Client wants compensation for \'tag problems\' Inițiatorul discuției: Don Green
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Don Green 
Franţa
Local time: 14:19
Membru (2003)
din italiană în engleză
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Following an overdue payment reminder to a French agency, they replied asking if I would agree to a compensation as they had to \"retranslate\" the entire translation due to tag problems. No amount given. The translation was done in Wordfast on Trados memory, and although a few problems did come up during the work with tags, no mention was ever made that it was that serious and the quality of the translation was \"fine\", so they said.
It\'s a 1400 euro job, adopt a conciliatory approa... See more Following an overdue payment reminder to a French agency, they replied asking if I would agree to a compensation as they had to \"retranslate\" the entire translation due to tag problems. No amount given. The translation was done in Wordfast on Trados memory, and although a few problems did come up during the work with tags, no mention was ever made that it was that serious and the quality of the translation was \"fine\", so they said.
It\'s a 1400 euro job, adopt a conciliatory approach or show my teeth? ▲ Collapse
| | | | Joanne Parker
Local time: 13:19
Membru (2002)
din germană în engleză
+ ...
| Surely not much work for them? | Dec 10, 2002 |
Hello Don,
I don\'t think they should be asking for compensation. I haven\'t used WordFast so maybe it\'s not quite the same as Trados. In Trados, you could have exported your memory and sent it to them, so that they could have \"retranslated\" the original file using your memory. This would take them seconds.
Maybe you could suggest that they should have done this before they had to \"retranslate\" the whole file manually?
I would... See more Hello Don,
I don\'t think they should be asking for compensation. I haven\'t used WordFast so maybe it\'s not quite the same as Trados. In Trados, you could have exported your memory and sent it to them, so that they could have \"retranslated\" the original file using your memory. This would take them seconds.
Maybe you could suggest that they should have done this before they had to \"retranslate\" the whole file manually?
I would argue this unless, of course, they are a regular customer and you want to continue working with them?
Hope this helps,
Joanne
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And they never thought to mention this until they got a dunning notice??? Sounds fishy to me. I too have used Trados memories with WF without any problems. And yes, they could have called to ask you to send your memory so they could run it through again.
I find it hard to believe that on a job that big they would have had someone retranslate a high-quality translation simply for tag errors. And had the translation been bad, you would have heard from them immediately!
I would ... See more And they never thought to mention this until they got a dunning notice??? Sounds fishy to me. I too have used Trados memories with WF without any problems. And yes, they could have called to ask you to send your memory so they could run it through again.
I find it hard to believe that on a job that big they would have had someone retranslate a high-quality translation simply for tag errors. And had the translation been bad, you would have heard from them immediately!
I would refuse to back down. Not just for the money but the principle. Even if you lose the customer, do you really want one that behaves like that? ▲ Collapse
| | | | Sonja Tomaskovic (X)
Germania
Local time: 14:19
din engleză în germană
+ ...
| Sounds strange to me ;( | Dec 10, 2002 |
I am using Wordfast myself and I am aware of the fact that there might be problems with tags, even if you use +tools to solve the tag problem.
However, they could have asked you to send the TM since TMs between Wordfast and Trados are fully compatible. Also, tagging problems are no Wordfast only problems. I\'ve seen Trados translations done with the TagEditor that were far from being good or even acceptable. So I doubt that the tag problem is the reason why they ask you for ... See more I am using Wordfast myself and I am aware of the fact that there might be problems with tags, even if you use +tools to solve the tag problem.
However, they could have asked you to send the TM since TMs between Wordfast and Trados are fully compatible. Also, tagging problems are no Wordfast only problems. I\'ve seen Trados translations done with the TagEditor that were far from being good or even acceptable. So I doubt that the tag problem is the reason why they ask you for compensation.
I don\'t know whether you have any terms of conditions or so, and if the customer agreed to them. However, I have such order conditions, and I clearly state that the client has to review the translations, and has to inform me about any correction and changes that have to be made within 14 days after receipt of translation. If they don\'t, they have no right to ask for compensation.
Regards,
Sonja  ▲ Collapse
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claude
Thailanda
Local time: 14:19
din engleză în franceză
| Agree with previous replies | Dec 10, 2002 |
If they have redone the job and it took them a lot of time, it just means they not familiar with Trados and Wordfast, though they are asking you to use it. There are generally efficient solution to recover your translation and introducing it into Trados again. Also, there can be problems with some tags, generally not all of them.
In your case, I think you have not to compensate their lack of professionalism. This is too easy.
Good luck
| | | | Endre Both
Germania
Local time: 14:19
din engleză în germană
| This is nonsense | Dec 10, 2002 |
Clearly, the only approach that would make sense is to contact the original translator BEFORE having a document re-translated for whatever reasons. That said, retranslating a sizeable document (1400 Euro should be quite a few pages, I assume) because of ANY kind of TM problems would be ill-advised, to say the least. I trust any agency to be more expense-conscious than that  .
But they might mean something else by \"retranslation... See more Clearly, the only approach that would make sense is to contact the original translator BEFORE having a document re-translated for whatever reasons. That said, retranslating a sizeable document (1400 Euro should be quite a few pages, I assume) because of ANY kind of TM problems would be ill-advised, to say the least. I trust any agency to be more expense-conscious than that .
But they might mean something else by \"retranslation\" - realignment, maybe? Have they indicated the amount of \"compensation\" they have in mind?
Have you asked them why they didn\'t come back to you right away when they discovered those \"problems\"? ▲ Collapse
| | | | Karin Adamczyk (X)
Canada
Local time: 08:19
din franceză în engleză
| Wordfast and Trados are NOT fully compatible | Dec 10, 2002 |
I have done extensive testing of the compatibility between Wordfast and Trados with translated files and memories supplied by several translators -- there is no question that Wordfast and Trados are NOT fully compatible. Documents translated with Wordfast regularly cause tagging problems that are flagged as errors by Trados during cleaning. The memories are not fully compatible because the segmentation is not identical.
Quote:
... See more
I have done extensive testing of the compatibility between Wordfast and Trados with translated files and memories supplied by several translators -- there is no question that Wordfast and Trados are NOT fully compatible. Documents translated with Wordfast regularly cause tagging problems that are flagged as errors by Trados during cleaning. The memories are not fully compatible because the segmentation is not identical.
Quote:
On 2002-12-10 11:43, sonjav wrote:
I am using Wordfast myself and I am aware of the fact that there might be problems with tags, even if you use +tools to solve the tag problem.
However, they could have asked you to send the TM since TMs between Wordfast and Trados are fully compatible.
Sonja
That said, their timing and reasoning sound fishy. Why would anyone redo an entire translation because of tag problems. They should have contacted you when they first discovered the problem to give you a chance to repair the problems.
Then again, they are *asking if you will agree to a compensation*. They are not insisting. You will have to determine how this will affect your working relationship with them.
Did the client specify that Trados was required? Did you inform the client you would use Wordfast? Did they agree to your use of Wordfast?
Regards,
Karin Adamczyk ▲ Collapse
| | | | Don Green
Franţa
Local time: 14:19
Membru (2003)
din italiană în engleză
+ ...
INIŢIATORUL SUBIECTULUI | Thanks for all the interesting points | Dec 10, 2002 |
Yes the client was told more than once that I was using Wordfast. I have asked them to tell me what compensation they are asking for but have not yet received a reply.
It seems there is general agreement that the timing and nonchalance with which the request was placed is fishy, my feeling from the start.
Thanks to everyone.
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mmachado (X)
din engleză în portugheză
| Reliable agencies provide special software to check and correct tags | Jan 3, 2003 |
Hello,
It seems they are just getting an excuse to avoid payment. If there was a serious problem translator should be informed within the month between delivery and payment. It has happened a similar situation to me sometime ago (with a Portuguese agency).
In my opinion if you were not informed of problems within the 1st month the job was accepted and has to be paid. In these cases I don\'t work for that agency again and inform them that I will inform ... See more Hello,
It seems they are just getting an excuse to avoid payment. If there was a serious problem translator should be informed within the month between delivery and payment. It has happened a similar situation to me sometime ago (with a Portuguese agency).
In my opinion if you were not informed of problems within the 1st month the job was accepted and has to be paid. In these cases I don\'t work for that agency again and inform them that I will inform other fellow translators about their way of conducting business. They won\'t contact me again but they won\'t certainly be on the shadow anymore.
To avoid problems with tags most agencies do provide a special software to check files after translation and correct problems if necessary. That\'s the correct way of doing it.
All the best
Mónica Machado ▲ Collapse
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