Hey guys, I've been translating text for two years now, but stopped doing that recently (thinking if I should go on or not). A few issues came up during my translating adventures, and I'd like to ask people looking for translations what they think. I'd like to talk about it, because I want to learn my lesson. Sometimes I got texts with factual or logical errors. Two examples, both from a tourist guide... A, factual error) The guide say that tourists will arrive at airport X. Airport X however was closed and replaced by another airport 1 years ago. B, logical error) The guide says take the ferry from A to B, which takes 4 hours, then take the train from B to C which takes 5 hours. Then the guide says after a relaxing 6 hour trip the whole trip from A to C is completed. For me however 4+5 equals 9. This kind of errors are so common place in all the work I have done so far, that I need to talk about it. On the one hand, my job is translating, on the other hand it hurts my heart to just translate here. Some business partners are happy, that I spot and correct such mistakes, but few are willing to pay. Spotting errors is easy, but correctly correcting them is extra work on my side, because I have to check wikipedia and other sources to be really sure and it all takes time. But I feel a lot of other business partners are annoyed, when I send them lists of corrected mistakes. Typically people who just pass me on work from other people do not really want to get involed into this correcting stuf. This would be fine if they don't mind, however after my translation is read by someone on their side and sometimes they spot these logical errors (which were present in the original) and then blame me and stop giving me work. Most interestingly, the higher I got paid per word, the less errors were in the original and all was pretty hassle free. Kind of strange, because if the payment is already good, I'd be willing to throw in correcting errors at no extra charge. So the question goes especially goes to those people who want rather cheap translations. What do you expect? And to my fellow translators, how to you deal with text full of errors while the price per word is rather low?
What's wrong with saying... For x price, you will receive a grammatically correct translation of your original material. You will be responsible for ensuring that the original material is factually correct. Upon request and for an additional fee, I will provide basic corrections and/or fact checking services. I would worry that if a client continually gave me materials with factually inaccurate information that they were not the original owners of the material and asking me to help them commit copyright theft. I know it sucks when someone wants you to produce bad materials. You'll have to decide whether it's better for you to fire those clients or just put up with it.
It is stupid to blame the translator, if there are errors in the original text. I think you should keep with the original, or you may discuss it with your clients.
I think that it is not your responsibility to correct the text, just to translate it. However, people who will read it would blame you for the mistakes, so I think that you should warn the employers who gave you the job, for the mistakes and point to them, and leave them to decide weather they want or don't want them to be corrected.
When I do translations I don't charge in a per-word basis, but per hour. That covers any extra effort making corrections, however it's advisable make employers aware of errors before going ahead correcting them.