A call for a small action – Freelancers of the nation, unite!

 

It has been some 100 years since the heyday of unions. Today, the sad truth is fewer and fewer workers, both freelance and salaried, feel the need to join an association. Many, if not most, professional associations are experiencing declining membership numbers and energy and increasing average member age, including translator associations worldwide. Yet, despite the massive changes in the world since the beginning of the 20^th century, the need for collective associations remains as valid as ever: market forces are as unbalanced as in the late 19^th century; banding together strengthens individuals; and associations foster satisfying human connections. Thus, I encourage every freelancer, regardless of his/her profession or country, to join and contribute to a professional association.

The rise of the trade unions did not occur in a vacuum. The industrial barons of the 19^th and early 20^th centuries enjoyed full freedom to make any decision they wanted, almost unfettered by government rules or issues of social justice. The unions challenged their privileges, including the ability to set wages, hours and working conditions unilaterally. 21st-century labor markets are not so different. For example, the conglomeration of the translation agencies has reduced competition and rates to new lows as well as significantly reduced translator choice in rates and technology. Any translator that chooses not to agree to those rates or, increasingly, to use AI suffers. As for autonomy, as Henry Ford and his colleagues had no problem replacing any “problem” worker with a more flexible one, the modern axiom “the customer is always right” seems to justify patently incorrect translation and punishing linguists that insist on quality. Finally, one of the most important benefits of trade unions was to provide opportunities to socialize and be a human being, not a human machine. Especially before the advent of television, going to the union hall was as much an act of social expression as worker action. There, you were a human being, not just an employee. Today, too many freelancers spend the vast majority of their time alone in front of the computer and may even have forgotten how to have a conversation and its benefits. Meeting and talking make you feel like a human being, just like then.

Therefore, I call on every freelancer, including translators, to join an association. The annual cost is minimal and tax-deductible as a business expense. In return, one receives emotional and organizational strength, i.e., the knowledge that you are not alone. Moreover, being a member allows access to an incredible amount of professional knowledge. For example, the ITA (Israel) and ATA (US) each have an incredible library of webinars available to their member on any subject. This library can shave years off the learning curve. Often, being a member brings direct financial benefits, e.g., buyers seek members of the association and even post job requests in its networks. Likewise, getting to know colleagues often leads to referrals and recommendations. Making some contribution, whether time or knowledge, multiplies that benefit as colleagues learn more about your unique traits. Mutual support creates amazing synergy, often in unexpected ways, all for a small investment of time and energy.

As a personal testament, my father helped organize the reporters of the AP news organization into a union at a time when that organization treated them only slightly better than slaves. He paid a professional price for that but was proud of it to his last day. I am a member of three translator associations (Israel, France and the US) and participate, when possible, in their meetings. I regularly receive job offers from buyers that see my name on their sites, direct notices from the association and referrals from colleagues that have met me. Maybe just as important, I feel that I am part of a larger community, which professionally strengthens me just as my contributions strengthen that community. Although I lack the "organizational" mind to run an organization, I sit on the ITA Audit Committee and contribute ideas when relevant. I give what I have to give. I have gained far more than I have contributed.

In summary, if you are new to a profession, join an association. The knowledge that you can access can save years of errors and wasted effort. If you are established, the association can provide you with the tools and knowledge to adapt to a rapidly changing market. Yesterday’s business model is increasingly irrelevant; the association can help you quickly adapt. If you find yourself complaining about rates, conditions, AI, your colleagues or lack thereof, joining an association is one positive act. In unity, there is strength for everybody. We get by with a little help from your friends.

The linguist’s tale – A personal confession of native language interference

 

The sad truth is the 99% of humanity will never sound like a native speaker when they speak a foreign language. We may have a great ear, solid knowledge of grammar and well-developed vocabulary. Yet, some strange turn of the tongue gives us away. The culprit is interference from our native language, tendencies that are so ingrained that they affect every other language we speak. It is similar to those habits learnt from our parents, which we swore we wouldn’t continue when we became adults, but which we have to ultimately accept. I will demonstrate by recounting my misdoings when I speak Russian, French and Hebrew, habits that I wish I could eliminate but never will. All that is left is accepting imperfection.

Russian involves a completely different form of thinking and construction. I have managed to grasp most of its peculiarities. Case declensions are a matter of memorization and practice. Putting a noun in the singular after any number that ends in the number 1, including 1,000,001, has its peculiar logic but still carries a rational rationale. Practice helps hone the differences between the imperfective and perfective verb forms, which reflect, as a rule, incomplete and complete actions, respectively. However, placing adjectival phrases before the noun they describe is beyond the ability of my brain to apply. To demonstrate, the English sentence “The dog sitting on the table enjoys vegetables roasted in the fire.” comes out in Russian “The sitting on the table dog enjoys roasted in the fire vegetables. This structure is too alien for me to apply consistently. Thus, I will always sound like an alien, a foreigner, when speaking Russian.

French is much more similar to English but also has its intricacies. A little practice helps a student master the subjunctive. Furthermore, my plus que parfait is almost better than perfect. After an insightful webinar by Grace Shalhoub, I even feel confident when I need to adjust the past participle to agree with the gender and number of the preceding direct object, not as simple as it may sound. However, regarding gender, here I fail. I cannot and have never been able to remember the rules for knowing whether the noun is masculine or feminine. Aside from the “tion” class of nouns, which are all feminine, I can find no rhyme or reason. Thus, I have always double-checked every noun to be sure. I do not trust my intuition or my ear, only the dictionary. It is my cross to bear in French.

Hebrew is my daily language. I enjoy a rich vocabulary and an intuitive sense of how to choose the proper verb category from the root. Thus, I can read awful Hebrew legalese and can apply the rules to form the right verb from a root even if I don’t formally grasp the rule. My downfall is cultural. In Hebrew, the verb form changes depending on whether the grammatical subject is male or female (as well as singular and plural). This manipulation occurs in 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd persons. In simple words, the verb takes on a different form when a woman talks is or is talked about. As I have spent most of my life surrounded by females, e.g., spouse, daughter and colleagues, I tend to use the feminine form at all times, especially when I am tired and my brain is dragging. It sounds quite strange to refer to a male using the feminine form. In my defense, many foreigners make the same error. I understand that the cause of this error is the lack of such distinction in English. People forgive me because I am a foreigner but I am almost as embarrassed as my wife is when I make this error. I will continue to strive to reduce the error but it is impossible to eliminate.

This is my slightly tragic but mostly humorous tale about sounding like a foreigner. I know that I am not alone. The vast majority of people drag some feature of their native language into their adopted language. It is not a sin. However, as Tevye sang in Fiddler on the Roof, it is no great honor either. As humans are no more perfect in other parts of their lives, we have to accept our linguistic warts just as we need to come to peace with our other imperfections. To paraphrase Shakespeare, it is better to have spoken and erred than never have spoken at all.

Cancelling the experience/skill equation and what it means for translation purchasers and buyers

 

In many service areas, buyers assume that experience and skill are correlated, i.e., the greater the experience, the higher the level of performance. While this may be true for some professions, this does not necessarily apply to translation. Granted, experience hones certain areas of knowledge, but it does not necessarily attest to professional knowledge of the translation field. Thus, translation purchasers should not avoid newer professionals while the latter should not discount themselves.

Translation buyers, specifically because they are buying a service blindly the first time, seek indications that the individual is proficient. One of these indicators is experience. Experienced freelancers are likely more skilled at the complementary tasks. These processes include QA, customer communication and time assessment. Experienced translators have learned their typical errors they make in their first drafts and the cost of not catching them before delivery, the need to ask questions and the actual time required to complete the translation. Beginning translators often lack this knowledge and, thus, often misjudge deadlines and are less efficient in their time use. In practice, these issues will most likely be invisible to the translation buyer.

By contrast, since translation quality is highly correlated with the knowledge of the subject area, new translators may suffer from no actual disadvantage as compared to experienced ones. If a new translator has years of experience in the subject area, e.g., having worked previously as a broker, doctor or lawyer, the resulting translation will sound professional. In a certain sense, translation is merely an evolution in the use of that knowledge. On the other hand, some translators with years of experience in a given specialty not only do not improve but actually become convinced that their erroneous phrasing and terminology are correct and relevant. The fact that “no customer has ever complained” is irrelevant. Thus, it is impossible to accurately assess the extent of experience by only looking at the actual translation .

For translation purchasers, this means that actual experience should not be the only deciding factor in choosing the freelancer. While it is true that survival in a field indicates a certain level of competency, it does not imply excellence. A newbie with sufficient background and a professional approach may provide an equal or better result. Furthermore, as most newcomers are younger and have fewer customers, they often are more capable of meeting tighter deadlines. Therefore, those seeking a professional translator should also consider other factors beyond experience.

Translators with little or no experience need to put their personal (and natural) insecurity aside and approach the business in a professional manner. These newcomers should take on any project for which they are competent with outward confidence and charge professional rates. It is important to remember the difficulty of raising rates once they are established. That approach is key to success in translation. Nobody trusts doubt and discounts. At the same time, they should take into account a lack of experience by avoiding tight schedules and even seeking outside help in the QA process. Later projects from these customers will more than compensate for any initial income loss. If you make an error, remember that experienced translators also make them and learn from them. Furthermore, the manner in which you relate to and fix the error can create customer loyalty. Clients can be quite forgiving. New translators should pick their project carefully but hit a home run with their results.

Thus, translation experience is only one factor among many in determining the skill of a potential service provider. Subject knowledge and professional approach are equally important. Purchasers should not avoid relative newcomers to the profession nor should new translators sell themselves short. In practice, experience does not necessarily equal skill.

Intuitive vs logical – complementary and necessary grammar approaches

 

Mastering the grammar of any language involves both intuition and rules. Clearly, every language user relies more heavily on one approach but neither by itself is foolproof. Both students and teachers require reinforcement of the weaker sense in order to hone their knowledge of a language. For example, ESL students benefit from grammar teaching that strengthens both approaches. Likewise, ESL teachers, whether native or non-native speakers cannot depend on intuition or knowledge of rules alone to master grammar and must invest in complementing their knowledge. I can attest to that process as I view my career as an ESL teacher.

Clearly, a good ear and an analytical mind both aid in learning in English grammar. Due to the quantity of English language material available worldwide, both audio and written, students can and do access English material from an early age and develop an instinctive grasp of “what sounds good”, sometimes almost to the level of those living in an English-speaking country. However, the grammar, vocabulary and register of much of this material are often very low, e.g., rap songs and TikTok videos. Thus, the learner may normalize a very low level or even incorrect sentence structure. By contrast, the formal grammar rules provide a certain scaffolding for correct grammar use. However, they also add an additional layer of processing before producing the sentence, which reduces fluency and confidence. Furthermore, formal rules may lead to artificial speech, i.e., structure that does not actually reflect actual language use. For example, it is possible to ask the question “With whom am I speaking” but the vast majority of English speakers say “Who am I speaking with”. Thus, overly rule-based speakers sound rather unnatural in terms of fluency and structure. Thus, it is not advisable to rely on only one approach.

Consequently, ESL students benefit from grammar teaching that creates both confidence and formal structure. For those students that hesitate to express themselves because they lack confidence in their knowledge or feel a need to be perfect, it is important that ESL teachers encourage spontaneous speech based on intuition. The solution is to emphasize that the listener will most probably fully understand the meaning even if there are grammatical errors. Moreover, the formal error may actually be the far more common form. For example, Americans tend to use past simple instead of present perfect in situations describing current consequences to past actions. Compare UK “I have eaten lunch.” (and am not hungry) to US “I ate lunch.” For “natural” speakers, learning the rules helps them identify and rectify improper use and interference from their native language. For example, in formal language like means "similar to", not "such as", as it is used in conversational speech. To err is not only human but actually better for communication in terms of fluency and natural language while a little knowledge of the rules can help them reduce grammar errors that create interference with meaning.

This issue also affects ESL teachers and their mastery of the material. On the one hand, native-language English teachers may have a highly-developed “ear” for the correct form. However, they often lack a formal knowledge of the rules as English classes in the US and UK generally do not teach grammar rules. For such teachers, it is vital to actively study the formal rules and, just as importantly, their similarities and differences with the first language(s) of the students. The former is required in order to properly explain while the latter is necessary to “hook” that information into the minds of the students. On the other hand, many non-native speakers develop an excellent understanding of the former rules as they have learned them in ESL classes. Unfortunately, many teachers, especially from those countries where governments have limited travel to English-speaking countries, have far less developed awareness of how people actually speak. Furthermore, they often are unaware of the nuances of grammar, i.e., the unspoken meaning that a native speaker would naturally pick up. When a parent asks a 15-year-old American girl what she was doing at 3:00 in the morning, the issue goes far beyond her physical location at the time. Thus, a complete teacher not only knows the rules but also the practice.

My journey as an ESL teacher reflects this dual need. Having educated parents and being a reader, my English was quite proficient. Yet, I failed standardized English tests because, having dyslexia, I read sentences instead of words. I applied my intuitive skills, including predictive reading, to become a highly effective reader but a poor analyzer of sentences. When I became an ESL teacher, I invested significant time and effort to understand how to teach grammar. I first grasped the rules and then sought (and seek) ways to transmit this information to my students not only to help them understand the concepts but also intuitively apply them in their use of English. After more than 30 years of English, my fellow staff members consider me an expert on grammar, which I find quite amusing. I even view it as a revenge on my 11^th grade English teacher, who gave me a “D” in her class. Learning how to teach English is an ongoing process.

In summary, language knowledge is a mélange of intuitive and formal knowledge of grammar and structure. Either one by itself is not sufficient to produce high-level language. Every language learner begins the journey with different levels of competency in the two aspects. However, to create the best language, both have to work in concert. It takes two to tango.

Restaurants and location – in a different sense

 

There is something universal about eating in a restaurant. Wherever you may be, sitting down and having a meal in a restaurant is somehow familiar and comforting, regardless of the alien world outside the restaurant window. At the same time, restaurants also reflect local culture, culinary and other, making it an adventure to find a quality restaurant in an unfamiliar locale. In practice, the correlation between peripheries, quality and value is a local variation.

To demonstrate, last night my wife and I went out to dinner in order to support businesses in the hard-hit northern Galilee where I live as well as to give my wife a break from cooking. We went to a small restaurant called Mazaj in the nearby village of Rameh, a mixed village with Muslims, Christians and Druze. Upon arriving, the waiter brought over a dozen small bowels of various salads as well as pita bread. We ordered stuffed boneless chicken on a bed of long rice and almonds and baked Denis fish with French fries (or chips as they are known to the British). We also ordered a beer and soft drink. We concluded the meal with a cup of mint tea and a dessert called “Lebanese nights”, a light semolina cake with whipped cream and syrup. We were no longer hungry when we left.

To many abroad and even in Israel, on the outside, the restaurant does not appear to have great potential. It is located slightly off the main road of the village, next to an auto repair shop. The sign for the turn, which was never in great condition, has almost completely faded this winter. The room is spacious, featuring simple wooden tables and chairs. The waiters are typical for most of Israel: the good ones act like they have been on the job for three weeks while, in some establishments, one week seems more common. The menu and plating are simple and direct, not screaming out “sophistication”. As in most Galilee eating spots, you go there for the food, not the milieu.

By contrast, there is no questioning the quality of the raw material and cooking. The chicken was crispy on the outside and moist on the inside. The rice combination was tasty. The chef prepared my wife’s fish to perfection. The mint in the tea was clearly from the garden. The service was properly timed, i.e., allowing sufficient time to think, delivering the food nice and hot and clearing away the plates once it became clear we could no longer eat any more. The chef, who had appeared on television, greeted us when we entered, answered a question about an item on the menu and asked if we had enjoyed the meal as we left. The restaurant itself is clean and even enjoys a nice view of the setting sun. It is not an accident that we return to this restaurant and that it has survived both Corona and the recent war, events that have decimated the restaurant business in Israel, especially in the north.

As for value, the prices are quite reasonable for the area. In the restaurant business, local costs, including rent, food, labor costs and utilities, vary. Furthermore, the ability for people to eat in restaurants is dependent on their financial situation and income. As the Galilee is less developed, people eat out less and are less willing to spend 400-500 NIS for a meal for two ($130 and more). In this case, our meal cost 240 NIS, which is around 80 USD at today’s exchange (noting that the dollar-shekel exchange rate is at a historical low). For comparison’s sake, 2 McDonald’s McRoyal meals would cost around 108 NIS (35 USD) while 2 300-gr. Entrecote steaks at a chain go for 260 NIS. Thus, in terms of the quality-to-cost correlation, the meal was quite reasonable.

To be clear, locals and visitors eating in any of Tel Aviv’s many fine dining establishments would find much more elegant dining rooms and possibly more sophisticated food. They would also pay far higher prices without blinking an eye. Curiously, the added decor and price do not always guarantee any better food. As for the waiter, it is possible that the waiters are more proficient there. 

The correlation between the elements is quite different from what it is in the Galilee. These local distinctions also exist in other countries, e.g., Paris versus Brittany. Thus, location does have a significant impact on restaurants. Not only does it affect its success, it also influences customer expectations of décor, food and price value. In this case, as MacArthur said in a rather different context, I shall return.

Not as simple as it seems – the challenge of translating payslips

 

Most customers do not - and generally need not - understand the actual work process. Sometimes, this lack of knowledge impacts their price expectations. In this case, the service provider must provide some justification for charging an amount for a seemingly “simple” task. For example, private customers sometimes require translations of a series of payslips. To the uninitiated, while the first one may require a significant time investment, the additional slips involve very little effort. In fact, specifically because the forms are so similar but not identical, the later ones demand serious attention. The translator must look for expected and unexpected differences as well as perform a thorough QA on the document in order to avoid errors. All these efforts require time, which should be reflected in the price.

The most obviously challenging part of translating payslips is the original template. In the best possible world, it would be possible to use a conversion tool or AI that would automatically produce a usable template into which to enter the categories and numbers. Alas, in most cases, the template produced by these tools requires unreasonable time and effort to tweak. Even worse, the result is often not a visually exact replica of the original text. Furthermore, given that a translation may have a different number of characters, even significantly more in the case of Hebrew to English, the amount of space required for a given entry varies from translation to translation. Furthermore, the tools generally do not account for additional visual elements, such as shading and lines. Thus, in most cases, the translator has to manually build the template for the first payslip. Most customers understand this and take it into account when assessing the price.

The main issue revolves around the remaining payslips. While the form remains the same as well as some details, certain numbers predictably vary from month to month. Clearly, the payslip month and sometimes even year change, with this information generally appearing in several parts of the form. Likewise, service time increases in line with the date. On the financial side, the income numbers generally vary from month to month as do the quantity of hours of regular and overtime work. The cumulative pay numbers increase in accordance with the latest data. In addition, the summary of sick and vacation days changes according to their latest accumulation and usage. Finally, issuance and printing dates reflect the latest month. All this involves a methodical working through the form.

What is more challenging are the surprising changes. Income categories may come and go. For example, certain months include holidays, for which gift benefits show up in the payslip on a one-time basis. Sometimes, the employee receives a new or temporary benefit or loses a previously granted benefit. Thus, the number and type of benefits may vary from month to month. Employees occasionally change position, branch, home address and even bank. With all these numbers, it is surprisingly easy to miss a change in one number in a static data area. Employers occasionally add a short note to the employee regarding taxation, one that only appears in one payslip. Translators have to keep a keen eye for these among the sea of data.

Even when the translator finds all the differences, thorough editing is indispensable. Some of the common errors discovered in the first draft (hopefully) involve numbers. Notably, it is easy to switch two numbers, i.e., 4,214 instead of 4,124. Another minefield is the comma/period mistype. It is actually quite difficult to detect this error over a series of slips, e.g., 4.214 instead of 4,214 and 4,59 instead of 4.59. The risk is increased when translating forms from a language with a different set of punctuation rules, such as French to English. Finally, with so many details to which to pay attention, a translator can actually misspell a name in the first draft or change the spelling in another location in the document. Proper QA involves the careful checking of all these details.

Thus, translating payslips is ant work. This month, I told one of my customers that translating seemingly similar documents require great time and effort, with the quote reflecting those elements. The customer accepted my explanation. In practice, the project took as long as I predicted. Therefore, while there is no need to explain every detail of the work process, it is sometimes necessary to educate the customer to a certain degree. Not everything is as simple as meets the eye, especially to the unknowing.

Past and present – some global lessons from early American history

 

History classes are wasted on the young. Even if the formal history classes given to youth in each country focus on ideas, not dry facts, national educational systems tend to treat their national history as a unique, local and time-specific set of circumstances and ignore the universal human elements. For example, early US history, until the American Civil War, seems to involve a unique blend of elements: a distant, isolated continent; a relative but not entirely benevolent democracy in England; and the political complexity of disunited religious sects and native American tribes. On the other hand, certain dynamic factors shaped its development, elements that can affect history at any time and place. These factors include the sense of entitlement by the majority, the impact of governmental institutionalization of religion and the creation of existential intertribal conflict. A look at the world today provides clear evidence that these trends are as alive and well worldwide as they were several hundred years ago.

Early US history involved never-ending conflict, internal and external. Each of the original thirteen colonies was the product of a land grant from the British government to a group of religious “weirdos”, who did not wish to accept the authority of the Church of England. The most notable were the Quakers in Pennsylvania. They not only did not accept the authority of the official church but also rejected their fellow exiled sects in North America. As such, they experienced the consequences of state-recognized religion. British democracy at the time, even if rather liberal for its age, did not allow British non-landowners or women to vote, not to mention distant colonists. Thus, the American rebel slogan “no taxation without representation” is a complaint that the English government’s majority was imposing its will on a minority, a non-voting one at that. Consequently, when called upon to ratify the US Constitution, the voters insisted on minority protection in the first ten amendments to the US Constitution. The economic crises were often a result of the standard agricultural practice of its time (and still used in the Amazon): slash and burn. Settlers would cut down a forest, burn it and grow crops for seven years or so until the soil lost its fertility. The consequence of this practice was the constant need for virgin land, which was primarily east of the Appalachian Mountains. The British prevented expansion but once the new American republic was founded, the land rush began. The results were a series of wars between the Americans and Indians marked by cruelty and massacres by both sides. Some good-intentioned people tried to calm the spirits but ultimately to no avail. It became an “all or nothing” struggle, one that has left a legacy of hate and regret. All these struggles may sound limited to America of that time.

However, the concept of the tyranny of the majority remains an issue today. Many people ask whether having a majority of one in an elected body should allow the government to pass any law it wants. Many a dictatorship has developed or is developing from a democratically elected government, one law at a time. It appears that the Founding Fathers of America were correct to worry more about abuse of power than the inefficient use of power. The relevance of formal power limits remains.

As for religion, the separation of Church and State, an essential concept in American civil law, may not be popular among the most fervent religious believers. However, the national attitude towards religion seems to have an inverse relationship to its status in the government. Where religion is a private matter, it tends to thrive. For example, quite a high percentage of Americans have a marked religious identity. Where the religion becomes linked to government money and jobs, many people develop an antipathy towards the religion. It is amazing how fast the vast majority of Russians gave up Christianity after the Russian Revolution. As no religion is truly monolithic in its approach despite all of its efforts to enforce one, creating an official version tends to alienate dissenters and create conflict. As atheistic as the division of Church and State may sound, it actually strengthens religion.

One of the most tragic aspects of early American history is the wars between the Indians and Americans. The conflict was long and cruel. The leaders also framed it as “existential” as each group claimed that the land, all of it, belonged to it. Thus, as revenge led to revenge and more cruelty, politicians tapped into and fed this anger for their own purpose, creating a national tragedy. Even today, in certain parts of the United States, this hate remains for no reason and nobody’s benefit. It would be wonderful today to be able to state that such a struggle was an 18th-century phenomenon but today, unfortunately, there are too many violent and hateful ethnic struggles involving taking all the land and eliminating the enemy. Some politicians encourage this verbal and, far too often, physical violence, creating even more hatred. It takes courage to stand up and insist that the enemy is human also. That courage was lacking then and is lacking now.

History does not truly repeat itself as events occur in a specific set of circumstances. However, the forces shaping the dynamics of any particular situation exist at all times, generally latent, until conditions release them. As adults responsible for the future of our children, we need to study history to learn how to avoid releasing the forces of destruction and, maybe, just as important, how to unleash the powers of construction.