“la parole exportée”

I was going to blog about some translation consulting I did last week, but two events that happened in quick succession today are going to make my point even clearer.

First I received a phone call from a business owner who is planning to introduce a product to a French company. About 10 minutes into the conversation, he asked for my rate, and when I told him, he said that he had another offer, at a quarter of my rate, and another offer that was even higher than mine. OK, why not? I understand his concern, he wants to pay less. Fine. But my question is: when you are approaching a new client in another country, do you go for the cheapest interpreter? When at the same time he was assessing my English as being of superior quality… Such clients learn by trial and error, and they are very confused as to the proper use of interpreters. However he said I was of a higher caliber… Wow.

Next… I received an e-mail from someone for whom I did some consulting work last week. They had (well-founded) doubts about the quality of some translations they were getting from a translation agency. They have decided to stay with their supplier. That’s their decision, and again, it’s fine by me. However, because I work for other departments of the same organization and am praised for the quality of my work, they are now asking me to produce a glossary in order to ensure the quality of the other supplier’s translations… Another confused client. Each translator/supplier is responsible for compiling their own glossary, but far more importantly, for applying the proper approach to translation. Clients are very fond of glossaries as a kind of metrics. In my opinion, glossaries are one-dimensional tools that account for only one part of the quality of the end-product. To get a good translation, you need a translator who is doing the job well.

So… two confused clients in a matter of minutes. What kind of a day is this?

She won the Academy Award for Best Actress in a French film, but she also speaks English! And just for once they didn’t need an interpreter on the French radio to translate her speech in Los Angeles!

This is the worst time of the year for me, with one aspect of management that I would gladly get rid of, and I would never look back.

I haven’t quite finished yet. I’m doing the basic work, putting everything in order for my accountant to prepare the final forms. I admire accountants, because I couldn’t do their job. Numbers bore me, so I have to check everything at least twice, which makes the whole operation even more boring.

Of course, I keep all my income and expenses up to date on the computer, but I still have to put in order my invoices and all the slips and receipts collected during the year. This is so boring, and mind boggling at times.

So I have to be off again to put everything in order. I usually take 2 days to do it all. Let’s see if I can break my own record.