Mastering Translation: Editing, Proofreading, and Revision Explained (Full Transcript)

Speaker 1: Hello fellow translators. So the video you're about to see is an excerpt from my course, this new course that I have up on Skillshare, which deals with editing, proofreading, revision, stuff like that, as it pertains to translators. So obviously if you're a translator and you're interested in getting a bit more into editing or proofreading or something along those lines, then by all means feel free to check it out. And I've mentioned this before, but it bears repeating, if you are interested in any Skillshare courses, use the link that you find in the description and you get two free months. If you click on that link that I have there, you can use Skillshare free for two months. And so the way Skillshare works is that you pay a monthly fee and then you can access all the courses on Skillshare. So use that and for two months, you can access all the courses you want for free. And then later, you can either continue or you can cancel the subscription and not have to pay anything. So, and while you're checking out all the courses, be sure to check out my course on editing, revision, and proofreading, once again, as it pertains to translation. And here, I just wanted to show you a quick excerpt where I talk about quickly, you know, the differences between revision, proofreading, and editing. Now, in terms of revision, as it pertains to translation, revision is an assessment of certain texts with the intention of making changes if necessary. In layman's terms, this means that you will be looking over a text, you will be noting if there are any mistakes or anything that ought to be changed. But that's pretty much it. You don't even have to make the changes if you don't feel they're needed. Very often revisions are performed as a quick check just to make sure the text is okay, to see if it's acceptable. So this can be either at the beginning of a job, where you want to make sure the test is okay. And so it can go into editing and proofreading, or it can be done at the very end after everything has already been done, you want to do another quick check. So once again, an assessment of a certain text with the intention of making changes if necessary. Now, in terms of proofreading, what is proofreading? Proofreading is reading a text and correcting errors and mistakes in syntax, spelling, and grammar. By and large, this is what your teacher used to do when your teacher was correcting your essays. This is also what Microsoft Spellcheck does and stuff like that. This will be correcting all the errors you see and the mistakes. Very often when you're dealing with translations, it'll be sort of terms and expressions that maybe don't work so well in the target language, and they don't make sense. You kind of need to make sure about that. But that's as far as you go in terms of making sure that a target text sounds like it should in the target language. You just make sure everything is correct and that there are no errors. So what does editing mean? Well, editing is reading a text and correcting, condensing, or otherwise modifying it. In layman's terms, this means that you take a text and you make sure it sounds fluent in the target language, that it does not sound like a translation. So not only do you need to make sure that all the expressions and metaphors and similes, etc, etc, are all correct, but you need to make sure everything flows as naturally as it could for a native speaker reading it. And so you take it one step further, if you will, than proofreading. And you make sure that the choices of words, even when there are synonyms, that they chose the right synonym, that they chose the right expression, that everything fits together well, that it is perfectly suitable to the target audience, etc, etc, etc. Now that you've learned these three main terms, you should forget everything you've just learned. And why is this? Well, the sad truth is, quite frankly, companies just don't see the difference. And this can be whether you're dealing with end clients or even translation agencies. If they ask you to proofread something, or if they ask you to edit something, they're more or less asking for the same thing. There are obviously exceptions, but when you're dealing with a new agency, you kind of have to assume that what they're asking you for is editing and proofreading, basically. They want you to go over all the syntax, all the grammar, they want you to go over all of that and make sure there are no mistakes. But they also want to make sure that the translation itself is done well, and that it sounds native in the target language. More often than not, when someone asks you to edit something or to proofread something, they mean to edit and proofread it both at the same time. And quite frankly, let's be honest, most project managers, whether they are at an agency or not, they don't really know the difference between revision, editing, and proofreading.

Speaker 2: Transcribed by https://otter.ai