Frequently asked questions

In most cases, neither.

Where a text is intended solely for use in the United Kingdom, I translate into British English, my native variant of the language. However, this is seldom the case for the SMEs and NGOs in Germany and elsewhere in mainland Europe who make up my typical clientele. They generally need an English translation for use in several English-speaking countries.

In addition, the same text must be suitable for a readership without a translation of its own. This website is one such example. Visitors are offered the choice between German and English; the two target groups however are DACH (Germany/Austria/Switzerland), and “Rest of the World”.

This presents particular demands upon the translation. For example, wherever possible, the readership should not be burdened with English terms and phrasing unique to a particular country.

My preferred term for the area on which I focus is “industrial engineering”.

The fields in which I have the most experience and expertise are electrical engineering and occupational safety and health. These are therefore the fields I concentrate on. But if you’re unsure, the solution is simply to ask. I don’t accept work that lies outside my competence.

The longer a text, the more work is entailed by its translation. Length, though, is only one factor influencing the required effort. A text with highly technical content may take several times as long to translate as a simple text of the same length.

Charging for all translations by the same price per word (or some other unit of volume) has traditionally been based on the assumption that differences in difficulty cancel each other out – the swings and roundabouts principle. For a long time, this principle worked, more or less. With the growing commoditization of translation over the years, this is no longer the case.

My pricing policy aims to correct this. I offer a translation of a text for a fixed price, agreed in advance; transparency for the customer is therefore assured. The price for a specific text reflects the fact that some texts may take considerably longer to translate than others, even of the same length.

CAT stands for computer-assisted (or computer-aided) translation. CAT tools are software environments in which translators work, analogous to CAD (computer-aided design) applications.

My preferred working software environment is OmegaT. OmegaT has a high degree of compatibility with the more familiar commercial CAT tools such as Trados Studio, memoQ and Wordfast. If your operation uses one of these tools, I’m more than happy to demonstrate this compatibility, for example by translating a part of the text you wish to have translated and supplied by you in the relevant format (e.g. SDLXLIFF, MQXLIFF).

I have a separate PC running Windows and with licences for Trados Studio and memoQ. For exceptional cases that exceed the limits of OmegaT’s compatibility, such as when access to remote cloud resources is required from a Trados project, I can therefore work in these applications. However, I charge more for working in these environments – not less.

No. See the MT, AI & Co. page.

Machine translation can be a useful tool, and I use it in my own workflow. But that’s all it is – a tool. I’m still the translator, not MT’s assistant.

Mistakes happen, and those who believe they never make them are those whose work is never revised.

As in wider industry, the principle of the “second pair of eyes” (revision or review by a second person) for the detecting of errors is well established in the translation sector. However, it raises the question: who is doing the translating, and who is doing the revising? A third-rate translator and a third-rate reviser are unlikely to produce a good final translation.

The scale of revision also differs widely within the translation sector. Ideally, the reviser should be able to verify the entire translation for him or herself. Often however, revision is limited to a reading through of the translation, without comparison with the original. Some providers perform only random checks. For others, the quality step may consist of nothing more than running the spellchecker.

The EN ISO 17100 standard has attempted to address this, but it is something of a blunt instrument. My approach is to consider what level of revision is appropriate to the purpose of the text. For example, if the text is “for information only”, it may be reasonable to dispense with it altogether. If an additional quality control stage is appropriate, I can organize revision by a colleague.

You may also have personnel in your operation who are highly competent in English, besides being familiar with the subject of the text. A bilingual secretary who deals with product enquiries; a marketing manager who has studied English; an engineer who worked in the US for many years. These are valuable human resources, and they may be suitable revisers.

Note: revision refers here to a second person (hence the “second pair of eyes” principle). It goes without saying that I revise my own work: in fact, my own translation process involves four drafts before I pass the translation on to the reviser.