thanks to the contributions of 57 translators and interpreters, and 6 agencies or industry agents, we are now able to offer a member-based assessment of the T&I marketplace on the Web.
Responses to the multiple choice/open comment survey questions cut a broad swath of sentiment, from the favorable (“My experience is quite good. I’ve made contact with many employers through ProZ.com, and several of them have continued to contact me for other projects”) through the web-curious (“I have very little contact with them, but would be interested in finding the useful ones.”) to the quite unflattering (“It does not work. It is definitely not the real world out there.”).
Yet the T&I market continues to be an underused (which isn’t to say untapped) resource for a variety of reasons. Perhaps the most salient indicator is that three-quarters of the respondents have joined at least one T&I website through free membership (suggesting that the resource has indeed been “tapped”), whereas a whopping 68 percent express frustration at having never gotten a job, or found a contractor, from T&I websites (which may explain the “underused”status of the resource).
A few grains of salt regarding the survey: despite generous support from 63 survey participants, many respondents decided to skip one or more questions here and there. Hence, the first 13 questions were short of the full 63 responses by a range of 12-19 responses. The decision to “skip” increased exponentially for the subsequent 10 questions. It is unclear what prompted survey participants to skip questions: unclear wording, too many questions, or some other reason. The consequence is that the percentages discussed in this article reflect the responses of those who replied to a specific question, and not the sentiments of the group as a whole. All percentages have been rounded.
Additionally, the survey allowed for respondents to answer “I do not participate in the bidding process at all” to three different questions, resulting in three different percentages. While these variations are mentioned below, bear in mind they are cited within the context of the respective questions posed in the survey.
Membership
The virtual T&I market is familiar terrain to NCTA members. Respondents confessed to having signed on, for free, to at least 1-3 sites (67%) or even as many as 4-6 sites (11%). By contrast, 23% indicated they hold no free memberships. This was perhaps a common choice among those translators who, as one respondent indicated, “ … don’t use T&I websites because I have enough work from reliable sources that I know are reliable and pay what is fair without the extra hassle.” The chances are good that this latter group has opted out of T&I websites altogether: when it comes to taking that extra step and upgrading to fee-based membership, 59% of respondents decided against, while the remaining 41% limited payments to only 1-3 websites. Of those, 26% pay over $100 in combined annual dues. While 16% of respondents believe upgrading is significant to optimizing website exposure, another 18% regarded this as of minor importance, and 18% felt it made no difference at all.
If a T&I broker were to attend an NCTA meeting in the hope of increasing hermember base, she should brace herself for disappointment: exactly 0% of respondents were inspired to upload resumes to a broker’s website on the basis of a conference presentation. Using the survey results as an indicator, the most effective method for a broker to increase its client base is to trawl for prospects through a mass email that includes a start-up free membership offer (33%). Almost as many respondents (30%) were encouraged to sign up by colleague recommendations, while 15% joined websites based on Internet advertising. An equal number said they never join T&I websites.
The bidding process
If resource utilization is proportionate to login activity, then the survey results established that the web-based T&I market is largely ignored by NCTA professionals. The benefits of membership privileges are negligible to the majority of those respondents who said they used broker websites, since 40% indicated they logged in less than once a week, compared with 23% who login 2-4 times per week, and 14% who login every day. Although finding job offers/contractors was rated as one of the most important features of T&I websites, the relative inactivity among NCTA members is further reflected by the 43% of NCTA professionals who, when asked if they would lower rates to win a bid, said they did not participate in the bidding process at all.
“Membership rates should be based on how many jobs you actually get via the website,” suggested one respondent, “I’ve paid $30 but have gotten exactly zero jobs.” This perspective is likely shared by the 68% of translators and interpreters who have never gotten a contract from a website, or the agencies that have not awarded a contract through a website. While nearly 21% reported a successful bidding experience within the last 60 days, only two respondents (less than 5%) reported having any real success within the last seven days. Another respondent complained, “These sites seem to be designed for either extremely specialized, high-end work, or extreme bargain basement prices, with nothing for the rest of us.”
Income
The “bottom feeder” phenomenon to which the above respondent alludes is indeed a common complaint among those who have struggled with website job searches. “The prices are always below what I could afford to charge,” that same survey respondent continued. This disparity in pay rates may be reflected in the 60% who, when asked what percentage of income they attributed exclusively to T&I websites, indicated they do not participate in the bidding process at all. Would it make a difference if an interpreter lowered his rates in order to win a bid? Despite the fact that 24% of respondents said they would never lower their rates, 17% would consider a reduction of 1-10%, and 5 respondents (11%) said they would even consider lowering rates up to 20% in some circumstances. Not an entirely unreasonable proposition if a project is big enough or a client important enough for the service provider to offer entry-level rates.
Still, competition is no picnic for any job seeker. The online T&I marketplace can turn the battle into a feeding frenzy. It is difficult to match the lower rates offered by competitors who can snap up job offers quickly when the net is cast 10 time zones east or west of the Left Coast, where the cost of living may be a fraction of the Bay Area’s. So it should come as no surprise that 40% of NCTA members who were asked to rate the bidding process overall said they never participate, while 34% of respondents rate the bidding process as “an enormously frustrating waste of time,” and a mere 21% use it as “a backup resource when the river’s dry.” Only one respondent felt the bidding process to be an invaluable resource overall. As for results, 25% estimated that less than 10% of their efforts resulted in contracts, and only one individual felt he or she had a greater than 50% success rate in the bidding process.
Features
Show me the money: When it comes to money matters, 37% attribute less than a quarter of their income to T&I websites, while 60% do not use the websites for income-generating purposes. So is it the other website features that inspire language professionals to open up or maintain memberships to these sites?
As mentioned earlier, the top-rated feature among survey respondents was paradoxically “job assignments/hiring contractors.” This was followed by “payment practices/contractor ratings” and “forums and other translator/interpreter/agency contacts.” By contrast, the one feature considered “totally useless” was “teamwork on projects.” Promotions of T&I software, books, and other resources were considered “superfluous, but interesting,” while online glossaries were rated as “interesting and sometimes useful” by a majority of respondents.
Half the respondents said they never submitted a terminology question to a website. This was followed by 34% stating they submitted terminology questions only as a last resort. As for replies, 42% of respondents said they never post replies to terminology questions, whereas 40% post replies only on an occasional, ad hoc basis. Only one respondent said he or she responded frequently. Overall, the terminology assistance was seen as somewhat reliable, but it doesn’t always hit the mark (56%), whereas 22% felt the assistance was not very reliable.
The envelope, please: based on the votes tallied, the award for the best broker website in the virtual world goes to … ProZ.com. Interestingly, the site also bears the dubious distinction of being voted the worst website as well. Indeed, it was the single website cited most by name in both categories. Oddly enough, the same phenomenon applies to the websites which tied for second place—Aquarius.net and TranslatorsCafe, which were likewise voted both winner and loser in equal measure.
Winners and Losers
This equivocation characterizes the broker survey overall: sites were voted best and worst simultaneously, called useless by default and yet useful by chance, or esteemed as an invaluable resource and a complete waste of money. Harvesting the most from a broker membership ultimately depends on the specific needs of the individual translator, interpreter, or agency. The broker phenomenon is well known to NCTA members, and the reasons for accessing or ignoring the benefits and features of these websites are as diverse as the variety of language groups they serve.
Perspectives
On the negative side
“I am negative on T&I sites since members have no credentials (some exceptions of course exist) and jobs almost always [go] to the lowest bidder which in a global market means working peanuts per word. This is a totally out-of-date system of assigning value and so is the Euro per-page concept. Our clients get a fixed, hourly-rate quote based on deadline (and difficulty).“
On the positive side
“It is mainly important as a marketing tool and to stay on top of the new developments in the business. You can sometimes establish durable client/translator relationships. I noticed that very qualified agencies also bid on these sites.”
And some sage advice
“I bid on ProZ.com jobs only during my dry periods. I only bid on jobs that appear serious. I never alter my standard rates. The ‘serious’ jobs (i.e. rates acceptable for U.S. cost of living, reliable payers, etc.) may only account for 10% of the jobs posted, and I may only be awarded 10% of the jobs I bid on, but that has nonetheless resulted in tens of thousands of dollars in work over the past few years and often a steady, direct relationship with the outsourcer. My advice is, therefore: first sort the wheat (10%) from the chaff (90%), then bid on jobs that suit you and your specialties. Be prepared to lose most bids, but one successful bid, especially if it leads to followup work, can easily justify the annual fee and the time invested with the site.”
Dec 1st, 2005 | Interpretation, Reports, Sports Interpretation | No Comments
By Carolina Arrigoni-Shea
How do you say “Strike three!” in Portuguese? Or explain the concept of football’s (that is, American football’s) “first down,” to the Lithuanian mother of an NFL rookie watching her son play his first game? How do you help a Chinese basketball star navigate the DMV in order to get his U.S. driver’s license? This is where personal interpreters for professional athletes enter the game.
In these highly interconnected times, the need for building bridges across linguistic (and cultural) boundaries continues to expand at a rapid speed, opening new and interesting doors for translators and interpreters. One such door is that into the world of sports, where the work is a far cry from sitting in an interpreter’s booth in a courtroom, or delving deep into technical dossiers to translate an important document. In fact, one might say it’s even fun!
The Calling
What if you could call the home of the Oakland Athletics your office? Baseball fans would probably not mind that. Nor does Yohei Fukuda, 22, the interpreter for the A’s Japanese reliever Keiichi Yabu. Last July, Mr. Fukuda – a former Cal Berkeley soccer player with a bachelor’s degree in Economics – was selected by the pitcher himself, out of a small pool of candidates put together by the A’s manager. The position was offered “through internal networking, rather than a public job opening process,” explained Mr. Fukuda.
You may wonder what made Yohei Fukuda the ideal match for the job. In his view, there were two major forces in play: heritage and sports. American-born to Japanese parents, Mr. Fukuda has been in close contact with his parents’ native culture since early childhood, speaking Japanese with his parents all the time at home, as well as visiting friends and relatives in Japan about once a year. And as for formal training, he attended Japanese school every Saturday growing up, and later took advanced Japanese classes at UC Berkeley during college.
Additionally, Mr. Fukuda believes that his passion for sports was another decisive point. “One crucial factor that made me suitable for this job was the fact that I had been involved in sports all my life. I can relate the A’s team sport atmosphere to the times when I was playing college soccer at Berkeley,” said the interpreter. Granted that soccer and baseball are very different sports, nonetheless “the idea of team achievement and being involved with staff, coaches, and players is nearly identical,”he added.
Colin Pine’s job as personal interpreter for the towering 7’5” Chinese basketball star Yao Ming was launched differently, as the search to fill the position was a very formal affair. In 2002, the Houston Chronicle reported that about 390 people (including Mr. Pine) applied for the opening of fulltime fulltime interpreter for the then newly-arrived-to-the-U.S. Yao. Said Erick Zhang, the athlete’s advisor and cousin, “I was looking for personality, technical skill, and firsthand knowledge of China; someone who wouldn’t melt under public scrutiny, or go to a bar every night, and someone whose age gap with Yao wasn’t too great.” The required due diligence and a set of interviews with a select group of applicants followed, culminating in the selection of Mr. Pine, an English major in his late twenties who lived and worked in Taipei for three years, and then joined U.S. State Department as a translator. With his selection as Yao’s interpreter, Mr. Pine instantly rose from anonymity to the high-profile environment of the National Basketball Association.
Jane Yin, a Chinese-American public relations consultant in the field of sports, also served as an interpreter for Chinese athletes in the U.S. In 2003, she joined the marketing office of BDA Sports Management, an agency serving professional basketball players, including Yao. While at BDA, her bicultural upbringing allowed her to seize a very interesting opportunity: interpreting for several members of China’s national basketball team who would be traveling to the United States to undergo various medical treatments.
Ms. Yin’s first assignment was providing assistance to the men’s team forward, Gong SongLin. “He didn’t have anyone that could help interpret for him – help him get settled, and understand what the surgery meant,” said Ms. Yin. “And, what would happen after.” Being the only person in the agency who spoke Mandarin Chinese, Ms. Yin took on the challenge. Later, Ye Li, the center for the women’s national team (and Yao Ming’s girlfriend) came to the States for knee surgery, and Ms. Yin was again called to the rescue. “It was very unique,”she explained. In fact, she was sent on these assignments by the sports agency as a favor to its client Yao Ming, who was concerned for his teammates’ well-being during their stay in America.
On the Job
So, once you land an interpreting job in professional sports, what is it like? During the Oakland A’s busy season schedule, Yohei Fukuda and pitcher Keiichi Yabu spend days (and weeks) in a row together. Mr. Fukuda does the same amount of traveling as all the players. “Some trips are three days at one city, whereas others are more than 10 days – and include going to three cities,” he commented. The same is true for Yao Ming’s interpreter. Colin Pine sits behind the Houston Rockets’ bench during games, attends every practice, and follows Yao all over the map, both around the United States with the Rockets, and in China when the player returns to his homeland during the off-season.
And yet, the job description is not limited to providing language assistance during trips with the team, media appearances, or strategy sessions with the coaches. Player and interpreter become “inseparable,” in the full sense of the word. Outside of sports, professional athletes rely on their interpreters for everyday activities such as going to the bank, getting a dentist appointment, and calling the phone company to request a repair. During the two-month period of Ye Li’s surgery and rehabilitation, for example, Ye Li and her interpreter were roommates. “I taught her how to drive, ” said Ms. Yin. “Toward the end we had two objectives in mind: to rehab her knee, and then to get her driver’s license.”
With such close and constant contact, good rapport between interpreter and player is key. And in fact, a bond is created between them that goes beyond a strict business relationship. Yohei Fukuda says he enjoys talking to Yabu about what’s going on with his life and about news that the player finds interesting, so that they can build their relationship not solely as co-workers, but also as friends. “We play cards before games, go shopping together, and eat out when we’re on the road all the time,” shared Mr. Fukuda. In a way, the interpreter becomes one of the player’s biggest fans:“You grow very close to these people … and because they are athletes, you want to see them win,” admitted Ms. Yin.
Unofficial Interpreting
While interpreter assistance to the non-English speaking athlete in the United States is invaluable, not all players born outside our national borders, obviously, enjoy the privilege of being assigned a personal interpreter. Many of them – as is common in the case of Latin American players – have to brave the linguistic and cultural challenge with the help of bilingual teammates, or other bona fide bilingual participants of the corporate machine that is professional sports.
One of these “informal linguists” is Luis Alberto Torres, a veteran sports journalist and Spanish media coordinator for the San Francisco Giants since 1993. Although interpreting is not part of his duties, Mr. Torres often assists Spanish-speaking players when they are interviewed by local reporters. Keeping a very low profile, the Colombian-born media coordinator makes sure athletes fully understand the questions posed to them, and helps with their replies as needed.
“You live your life through their life.”
Working 24/7
Being the personal interpreter for a major name in sports requires being on call 24/7, in the sense that the interpreter needs to be available whenever the player needs him or her. As Ms. Yin put it, “You live your life through their life.” Although this may seem an undue sacrifice to some, for the professionals interviewed for this piece the benefits far outweighed the costs.
These interpreters are also aware that their current positions have a limited duration; as they help their athletes become stronger in their English skills, they will eventually be able to go about their lives in the United States by themselves. In the end, though, these interpreters feel most fortunate about what they experience on the job. Apart from their salaries – which our interpreters agreed tend to vary with the circumstances – they learn tremendously from their players’ culture, they visit new places, and get to know people who might otherwise be inaccessible.
And, perhaps one of the biggest perks: they watch live sports almost every day!
Did you know?
The varieties of Spanish spoken by Major League Baseball’s Latin American players call for a strong knowledge of regional “baseball lingo.” Over the years, Luis A. Torres has compiled a thorough glossary of Spanish regional terms. Examples: an “outfielder” is known as jardinero (gardener) in Venezuela, guardabosques (forest ranger) in Puerto Rico, and a patrullero (patrolman) in Mexico.
Although Yohei Fukuda (22) and Keiichi Yabu (37) are 15 years apart, age difference is not an issue in their relationship. “Yabu jokes around all the time. He’s young in his mind,”says Mr. Fukuda.
Of the 829 players on Major League Baseball’s 30 teams in 2005, 242, or about 30%, were born outside the United States. This is up from 23.6 percent in 2000.
Foreign athletes are also a growing force in the NBA, featuring players from 34 countries - hailing from such distant regions as China, Lithuania, and Argentina.
The author wishes to thank Luis Alberto Torres, Jane Yin, Yohei Fukuda, and Kristy Fick for their generous cooperation in contributing to this story
Sep 1st, 2005 | Agencies, Interpretation, Reports, Translation, Web services | No Comments
By Stafford Hemmer
Translation and interpretation broker sites: love them or hate them, you can no longer ignore them. In this first of two articles, Stafford Hemmer examines the growing phenomenon of the web-based T&I marketplace. In addition, he asks you to relate your own experiences in a survey, which he will analyze and report on in our December issue.
“Dear Translator! Company XYZ invites you to join our database of professional translators, interpreters, and agencies …”
Sound familiar? Merely being listed as an ATA member will land you at least one of these enticing emails. Who are these people?
Who indeed. They are the relatively new kid on the block in the T&I marketplace—a “new” kid that follows the model of other industries in using the Internet to the advantage of all parties in a transaction. They are the broker site. And they raise interesting questions regarding the ways in which translation buyers and sellers can come together. Where ATA and NCTA online referral services offer one set of advantages, those tend to focus on the respective association’s overall purposes, with translator and interpreter referrals an added (albeit crucial) perk. With broker sites, one must wonder about the prudence of investing in T&I services marketed online. What does the plethora of auction sites have to offer the freelancer or agency? How does a freelancer or agency navigate these websites without getting sucked into a vortex of global bidding wars? How does the user know which site is worth the expenditure of time and money, and which site leads to a dead end?
Unlike agencies, which are corporate entities subject to the governing jurisprudence and tax practices of their domiciles, T&I websites are global marketplaces for vendors and clients. Here, translators typically negotiate job terms (timing, format, payment) directly with a client found on the broker sites. As such, caveat emptor applies: eliminating the agency may have its benefit (no third-party fees), but in direct relationships, both sides dispense with the risk protection an agency offers (QA and liability insurance, among other protections).
One of the best known of these organizations is ProZ (or at least best-advertised: “Tradosis a ProZ.com Partner” boasted the back-cover ad of the April 2005 ATA Chronicle). Founded in 1999, the company defines itself as “a directory of translation services by freelance language translators and translation agencies.” The banner for another popular website, “aquarius.net – reloaded!” extols the power of its new and improved homepage for “the market leader in translation outsourcing … with an ever-expanding network of language specialists and translation customers.” GoTranslators lays claim to a more modest existence as a “world translation directory.” Admittedly, its world is limited to 30 languages. The common thread? Translation & interpretation broker sites are Internet websites that connect T&I buyers with T&I sellers.
Benefits
Beyond this shared purpose, each site distinguishes itself through a variety of distinctive bells and whistles, intended to add value and create synergy in a collaborative virtual office environment. Among its many useful services, offers a weekly report that informs participants how many times their profile was viewed, and how much that profile was “promoted” by the site. The “Content Hit Parade” on keeps translators abreast of the most popular topics and software among users. To lure its members out of their translation caves and into a real live café for an in-person with neighboring translators, established its “Powwow” service. The re-launched site allows users to create “groups” for team communications and ostensibly project communication management through its “Friends, Teams, and Ignore” lists. For freelancers who risk accepting work from an unknown client, shared information on payment practices is an indispensable resource. The sites also fill the void in client education with concise articulation of business conditions.
To some, online collaboration with fellow language professionals on terminology questions is invaluable. Some websites offer incentive bonuses to participants in such exchanges. For the asker, getting the right term is the obvious bonus, although at times it may be slow in coming—a key drawback when you’re in a time crunch. For the respondent earning “KudoZ” points, for example, the precise answer to a perplexing terminology question will boost credentials in the ProZ marketplace; ostensibly, outsourcers seek out high-scoring translators. I have accumulated exactly zero KudoZ points, because I post my own terminology questions to the GLD (German Language Division) list of ATA. That community provides me with virtually immediate and highly reliable answers, and typically provokes stimulating conversation.
It’s possible, then, that one might see more job offers from ProZ if more time is put into researching and answering other people’s terminology questions. The same holds true for other websites as well: “The more Conges points a TRADUguide member has, the more he/she will move towards the top of the TRADUguide translators’ list.” Not a day goes by without a Conges question in my email box posted by a TRADUguide user in desperation. If I know the answer and have time, I will post an answer and, if lucky (and precise), get the coveted points. But I am astonished at times when assistance is required for terms as basic as eins, zwei, drei.
Membership and bidding
Typically, “membership,” whether free or fee, is offered to any taker. Yes, this means anyone, from the person who has two years of high school French to the most pedigreed Arabic-speaking linguist … and everyone in between. Some websites do make a stated effort to “certify” the qualificationsonline. Sign up for Global Vision’s database, for instance, and each of your three references will be emailed a recommendation request as soon as you hit the “submit” button.
“Free membership” is invariably a lure to the better exposure, greater access (e.g., ProZ’s “Blue Board”) and more work promised by “professional membership upgrades.” While brokers make money from advertisers, endorsements, product sales, and sometimes client fees—occasionallytying membership upgrades to product purchases (“Hello, WordFast 5.0!”)—membership fees are a main source of funds for the websites (the broker needs to pay rent too). Different tiers of membership mean you pay for different levels of exposure. Your faith in upgrading from Economy to Business or First Class membership on Aquarius may ease the turbulence you feel when the work conditions are rough. Both TRADUguide and GoTranslators remind non-paying members that such status relegates them to the job offer notifications 12 hours after paying members. Since time is money in this global market place, such a delay likely means someone else wins the bid.
Still, this “open door policy” invites the harshest criticism of the brokering business. Case in point: take the Spanish>English translator, who, assuming she submits a timely offer, bids on a 10,000-word contract at her rate of US$0.12/word. She loses to another translator who may be a non-native speaker living in a country whose lingua franca may be English, and where the competing offer of $0.03/word supports that standard of living. While the T&I buyer might receive a poor-quality translation, if he ferrets the work for “proofreading and editing” to another professional, at $0.04/word, he nets a translation at almost half the cost offered by the native-speaking (and presumably better) translator. This phenomenon makes it extremely difficult to compete in the global market and begs the question: what’s the point of paying for greater exposure on a website, when in the end, you’d have to cut your rates in half to win a contract?
Other models
There are other portals for translators and clients having different formats than the T&I broker website. A company like Choice Translating describes itself as an agency with in-house translators (covered by its liability insurance) that also hires freelancers to meet excess demand. While a freelancer may apply to become a member of the company’s database, the added “perks” mentioned above are not part of the deal, because the freelancer is working for the agency, not directly for the client. Webtra.com is a similar type of companythat has a particular focus on localization and, although multi-lingual in scope, emphasizes its Spanish-language capabilities. Textpark.de is a small shop that’s thinking big: a website now expanding its scope beyond its German-only environment. At the complete other end of the spectrum, the focus of a language-specific website like Übersetzerportal is on industry issues in the German language, even though it also offers job search facilities.
Weigh in and be heard
What is your own experience with broker sites? In the interest of stimulating a constructive, frank, and comprehensive discussion of the subject, we’d like to hear from you, via a survey at the NCTA website. Here, we invite NCTA interpreters, agencies, and translators to give voice to whatever perspectives you may have: positive, negative, or neutral. Through the data gathered, we hope to be able to publish, in Part Two of this series, an objective assessment of the sites, and, with luck, answer difficult questions that cannot be covered in an overview. To participate in the survey, visit http://tinyurl.com/4s57p.
Resources
Aquarius: One of the pioneers, recently remodeled, claiming to be the market leader in translation outsourcing. http://www.aquarius.net/
Babelport: Informs participants weekly on how many times their profile was viewed, and how much that profile was “promoted” by the site. http://babelport.com/
Global Vision: Automatically sends a recommendation request to each of the three references you enter when registering. http://www.globalvis.com/
GoTranslators: Dubs itself as a “world translation directory,” currently limited to 30 languages. http://www.gotranslators.com
MCable: Boasts a “Content Hit Parade,” keeping translators abreast of the most popular topics and software among users. http://www.mcable.net/
ProZ: Home of the “Kudoz,” Monopoly money of sorts. The high-profile website from Virginia has also been the first to attract controversy. http://www.proz.com
TRADUguide: Here, it’s the “Conges points” that will move a member towards the top of the site’s translators’ list. http://www.traduguide.com/
Sep 1st, 2005 | Court Interpretation, Interpretation, Opinion | No Comments
Arguing for the rights of California Court Interpreters
By Marianne Pripps
On June 30th, I received a call late at night informing me of what I had been dreading for some time. As a Court Interpreter Pro Tem (CIPT), I was going on strike the next morning for four days. I knew then that something had gone wrong during the last negotiation session our union conducted, and my heart sank in dismay. The next morning, I scrambled to get ready and report to the chosen venue but was not able to make it for logistical reasons. I then spent the rest of the morning contacting colleagues in sister organizations such as NCTA and ATA to ask for their support and solidarity. Why did this have to happen?
I have been a full-time court interpreter since 1993, when I first gained my state certification. For most of those years I was classified as an independent contractor with no rights or protections at work. I worked on a day-to-day basis with no benefits of any kind and no pay increases for a decade. Although such circumstances can certainly come with the territory of being an independent contractor, the difference was that I had no control over what I did; the courts did. Without my input and expertise, this was a situation that was simply unacceptable to me. Then in 2003 California legislation made interpreters employees of the court (in effect, the state) and granted us collective bargaining rights.
Contract negotiations started in earnest over a year ago. California was divided into four negotiating regions for purposes of simplicity and leverage. Region 1 (Los Angeles) was the first and remains the region that consistently makes the most progress. The other regions, in contrast—including Northern California—have suffered from a lack of seriousness and desire on the part of the courts’ representatives as to the basic fundamentals of interpreters’ rights.
From the beginning, these representatives of the courts have sought to undermine the law, subsequently refusing to concede anything beyond the most basic of employee benefits. As a union, we were faced with the animosity of some members of the court administrations who have never liked having interpreters in their midst, for reasons that are entirely unclear to me.
But we are fighting back. We feel that team interpreting and a raise in pay, as well as seniority and other job perks, are absolutely necessary to retain, recruit, and motivate skilled professionals to perform a job that is, at best, very challenging and at worst, extremely stressful. Our expertise, after all, plays an important part in ensuring a person’s due process under the law.
During the strike, we as interpreters were able to realize several things. For the past two years, we had been somewhat demoralized by the lack of incentives we had to remain employees. This changed when we saw how hard our union and colleagues had been working, united for the common good of our profession. The strike brought us together in a kind of solidarity never before achieved, and demonstrated to the court administrations the importance of our profession.
It is also true that the strike was effective only as an informational tool; it did not bring the courts to a complete halt. We were disappointed that many of our OTS (Other Than Spanish) colleagues crossed the picket lines, and even some interpreter employees did so as well. However, our spirits were lifted by the support that the legal community gave us, where court bilingual staff members refused to interpret—imperiling their own bilingual pay—and attorneys refused to use the services of non-certified interpreters.
As I write, Region 1 has ratified a contract and we are elated for our Southern California colleagues. Our strike may have had clear resonance in that area because the agreement came within a week after the end of our action. In the Northern California and San Diego regions, the situation is quite different, as both regions will enter mediation. In our own area, we may yet have to resort to further action. We hope that this does not come to pass but we are ready and willing to do so. We will need the help and support of all of our colleagues, sister organizations, and corporate members because, in the end, fair and respectful treatment and working conditions for all interpreters benefit everyone.
In my view, people should have the right to choose to be an independent contractor, along with its attendant risks; I did it for many years. But people should also have the right to be a full or part-time employee, with all its ensuing benefits, rights, and privileges. Ultimately, how interpreters stick together and fight for what is fair and just is what will decide the advancement of a noble profession.
