OF COURSE you know your own language! You’re bilingual, native in two languages! But when you have five days to go – weekend included – and have run out of time to translate your 120-page document, it’s actually too late to ask me.
Yeah. That was a bit of a hiccup. I really thought I had done all the homework, including all the relevant googling, when I found the name Everyday English and thought nobody else had it. So imagine my consternation when I was contacted by said business owner informing me that they had been registered under that very name for a while longer than me - though not in the same register. I had not found them when googling, and no flags were raised when registering - but there they were. Undeniably there. And I am kicking myself. Of course I am. Well. There is little point in crying over spilt milk, I say, so here's to buckling down and trying to find a new, perhaps even better, name. See it as an opportunity to reconnect with past customers and possibly, hopefully, gain some new ones. And then I should concentrate on the silver lining: the other Everyday English cater to a different set of customers.
Who needs human translators anyway?
OF COURSE you know your own language! You’re bilingual, native in two languages! But when you have five days to go – weekend included – and have run out of time to translate your 120-page document, it’s actually too late to ask me.
Yeah. That was a bit of a hiccup. I really thought I had done all the homework, including all the relevant googling, when I found the name Everyday English and thought nobody else had it. So imagine my consternation when I was contacted by said business owner informing me that they had been registered under that very name for a while longer than me - though not in the same register. I had not found them when googling, and no flags were raised when registering - but there they were. Undeniably there. And I am kicking myself. Of course I am. Well. There is little point in crying over spilt milk, I say, so here's to buckling down and trying to find a new, perhaps even better, name. See it as an opportunity to reconnect with past customers and possibly, hopefully, gain some new ones. And then I should concentrate on the silver lining: the other Everyday English cater to a different set of customers.
I've long since stopped counting. Really, I have. But you can take my word for it that I have been contacted countless times about last-minute translations of rather substantial texts and been faced with both completely unrealistic deadlines as well as generous offers of starvation pay. I don't do those jobs. Not only does this display a blatant disrespect for the translator's role, but it is equally insulting of the work put into the original text. These are often texts of great importance where the author has put a lot of thought into it and spent not just hours or days, but often weeks and months turning over words and phrases in their head, gone back and rewritten passages or perhaps even the entire text. Many have given up writing their own texts and have turned to professional writers because - guess what - writing is not easy. And still - whether we are talking about a website, a power point presentation, a leaflet or a master thesis - why, oh why do people decide to hand the translation job to the daughter of a friend "who is quite good at English" for a few bob and a coffee? Not only that, she is expected to deliver within a couple of days often really major jobs that require at least as much thought as was put into the original text. The result is invariably (and please pardon my French here) shite . But guess what - it is not your friend's daughter who looks silly. It is you and your company.