The Translator and the Current Services of the Internet

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3. How a Translator Can Exploit the Internet

As I could not find any research on the field of translating and the Internet, I decided to send a questionnaire (see Appendix 1) to a Usenet newsgroup for translators, sci.lang.translation, and to the mailing list of translators, LANTRA-L. I did not expect to receive an overall picture of an average translator's relations with the Net, but an idea as to how an Internet-literate translator can use different services of the Net for professional purposes. I received 45 answers altogether, from active Net users from Europe, Canada, Australia and the USA. When I planned the questions, I had in mind a picture of a young translator whose special fields would include computers and/or other technical subjects, and whose working languages would include English. I also thought that this questionnaire would mostly reach English-speaking countries. The answers surprised me somewhat.

3.1. The Translators Who Answered

To get a picture of the professionals who are active Internet users I asked them to list their working languages, special fields, the number of years they have worked as translators, and how often they use their Internet account (see the questionnaire, questions 1-4). The answers elaborated on below show that the respondents are mostly experienced translators who work with many different languages, in many different fields - especially technical ones - and that all of them use the Internet daily or several times a week.

3.1.1 The Working Languages

Only three translators (6.7%) of the whole group did not translate from or into English. This might be due to the language of the questionnaire or to the forums I used, where discussion is mostly in English. On the other hand, these forums are international and the writer can choose his/her language freely. I have not found any official statistics about the languages used, but for me as a regular Net user, English seems an overpowering language in the Net.

Other than English, the group operates with French (19 translators), German (18), Spanish (9), Swedish (6), Finnish, Italian, Norwegian (5 each), Danish, Japanese (4 of both), Bulgarian, Chinese, Dutch (2 each), Lao, Czech, Arabic, Greek, Hebrew, Hmong, Hungarian, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovenian, and Serbo-Croat (1 each).

To continue studies in this area in a second query, it would be interesting to ask translators the country in which they live, and how easy it is for them to get information from cultures other than those in which English is spoken.

3.1.2 The Special Fields

A majority, 30 (66.7%) of the respondents mentioned technical translations (including computer software and hardware) as at least one of their special fields. Twelve (26.7%) were specialised purely in technical translations. The Net as well as the means for using it is steadily growing more user-friendly but for a long time the Internet was relatively difficult to access for people who are not computer oriented; that has also, of course, had its influence on what the Net has to offer. I think that the computer-related information is still represented best in the Net. Still, the fifteen translators who do not work in a technical field were as active and happy Net users as the ones who do.

3.1.3 The Number of Working Years

To my surprise, most respondents had already worked for a good number of years. Nineteen (42.2%) of the whole group have been working for over ten years as translators. The senior translator of the group has been working in the field for the impressive number of 45 years. The average work span of the group was 10.5 years.

3.1.4 How Often the Internet Account Is Used

Only three members (6.7%) of the group did not use their Internet account daily. Even those group members used it three or four times a week. Many of the respondents stated that they used their account several times a day, often more than an hour daily. Quite a few said they spend far too much time on the Net. Had I known this, I would have asked the number of hours and the frequency of use to be more specifically stated, as I am sure that it is relevant to the profitability of the Net. The mailing lists and newsgroups especially require constant attending. The former can clog your mailbox so that it is difficult to find the useful messages, and the latter can also explode with messages or empty too suddenly as the newsservers cannot store all articles.

3.2. The Helpful Services and People

From a list of Net services, I asked the translators to pick out the ones they use and point out the most useful ones (see the questionnaire, questions 5-6). As expected, the e-mail was used by all respondents. It was also considered one of the most useful services by 32 translators. A close second was the WWW with 41 users, and the third choice was mailing lists with 36 (using mailing lists means using e-mail, so these two cannot really be divided). These two shared the position of the second useful service with 18 points each. Ftp was used by 30 respondents and considered one of the most useful by 4 people. Usenet News was used about as much as Gopher (News by 20 and Gopher by 16) but nobody gave Gopher credit as being one of the most useful services, whereas the News got seven mentions. IRC was mentioned in only one reply, and there it was also credited as one of the most useful service.

I also listed different kinds of people who might be of help for a translator - but unfortunately forgot to mention a very important one: the client (see the questionnaire, question 7). Colleagues were the most popular consultants, 44 of the respondents mentioned them. (This might be due partly to the forums I used to distribute the questionnaire.) Other professionals were contacted by 31, friends and relatives by 30, hobbyists and enthusiasts by 17 and although I had not mentioned clients, five people did refer to them in their replies.

3.3. What Kind of Help Is Needed on Which Occasions

I asked the translators what kind of help they can find in the Internet, and at what point they start looking for it there (see the questionnaire, questions 8-9). I did not want to make these into multiple-choice questions as I wanted to get as wide a range of answers as possible. The purpose of these questions was to find out different possible and profitable ways of using the Internet.

3.3.1. The Various Kinds of Help

According to the respondents, a professional translator can find help with terms, concepts and idioms, contextual information, spelling assistance and background material in the Net. They can follow developments in different fields and keep up their linguistic and cultural competence. Some respondents even thought that you can find "anything you want in any field." The Internet seems to offer easy access to various kinds of dictionaries, glossaries and databanks, and a quick way to reach colleagues, professionals and other people whom would be helpful to consult.

Colleagues can offer moral support, marketing tips, general advice, and even a virtual community to a lonely translator who enjoys a chat. As one respondent mentioned, the feeling that "I can also help" can be important. A translator can find job offers, useful software, information about translation agencies and other companies, new book titles and other products. The Net can be a way to contact clients and contractors and send and receive work files quickly and cheaply. It can also be used to recruit people and advertise one's services.

3.3.2. The Occasions When a Translator Can Turn to the Internet

Translators often work at home during the evenings and weekends. Most cannot, however, afford a wide home library or frequent phone calls around the world. A translator may have to seek information to tackle problems that could be very easily solved by someone else, such as how many digits there are in an LA phone number, or whether the English use the expression "family restaurant", or what the PECO countries are (the examples are from the respondents). The global community of the Internet is available 24 hours a day, unlike libraries and most experts; it can therefore be handy for a late night worker.

It seems, however, that approximately half of these very active Net users still check their usual sources first, and turn to the Internet when those fail. They use the Internet when they "get stuck on a translation" and the reference material or specialists they can reach in "real life" are not of help. Some even considered the Net "as a last chance". Then again, the other half of the respondents seem to take the Internet for granted, so that they did not specify any particular situation when they would turn to the Net, because they use its different sources all the time. One of the respondents even wondered how the translators managed before the Internet existed (he had worked for one year as a translator).

3.4. The Best and the Worst Things About the Internet

Lastly, I wanted to know what the translators saw as the best things that the Internet could offer them as professionals, and what the worst drawbacks were in their opinion (see the questionnaire, questions 10-11). These questions overlapped somewhat with the previous questions, but I also found some new aspects of the whole concept.

3.4.1. The Pros

In a nutshell, the best thing about the Internet seems to be "the access it gives you to so many means of assistance in your work", as one of the respondents put it. Many of the translators mentioned again the contacts to people all around the world, discussions with colleagues and other professionals who can be generous with help and advice, as well as a quick and easy access to vast up-to-date resources, such as on-line dictionaries and other databases. One respondent described the Net as a world library.

Contacts with clients were mentioned, as well as the opportunity to move work files. It was also said that the Net breaks down time and geographical barriers and globalises the market. "It's there 24 hours a day", one respondent said, and another speculated that in the future, those translators who are not acquainted with the Net will be out of the market. Maybe less professionally, the Net was also described as "fun".

3.4.2. The Cons

As I had expected, one of the most mentioned drawbacks of the Net is that it consumes so much time, and in some cases therefore becomes expensive. Many respondents complained about "noise", that is, the interfering, irritating or irrelevant messages, unwanted advertising, and other manifestations of "bad electronical manners" that can be met almost anywhere in the Net. The volume of information can be overwhelming, even when using search engines, so finding and managing the information is often difficult and time-consuming.

Some respondents described the Net as addictive, which sometimes means that a translator can find him or herself procrastinating and being distracted by the Net instead of working. It can be easy to spend hours with interesting diversions (such as filling in questionnaires, as one respondent said) in the mazes of the Net.

Many translators said that the Net is becoming slower. Servers can be slow or blocked during office hours, so that the Web services become slow or impossible to use and file transfers can take too much time. Other technical drawbacks were compatibility problems and a low level of reliability.

One of the translators said that her clients have started to expect quicker delivery, and some even send her tasks without confirming with her first. Another was worried that the Net cuts out the human contact.

One respondent did not see any bad things in the Internet, but another one thought that the whole thing is "probably overrated, going down quality-wise", and that "the new developments (graphics browsers, TV/Video etc. etc.) are a victory of form over content".

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