Thread: Translators & Interpreters Etiquette

That's a reasonable penta/decalogue when they share a text.
Interpreters have other rules because they have to share a cabin and equipment and they usually meet in person.

A decalogue is a list of rules (10 rules to be strict), but you actually listed 5

Interpreters, whether they're performing consecutive or simultaneous interpretation can only do their job for minutes at a time. I don't recall the exact number of minutes, but surely under an hour. The sheer effort required for interpretation makes it necessary for interpreters to work in pairs when the job in question is longer than an hour. They take turns and rest in between, giving some time for their brains to cool off. So, it's a collaborative effort when the interpretation to be done is long enough.

Originally Posted by eidjit

Do you think this ones apply?

• Don't quit halfway, without telling everybody in advance
• Proofread your work before delivery
• Meet the deadline
• Communicate mistakes to others
• Not assign guilt of poorly done work to coworker

That's a good starting point!

I think the first one should be removed though. No-one accepts a job and plan to drop half way. I'm sure they would have a reasonable excuse to do so.

Communication should be a must and not only to point things out. A good practice would be to leave comments and notes when possible to either explain why you chose a certain term/expression over another or ask for further research/confirmatoin on a specific term.

I find this extremely helpful, especially when I'm runnning a QA on my projects.

Style Guides and Term Bases are highly advisable (even more so when working with many resources on the same project.)

Read the instructions!

Originally Posted by nabylm

Read the instructions!

Absolutely!

I'm not sure why but rarely they read them...