[These pages concern interesting correspondence between our translators and project managers at KENAX, mostly concerning the famous Jade Dynasty translation project.]

Good Translator Proofreading Glossary

I am checking file 124 right now and there are some questions I have:

1. What is the policy regarding Chinese characters within translated sentences (“Nur 晶珠 kann die Untoten stoppen”)?

2. If I understand the instructions correctly, I have to use the Segment Filter in order to only show translations done by the person that worked on the file I am checking, right?

3. I have already found mistakes like missing commas, grammatical errors, questionable translations etc. What is the accepted policy in this case? Should I fix these errors/peculiarities myself (which could take longer, since I have already found quite a few) or tell a PM to send it back to the translator (including a short report about the errors)?

4. How and when do I report the time it takes me to check/assess the files?

Thanks in advance for your answer!

Gerald

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Another question regarding “+” signs:

File 126 contains heaps of Plus signs (about 45), sometimes marking words like “descendant” or “up for grabs” which should normally be no problem to translate or find out using concordance search.

In such cases, should I fix all these errors or contact a PM to send the file back to the translator?

File 126 also contains blue text which has not been translated (and I have not come accross yet). What is the policy regarding this kind of text?

Best Gerald

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finished and uploaded the following:

[01_beta_90]: 90 mins. (Complicated file).
[01_beta_91]: 50 mins.
[01_beta_92]: 90 mins. New translator? Don’t remember this one. Many issues, also ignored the glossary most of the time. Instead, a ton of words was marked +. Quite a pain to proofread.
[01_beta_93]: 90 mins. Now I can agree with Doris that this isn’t a good translator. These more prose-like texts with longer sentences are quite revealing.

PS.: Made sure I also caught all the + issues this time ;-).

———————-

Gerald.

1)Chinese characters- leave them the way they are.

2)As far as I understand Sebastian advice – yes, he advices to use filter to see only translator’s changes.

3)Correct mistakes yourself in this case. Take into account that a list of errors for translator will take time, then writing us, then re-proofreading of revised file, what will add-up to the time you need to correct it.

4)You report about time you spent for each file here. And I will put your hours to AccountingGS then. You can and I would say should check the data in GS, so keep arecord of hours for yourself.

5)If you see plus marks left by translator, we can not send it back to him, as this way he shows that he is not sure here and there about translation. Check such segments, correct if needed, and remove +.

6) Blue text is tags. Everything after N/A is not supposed to be translated. So don’t pay attention to it.

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Thanks for your answers.

One more question regarding 3.): Do you want me to always contact you before fixing lots of errors which could take longer (as is the case with file 124), or can I start immediately?

Best Gerald

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Gerald

Let it be up to you. If you see there is a reason to send it back to translator and he is able to correct it – tell me; if it takes longer to ask and get reply – correct it at once. If you see that the file will take too long to fix – more than an hour for example- tell us, we’ll decide what to do. Also you should send file back if you see that the file was not proofread/ spellchecked by translator before he sent it and it consists big amount of typos or other mistakes, which appear because of careless or unattentive attitude.

———————-

Hi, + issues fixed for 023. Now continuing with spot checking.

Sebastian

———————-

Sophie.

I expect tohave more files to spotcheck later in the evening. Will assign you next files once we have them.

———————-

I’m wondering if I should just wait with the last glossary update until we’re finished translating and use it for the S&R list. Apart from that, I’d be willing to translate more…

———————-

finished the next batch. Report:

01_part_089: 30 mins for spot-checking and a number of + / untranslated. Not error free, could benefit from more proofreading, but seems to be acceptable overall (no fatal errors found). Uploading what I got so far; tell me if you want me to do a quick proofreading of the rest.

01_part_129 Gerald: 15 mins, fixed a few things, rest should be good.
01_part_130 Gerald: 10 mins, good.
01_part_131 Kalle: 15 mins, looks good.
01_part_132 Jan: 15 mins, good.
01_part_133 : 20 mins, some issues — with some idiomatic meanings,  is not as good as the new translators above and sometimes translates a bit too literally, short file, so I did a quick proofreading (but didn’t polish the file).

Now continuing with Susanne’s files.

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Ok, I need to slow down …

I just uploaded 01_zeta_129-133_DEU_spotted_Seb_2.TXF because I first forgot to replace one changed glossary term in ‘s file, but now I realize the same is used in the other files as well. So before I upload a third file, let me explain:

Champion Medal(s) is translated as Meister-Medaille(n).
Champion was changed to Streiter, accordingly, it should also be Streiter-Medaille(n). There are other glossary terms where Meister was changed to Streiter, so I assume the same should be true for those medals (although those are not in the latest glossary).

I can change everything to Streiter-Medaille(n) and upload a third file, but maybe you want to go through all the files with find&replace anyway because it can be assumed that there are more cases of Meister-Medaille.

So just tell me if you want me to fix it or not.

———————-

Hi

about Susanne’s files (final version), there is some kind of mess-up.

From 071 on, the segments are off by two (the corresponding German is two segments below the English ones), later in the file, around 750, it gets worse. Something that happened by importing/exporting, or copying in and out of Transit?

Anyway, it is very hard to proofread this way, so is there a way for you to fix this? I could also try it myself, if I had it as a raw excel file of it or something.

———————-

I have just uploaded the proofed/spotchecked files.

124: 30 minutes
125: 30 minutes
126: 40 minutes (about 45 plus signs, overall bad quality, some literal translations etc)
127: 60 minutes (about 60 plus signs, some very bad translations [and VERY bad quality of the English text, by the way], some sentences had to be completely retranslated)
295: 15 minutes

Best Gerald

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Okay, I fixed the segmentation in 28-29.
I also reverted some really obvious mistranslation back to English. You may find others where the translation is obviously for a different segment.

http://translationstop.com/files/Proofreading/German/01_alpha_28-29_tobe_reproofed.PXF

Before you proceed, I want to ask you to take a look at the current 28-29 (the above link), and then at the previous 28-29 (the one you rejected), and then consider the following question: are any of those usable after proofreading or would it be more efficient to just ditch 28-29 and start over with a different translator? I hate having to discard someone’s hard work, but when it starts costing more time and money to fix something than to get it translated in the first place, it’s time to consider switching.

As for your question about Champion Medal, we’ll get it via the search and replace.
(

” PS: Also noticed Susanne didn’t use the glossary terms for several things. Anything in the form of xxxx von xxxxx is likely a non-glossary term. Please consider the time needed to fix that too.

“There’s no more to translate.
In fact, I think there’s possibly 2 files that need to be re-translated, and that’s about it. Everything else is done.

What’s your plan with the glossary? If there’s anything to change, change it and let’s start with the S&R list.

———————-

Let me know, please, if you have done the list of advoces for Gerald I asked you about 2 days ago.

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thank you for files. files 01_136-140 I have uploaded. Already you sent me some new ones. I hope, I can send them back tomorrow.
My hours report is:
file 136-25 min.
file 137-30 min.
file 138-45 min. (please read comment)
file 139-30 min.
file 140-20 min.—2 hours and 30 min.
till tomorrow

doris” Doris

“, sorry, earlier I have made a mistake, I had uploaded the files with the ending pxf. Now I corrected the files, excuse me please
doris

———————-

Gerald.

Next files:
01_part_103
01_part_104
01_part_105
01_part_106
01_part_107

103-104 – are files of a very good translator so they must be about flawless. 105 – consists 15 untranslated words, make sure to translate them; overall it is a good translator so there shouldn’t be anything serious. Note there are comments from translator for this file. 106 file may be problematic – pay more attention to it. 107 – good enough translator.

Download links:
http://translationstop.com/files/Proofreading/German/01_epsilon_103-107_DEU_for_spotting.PXF
http://translationstop.com/files/Proofreading/German/Notes_01_105_Epsilon_German_Dennis_Translation.doc

Please, confirm

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I actually sent you such instructions through the CS. The CS has been working unstably lately, so maybe it got lost. I’m posting it here again.

Regarding Gerald:

Most common mistakes:

-sloppy proofreading (copy-pasting into Word and running spellcheck reveals many errors quickly)
-obsolete dictionary terms
-hyphens not changed into °°° (use of tag protection, careful!)
-sloppy checking of fuzzy matches, leading to mismatches of terminology
-sticking too close to the source (especially because so much of the source text is simply rotten eggs), which may lead to skipping articles, endings, not adjusting grammar…
-not paying attention to singular/plural (because glossary may contain only singular)
-delimiters in numbers (1.5 becomes 1,5 and 1,000 becomes 1.000)
-not applying project-specific hyphenation rules
-leaving English terms in the target text
-not matching the register/style/atmosphere by using very modern/informal language
-not trying to get into the “look and feel” of the game
-simply not minding context and possible meanings/too literal translations

Things to watch out for:

-Exchanging all – with °°°
-Exchanging number delimiters
-Finding and erasing double spaces within sentences or spaces in front of punctuation
-segmentation issues:
Some segments may contain the beginnings of sentences, but the continuation may not be in the next segment. In the worst case, it is not even in the same file (as is the case with some reps files). Ideally, we should either try to locate the respective sentence in the source (Excel) files (please ask PMs if you do not have them yet) or, if it is possible in that same file and adjust the sentences/sentence parts correspondingly. If not possible, we should try to keep the sentence fragments as easy to correct (for someone that has the other fragments in front of them), avoiding things like:
If you have this part:

You should adjust

but cannot find this part:

the Pet Skill accordingly.

Then don’t do this:

Ihr solltet anpassen

but leave it as:

Ihr solltet

If you come across such issues, it would be good to make a note (if possible, in a very clear and precise way so it is easily retraceable).

Alright, on top of my mind, those are the most important things. Please feel absolutely free to contact me on any issues anytime. If someting springs to my mind that I haven’t shared here, I’ll let you know right away.

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