Job: post-editor for technical documentation, JP>EN

Forwarded from Stephen C.:

*Post-Editor for Technical Documentation (JA>EN)*

Milengo Ltd. is looking for (engineering) students or graduates who are interested in freelance work as post-editors (Japanese into English). Post-editing is the process of modifying a machine-generated
translation with refined translation memories to insure a certain level of quality. Requirements: good computer skills, excellent technical understanding, bilingual or native speaker in English or Japanese;
excellent command of grammar, attention to detail, clear writing style and positive attitude to Machine Translation. If you meet these criteria and are interested in working with us, please contact us at: translators at milengo.com.

Feel free to circulate.

Use Your Language, Use Your English summer school 2012

More information about the Use Your Language, Use Your English translation summer school, courtesy of Ros Schwartz who will be leading the French workshop. Discount for students; bursaries available.

Use your language, Use your English

This innovative translator training project is for native English speakers with one or more other language/s at an advanced level who wish to develop their translation and editing skills. All our courses, online and workshops, are delivered by leading professionals. For information, including FAQs, biographies of the tutors and organisers, and further details on each activity outlined below, see:

http://www.bbk.ac.uk/european/about-us/use-your-language-use-your-english

We will be running four activities in 2012:

- The summer school: following the great success of last year’s Summer School, we are delighted to announce the expanded Summer School 2012. This five-day event will take place at Birkbeck University of London (43 Gordon Square WC1H 0PD) on 9-13 July 2012. It comprises courses in translation into English from Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish – each language subject to a minimum group-size of five students – and an editing skills course for all. There will also be games, a competition, meet-the-publishers, and guest lectures and workshops.

Full fee: £400; student fee: £250. Bursaries available. Online booking will open on the website in February 2012.

Extracts from the feedback on last year’s Summer School:

‘Thank you so much for a brilliant course. It was wonderful to meet so many inspiring people, both staff & students alike. I felt really privileged to be working with “la crème de la crème” of the translation world.’

‘It gave me confidence & showed me that translation as a career is a feasible option. It also illustrated the wide variety of options open to people with language skills.’

‘I enjoyed everything! It was amazing being able to experience two tutors of translation with their differing styles; being able to prioritise the techniques in two different languages, plus attending all the fascinating talks. The “fun” bits were great too, ie the translation slam & game.’

-       The online programme (free of charge): This comprises seven courses in translation into English (from Arabic, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish) and one course in editing. To register, email: useyourcontact@bbk.ac.uk

-       Exams: from February 2012, you will be able to take an examination in any of our languages/editing; fee £250. Booking for this too will be online via the website.

-       The database (DATE): From March 2012, if you have passed our exam, you will be able to enter yourself on our Database for Academic Translators & Editors [DATE] which will be searched by anyone looking for an excellent Anglophone translator/editor.

funded PhD studentship in translation technology, Dublin City University (28 July)

PhD Scholarship in Cognitive Translation Studies and Human-­Computer Interaction at Dublin City University
Funded by Symantec Ireland

Background
Recent work by Koehn (2010) has focused on the concept of monolingual post-­editing of Machine Translation output. Similar work is being conducted within the NSF-­ and Google-­funded Monotrans, Monotrans2 (Hu et al., 2011) and Paratrans projects in the US, and within the Language Grid project in Japan (Lin et al., 2010). While these projects have shown that in certain cases monolingual experts can produce post-­edited products that outperform those generated by bilingual translators, they have not explored the cognitive dimensions associated with this new type of activity. Indeed, the following questions have yet to be fully answered:

• Are there any pre-requisites for monolingual editors (and indeed bilingual post-­editors) to produce reliable output (background, domain knowledge, task tolerance, personality profile, interest in supporting technology, philanthropy)?
• Are there any criteria (such as source or raw output quality) that may affect the quality of monolingual (and bilingual) editing?

The PhD scholar will be expected to carry out empirical research on cognitive and contextual dimensions to ascertain what the success factors are for monolingual vs. bi-­lingual post-­editing.

Scholarship Details

Applications are invited for a three-­year scholarship to conduct research in the domain broadly outlined above. The scholarship will include annual fees for three years (approx. 5,000 euros for EU candidates) and an annual stipend of 18,000 euros. The successful applicant will register as a full-time PhD-track student in the School of Applied Language and Intercultural Studies, Dublin City University, under the academic supervision of Dr. Sharon O'Brien. The scholarship is fully funded by Symantec Ireland's Shared Engineering Services Research Group. Industrial cosupervision will be provided by Dr Fred Hollowood and Dr Johann Roturier (both of Symantec Ireland).

Expectations

This study is one part of a larger funded project, with multiple partners. The student will be involved in:

• Defining several rounds of user studies involving the post-editing of Machine-­Translated User-­Generated content by both speakers of the target language and bilingual speakers. The objectives of these studies will be to compare the user productivity and quality of the generated output given different set-ups, and to compare monolingual and bilingual post-editing as a process.
• Defining user requirements to help design an enhanced Post-­Editing environment (where monolingual and bilingual user edits can be collected).
• Conducting additional tasks in the area of Corpus Linguistics, such as:

o User Generated Content (UGC) corpus analysis to identify areas where input normalisation may be required (in terms of spelling, terminology, grammar, style)
o Defining a model to classify UCG (by identifying specific utterances such as questions and answers).

• As a stipended PhD student, the student may also be asked to assist with teaching duties at some stage during the scholarship duration.
• The student would be expected to publish his or her research findings in relevant conferences and journals. Where appropriate, this will include co-publication with supervisors.
• The student will have the opportunity to take relevant modules designed for graduate training at the university.
• The student will be an active PhD member of the Centre for Translation and Textual Studies at DCU.

Qualifications, Skills and Qualities Required

• Ideally a completed Master's qualification in Translation Studies, with a minimum of a 2.1 award or higher. A Master's in Human-Computer Interaction would also be considered.
• Excellent English skills, academic writing skills and research skills.
• One or more additional languages (especially French, German and/or Japanese, but other languages will be considered).
• Good knowledge of linguistics.
• Some knowledge of statistics is desirable.
• Good IT skills are essential.
• Experience in a translation production environment is a bonus.
• The candidate must be comfortable having one foot in an industrial environment and one foot equally in an academic environment. S/he will be required to spend a signficant amount of time at Symantec’s Dublin office on a weekly basis.
• The candidate must be able to juggle short-term, industry-set deliverables with longer-term academic milestones.
• The candidate should be comfortable taking feedback from multiple channels and working within a team environment.

How to Apply

• The strict deadline for receipt of applications is Thursday, 28th July.
• Only electronic applications will be accepted. Applications should be sent to the following e-mail address: DCUSYM at gmail.com
• The following should be compressed (zipped) into one file and attached to the application e-mail:

o A CV (about 3 pages)
o A current photograph
o A cover letter stating why you are interested and how your qualifications etc. match the requirements set out above. This should also contain the contact details of one academic who has agreed to be a referee for you.
o In addition to naming one academic referee in your cover letter, please ask a second academic referee to write a one-page letter of recommendation. The referee (not the applicant) should submit this to the e-mail address specified above, with the subject line: Academic Reference for [YOUR NAME], also by the deadline specified above. This referee must be different from the person named in your cover letter.

Following Application

Suitable candidates will be short-listed during August. We will endeavour to set up interviews (face-to-face or online) at the end of August/early September. Shortlisted candidates will be asked to supply electronic copies of university awards and marks at that point. We hope to make an offer by the end of September. Candidates must be available to start in early October.

places available for Use Your Language, Use Your English

There are some places left for this course, which looks great: 

“Use your language, Use your English”

This project offers training for native Anglophones who have an advanced knowledge of one or more other languages (research students and others) to develop their translation skills under the tutorship of practising professionals: seven translators and an editor. The courses take three forms:

• A Taster Event (8-9 April 2011) at the Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies (IGRS), London: classes in French, German, Russian & Spanish - N.B. A few places still remaining.

• Online training, freely available on the London University School of Advanced Study (SAS) VLE, moodle - these courses (Arabic, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish & Editing Skills) will be uploaded in spring 2011.

• A Summer School (18-23 July 2011) at the IGRS, London: classes in Arabic, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish & Editing Skills.

To apply for the Taster Event and/or the Summer School, follow the url below. Please observe the deadlines as places are limited to 80, and UK student subsidies limited to 20, at each event.

Following completion of any of these courses, you may apply to take an examination and, if successful, be entered on a Database of Academic Translators & Editors [DATE], which will be set up in 2011-12. For details and application forms, see http://igrs.sas.ac.uk/postgraduate/use-your-language-use-your-english.html. Applications should be sent to Marcus Erridge, IGRS, Senate House, Malet St., London WC1E 7HU. Frequently Asked Questions can be found at: http://igrs.sas.ac.uk/postgraduate/use-your-language-use-your-english/frequently-asked-questions.html. For any other enquiries, email naomi.segal at sas.ac.uk.

Proofreading, editing, spellchecking

I was inspired by a post from one of our MA students about editing and proofreading to put a few ideas together about checking work. There is lots of good advice out there on the net (see e.g. Philippa Hammond's blog here, Proz here or Dailywritingtips here). Catherine Hibbard has a very good post where she identifies common problems including the spelling of proper names, errors in numbers and dates, inconsistent or incorrect capitalisation, omissions of words, repeated words, incorrect punctuation, misspellings and non-agreement of subject and verb.

So how to avoid these? Some hints and tips:

• Print out your work if you have time, and mark it up in red or coloured ink before entering the corrections on screen.
• Read in a different font or a different size  to 'refresh' your view of the text. 
• Read the text out loud. This blogger recommends getting text-to-speech software to do it for you. 
• Many people recommend reading backwards for manual spellchecking.
• Get someone else to read your work, or buddy up with a colleague to proofread each other's work. 
• I don't use the 'show/hide formatting symbols' tool in Word but some people do. It may pick up formatting slips like extra spaces.
• I always run a spellcheck before the final proofread. It's a useful way of checking the consistency of spelling of proper names. Add the correct version to the dictionary as you go along and then misspelled versions will show up on the spellchecker. 
• Don't just proofread your submitted work: proofread your correspondence too, including emails.
• Check with great care for accents. 
• Check with great care for apostrophes when writing in English. Misused apostrophes are disproportionately irritating for your reader: 

Even the best speller has an off day. I would always recommend running a spellcheck, if only because a  'definately' or a 'seperate' or similar 'aaagh!' typo makes it look (a) as though you can't spell and (b) as though you didn't care enough about your client/reader/end user to run a quick spellcheck.

BUT

be aware that a spellcheck won't pick up misspelled words which are also real words, e.g. form/from, where/were, quiet/quite. It won't pick up misused homophones like

• principal/principle
• discreet/discrete (discretion is important, and it means being discreet)
• affect/effect
• complement/compliment (the decor of the restaurant compliments the food. Does it really?)
• counsel/council
• hoard/horde
• peak/peek/pique
• precede/proceed
• forward/foreword
• than/then, 
• two/too/to, 
• loose/lose (how has this become such a common error??)

See here for a useful list with definitions.

Spellcheckers find it difficult when you have words from more than one language in a text. They may not pick up on misspellings in the other languages, or worse, your spellchecker might be sabotaging your work by correcting words that you don't want it to (e.g. cognate words which are similarly spelled or words which are differently capitalised in different languages). Always proofread 'manually' after running a spellcheck.

English spelling is full of traps. You might like to check your familiarity with some spelling bugbears with a handy quiz or three - try the Oatmeal Twitter quiz, this quiz or this quiz which has a few tricky questions about American vs. British spelling.Those of you feeling bumptious about your spelling might like to try the ultimate Oxford dictionaries spelling bee (you'll need audio enabled).

EDIT: 12 February 2012, removed defunct BBC and Guardian quiz links and added the OED.

Translation taster, short course and summer school, London 2011

This just came round, and may be of interest. Research students may be able to apply for a subsidy to attend:

We are told that:

This is to announce a new research-training initiative, funded by the AHRC, the School of Advanced Study at the University of London [SAS] and the University of Westminster. It is a collaboration between the Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies [IGRS], Westminster University and the Translators Association of the Society of Authors, UK.

The project offers training for native Anglophones who have an advanced knowledge of one or more other languages (research students and others) to develop their translation skills under the tutorship of professionals in the field: seven translators and an editor. The courses take three forms:

·         Online training, freely available on the SAS VLE, moodle ? these courses (Arabic, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish & Editing Skills) will be uploaded in spring 2011;

·         A Taster Event (8-9 April 2011) at the IGRS, London: classes in French, German, Russian & Spanish;

·         A Summer School (18-23 July 2011) at the IGRS, London: classes in Arabic, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish & Editing Skills.

To apply for the Taster Event and/or the Summer School, follow the url below. Please observe the deadlines as places are limited to 80, and UK student subsidies limited to 20, at each event.

Following completion of any of these courses, you may apply to take an examination and, if successful, be entered on a Database of Academic Translators & Editors [DATE], which will be set up in 2011-12.

For details and application forms, see http://igrs.sas.ac.uk/postgraduate/use-your-language-use-your-english.html.

For a copy of the project poster, email either igrs at sas.ac.uk or naomi.segal at sas.ac.uk.

The editing skills initiative is a particularly good idea imho.