Apropos the bad score I received for the job mentioned in this post (https://support.gengo.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/1500000863621-Yet-Another-Post-on-the-Subjectivity-of-Gengo-s-Reviews) I have recently been receiving a string of reviews, from who may or may not be the same individual, and who may or may not have seen the post in question.
I will trust the Gengo Quality Team to resolve my disagreements with these reviews in due time. But one of the errors marked was so egregious that I felt it warranted a separate discussion on its own. Since it is not my intention to spam these forums with my own personal issues, I will try my best to leave it at this for now and wait for Gengo to settle my case (although, it has been nearly a week now since I first raised these issues and I have still heard nothing from the Quality Control Team).
In the review in question, the reviewer has deemed my translation of "as the fourth infection wave looms" as 「第４波到来を目前に」 as a critical error because 「高齢者向けのワクチン接種が開始された時にはすでに第４波に入っていました ("Japan had already entered the fourth wave when vaccinations for the elderly had begun")」, and so my translation should make it clear that the wave was already underway at this time.
However, as is probably the case in many countries, the issue of whether and when Japan has entered a "fourth wave" is a contested political issue, since it has implications for the government's responsibility for the handling of the pandemic. In effect, those who are more sympathetic with the current (conservative-leaning) government will be less willing to call the surge a "fourth-wave", while those with progressive-leaning political views who are critical of the government are more willing to do so. Many experts question the language of "waves" as unhelpfully subjective.
As a case in point, the reviewer takes it as an objective and settled fact that the fourth wave had already begun by the time vaccinations of the elderly were underway. Vaccines for the elderly began on April 12th. But on April 14th the Prime Minister of Japan (whose word represents the official position of the Japanese government) is quoted as saying "New infections have yet to become large waves nationwide" (「現時点で全国的な大きなうねりとまではなっていない」: cf. "Prime Minister Suga Firmly Denies 'Fourth Wave'", https://www.tokyo-np.co.jp/article/98125).
In simply taking it for granted that the fourth wave had already begun by the time in question, the reviewer here is essentially forcibly imposing their personal political beliefs and opinions on the translator as the objective truth (despite the fact that, somewhat ironically, they chide me in the comments to "be correct in the facts of the matter").
In addition to influencing the translation in an unduly subjective way, I would argue that this is highly problematic and borders on unethical behavior.
I truly hope that Gengo takes this issue seriously and appropriate measures are taken.
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Please note that I don't speak Japanese and I'm not a native English speaker either, but I'm not sure if this is really a political problem unless you intentionally tried to adjust the translation to match a political narrative (which might be justified depending on the country, but I'd discuss that with the customer or leave a comment).
Looking at the charts, while the full future extent wasn't knowable at that point in time, of course, the fourth wave was well underway on April 12th (significantly higher from the previous lows than the first and second wave).
Depending on when the original line was written and the exact meaning of your Japanese translation, there might also be the problem of hindsight/foreknowledge. Shortly before the fourth wave, you wouldn't necessarily know you are shortly before the fourth wave. It can make sense to bring translations up to date, for example in marketing if the customer agrees, but here it might introduce a logical problem (again, depending on the exact Japanese phrasing).
Linguistically, "looming" is a bit difficult in this context and I'll ultimately leave that to the native speakers, but it has a threatening character. I don't know if an equivalent in Japanese exists, though, and if that would be appropriate.
While I think it can mean a constant underlying danger and I don't know the exact context, the full phrasing "as the fourth wave looms" implies to me that this scenario is already beginning to unfold visibly.
Granted this does seem to be a bit tricky and I'm not sure how severe an error this should be.
Thank you for your thoughtful comment, Chris. I find it very helpful.
Your point about the data is well-taken, and I suppose what you say about hindsight vs. foresight could also be playing a part here (for what it is worth, I should note that the source text is a news article from April 12 and so presumably written before that, when "the full future extent wasn't knowable", as you put it). But, as I have tried to express in my original post, I do wonder in the first place if it is appropriate for us as translators to be going about directly interpreting the data for ourselves and making this kind of substantive/politically charged judgment on the behalf of our clients.
After all, the pandemic is a historically unprecedented and ongoing global event. As the April 14 quote by the Prime Minister in the article linked above shows, even experts and government officials can and often do still reasonably disagree over the interpretation of the data, and neither the science nor the terminology is anywhere close to being settled at this date. Even if we grant for the sake of argument that Japan had already entered a "fourth wave" on April 12, how could the translator be expected to make a qualified judgment regarding this at the time, when none other than the Prime Minister of Japan himself (speaking with the full authority of the Japanese government) was publicly denying that the country was experiencing a wave on as late as April 14?
I agree that the usage of "looming" in this context is tricky, but to my mind, that simply means that the precise interpretation of this word in this instance is something over which competent speakers can reasonably disagree -- which is exactly why I do not see how this could merit being marked as an error, much less given such a severe error rating (I should note that a critical error is defined by Gengo as: "A significant error that changes the meaning of the original text and would require a retranslation to be usable by the customer"). On the one hand, I guess the word can be taken to imply that the event in question is "beginning to unfold visibly", in your words; but on the other hand, it seems to me that you could also say "as death looms" or something of the sort without falling into obvious error, even though this presumably would not imply that the event in question has already arrived.
Yeah, I can definitely see your point about the severity and ambiguity and, like said, I'm not a native speaker.
About the data, I'd say it's less about coming up with your own interpretation than using it as a tool to understand the intentions of the original author. For example, while some might find the term "wave" unhelpful, the author does use it, and talking about a fourth wave implies the accepted existence of three previous waves. While there is certainly some leeway in defining the start and end of a wave, I'd argue that April 12th is way beyond that point by any reasonable interpretation.
That being said, if you should have to do that kind of research and weigh it e.g. against the words of a Prime Minister and on top of that come to a specific conclusion is a valid question. So by producing his quote, you should have a good chance of getting that error marked down or removed, in my opinion, depending on the exact context, meaning of your translation and relevance of the quote for the text. Personally, I'd consider the words of the Prime Minister only if the author is reporting on the official stance of said Prime Minister or country, though, or if the translation has to be in line with that stance for some reason.
Seems like my newest answer is pending approval for some reason, just in case it pops up at a strange point in the discussion.
The comment ‘be correct with the facts of the matter’ has firstly made me laugh but right after made me startled and really concerned. I always reckon that we translators shall always stick to the original source text and be a faithful ‘conveyor’ of the original author. As they say, translators shall be invisible. What is a ‘fact’ shall never affect the output of a translation. Translators are not ‘fact-checkers’ and are not hired to ‘correct’ ‘untrue’ statements of our customers. After all, there is a fundamental human right called ‘freedom of speech’. It really worried me these days that the Left are more prone to control what people can say and are trying to silence voices that they considered, like in this case, ‘not a “fact”’.
With all due respect, but I don't think it will be beneficial for this discussion if we start to ascribe political leanings to the people involved in the matter and rely on generalizations. If this thread devolves into a political skirmish, it has a good chance of being closed down to keep the peace in a business environment.
Hi KO,
I have responded to you on your other thread about subjective reviews, and requested that you sent me the job number for the job referenced in this thread via email, so I can take a look.
@Chris - thanks for chiming in with your opinions regarding the linguistic implications. In this context, "loom" is certainly ambiguous and can be interpreted in a couple of ways ("ongoing" or "imminent"), as the discussion above goes, with the added extra information of hindsight.
@Ch'ü Tsê-t'ien - thanks for your comment as well :) While it could certainly have been worded a bit differently, to ease concerns regarding political skirmishes, I totally get what you mean: Gengo requires translators to stick to the source text, in general, refraining from making corrections that have not been discussed from the customer, and from including information that is not in said source text (even if they think something is wrong, or additional explanation is needed.) A big reason for this is because the client is not always a speaker (or writer) of the source text seeking to have it translated to share with an audience. In many instances, the client may be ordering the translation of a source text they have received in a language they cannot speak, to translate it into their own language so they can understand it. If a translator makes changes based on what they think the source text should say (rather than based on what the text actually says), the end translation that the client will receive will not be faithful to the source text.
In the context of this particular job, I would like to bring it up once again with the Quality Team for a third-party review, if possible. However, @KO, as I mentioned in the other thread, part of the team is still on holiday until early next week, so I may not be able to move forward on this until Monday.
Thank you for your understanding,
Lara
Chris; thanks again. As I said, I don't even necessarily disagree with your reading of the data. But I do want to reiterate my original point, which is that the science is arguably not settled at this time.
For example, one could question the reliability of the data itself on grounds that Japan tests too few people, as many have already (https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/3/3/japan-steps-up-covid-testing-but-some-say-more-effort-needed). Also, since it takes a few days for infected to show symptoms and be found by the authorities, one needs to distinguish between the date patients were reported to the authorities and made public (https://stopcovid19.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/en/cards/positive-number-by-developed-date) and the date that experts estimate the patients actually became infectious (https://stopcovid19.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/en/cards/positive-number-by-developed-date), which will also affect your judgment regarding "waves" somewhat (*For instance, after the previous “waves”, some experts pointed out that by the time the wave measured by the former statistic had peaked, the wave as measured by the latter statistic was already nearly over). Furthermore, I would tend to think that official government communications usually have more weight than other kinds of sources, since the government presumably has access to more data and retains their own advisors on these matters.
In any case, I think my main point is that the very fact that we can have this conversation makes me question why my case merits being marked as a "critical" error.
With regard to the word "loom": For more context, the sentence immediately proceeding the line in question writes, with "the pace unlikely to stop a fourth wave of infection", which implies to my ear that, at least at the time of writing, the author believed the fourth wave as being "imminent", as Lara puts it, but as not having necessarily already arrived.
Agreed on the numbers potentially being delayed and the question of severity.
I also agree that the quoted sentence sounds like it doesn't refer to a concrete, ongoing wave, not because of the "stop", but because of the indefinite article, but that might also be due to it being a brief, introductory summary. Other passages (if I found the right article) seem ambiguous at best:
"Tokyo also began on Monday a month-long period of quasi-emergency measures to blunt a fourth wave of contagion driven by virulent mutant strains [...]"
"Shots for the general populace are not likely to be available until the late summer or even winter, too late to stem a resurgence of cases that appears to be focused on people in their 30s and 40s [...]"
However, the following line is clear:
"“The currently available vaccination cannot prevent the fourth wave of the pandemic,”"
Rendered as such, that quote by a doctor makes your case, in my opinion, although she of course isn't the author of the article, and like you wrote, basically ambiguity would be enough.
I apologize, Chris. I made a minor addition to my original post re: the reliability of the available data, and the moderators have pulled the comment you responded to “pending approval”.
Which does bring me to my original point; if all this is such a sensitive matter, how could it be appropriate for translators to be reflecting this sort of sensitive judgement in their review?
Hey @KO, just one minor clarification :)
"the moderators have pulled the comment you responded to “pending approval”."
We don't pull the comments to "Pending approval" manually, Zendesk actually does that automatically and I guess it has its own filters regarding what it considers Spam or not. Usually it gets triggered by URLs and your comment contained some, so it would hold it for human review to make sure that it's not some sort of spammy situation.
Thanks for bringing it up, though, because actually Zendesk doesn't send us notifications every time a comment is "Pending review".
Thank you for your clarification, Lara.
While you are reviewing my case, could you please also take a look at Job # 72421647?
I bring this up here because it is pertinent to your point about how "Gengo requires translators to stick to the source text, in general, refraining from making corrections that have not been discussed from the customer, and from including information that is not in said source text".
Indeed, I am coming to think that my experience with regard to this issue is not an isolated case but rather part of a larger pattern of problematic behavior, which makes me wonder about how well the standards and expectations you mention are communicated to the reviewers by Gengo.
In English, especially American English, we generally say it like it is, but for well known reasons respectable media sometimes use understatement. As someone already pointed out, if the text was written contemporaneously and by a respectable writer then "as the fourth infection wave looms" means that it is obvious to the author that it is well underway but (s)he does not want to get into the controversy and wants it to go down a little vague. I recall many occasions when news headlines are seemingly far behind events: "Is a new bull market beginning?" - that headline is likely to appear after the stock market doubled already. Another reason is that news sites pride themselves on timeliness and do not like to give you the impression that they are talking about things that happened long ago, while at the same time they cannot be caught making "predictions". This is bad enough by itself, but if you are translating that and a native-speaking reviewer says you made it sound like it is really just a conjecture at that point, then I am with the reviewer.
Thank you for your insight, KS, I hadn't quite thought of it in that way before (as Japanese is my native language).
I suppose this is not the place to argue in depth about whether and to what extent what you say fits this particular job, but your comment does raise for me a general question about how much discretion translators can/should yield in such cases. If the author has used deliberately ambiguous wording because "(s)he does not want to get into the controversy and wants it to go down a little vague", shouldn't the translation reflect that intention as much as possible? (I should note that cultural factors may play in the decision as well, especially in cases like this where the target text is in Japanese, in which perhaps "saying it like it is" tends not to be as highly valued as in some other cultures.)
In fact, if I had deliberately re-worded the translation in a more obvious way, I can equally see myself being marked down for that (even by the same reviewer!), and then I would have to make my case all over again to defend my choice, perhaps citing reasons of the sort you have raised, which may or may not sound convincing to the reviewer, who is (presumably) a non-native English speaker. All that really just adds to the frustration, since it seems like no matter what you do in such situations, there is the possibility that someone will judge it a mistake, and you're pretty much at the mercy of the arbitrary whims of whoever is doing the review.
Today I wake up to find that I received a re-review for this job from the same reviewer. At least the critical error in question has been retracted in its entirety.
(1) Given the power and responsibility that is vested in the Language Specialists by Gengo, it is simply unacceptable for a Language Specialist to be discovered making an error of this magnitude in their reviews. There is just no excuse at all. This is not a matter of mismarking a suggestion as a low error, nor is it a matter of mismarking a low error as a medium error; it is a matter of mismarking a translation that is not an error at all as a critical error. Given that the Language Specialists are supposedly held to a much higher standard (Gengo apparently has a one-strike policy when it comes to a Language Specialist submitting a bad job), this is arguably much worse than a translator making a critical error in a job in the first place.
(2) Lara, in the other thread you promised me that this job was going to be reviewed by a third party, not the original reviewer. Could you please tell me what on earth is going on?
As I explicitly requested in my review request form, I would like this job to be reviewed by a different reviewer. Although I do not want to attack anyone personally, to be quite honest, at this point I feel I have some right to be concerned; the reviewer in question has just proved themself to display a dubious understanding of Gengo's criteria, a questionable ear for the source language, and a worrying tendency to push their own subjective beliefs on others.
@KO - While “promise” is a strong word and I certainly don’t recall having “promised” anything, I am just as surprised as you are to hear from you that the review has been carried out by the same reviewer, since I explicitly requested a third-party review from the team. I will check with them on Monday regarding this. (I am glad, however, to hear that the error has been retracted!)
Thank you as always, Lara. I totally understand that you also need to cover yourself but let us not quibble too much over the semantics; I was explicitly led by Gengo to believe and expect that my job would be re-reviewed by a different reviewer.
In the meanwhile, I would also appreciate some kind of response to the concerns I raised with regard to the re-review I received for the job mentioned in the other thread on subjective reviews.
@KO - It’s not so much about semantics or about covering myself, but more about emphasizing the fact that while I can make requests, at the end of the day I can’t enforce certain things that are out of my control.
With that said, I was just as bewildered as you to hear it was the same LS conducting the review, so I managed to make an exception and get in touch with the team despite the fact that it’s a Saturday and we’re all out of office. They informed me that for this particular job, they actually involved the whole EN>JA LS team (4 LSs) who actively discussed it and reached a final resolution (the review that you received.) So while the actual in-platform changes were made effective by the original LS, the changes made are according to a thorough team wide re-review.
Hope this helps clarify!
I understand that that is your situation, Lara. I never meant to suggest otherwise.
Thank you, that clarifies things quite a bit, though I do not see why things can't be communicated better in the first place. I still have some remaining disagreements, but it is very good to hear that these issues are being taken seriously by those in the relevant positions of authority within the team.
Nevertheless, I would like to reiterate my previous point that a Language Specialist should not be making an error of this severity in their review. I would appreciate it if you could pass my above concerns in this regard to the relevant individuals.
@KO — I wholeheartedly agree with you that this should have been communicated properly from the beginning and I made the team aware of this today. Your other concerns have been passed on as well for their review and consideration going forward, though as you know, this doesn’t mean that processes will be changed overnight. From my end, I can assure you that your comments have been relayed to our Quality Team verbatim.
Great, Lara. I have to wonder though; given that, as you have explained elsewhere, one of the roles of Gengo’s Quality Control Team is to facilitate relations between the translators and reviewers, why is the communication coming from the Gengo Quality Control Team so consistently poor? It would appear that, given the generally fraught nature of reviews and scores and the very real financial implications it has for translators, this is one area in which prompt and crystal clear communication should be an absolute priority.
As an aside, I am not sure if you had seen the latest comments to this thread? I think some important points are raised that I think are also of interest to the general community:
https://support.gengo.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/1500000202282-Re-review-still-being-sent-to-the-same-reviewer?
@KO -- I don't have a reason or an excuse regarding the communications so far from our Quality Team. Please do rest assured that I am in continuous contact with them and always make it a point to remind them that improving their communications could help prevent and improve many of the issues that are often raised around LSs, reviews, and re-reviews. Improvement doesn't always happen overnight, but they're working hard towards it.
As for the other comments, I will be taken a look as soon as I have some time in my hands. Possibly later today :)
I actually have some questions regarding this specific job and Gengo's marking criteria, for the sake of future reference.
One main factor the reviewer cites in overturning the error in question is the newspaper article I cited regarding the Prime Minister denying the arrival of a fourth wave. For those who read Japanese, the comments for the re-review I received reads as follows:
「第4波の到来を目前に」という部分について当時の状況を再確認しました。確かに尾身会長は既に入っているとしていましたが、確かに12日の時点は首相はまだという認識を示していますね。大手の新聞記事ではすでに第四波という前提で書かれた記事があったためこのように判断しましたが、主観的判断の余地がある時期だったと考えられるため、このエラーは外しました。
To confirm the timeline here: I translated and submitted this job on April 12, and the source text was presumably written shortly before that. The comments from the Prime Minister were made on April 14 and the article I cited in my re-review request form was published on April 15. Finally, the review for this job was conducted on May 5.
My question is this. If hypothetically I had received the original review and submitted my re-review request on April 12 or 13, it would appear that I would have had no objective way, at the time, of contesting the judgment of the reviewer in this case (at the very least, I would have had less access to references to make my case), and so there would have been a much higher chance that the error would have been upheld. But this just seems irrational. It means that the score of the job can be largely affected by when the review was conducted. Surely, that can't be appropriate?
This also brings up larger questions, of the sort I raised earlier in this thread. In cases like this, does Gengo really expect us translators, as the reviewer's comments suggest, to do extensive research on what a particular governmental advisor (Shigeru Omi) has said on this issue, as well as how the issue has been covered in other articles by certain major newspapers, and then weigh this against what certain politicians and other experts are saying, or what is written in other newspapers and publications, and so on?
I understand that the translator will need to do some research in order to understand what the source text is saying, but surely this kind of extensive fact-checking goes beyond the purview of the responsibilities of the translator, which should primarily be in reproducing the original intentions of the author of the source text?
(If I am wrong and that is indeed the expectation, then I think that this would definitely affect the willingness of translators to pick up jobs of this sort in the future).
I'll try to be brief (earlier disclaimers still apply): I don't think this should have been a critical error and there is a certain ambiguity. However, and to the best of my judgement, I also don't think you chose the most natural translation or even one that necessarily conveys the intention of the original author, and that would be without any further research. Nevertheless, citing the statement of the Prime Minister or e.g. the physician (the latter might or might not have been rendered correctly) gave you an opportunity to make a convincing case for your choice, especially since it seems like the reviewer already went down the way of incorporating background information.
How far such research should go is a valid question, albeit one that probably doesn't have a clear answer (what is "extensive"?). Obviously the main limiting factor is time, but not everyone will be equally quick at finding information. Not that I want to anticipate an official answer, just my 2 cents.
Fair enough Chris. Although if that were indeed the reasoning behind this specific decision, then the whole process seems more than a little arbitrary to me; if the error had been retracted because the reviewer had "already went down" a certain way, then would the error have been downgraded in severity rather than retracted entirely, for instance, if the reviewer had originally happened to "go down" another way instead?
My main concern I guess is that the information cited in the reviewer's comments seems to go above and beyond what would be necessary to simply understand the intentions of the source text and edges into the territory of fact-checking the article on behalf of the author. Of course, whether this was actually the case in this specific instance partly would depend, as you pointed out earlier, on how we interpret the intentions of the author in the first place.
Well, ultimately all of this is speculation, so I can say I suspect this might have gone differently if the reviewer didn't give external information as a reason, but that doesn't mean that's actually the case or that you wouldn't have been able to produce the same evidence otherwise. It's just that they (in my opinion) invited external evidence by using external evidence themselves.
I don't think that using external evidence is a problem in general, btw., I think that needs to be determined on a case-by-case basis. If there is some ambiguity that could be cleared up with e.g. a 5 minute Google search, then I think it would be hard to argue for not doing just that (personally, I have spend way longer at times). Here, there simply was enough evidence for your point of view to support your choice, whether it was initially made based on evidence or not.
@KO - All the details you mention pertain to a specific case, which has indeed been looked at on a case-by-case basis, with the error being retracted. Other future cases will come with their own details and their own baggage, and in the event of such extreme edge cases, they will also be looked at on a case-by-case basis again, if necessary.
As for the topic of research, Chris hits the nail on the head when wondering “what is extensive?” indeed. We would expect a reasonable amount of research when performing a job, but what’s extensive in relation to each topic and also to each individual translator’s original familiarity with it may vary (we can’t put a numerical time factor on it just because.) Some people pick up jobs on topics they’re fairly familiar with and don’t need much research on. Some people take on the challenge of picking up jobs on topics that are new to them and may thus need further research. This is an interesting discussion to read what people’s experiences are in general, but not so much for a one-size-fits-all rule to be implemented.
At this point, re-reviews for the jobs you initially brought up issues with have been completed and the cases have been closed. We’ve also shared extensively on the re-review process as a whole. If you have any objective questions that I can answer, I am happy to oblige. Otherwise, we won’t be engaging in hypothetical cases and “what ifs”, as we’d rather focus our efforts towards ongoing initiatives and projects.
Thank you for your understanding!
Indeed we do our research, but sometimes the reviewer thinks they know better.
Case in point, a review of my job two days ago:
The reviewer read the source text and somehow got the idea that Core Image and Metal Frameworks are sound libraries. (S)he then marked not one but two errors, correcting to "specialized sound sample analysis libraries named Core Image and Metal Frameworks", and another error for the serial comma. Needless to say, Core and Metal are NOT sound libraries. A reviewer may not be expected to know that, but it would be nice if they kept in mind that some of us here are experts in subject matter, finance, engineering, computers, etc.
@ksavvidis — That’s exactly what a re-review request is for :)
This isn’t an edge case at all, it’s a fairly passable translation in practice, and I don’t think whether the fourth wave has in fact started (or was deemed to have been started) is the main point either. It’s a marginal. I believe the main question is what motivated him to mark it as a serious error. This is not a new problem, and it is one of the reasons that made me stop accepting jobs.