Machine LQA

Female android

Quite often, customers treat translations of their materials with neglect, as a “necessary evil”. They realise that it is needed, but they don’t think of it as something worth their time. As a result, they commission this to translation agencies, and the number one priority is the price. This in turn results in a situation […]

Proofreading vs Copyediting vs Markup – what’s the difference?

Pen

“Proofreading” is a catch-all term used by most non-translators, including the clients of translators, to describe all actions aimed at improving the quality of a text. This term is often used incorrectly. In a nutshell, preparation of a document’s final version (post-translation) can be divided into three* stages: copyediting, proofreading, and markup. How do they […]

GUI Translation

Icons

In translations, context is the king. It seems obvious, but oftentimes the reality is quite different. Sometimes customers think that providing a source material for translation should be enough for the translator to do the job. In this short text, I’ll try to explain why this is rarely the case.   Ambiguity Language is alive, […]

Useful excercises for translators

Bricks with letters

As we all know, practice makes perfect. I personally believe that you can’t be a good translator until you translate a few million of words. This creates certain habits, gives you the chance to stumble across “critical” situations and forces you to find a solution, or makes you go through a fair amount of different […]

Five necessary skills of translators

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When thinking about a career in translations, many people have to answer the question of what skills are required to succeed. Is language proficiency enough? Or is there something else? Below, I briefly describe skills that in my opinion every professional translator needs to master. Critical thinking This skill is needed in numerous professions, but […]

Chinglish – a real challenge

Asian woman in front of a computer

Perhaps nothing is more challenging for a translator than attempting to translate a text written in English by someone whose grasp of that language is, to put it politely, not the greatest. Chinglish is an excellent example. The term “Chinglish” is a portmanteau of “Chinese” and “English.” It refers to English language that has been […]