Categories: translation, trials
Date: 25 April 2008 14:39:36
End-clients often have various specific demands and this morning was no different. A client asked me to follow the end-client's instructions precisely. Today's little instruction was thus: Please use the "wrong" apostrophe, that is the one on the key next to the "ß"-key. The reason for this is that our online uploading tool does not recognise the "real" apostrophe and generates errors".
I am now involved in a slightly bizarre e-mail exchange with my client discussing which the "wrong" apostrophe might be. As far as I'm aware, my keyboard only has one... is it the "wrong" one or the "real" one? The end-client seems to be unaware that English keyboards are different to German ones. I don't have an "ß" key so I can't work it out from its location. (I have to muck about with the alt key and the number pad to produce the ß.)
The irony of this is that the company in question is an electronics firm. You'd think they would have the technology to recognise the humble apostrophe, wouldn't you?
But then again, maybe you wouldn't. The translation software I use, about which I have probably grumbled previously, was originally developed by a German company, I believe. It recognises a fullstop as denoting the end of a sentence. Fair enough. But it doesn't recognise when a fullstop is used to denote an abbreviation. German has lots of long words, many of which can be abbreviated. I have spent the morning translating a legal doc. wh. uses lots of abbrevs. in acc. w. legal prac. pursuant to Art. 56, para. 4 subsection 3, item 2 of the Act on Abbrevs. It is terribly trying having to find all these little dots and then having to delete them to get the software to recognise the whole sentence - and then reinserting them all again.... Let. me. tell. you.
Konnichiwa to my Japanese visitor looking for "lost in translation - doll". I hope you found something of interest. I'm afraid the only other Japanese I know is Sayonara - goodbye!