ext_2953 ([identity profile] parenthetical.livejournal.com) wrote in [community profile] otw_news 2008-02-06 10:58 pm (UTC)

I'm commenting here because I can't really volunteer to translate - English is my native language, and while I'm fairly fluent in German, native speakers will do a far better job! I am a professional translator in RL, though, so I've a lot of experience in the kinds of organisational issues that can crop up in the translation process and how to avoid some problems. You may well have considered all of these things, maybe some of you are even translators too! But I thought I'd comment with a few suggestions and ideas, just in case some of them may come in useful.

One of the issues that can crop up when more than one translator is working on the same text is that consistency is lost - particularly when there's more than one acceptable translation for a term, and translator 1 opts for translation A and translator 2 for translation B. Ideally, translators would communicate during the translation process to agree on which translation is best. Or if there are too many translators in a language for that to be practical, what we sometimes do at my work is create a small style guide - just a little list of terms and the standard translations we are going to apply across the board. If the translators don't communicate and sort out that sort of thing during the translation process, someone generally needs to go through and harmonise things afterwards. (Though having someone check over a translation is always a good thing - typos/misunderstanding/lack of inspiration happen to us all!)

One thing we always insist on at my workplace is to have a specified person to contact in case of questions. We tend to find that there's always something that's not 100% clear to a non-native speaker, regardless of how well-written the text is. And sometimes additional information is needed so the translator can be sure they're translating something correctly - I could imagine that being the case for legal terms, for instance, or the details of the non-profit status process. It might be a good idea to designate someone on the committee as the contact person for the translators - and to actively encourage the translators to get in touch with them if there's something they're not sure about or need more information on. A lot of new translators tend to be a bit reluctant to do that, in my experience, because they see it as giving up or a sign of ignorance or something, when really it's perfectly normal and in everyone's best interests.

Another issue that might be best considered by the committee is whether to insist on / actively encourage gender-neutral phrasing. In a lot of languages that's far more difficult than in English, or can get really unwieldy. You might still want to encourage people to go for a gender-neutral form where there is one available, though, for instance - a lot of novice translators lose sight of the issue entirely unless they are reminded of it.

Anyway, those are just a few points I thought I'd raise - they are probably all fairly obvious, but just in case they might be helpful. If there is anything I can do to help on the translation front, please do let me know!

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