Reliable Fact-Checking & Editing: Skills Only Human Translators Can Provide

One of the many benefits of hiring an experienced translator (as opposed to using an unreliable AI translation) is that they can catch errors that have slipped into your text. On numerous occasions, I have been able to help clients fix mistakes in their source text, which is especially important when it is being used as a basis for translations into multiple languages. Sometimes these errors have been minor spelling or grammar mistakes, but in other instances they have been major inaccuracies that could affect their credibility as a business.

For example, a few years ago I was tasked with translating some facts about countries to be used in an educational game for children. The company, based in Latin America, had prepared the facts in Spanish, which I would translate into English. My work would then be used as the basis for translations into many other languages. As I worked, I came across several obvious issues, such as the inclusion of several facts about the “country” of Hawaii. I was able to inform the client that Hawaii is not a country, but a state, so that they could remove the incorrect “facts”. Perhaps the error would have gone unnoticed in the game, but it’s also possible that a parent playing the country trivia with their child might have seen it and wondered why they should be paying for an educational game that had such glaring errors in it. Thankfully, this risk to the company’s reputation was prevented because of my attention to detail.

Research: An Essential Part of the Translation Process

There is a common misconception that translating is a simple, straightforward task. If you’re proficient in two languages, you should be able to instantly convert text from one to the other, right? Not really! I may know a lot of Spanish after studying it nearly my entire life, but that doesn’t mean I know every word and its intricacies. That’s why translation work almost always requires research.

I recently translated a document that primarily focused on business matters, but it also contained some medical and legal terminology. As a result, the translation required quite a bit of research. Aside from the usual need to look up unfamiliar terms and verify definitions or usage, I also had to do more in-depth research when it came to specialized medical and legal terms.   

For example, when I came across the name of a medical condition that I was unfamiliar with, I turned to WordReference (my favorite online dictionary) and Wikipedia (in both languages) for translation assistance and a basic understanding of the condition. Once I had what I thought was the appropriate English translation, I also did a quick Google search for the term and checked citations by reputable medical sources like national health agencies to verify the term’s accuracy and usage.

The text also referred to specific international legal agreements, so I found the official documents online for additional context and to ensure that the terminology I used in the translation matched the agreements when necessary.

If I hadn’t taken the time to do this research, the quality of the translation would have suffered. You can only ensure the accuracy of a translation if you’re willing to do the extra work required to fully understand the text.

3 More Tips for Translating Your CV or Résumé into English

On Wednesday, I covered three important tips for translating your CV or résumé into English so that it's appropriate for use in an English-speaking culture. Today I've got three more tips to help you make sure your new English CV is perfect.

#4: Make it easy to read: avoid flowery fonts and eye-popping designs.

It's really tempting to use fancy fonts and elaborate designs in order to make your CV stand out, but you should generally avoid this trap. Unless you're applying for jobs in a design-related field, it is the information included in your CV that should be making you stand out as an applicant, not design quirks that draw your eye to the page. Keep it simple, professional, and most importantly, easy to read! If you absolutely must highlight a particular detail, consider using bold font.

#5: Consider having more than one CV.

If you're going to be applying for a wide range of jobs in diverse fields, consider having a few different CVs that each showcase the skills, experience and education relevant to one particular area. For example, if you're a translator and a copywriter, you could have two CVs: one that highlights your past copywriting jobs, and another that focuses more on translation experience and foreign language skills.

#6: Hire a professional translator, or at the very least, ask a native English speaker to look it over.

This is the first impression a potential employer will have of you, so you need to make it count. Make sure your English CV shows that you're serious - it should be mistake-free, easy to read, and succinctly describe your skills, experience and education in a professional way.

There are tons of translators out there (including me!) that will be happy to translate your CV into English for a reasonable fee. However, if you need to save every single cent, at the very least try to find a native English speaker who can check the document for any glaring problems. If you aren't willing to take the time to make sure your CV is culturally appropriate and error-free, you might as well throw it into the recycle bin yourself.

3 Tips for Translating Your CV or Résumé into English

In today's global society, it's becoming increasingly popular to apply for jobs in other countries. Given the widespread use of English in the business world, it makes sense that many companies request that applicants provide a CV (or résumé, as it's known in the US) in English. However, many people don't stop to consider the cultural aspects involved in translating a CV.

As a translator, I frequently get requests to translate CVs from Spanish into English, generally so that the client can apply for jobs in English-speaking countries. While this may seem like a straightforward job, it can actually be quite complicated due to cultural differences in CV standards. If you're not from an English-speaking culture and are unsure of what to include in your English CV, the following tips, based on my experience translating CVs from Spanish to English, should help you get started.

#1: Don't attach a photo.

In Spain, as well as several other countries, it is customary to include a photo with your CV. If you're applying for a job in an English-speaking country, DO NOT do this. For some reason, this custom tends to lead to heated debates between people from cultures that address this detail differently. In any case, you should respect the customs of the target culture, in this case English-speaking countries. The main reason photos aren't included is that CVs are viewed as a way to assess applicants purely based on their skills, experience, and education. By removing photos from the equation, we can avoid being influenced by a person's appearance.

#2: Don't include your date of birth and gender.

Following the same line of thinking, don't include your date of birth or gender. This helps to prevent age and gender discrimination in the hiring process. Sure, if you make it to the interview stage, your potential new employer will have a pretty good guess at both, but we still don't include this information on a CV.

#3: Keep it short and sweet: 1-2 pages maximum!

One of the most frequent issues I've encountered while translating CVs is that clients tend to send me CVs that are way too long. If at all possible, try to keep your CV to one page in length, or two at an absolute maximum. There's no reason to include every job you've ever had, the name of your high school, or skills like "Microsoft Word" or "social media", which are now expected of most applicants anyway.

Why Restaurants Should Never Trust Machine Translation

A few days ago, my family was planning to go out for dinner in celebration of a special occasion. By the end of the day, we were all so exhausted that it sounded like a much nicer idea to just order some Chinese food and relax at home instead. We pulled out our stack of carryout menus and found the one for what is widely considered to be the best Chinese restaurant in town. The restaurant is actually owned and operated by a Chinese family, and the food is great - none of those tasteless, oily noodles you might find elsewhere. However, there was just one problem: the menu.

If you're at least somewhat adventurous when it comes to cuisine, then you've probably encountered a poorly translated menu before, be it at home or in a foreign country while you're on vacation. Sometimes there's just an item or two on the menu that sounds a bit off, like the time I discovered "sawdust" listed as a dessert on a menu in Portugal. Other times, however, the whole menu has clearly been thrown into Google Translate, with a horrible end result.

I'm pretty sure this was one of those times.

I can honestly say that I've never seen such a horribly translated menu before in my life. The issues were seemingly endless, which resulted in lots of confusion as to what we should order, as well as plenty of laughs. Here are some highlights:

"Ricer & Noodle" and "Beef Lamb": These section headings could easily have been corrected if the menu had been proofread before printing.

"Three Ingredient Potstickers" vs. "Potstickers": I love potstickers. They're one of my favorite items, and I was intrigued by the promise of "three ingredients". However, this translation didn't do the restaurant any favors. It was so ambiguous that I decided not to take the risk, since I didn't want to order potstickers that might be filled with something I don't like, which lost them an additional $4.

"Pine Nuts w. Wheat Gluten & Peppers": I imagine this item doesn't sell very well, given the current popularity of gluten-free diets. Based on its name, I envision chopped pine nuts and bell peppers in some sort of mushy paste, perhaps. Even stranger is the fact that this item is listed in the "Seafood" section...

"Fine Shred Potato w. Spicy Capsicum": If you know a bit of Latin, you can figure out that this vegetarian dish has some kind of hot peppers in it, since Capsicum is the plant genus that contains pepper species, but it still doesn't sound very appetizing.

"Crab Yolk & Bean Curd": Since when do crabs have yolks? Or does this contain crab, egg yolk, and bean curd?

"Lamb in Thin Wrap": This item was my personal favorite. It's probably some sort of thin rice wrap with lamb in it, but I imagined an adorable lamb with a thin shawl draped over its back to keep it warm.

I could go on and on, but you get the idea. The menu was a bit of a disaster. After spending ages looking it over, laughing, and trying to decide if we were feeling adventurous enough to order various poorly worded items, we finally made our relatively safe selections.

The food was indeed delicious as usual (including the potstickers), but I still felt let down by the menu. I love trying new things, but I also like to know what I'm eating, which is why I ended up ordering beef lo mein as my main dish instead of something new and exciting.

I can't help but think that this restaurant and the thousands of others like it who use Google Translate to translate their menus are missing out on great opportunities, both to earn more money and to expand their customers' culinary horizons. The worst translations on these machine-translated menus generally correspond to the most expensive items, since more complex dishes are harder to translate. It's not hard to find translators nowadays (especially with the help of the internet), and the cost of hiring a professional to translate a menu would be relatively small compared to the profits it could lead to in the future!

So if there are any restaurant owners out there, I beg you, please hire a professional to translate your menu instead of using a machine translation. The next time an adventurous diner visits your restaurant, they'll be much more likely to try your finest items if you're marketing them with well-worded translations.