Categories: work
Date: 04 May 2011 12:24:08
I'm sure we all regularly notice poorly translated documents, films, games, websites...
This post on subtitling describes my frustration.
I got an email earlier on, from a French organisation I'd like to work for (I was told the project I was interested in was on hold), and read their latest newsletter. Syntax errors, some poor grammar, unfortunate parsing by whoever put the English version of the text into the document... They managed to split a sentence over 2 paragraphs thus creating a first sentence with the subordinates and a second one with the main clause. Luckily, smelling pistakes were few! Argh!
And I could be the one doing the job for them properly!! It nearly made me doubt whether I would want to. So I had a fresh look at their website and confirmed that the errors I'd spotted on there are still there to be read by all and thought I'd try the little I can to address it.
I've emailed communications saying how sad I was to read the poor English in their newsletter and how important it is for their image that their brilliant French document be properly translated in to English. I wrapped up by offering my services should they want better work next time. How very rude! I've been sitting on my hands for weeks on that one and simply had to do something about it. I hope they won't hold it against me but will reward me for my cheek.
We'll see.