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Very interesting post, as I'm on the PM side for Trad Online. However, I must say that I disagree with your point on the format : we've had to translate Word, Excel or Powerpoint files at best, but also many application files (.xml,.po,.strings, etc) or even directly online on the client's website. Take the exemple of application files : they open with a plain text editor, impossible to track changes, lots of code to be left untranslated, punctuation to watch carefully, etc. Client's website, even worse : no back-up, possible server crash and loss of data and various technical problems. It's impossible to expect the client to provide only clean Word documents... however, it would be reasonable to ask for more for these types of texts. What do you think ?

En tant que représentante de l'agence de traduction Trad Online à Lyon, j'aimerais partager avec les lecteurs d'Intermédia un petit retour d'expérience concernant la traduction de sites web. Nous avons géré plusieurs projets importants de ce type en 2011, et avant de demander un devis et vous représenter combien coûtera la traduction d'un site en anglais, ou en 5 langues, voici quelques questions à se poser, notamment sur ce que l'on souhaite traduire ! On peut diviser les types de contenus en 5 catégories... 

Hello and thanks for this blog, I check it from time to time and find it very interesting. I felt the need to react to this post, working myself for a translation agency as project manager. What you may (or may not) know is that project managers handle quite a lot of projects at a time. Let's say that for a single project there are a dozen languages, for another one 5 languages, etc. So, multiply the number of projects * number of languages required * 2 (for translator and proofreader) and you get the number of people who you're in touch with daily (not to mention clients or your colleagues). Working in a translation agency means juggling all the time with deadlines / people / files and keep everyone happy without losing money. It's very challenging and interesting, don't misunderstand me. But I sometimes envy translators, who can focus on a task more than 30 minutes ; a translation PM is constantly under fire and multitasking. Therefore I can understand that sometimes things don't go too well, i.e a file is forgotten and sent late to the proofreader. In that regard, it's also hard to expect a PM to send your translated file to the proofreader the next minute, when your email is just one of 150 daily emails received… You may say then that we could be better organised, but just like all freelancers in the translation business, we never know when and how many projects we'll get : sometimes there's plenty of time, sometimes we're at full speed. >> Direct clients usually ask me how much time I will need to finish a translation project, whereas agencies usually stipulate the time frame for project completion. Of course, when we do a quote, we agree on a set deadline with the client, based on our experience from other translation projects. Just imagine for a website into 10 languages if we had to define different deadlines for each language, after contacting 10 translators, half of which would already be busy on another project, so then 5 more translat

I would like to introduce to the translators community WikIdioms, the new project aimed at creating multi-lingual glossaries of different kinds. We have started with idiomatic expressions, thus the name. [...]

I would like to share with you some thoughts about our future as translators in relation to recent major improvements in automated translation technology. Google Translate has emerged from the twilight zone from being a quick way to get the meaning of a language you don't know into an extremely useful tool to automate professional translations for you and me, saving time and effort. [...]

A few weeks ago, I published a survey on translation certification in my Facebook page. Would you be so kind as to leave your opinion on the theme? I will publish the results. Thank you all in advance for your participation

"Translation - getting it right" by Chris Durban, in English and several languages

As a native English marketing/copy writing professional, I am often appalled by unintelligible translations into English by in-house corporate communications staff, even of major multinational companies. Since senior management hire these employees assuming their expertise, how might you convince them they need help?

Cette étude est en anglais, mais je tenais à vous informer de sa publication : Conduite par WinterGreen Research, son titre : "Language Translation Software and Services Market Shares Strategies, and Forecasts, Worldwide, 2009 to 2015" [...]

Oui, bien sûr, on commence par en rire. Ça fait du bien. Certes, mais ça amène aussi de l'eau à notre moulin. Je propose de stocker ce genre d'articles, d'en faire notre "anti-press book" [...]

I'd argue that for "high-value, life-saving information", and I'm thinking medical-related information particularly, having it translated by machines could be more dangerous than anything else, for when it's in your own language you tend to be confident that it's accurate. In 2007, in France, 4500 people were exposed to massive doses of X-rays because of wrongly-translated instructions for adjusting the device. Full story here, in French : http://www.lepost.fr/article/2007/09/13/1018000_des-notices-en-francais-c-est-imperatif.html Although I think MT could change the work of translators just like computers changed how Disney draftsmen work (in a positive way), I'm not sure that on its own MT would be so helpful and safe. But I must say that it's refreshing for once to have someone in favour of MT :-)

Interestingly, a study carried out by a French trade union for translators this year states that almost 40% of the 1000 translators who responded don't have any kind of degree in translation/interpretation, and that having followed a course in translation/interpretation does not guarantee higher prices. Even more : on average, translators who don't have such a degree have a turnover that is 16% superior to the others. Here's the original post I wrote with a link to the study http://tinyurl.com/35mutk5 - it makes you wonder whether this kind of theoretical knowledge on translation in even a plus…

Or any online multilingual law dictionaries that you may be able to recommend??

I have developed this short questionnaire to ascertain the views of professional translators towards the new trends of openness, sharing and collaboration associated with web 2.0 technologies. [...]

I agree with your idea that it comes from pronounciation because in French this spelling variant doesn't exist - probably because in English minuscule and miniscule sound the same whereas in French you would hear the difference. Saying aloud "miniscule" is quite funny in my language, really :-) I have to imagine what a "scule" is and see myself looking at it through a magnifying glass.

As a translator, are you working freelance ? If so, what are the pros and cons and would you recommend it ?

Looks promising, with a great lineup of speakers.

I reviewed a great book for freelance translators: How to Succeed as a Freelance Translator, by Corinne McKay. Although it was published in 2006, I think many of its insights are still valid in 2010. Highly recommended. Enjoy!