Conclusion

March 22, 2015

This project was a really good experience. Indeed, I could learn  things such as  how to work as a team, how to translate a technical guide and how to face problems and solve them.

Team work 
People usually think  a translator works alone all day...but that's not true. I've learned it is very important to keep in touch with the experts, in case you need any information about the topic, work with other translator in case I need a proofreading or editing.

I was with a very friendly team that was really into this project. There was a good communication between us, and every question was answered. Even though there was a hierarchy in the technical writers' group, we didn't choose a leader among us. That is to say there  was no project manager  We just stuck with the translator, editing, proofreading hierarchy. We were happy with that kind of organisation.

Difficulties
As translators, we didn't know how to create an instructional document at the beginning. But we learned the rules in the "Communication technique" course, which helped us a lot. When we had difficulties, we could discussed with the US and Irish students or we tried to find answers on specialised dictionary such as Termium Plus, especially when we had terminology problems.

Localisation was interesting
What I really found interesting in this project was the way we have to adapt our translation to the French public. In that kind of text, it was obvious that our translation would have to meet a specific rules implemented for instructional documents : a specific terminology and specific formulations were used. For example:
-open up your device’s web browser  = lancez le navigateur
-proceed with the following steps= veuillez suivre les étapes suivantes.

Discovering the  technical writers's world.
At the end of this project, I was really surprised by me thinking about being a technical writer. It was really interesting to see how they worked. I like the idea of creating a guide, helping people to understand how to use a device or a software. I was very pleased to see how technical writers could be helpful to translators.

Futures students:
I'm sure you will really enjoy this collaborative project. It's a new way to work together with students with different backgrounds. In addition, you will discover the technical writers' world. This collaborative project is actually pretty closed to what you will be doing as a professional: teamwork, research, collaborative works with expert, etc.

Sulis was not a great platform to communicate ( that what everybody was thinking). I would recommend you to use Facebook instead of  Sulis - or any social network - and combined it with Google Docs which is a good way to edit and share information. And do not hesitate to ask the students questions. They are here to help you and...I'm sure they will be friendly!

Leila

Last minute changes

March 20, 2015

As everything was ready, we  sent the project to our teacher.

However, we had a problem with the final version.  Indeed, the technical writers made last minute changes the day we had to send the document. Unfortunately when we found it out, the translation was already sent with the first version. 

Final step

March 11, 2015

We decided to create the final version of our document - such as page layout . But we also decided to do a global review such as :
-looking for mistranslations.
-checking if the whole text was traduced.
-reading the text, all together, in order to see if the text is written with a good French.
 
Thanks to that last review, we could find some mistakes and another question was asked: were we going to keep the date on the front page ? We did some research on the Internet and finally we find out there was no date on the front page in most of the technical guides.

Proofreading

March 5, 2015

We received Paul's proofreading and we discussed about the mistakes. One question was asked:
were we going to use "vous", "tu" or an impersonal structure such as "il faut"?  

Note: "tu" is the second person singular and "vous" is the second person plural in French.

For the first question, we tried to find many technical guides on the Internet and see if most of them used the personal pronouns "vous" and "tu". Most of them used "vous" but we weren't that sure.  Fortunately, that question was fully resolved  during the "communication technique" class. Indeed, our teacher told us it was ok to use both ( be careful : only use the same one  all along the text to be coherent). Indeed,  "vous" was used for neutrality and "tu" was used to speak directly to the reader.

Language localisation ?

March 3, 2015

In our weekly class with Mrs Minacori, a group asked  interesting questions about the page setting  and how to translate a text. First they were wondering whether the  Englisg screenshots had to be translated and how to translate the whole instructional document.

For the first question, it was obvious that screenshots had to be translated. In fact, it wasn't translation but language localisation.  What does it mean? Language localisation means adapting a text that has been previously translated into different languages to a specific country or region. It's a matter of cultural adaptation. It is very important when we use screenshots.

In our project, screenshots were used to illustrate the text. We didn't have to edit the picture because we used our own Skype account to reproduce the screenshot. However, language localisation was also very important all along the text. Indeed, we had to adapt this guide for a French audience. For example : to use active sentences, avoid the future tense, use the personal pronoun "vous",  etc

Traduction/ Editing

February 25, 2015

We received the translation from Julie.  I decided to create a table in order to have  the source language on the left and the target language on the right.

It was a good translation, so I just had to find a few sentences  more appropriate to this genre of text. Indeed, this wasn't LGP - LGP stands for Language for General Purposes - but LSP - LSP stands for Language for Specific Purposes. There were some formulations related to this genre of text that we have to use as well as specialised terms. I had to do some research and check if the appropriate terminology was used.

So, after that first review, one question was asked : did we have to use the future tense for the French version ? For example, in the following sentence, we didn't know if it was better to use the present tense : "Skype will automatically detect your operating system and direct you the proper download page.". After some research on the Internet, we figured out that the present tense was used in most of the technical guides.

Translation Phase

February 24, 2015

As the document was already available for consultation, it was time to translate it. The text wasn't that long but we had to wonder how to translate it.

Did we have to translate the whole text? Did we have to divide it and  translate each one a part? Since the very beginning of this year, our teachers showed us a new translation technique and we all agreed to use it because it was very efficient : this is the translation, editing, proofreading method.

How did it work? The  translator had to translate all the text. Then the review editor had to check if there was any mistake and discussed it with the translator.  After speaking about it, the review editor had to correct the translation. At the end, the proofreader had to check the whole text in the target language and see if it was coherent.

Julie would be the translator.
Paul would be the proofreader.
...and I would be the review editor.