Fresh out of the oven: meet the Translators Without Borders newsletter!

The very first Translators Without Borders Newsletter was sent out on March 13th 2012!

“Translators without Borders is a truly volunteer effort. From translating vital information into many languages, to managing our automated translation center, to developing the first translation training center in Nairobi, Translators without Borders is run by dedicated hard-working volunteers.  In this first issue of our newsletter, you can read about a few of those committed professionals. The newsletter is also completely run by volunteers.  What a pleasure it has been to work with such a talented group of writers and designers putting together our first issue.  Watch for our next issue in May!” Rebecca Petras

And the winner is….

It seems The Stinging Nettle totally honored its name. I was amazed at the number of aggressive, sometimes even insulting comments and e-mails we’ve been receiving since the beginning of this action – it’s just fascinating how many people felt personally attacked. Anyway – here’s the promised result ;)

Whoever works in the medical translation field should be aware of the numerous existing standards (DIN/EN/ISO…) in this industry. Often, these standards even state the exact wording of entire segments. We’ve been so far expecting from translators to be able to identify whether a piece of text is subject to a certain standard (or could be) and accordingly conduct a search or contact us and simply ask. In this specific case, the relevant standards to use were DIN EN 980:2008-08 “Symbols for use in the labeling of medical devices; German version” and the draft standard DIN 6877-1:2007-12 “Magnetic resonance equipment for human use – Part 1: Instructions for labeling items within the controlled area”.

“Keller”, though not specialized in medical device texts, submitted a translation that was the closest in line with the rules of these standards and therefore earns the 50€. “S.W” (who’s no medical translator either) and “AL” did realize that those were texts that were probably set in standards but unfortunately did not submit any proposal.  I found “Michael’s” proposal very interesting as well – he is not a translator but his translation was qualitatively not different from many proposals.

You can read all proposals here and here

What did we learn?

None of the translators who participated knew the standards. Some found them as they were researching and translated correctly but most would probably have made a “wrong” translation of the segments. It occurred to us that during our time as freelancers, no agency ever said to us that a given part of the text was subject to a given standard nor ever provided us with these standard existing translations available (though this does not completely apply for pharmaceutical texts as some agencies take the time and provide their translators with all standards). We came therefore to the decision that, in the future, we will be informing our translators when we give them a new project where standards apply and make those standards available to them.

I would like to thank all translators who participated. It was an interesting experience and we did learn something. We hope that translators in the future will also pay more attention to regulatory requirements in the medical technology field, and keep themselves up-to-date with these as well.
The next “translation survey” is already in the oven and we’d be delighted if you decide to participate again, or participate for the first time!

Und der Gewinner ist…

Die Stinging Nettle scheint ihrem Namen alle Ehre gemacht zu haben.
Ich war erstaunt, wie viele bösartige, ja sogar teilweise beleidigende Kommentare und Mails wir seit Beginn dieser Aktion erhalten haben. Es ist interessant, wer sich alles auf den Schlips getreten fühlte. Aber egal, hier die versprochene Auflösung:

Wer Übersetzungen im Bereich Medizintechnik anfertigt, sollte sich bewusst sein, dass in dieser Industrie viele Standards (DIN/EN/ISO etc.) einzuhalten sind. Diese Standards schreiben oft auch den genauen Wortlaut für bestimmte Segmente vor. Wir hatten bisher von Übersetzern erwartet, dass sie erkennen, ob ein Textteil einem Standard unterliegt/unterliegen könnte, und entweder entsprechend recherchieren oder sich an uns wenden und nachfragen. In diesem speziellen Fall wären das die DIN EN 980:2008-08 “Symbole zur Kennzeichnung von Medizinprodukten; Deutsche Fassung” und der Normentwurf zur DIN 6877-1:2007-12 “Magnetresonanzeinrichtungen für die Anwendung am Menschen – Teil 1: Kennzeichnungsvorschriften für Gegenstände im Kontrollbereich” gewesen.

“Keller”, obwohl er kein auf Medizintechnik spezialisierter Übersetzer ist, hat einen Vorschlag eingestellt, der weitgehend den Vorschriften dieser Normen entspricht und sich damit die 50 Euro verdient. “S.W” (übrigens auch kein medizinischer Übersetzer) und “AL” haben zwar erkannt, dass es sich um Texte handelt, die wahrscheinlich in Standards festgelegt sind, haben aber leider keine kompletten Vorschläge abgegeben. Interessant fand ich auch den Beitrag von “Michael”, der kein Übersetzer ist, aber einen Vorschlag eingestellt hat, der sich qualitativ von vielen anderen Vorschlägen nicht unterscheidet .
(Alle Übersetzungsvorschläge von den Teilnehmern finden Sie hier und hier)

Was konnten wir daraus lernen:

Keiner der Übersetzer, die geantwortet haben, kannte die Standards. Einige hätten die Standards wohl beim Recherchieren gefunden und richtig übersetzt. Die Mehrheit hätte die Segmente wahrscheinlich einfach “falsch” übersetzt. Bei unseren Diskussionen ist uns aufgefallen, dass uns während unserer Zeit als Freelancer nie eine Agentur darauf hingewiesen hat, dass ein bestimmter Textabschnitt in einem Standard festgelegt ist, bzw. uns diese Standardübersetzungen zur Verfügung gestellt hat (dies gilt übrigens nicht für Pharma-Texte, dort wird dies von einigen Agenturen gemacht).

Daher sind wir zu der Überlegung gekommen, in Zukunft bei unseren Projekten die Übersetzer zu informieren, dass ein bestimmter Standard zur Anwendung kommt, bzw. die entsprechenden Texte zur Verfügung zu stellen.

Zum Schluss möchte ich mich noch bei allen Teilnehmern bedanken. Wir haben einiges lernen können und hoffen, dass auch die Übersetzer in Zukunft mehr auf die regulatorischen Vorgaben im Bereich Medizintechnik achten und sich entsprechend weiterbilden.

Um einiges zu klären – das sind keine Probeübersetzungen, sondern mehr eine Art “Umfrage”, wie Übersetzer mit manchen Themen umgehen. Dies hilft uns, unsere Arbeitsabläufe zu optimieren. Hier wurde jetzt einfach klar, dass vielen Übersetzern entweder nicht klar ist, dass es Standards gibt, oder den Text nicht als Standardtext erkennen, und wir als Agentur da etwas tun müssen. Das war mir persönlich so nicht klar, da ich mich schon seit Jahren viel mit Standards beschäftige und eigentlich dachte, dass die Thematik bei unseren Kollegen präsenter wäre, was jedoch leider nicht der Fall ist. Als Agentur haben wir von keinem unserer Übersetzer eine Probeübersetzung verlangt. Ich halte da nicht so viel davon. Übersetzer lassen sich auch ohne Probeübersetzung beurteilen. Manche Endkunden verlangen, dass wir Probeübersetzungen für sie machen, dafür habe ich auch viel Verständnis, bei dem Mist, der oft produziert wird, aber in diesen Fällen geben wir die Übersetzungen als ganz normale Aufträge an unsere Übersetzer.

Ansonsten bin ich der Meinung, dass Übersetzen Teamarbeit ist, und das Ziel darin besteht, dem Kunden eine optimale Übersetzung zu liefern. D. h. auch, dass niemand in dem Team (immer) perfekt sein muss, da das Team als Ganzes stabil genug ist, um einzelne Schwächen auszubügeln. Unsere “Umfragen” dienen genau dazu, herauszufinden, in welchem Bereich Schwächen bestehen und Lösungen dafür zu finden.

Die nächste “Probeübersetzungs-Umfrage” ist schon geplant, und wir würden uns freuen, wenn Sie wieder oder erstmalig daran teilnehmen würden!

The underestimated importance of medical interpreters…

This video was made by TAHIT (Texas Association of Healthcare Interpreters and Translators) to promote the use of interpreters in a clinical setting.
We just love it. It’s so strong and powerful…

Watch out! A new trend in pharma marketing – GIGO – SEO

In the past few months, we were involved in localizing various websites targeting certain patient populations. These projects were all sponsored/run by big pharma and these websites all claim to provide useful information, e.g. for people interested in participating in clinical studies or supporting patient education on health problems.

After a while it became obvious that most of these websites contain highly SEO optimized content serving only one purpose:  driving traffic to the pharma companies’ websites or their dedicated websites for given products/clinical studies.

Since these sites are extremely SEO optimized, which results in high rankings in the various search tools, they divert traffic from more impartial websites run e.g. by patient organizations.

Some might consider this a highly questionable trend in itself, but this is not my point.

The problem for me lies in the fact that huge parts of these web pages’ content seem to be created by marketing copy writers – it seems they’re given a list of SEO keywords, and they just have to produce page after page after page using these keywords.

Wrong and even dangerous contents

In contrast with what you would expect from a responsible pharma company, nobody seems to check this content, which results in statements such as:

-    The objective in diabetes treatment is to achieve the lowest possible blood glucose level.
This is not only wrong, but also extremely dangerous, as this would cause hypoglycemic coma.

-    The red blood cells transport oxygen to the lungs
This is plain wrong. The red blood cells transport oxygen from the lungs to the tissue.

-    Hemoglobin transports the carbon dioxide to the lungs
I consider this statement as being incorrect too, since only 5-10 percent of the carbon dioxide is transported by hemoglobin.

These examples have been edited so that you can’t identify the respective websites, but their aim is to help you understand my point that these websites don’t even get the most basic medical facts right. Looking at more complex content, e. g. relating to cancer treatment, the situation isn’t any better.

Localization requires more than just translating contents

Another aspect of these websites solely created for SEO purposes, is that they really don’t care about the reader. Quite often you will find that:
-    the only contact option they offer is a toll free phone number in the US (on the localized pages) which you can’t even contact from abroad,
-    they only provide links to English sources such as patient organizations
-    there are no literature references in the target languages.

What this means to the translation industry

As a language service provider, our role is to raise these issues with clients. We should not contribute to multiplying wrong or even dangerous content by translating it. We should also stress the fact that localization requires more than just translating the content.
By doing this we will not only help our clients by preventing costly legal actions if somebody gets harmed after following wrong instructions and by raising the quality of the content and giving the websites a more professional image. Badly localized websites also damage the reputation of our own industry, as many readers might believe it was the translator who introduced these errors.

Online workshop: Social Media Marketing for translators

After my last series of webinars at the end of 2011, let’s start 2012 with a 3h online workshop on Social Media Marketing and Social Networking strategies for freelancers in the translation industry.

With a smaller group of attendees than at a traditional webinar and with 3h, we’ll have much more time to go in-depth and customize the course to each attendee as much as possible. The course will be highly interactive and hands-on.

The course will take place on February 23rd.

See you there!

Duration: 3 hours, including as much Q/A as needed ;)
Price: 75 EUR – (for reference, I normally charge around 150 € per hour for consulting and I will do this 3h workshop only once at that price, so grab your seat now!)

Complete course description and registration here.

Guest post: the linguist and Social Media – promotion through Twitter

Our guest for this first guest post on the Stinging Nettle is Suzanne Deliscar, a Canadian lawyer-linguist translating in the French-English and Spanish-English language pairs. Her focus is on official document and legal translation.

The Linguist and Social Media, part 1: promotion through Twitter
by Suzanne Deliscar – February 2011

Social media is here to stay, with its usage spanning across all industries. The languages industry is slowly but surely taking advantage of this vehicle, and individual freelancers should be no exception. This article provides the steps to be taken in using the Twitter medium to enhance a linguist’s online presence and produce business leads.
Twitter (www.twitter.com), for those who are unfamiliar with this platform, is a form of micro-blogging where users create an account, including a username and password, and then proceed to publish short messages limited to 140 characters or less, known as “tweets”, about any subject matter imaginable. Twitter is unique in that these short messages can be sent at anytime and from a variety of electronic devices, including hand-held devices such as cell phones and laptop computers. Users can also follow other Twitter users that they find of interest. A number of Twitter related applications have also been developed in order to enhance the Twitter experience, and also provide different ways for individuals, and companies, in particular, to manage the interaction with their followers.

The following are some tips which linguists can use to broaden their online presence, as well obtain project offers through Twitter:

1. Pick a username and profile name that can readily identifiable with either you personally, your business name, or your industry. Otherwise, you will not show up in searches by other users looking for individuals in the translation industry.

2. Follow other Twitter users who have either common interests, for example, other legal translators or other medical interpreters, to keep abreast of new developments. Twitter is also an educational tool and much can be learned from posts from those with similar interests.

3. Is there a translation agency you are interested in working for? More and more language companies are setting up profiles on Twitter and sending out messages about their current activities. Some language companies also keep up a live feed of projects for which they need linguists.

4. Be particular about who you choose to follow. Profiles of your followers can be seen on your profile page, and can leave either a negative or positive impression on those who are considering whether or not to follow you.

5. Be a good Twitter citizen. Follow back those who follow you. It is an easy way to thank someone else for taking interest in your tweets.

6. Be consistent in your message. If your Twitter account has been set up for business, stick to that professional tone as much as possible. If you would like to send out personal thoughts and ideas, consider setting up a separate Twitter account.

7. Potential clients may search for your services via specific key words. If those words appear regularly in your tweets, or even your profile description, the chances of appearing in search results increases. Key words in both your target and source languages can boost your results as well.

8. Be proactive. Follow interesting profiles, and send messages to other users you would like to communicate with. Offer a special or free giveaway. Direct interested parties to your Proz.com profile, your website, or both.

Twitter is one of many tools that can be used by linguists to both interact with outsourcers, potential clients and colleagues. As part of a solid marketing plan, the effective use of Twitter can raise a linguist’s profile and make them more noticeable to potential clients.


Suzanne’s website:  www.treasurestranslations.ca
She can be found on Twitter at www.twitter.com/suzannedeliscar