Sylang News

Sylang Now Available in English

Wed, 04 Jul 2007 18:33:32 +0000

We have upgraded the translation broker in early July to improve the service to our English-speaking users. All Sylang services are now available in both English and French.

Request for comments about services to translators

Fri, 11 May 2007 11:07:03 +0000

As part of our efforts to provide services specifically targeted at translators on Sylang, we would like to ask for your feedback and suggestions.

Public profiles now available

Mon, 23 Apr 2007 12:06:59 +0000

Sylang translators willing to advertise their freelance translator activity may now publish an online profile from their Translator Account. We will be actively marketing profiles to search engines.

We are looking forward to your comments and suggestions about this new feature.

Formatting options are limited at this time to defining headings and using bold fonts. Here are some examples:

== Experience ==

will show as a the standard Sylang heading (black on green background)

'''this is bold''' will show as this is bold

Users choosing the wrong language pair

Sun, 25 Mar 2007 07:27:23 +0000

You may occasionally have received requests for translating French to English although your account shows English-French as your language pair (or conversely, get F-E requests when you should only get E-F ones.)
The reason is that some users simply pick up any language pair available at the time they want to ask for a translation.

This is not acceptable and we should not encourage this practice. It is unfair to regular users that those cheating ever get their translation, so in such cases, please bounce the request using the link at the bottom of the email.

Is the "account suspended" email useful?

Sun, 18 Mar 2007 05:54:12 +0000

When suspending your translator account, you will get an email confirmation that your account has been suspended. This was meant as a reminder for you to reactivate your account when you are back from vacation.
However in practice some translators suspend their account several times a week, and I suspect the email is an annoyance to them.

Please let us know whether you think we should stop sending email notifications when an account is suspended.

Best wishes for the new year

Sun, 21 Jan 2007 13:11:52 +0000

We are pleased to send our best wishes for the new year to all translators.

Specialized dictionaries & glossaries on the web

Sun, 29 Oct 2006 17:02:14 +0000

We are likely to find on the web dictionaries and glossaries about even the most specific topic. For example, typing "french wine dictionary" or "french wine dictionary grand cru" in Google will reveal several glossaries of wine-related terms.

We need however to pay special attention to the quality of web resources. Institutions such as the EU, governmental agencies, or universities can usually be trusted in their areas of competency: for administrative terms, diplomas equivalence, legal terms, etc.
For other sources, it is always necessary to check whether the term found is used in the expected context in the target language. Again a web search will do. If the search returns very few relevant documents containing the proposed term, this term is probably not correct. Incidently, this is how Google detects spelling mistakes.

You can also search past translations.

Requests bouncing feature updated

Wed, 25 Oct 2006 14:05:18 +0000

The feature allowing a translator to bounce a translation request has been updated. You may now optionally include a personal message that will be sent to the user in the notification email. You could for example use this to specify in a few words that the context in not clear, or that (s)he has chosen the wrong translation direction.

Refusing abusive or incomplete translation requests

Tue, 24 Oct 2006 05:03:00 +0000

Sylang's translation dispatch system only accepts as many translations as we can handle. Because of this, we can assure the person who asked for the translation that he or she will receive a timely response. So whatever happens, you need to somehow reply to each and every request. In general, you'll simply reply with your translation. Here is how to handle the few special cases.

incorrect source language selected (you are getting a French-English translation job because the person chose the wrong language option): use the refuse link at the bottom of the message

the source language is incorrect English or French and can't be translated reliably: use the refuse link at the bottom of the message, and maybe also email the person about this

the source language is in Dutch, German, etc.: use the refuse link at the bottom of the message, and maybe also email the person about this

songs: use the refuse link at the bottom of the message (we are not allowed to translate copyrighted material and it would be a lost of your time since there are sites offering translations of many popular songs)

other abusive requests (list of frequent cases) : use the refuse link at the bottom of the message

Please do not use the Refuse Link in other cases! Users will be confused if they receive a message saying their request was refused.

If you experience difficulties with a translations (specialized vocabulary, etc.), please do not hesitate to forward it to us.

Replying to translations the same day

Mon, 23 Oct 2006 09:33:52 +0000

As translators, we sometimes take a few days to reply to translations. Unfortunately, a translation becomes useless for many users only after twelve hours. So, when you know you will be unable to reply the same day, it's best to suspend your account.
For example, if you can't access your email during week-ends, suspend your account on Friday night and reactivate it on Monday morning.

Ideas for improvement

Fri, 18 Aug 2006 06:15:51 +0000

If you have ideas for improving Sylang, please let us know by posting a comment here. Also don't hesitate to comment on ideas formulated by other translators.

Important security notice for translators

Tue, 15 Aug 2006 10:54:41 +0000

You may occasionally receive requests asking you to translate emails in which the sender says he is interested in bidding for an eBay auction or buying a product, but for whatever reason asks if the goods can be shipped to Nigeria or Ivory Coast.

This is a frequent type of internet fraud aimed at getting people to send money or goods they will never get paid for. Although this is not your primary goal as a translator, please advise anyone asking you for that kind of translations that this is almost certainly a fraud. Such messages are often written in incorrect English or French.

Sharing your experience with other translators

Wed, 09 Aug 2006 11:23:04 +0000

If you would like to share your experience, translation tips, etc. with other translators, please email us your text and we will publish it here. You may either write in French or English.

Quality control

Wed, 09 Aug 2006 11:11:30 +0000

You may occasionally receive mails from Sylang Quality Control suggesting improvements to a particular translation you did. If this happens to you, please remember it is your responsibility to reply again to the original request, incorporating any changes.

Vacation status

Sun, 23 Jul 2006 15:29:09 +0000

When you do not want to receive translation jobs, sign in to your translator account and set you vacation status to Vacation. Press Save, and your done. You will receive a confirmation email.

You do not need to set your Number of Daily Translations to zero.