Estimation in translation – Some challenges

Estimation in translation – some of the challenges

Every translator/language consultant needs to estimate the effort as any software consultant/programmer does.

In both the cases, difference can be too wide between the estimation provided by the group manager/delivery manager and that provided by the consultant.

But this difference is often shockingly high between the estimation done by the language consultants and the one by the delivery manager, if the translator is working with some software project/ manufacturing unit/ heavy industries unit:

Why it is so?

Let’s understand the difference between the parameters considered by the very honest translator and the very honest delivery manager – say for a text containing 50 words with two screenshots, the word count of which cannot be taken (the process is all manual without the scope of using any CAT tool).

What goes in the back of the minds in case of techie manager and the linguist translator while estimating?:

	Parameters considered by a manager	Time needed	Parameters considered by translator	Time needed
1.	I see only 50 words to be translated and I know how much time it takes to type 50 words. Translator’s job means typing 50 words for 50 words.	5 mins	I see a text containing 50 words having relevance to finance\mechanical and heavy engineering for which I need good research and then I will be able express this effectively in 40 words in target language.	15/20 min
2.	I know what typing speed a good typist should have and the translator needs to type at that speed.	5/7 mins.	Time for starting the computer, create the development (read translation) environment and getting the right source. Company does not provide me a single dictionary or tool – and I have to find out all online dictionaries relevant for this task. So I need time to ‘build’, ‘check in’ and ‘fix’.	20/25 min
3	It’s just a minor work – the translator may have to copy and paste the text to google translator and then copy and paste it back to the document; then change a couple of words here and there to claim it to be his/her translation!	3 mins	The first reading shows it’s quite rare to find exactly the right information on the first try. Even if it is found, I may need to go through some business documents of this kind available in the library to verify the correctness of my translation. That needs another 30 mins which am not even adding!	45 mins
4	Document format – what the hell that matters to the translator? –well will be happy if I get the translation of the 3 included screen shot too. Well, that cannot be done through google – I understand- let the translator take ten mins more.	15 mins	I see the source document is in non-editable PDF - I need to copy and paste the text to a document – then screenshots separately and make table for the screenshots while these are not non-editable as well. Seems screenshots contain another 50 words.	15 mins extra (making total time 45 mins)
5.	I cannot understand which word means what in the screenshot if translator does not write the original in the table. Request to write original too.	5 mins extra  (total 20 mins)	Typing original means I have to type some special characters in the source language – I cannot use even shortcut keys in the laptop provided…so copy + paste from the symbol button is only option!	Another 15 mins extra (making total time 60 mins)
6.	Review? Why? Does not a translator see what he is writing while working on system?	20 mins	In any case I HAVE TO REVIEW THE TRANSLATED DOCUMENT to ensure everything important mentioned in the source is mentioned in the target too. Well – let’s not mention extra time which can make the manager go mad – will do it at home, or cutting time for my breakfast of something.	60 mins
7.	Advice the translator to be honest which may work as a warning so that he/she does not try to make me a fool – last time we received a translation from another translator in 10 mins for a similar text.	20 mins maximum (final)	How to explain the manager that translation is not googling – I can’t even invite the person to sit with me while working and follow the process! – the document he mentions is of different domain  - and yes, the target document shows that the previous translator only googled! – let me discuss the topic “language quality’ with him.	60 mins (final)
8.	Language quality? – I can never imagine the word ‘quality’ to be associated with a low level subject called ‘language’….it’s not engineering after all!		Quality is something a translator has to stick to. I see very well from company’s old project documents how incorrect translation spoiled some projects and our  superiors couldn’t even  determine it due to lack of language skill. I should take care of this.
9.	Unfortunately company has picked up a stubborn person as translator who does not even understand how urgent the task is – or does not even able to type 10 words/min.		The manager knew since last one month that some documents in this pack need translation - wonder why he/she didn’t inform long back (I was sitting almost idle for a week a fortnight back!)

 And finally it’s a standstill, often leading to resignation of the annoyed translator or indirect firing and it’s time to search for an obedient translator.

The biggest challenge here is, none but a bi-lingual person knows “hab mal gehört dass ein SAP Wörterbuch Deutsch-Englisch als Transaktion existiert. Weiss einer, wie die Transaktion heisst?” Does not mean “SAP've heard that a German-English dictionary exists as a transaction. White one, as the transaction is called?”

Or “Materialien, die als Schüttgut gehalten sind und Serialisierung Profil 12, ausgeschlossen sind, während durch die Transaktion verbunden ZSD602” does not mean anything in Deutsch while the source English was “Materials, which are maintained as bulk material and have serialisation profile 12, are excluded while connected through the transaction ZSD602”.

And it’s almost impossible to argue about the correctness when a ready machine translation is always available. Bi-lingual experts are rarely found in the companies who can examine the facts and provide a solution. Anyway, clients anyway await the quickest solution/set up and never bother how the service providing manager is to get a project done in 30 days which would need a translation effort of 10000 words a day. The sales management teams are rarely aware of any word called ‘translation effort’ which should be included in contract, while service/ consultancy/infrastructure is being provided to Ukrain or similar non-English speaking countries. Anyway all the superiors of the client company speak English very well! Translation is  not even considered as ‘deliverable’ in many cases.

And the story goes on................