| Pages in topic: < [1 2] | My new website - feedback needed Thread poster: frafidato
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Sheila Wilson 
Spain
Local time: 21:36
Member (2007)
English
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| Re: native language | Feb 14, 2013 |
Gitte Hovedskov Hansen wrote:
it simply does not work in practice in some language combinations where there are far more mother tongue speakers of the target language than of the source language
As Tomás has since acknowledged, while there are only very, very rare instances where translators in the FIGS pairs should translate out of their native language (only for incredibly specialised subjects), there is more justification in some other pairs.
I am a state-authorised translator in this combination, which gives me the right to certify translations by native-speaking Spanish translators, but I would not dream of offering translation into Spanish myself
I think that's where many people are misled. You can have qualifications for translating out of your native language, you can even have successful experience as an in-house translator translating in both directions, but neither mean you should offer such services as a freelance translator. A client of a freelance translator expects the target text to be the best possible, whereas the employer of an in-house translator has to choose the best person able to do both jobs reasonably well.
| | | | frafidato
English to Italian
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TOPIC STARTER | Thank you again! | Feb 17, 2013 |
Thank you to everyone for your tips and suggestions
and especially thanks for being one of my first 300 visitors
this week!
Please, go on posting your feedbacks about my website: www.latraduttricefreelance.it
I think they can be very useful for me...
Thank you again!
Silvia
| | | | xxLecraxx (X)
Germany
Local time: 22:36
French to German
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| too many areas of expertise | Mar 20, 2013 |
Hi Silvia
I know I'm going to repeat what has already been said:
I'd also say you offer way to many areas of expertise... It is very unlikely that you have a sufficient amount of knowledge in all of these fields. Translators who pretend to be able to translate in too many fields of expertise are not very credible: they're (in most cases) beginners who under-estimate the importance of in-depth knowledge in a rather small quantity of areas of specialization (I used to do... See more Hi Silvia
I know I'm going to repeat what has already been said:
I'd also say you offer way to many areas of expertise... It is very unlikely that you have a sufficient amount of knowledge in all of these fields. Translators who pretend to be able to translate in too many fields of expertise are not very credible: they're (in most cases) beginners who under-estimate the importance of in-depth knowledge in a rather small quantity of areas of specialization (I used to do that too! don't get me wrong, I'm still a beginner) or who, in hopes of making more money, offer as many services as possible (translating into different languages and from languages they don't actually know so well, a vast number of fields of expertise, interpreting without having learnt it, voice-over, transcriptions, proofreading, editing, subtitling...you name it). I would suggest you better concentrate on two or so highly specialized areas in which you can deliver high-quality work in your native tongue(s).
It is understandable why you refer to yourself in the 3rd person. Some German translators I know do that too on their websites. Maybe in order to come across more professional, as if there were a big company behind the translator which promotes his service. But usually these translators name their websites "XXX translations" or so, and not after their name. I don't know... I think most clients know very well how translators work. Mostly alone at home I don't say it's bad to refer to yourself in the 3rd person, but I personally wouldn't do it. It's YOUR service, YOU are communicating on your website with the client in prospect.
I would omit the language certificates on your website that you have obtained in English and Spanish. B2 level is a fine level, but it is not enough to become a professional translator. Especially since you translate INTO Spanish as well. I am aware that the certificate is already 7 years old and most likely your Spanish is now much better than it used to be at the time, but I would strongly suggest to just leave it out. Same for the English B2 level certificate, but also for the C1 level certificate. C1 is fine to work as a translator, but it is not the highest (C2) certificate. Again, I don't think you need to pass a C2 level test in order to become a good translator, but if at all, I would only mention certificates obtained in the highest possible level in a language, or otherwise just mention other (more relevant) certificates (your university degree(s) as you already do, or a translation diploma). Just my opinion...
Another thing that struck me: why do you indicate two e-mail addresses? Wouldn't one address be enough? Or is there an important reason for this I might have overlooked?
But the most important thing is to reflect on your areas of expertise and the services you offer.
best regards ▲ Collapse
| | | | frafidato
English to Italian
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TOPIC STARTER | Thank you for your comments! | Mar 20, 2013 |
Dear colleagues,
Thank you very much to everyone for your comments and suggestions.
I am editing and changing my web pages and I have already told my personal
web designer to make some changes.
So, go on "feedbacking" my website and I will keep you informed about future ch... See more
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| typographic comments | Mar 21, 2013 |
I’ll continue my typographic nitpicking
Two very minor tweaks you might consider:
1. In French, a single non-breaking space should technically precede the colon and the semicolon (e.g., “suivants :” instead of “suivants:”). That said, a lot of web sites don’t actually bother.
2. Technically speaking a spaced hyphen ( - ) is not a dash (—). In English, this dash can be set as ei... See more I’ll continue my typographic nitpicking
Two very minor tweaks you might consider:
1. In French, a single non-breaking space should technically precede the colon and the semicolon (e.g., “suivants :” instead of “suivants:”). That said, a lot of web sites don’t actually bother.
2. Technically speaking a spaced hyphen ( - ) is not a dash (—). In English, this dash can be set as either an em-dash (—) or a spaced en-dash ( – ), but AFAIK in French this is always a spaced en-dash. So you might consider changing all your dashes to spaced en-dashes.
I shall refrain from commenting on quotation marks and apostrophes ▲ Collapse
| | | | frafidato
English to Italian
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TOPIC STARTER | 700 visitors ! | Mar 23, 2013 |
700 VISITE !!! un grazie di
| | | | frafidato
English to Italian
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TOPIC STARTER | my website - update | Apr 2, 2013 |
thank you very much for your visits guys!
Keep on following me because there will be a lot of news in my website very soon !
www.latraduttricefreelance.it
| | | | frafidato
English to Italian
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TOPIC STARTER
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Dear Silvia, there is indeed a couple of things I'd adjust.
First of all, legibility:
- your catch line (name and surname, occupation) does not stand out enough; you could use a larger font and (or) perhaps thin black outline to make it stand out more (both of which you can do in pure CSS, altough text shadow will only work in newer browsers if done through CSS only and not through a picture);
- copyright notices on the theme pictures are not very legible, especially on ... See more Dear Silvia, there is indeed a couple of things I'd adjust.
First of all, legibility:
- your catch line (name and surname, occupation) does not stand out enough; you could use a larger font and (or) perhaps thin black outline to make it stand out more (both of which you can do in pure CSS, altough text shadow will only work in newer browsers if done through CSS only and not through a picture);
- copyright notices on the theme pictures are not very legible, especially on the home page, same as above to fix the issue;
- your postal address in the bottom is hard to read due to the small font size and the low contrast colour; this may be even more of a problem for somewhat older readers (small text becomes more of a problem with age);
- the roller with the designer's information is very thin and even that small font size is already too tall for that space; this prevents the graphical representation of the roller from serving its purpose because it quite clearly becomes just a piece of backdrop, while what you really want there is a nice roller that looks like a roller with some paper wrapped around it;
- information in the footer is hard to read due to font size and colour; similar problems affect the megadv logo.
Also, I would experiment with the surrounding background colour. Perhaps the same colour but a more watered down tint, or something milky, or a pastel, or even an off-white with plum hints, and at any rate lighter than the photos. Try and see what you like. Some ideas: http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_colornames.asp, http://www.colorschemer.com/online.html.
As for the content, I'd consider narrowing down the specialisations a bunch. This because when you list too many with equal focus on each, somebody could think that you're simply listed all the fields you actually work in, and he would adjust the definition of "specialisation" accordingly (i.e. to mean the same as if you had written "working fields" there), so you would not gain the benefit regardless. It'd be a great idea to highlight the most important ones as your core specialisations and mark the rest as simply other fields which you work in. If you want, you can note that you're capable of delivering specialist grade translations in such fields too, if applicable. Some of them you may also wish to categorise under a couple of more general thematic headers. You can highlight such headers by using a different colour or going all caps or small caps if you don't want to break lines. (To achieve small caps you can put the latter in SPAN tags with "font-variant:small-caps" defined in the CSS sheet for those spans.)
Otherwise the site is good. Most importantly, I think it's ready to serve its purpose well as it is. The information is there and there are no distractions.
Perhaps one more. I don't think a CV is really necessary in your case (it would only add dates to what's already said) but it might be a good idea to upload one and put up a highly visible download link to it. This because your CV is usually your first and best marketing tool, serving as anything from a business card to a reference sheet, especially for translation agencies and similar employers. I suspect normal clients are likely to favour biograms. Sixty percent of traffic on lawyers' websites goes to their biograms, for example, but translators for some reason don't normally post biograms on their websites (I did). ▲ Collapse
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