Poll: Which do you prefer most: translating, transcreating or tweaking?
Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
ProZ.com Staff
ProZ.com Staff
SITE STAFF
Dec 27, 2018

This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "Which do you prefer most: translating, transcreating or tweaking?".

This poll was originally submitted by Vi Pukite. View the poll results »



 
Kay Denney
Kay Denney  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 00:02
French to English
Transcreating Dec 27, 2018

... mixed in with translation, because I'm not sure I could keep it up all the time. Like my favourite translations are for art exhibitions, but again, I like them interspersed with easier stuff like fashion catalogues.

Actually what I like most is variety, the spice of translation!


Noni Gilbert Riley
 
EvaVer (X)
EvaVer (X)  Identity Verified
Local time: 00:02
Czech to French
+ ...
What is tweaking? Dec 27, 2018

Never heard of it.

Maja_K
Alexandra Speirs
Ricki Farn
P.L.F. Persio
Kaisa I
Michael Harris
Nadia Silva Castro
 
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida  Identity Verified
Portugal
Local time: 23:02
Member (2007)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
Other: I have no real preference… Dec 27, 2018

I love translating: I’m kind of a perfectionist by nature and I like paying attention to all the details and the style of the source documents, as well as the accuracy and significance of the terms used. I love tweaking my own translations: it means that I’m almost done! I also love transcreating: it’s much more fun to be able to unleash one’s creativity, but to create a text that not only has the same rhythm, sounds natural in the target language and is appropriate to the target market ... See more
I love translating: I’m kind of a perfectionist by nature and I like paying attention to all the details and the style of the source documents, as well as the accuracy and significance of the terms used. I love tweaking my own translations: it means that I’m almost done! I also love transcreating: it’s much more fun to be able to unleash one’s creativity, but to create a text that not only has the same rhythm, sounds natural in the target language and is appropriate to the target market and culture, but also stays as punchy and memorable as the source it’s more than challenging and time-consuming. That’s why like Kay I couldn’t do it all the time…

P.S. I understand tweaking as adding the final touches to a translated text...

[Edited at 2018-12-27 11:29 GMT]
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DZiW (X)
DZiW (X)
Ukraine
English to Russian
+ ...
Interpreting? Dec 27, 2018

And I still prefer counting my money, why?

 
Nikki Scott-Despaigne
Nikki Scott-Despaigne  Identity Verified
Local time: 00:02
French to English
Other Dec 27, 2018

I live the perfectionist side of translating. Translating has brought out the obsessional perfectionist side of my personality. However, what I particularly enjoy is how obsession and letting go mix. A particular term or turn of phrase may take a long time to get right, but in the very next sentence, for the benefit of the whole, you may need to put a lot of distance between the specific and the general. In my experience, getting this right is what leads to an authentic-sounding translation. I r... See more
I live the perfectionist side of translating. Translating has brought out the obsessional perfectionist side of my personality. However, what I particularly enjoy is how obsession and letting go mix. A particular term or turn of phrase may take a long time to get right, but in the very next sentence, for the benefit of the whole, you may need to put a lot of distance between the specific and the general. In my experience, getting this right is what leads to an authentic-sounding translation. I realize this is not transcreation and have never done transcreation.

That said, it is not unusual to come across parts of a source document that have to be re-created in order to make any sense at all. Likewise, tweaking is almost always necessary for the same reasons.
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Yetta Jensen Bogarde
Yetta Jensen Bogarde  Identity Verified
Denmark
Local time: 00:02
Member (2012)
English to Danish
+ ...
Translation Dec 27, 2018

Doing mostly medicine/pharma, law and IT I am rarely asked to transcreate anything, which is fine by me.

What I am especially concerned about is the authenticity of the language(s). I see too many 'professional' translations that are too close to the source language, in other words, they sound too 'translated', and the older I get, the more this annoys me.

What is tweaking?


Angie Garbarino
 
neilmac
neilmac
Spain
Local time: 00:02
Spanish to English
+ ...
Tweaking Dec 27, 2018

EvaVer wrote:

Never heard of it.


Perhaps you are more familiar with the term "fine tuning"... It simply means making small adjustments to improve something, which in our context will usually be a text, but could be for example be a recipe, such as using cashew nuts instead of walnuts in a Waldorf salad. Some people may use it as a euphemism for PEMT (post editing machine translation), although tweaking suggests minor adjustments, not the full-on slog of wading through MT gibberish.

PS: In US slang, "tweaking" mainly refers to methamphetamine abuse.

"A tweaker is slang for someone on illicit stimulant drugs. It almost always refers to the usage of amphetamine or methamphetamine."

[Edited at 2018-12-27 11:55 GMT]

[Edited at 2018-12-27 11:58 GMT]

A quick Google search for "tweaked the recipe" gets thousands of culinary hits:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/19/dining/whole-lemon-cake-recipe.html

[Edited at 2018-12-27 12:02 GMT]


P.L.F. Persio
 
Nikki Scott-Despaigne
Nikki Scott-Despaigne  Identity Verified
Local time: 00:02
French to English
Tautology? Dec 27, 2018

There is a tautology in the question "Which do you prefer most?"
"To prefer" means "to like best", although I suppose you can read the notion of ranking into the question.


[Edited at 2018-12-27 11:55 GMT]


Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
Kaisa I
Kay Denney
Angie Garbarino
Michele Fauble
Angus Stewart
 
Ricki Farn
Ricki Farn
Germany
Local time: 00:02
English to German
Translating Dec 27, 2018

In IT, we're usually expected to "translate 100% verbatim but make it sound not translated".

Yes, I have a split personality, why do you ask?

(Also, what is tweaking? Or did you mean twerking?)


Nadia Silva Castro
Vesa Korhonen
 
Noni Gilbert Riley
Noni Gilbert Riley
Spain
Local time: 00:02
Spanish to English
+ ...
Golly Dec 27, 2018

I had not idea that tweaking wasn't international English. It's probably what I spend most time doing, and at least one of my check throughs could be termed the "tweak stage". For me it's the difference between a "maybe get by" level and a "satisfactory or above" level of quality. So what do the rest of you call this - "finetuning" as Neilmac suggests?

 
Ricki Farn
Ricki Farn
Germany
Local time: 00:02
English to German
@Noni Dec 28, 2018

I knew the word tweaking in general, but I didn't understand it in the context of the list in the poll question: "translation" and "transcreation" are two tasks that another person asks me to do, whereas "tweaking" is one stage of a task, and I decide for myself whether I will do it. That's two different abstraction levels (for me).

So I could understand the question as
* translating - jotting down a first rough draft and selling it as a finished product (because that is all
... See more
I knew the word tweaking in general, but I didn't understand it in the context of the list in the poll question: "translation" and "transcreation" are two tasks that another person asks me to do, whereas "tweaking" is one stage of a task, and I decide for myself whether I will do it. That's two different abstraction levels (for me).

So I could understand the question as
* translating - jotting down a first rough draft and selling it as a finished product (because that is all the client will pay for, or because I'm a lousy translator, or because the weather is nice and I hope my client won't notice the difference if I just call it a day and go birdwatching)
* transcreation - creating a polished new text out of what looks like a translation task on the surface (because the client has explicitly asked me to do that and is paying for it)
* tweaking - jotting down a first rough draft and then patting it into shape all nice before selling it as a translation (because the client is paying for a good translation, or because I'm a perfectionist, or because I have a bit of time and want to practise my craft)?

Is that it?

If yes, I prefer tweaking, but only if it is valued and honored. Not if someone wants a "best-price translation ASAP"
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Julio Madrid
 
Mario Freitas
Mario Freitas  Identity Verified
Brazil
Local time: 20:02
Member (2014)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
Translating? Dec 28, 2018

I like transcreating very much, but since I work with technical/legal documents mostly, transcreation is a rare exception in my routine.
As to "tweaking", nice invention, but undue.


 


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Poll: Which do you prefer most: translating, transcreating or tweaking?






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