Translator Lounge

Hi all,
to make sure that LingoZ will met your needs, we need your feedback. We have to be informed how the system we set up looks like from your side. We are far from perfect, but we are perfectly able to learn!

Below an email conversation with a team member. It raises some very important questions and gives you an idea of how much your feedback will help to improve our system = your work space.

PART I

Hi

I am one of your service providers. I have been translating some jobs posted on your site.
[...] Actually this is one of the reasons why I write you. To mention some of the things I noticed and I think can be improved:

1. After translation, the linguist cannot change what he had submitted. Maybe there should be a period of one hour or so in which, if the translator notices something, to be able to modify. Or to post an email address or a method how to announce these things.

2. The text posted on the site doesn’t keep format when copied in a word document. It is very uncomfortable to translate directly on the website. I would suggest to set a system in which you provide also a word file with the text that you need to be translated.

3. The word count you provide is slightly not correct. For example, on job 50 that I have completed, your word count is: 671 and the actual wordcount is 725
[...] Can you do the amendments?

I’ll be waiting for your reply
Thank you very much!
Adrian G.

Hi Adrian,

Fantastic input. That is exactly what we need. We need these voices expressing the view of the translator team while being on a job.

Here are my first reactions:

1. I know exactly what you mean. It happens to me all time. I am writing a text, send it to a colleague. After a few minutes I do my “clean your >Sent Items”, will open up attachment once more before placing it into the right folder. There it is: the typo, the sentence without an ending, where thoughts were faster than my hands, etc. I think you brought up a great idea! This would help to keep quality up (specially now, that we still do not offer proof reading as a service) and is also a great sign to the customer how much we care to deliver proper work. Give us some time to figure out how this can be done. Every addition to the system and work flow need carefully back up by the programmers.

2. This is one of the issue I planned to discuss on Translator-Lounge.com. Clearly it is wrong to make the translation directly onsite. A) it is dangerous in case you have any problems with your Internet connection, B) one should have a saved file with the translation for any further reference, and C) as soon as we are talking about longer texts it is far to uncomfortable. We plan to have in future the possibility for the customer to upload a word document instead of pasting text into the text area. This will solve most of the problem, we believe.

3. Concerning the word count. I rechecked with project ID 50:
a. The system recognized, as you mentioned, 671 words
b. Placing the same text in e.g. Word I see: 725 words
So you are right and I will discuss with our product manager (Oz Wilder, cc’ed) where we miss out on counting correctly.

Again, I am very happy about your report and suggestions.
I kindly ask for your patience (until changes and corrections will be implemented) and your trust (as to the fact THAT they will be implemented),
Yours faithfully,
Ursula

PART II

[...]
One more thing, if you don’t mind: I don’t know how your deadline system is, but it kind of makes the translator feel that it’s all the time on the rush as the deadlines are 1 - 2 hours. I think they are machine created according to the wordcount. But I might be wrong. Anyway, it would help if the deadlines would be a bit more lax (that is if they are not really urgent) If they are really needed in one hour, then it’s ok. I know this is also a thing to implement and it’s according to what the client wants. So…I don’t know if there is a solution to this one

As I will translate I will let you know about the things that could be improved and the things that I like about it.

Have a great future together with LingoZ :)) It looks like an idea of how the translation world will look in the future

Take care!

Adrian

Hi Adrian,

If we can continue what started during the last days already, that we grow together as a team, this project will be a huge success!

Deadlines are to what we would like to think industry standard multiplied by 2, so we should be on the save site. It is clear to me that you actually point your fingers at something else. Even a well calculated deadline brings pressure.
I would like to postpone this is for a few days as we are still having problems of synchronizing the “time of the system” with the local time of the translators, so deadlines might look more tight than they actually were intended. So let’s give it some more days and then let’s put it up for open discussion on the blog.

I guess you are right that LingoZ might point into the future of translation as such. If so, I see it as a prime aim, to have this future molded in a way that it will fit the humans involved. I believe that most people are trying to deliver good word, but everyone needs feedback, encouragement and help now and then. Also if we are talking about a team scattered all the world, that’s what I want LingoZ to be.

Today while eating dinner at home I had a nice “dream” – let’s make this a huge success, and then let’s have a party next year at Dubrovnik in Croatia (yes, yes, everyone on his/her own expense, but let’s make it off-season, cheap prices for a hopefully large group, and Babylon to pay for the party! ). And if not next year, so let it be in three years! But let’s get there.

Regards,
Ursula