Author: admin1736

Blooper, selected pieces

Translation blooper

Traduction  At first sight, we'd say some translations were not proofread - or that translators are funny people. Not at all! Machine Translation is responsible of it: thanks to it and to those who use it for offering us these festive moments...

Seen on an e-commerce site (an unhappy customer):

Ordered 2 lights with 2 specific bulbs that they require. They sent it in 2 deliveries and in one huge box was a single light bulb....
Nothing more frustrating than trying to reason with a french lady who's excuse isn't making any logical sense. When I asked to speak to the supervisor she was out. The next day I call - she's out.
Any legitimate company should rectify their own mistake by immediately posting the products that they forgot.

Ordonné 2 lumières avec 2 ampoules spécifiques dont ils ont besoin. Ils l'ont envoyé en 2 livraisons et dans une énorme boîte était une seule ampoule...
Rien de plus frustrant que d'essayer de raisonner avec une dame française dont l'excuse ne fait aucun sens logique. Quand je demandai à parler au superviseur, elle était sortie. Le lendemain, j'appelle - elle est hors.
Toute entreprise légitime doit rectifier leur erreur en affichant immédiatement les produits qu'ils ont oublié.

Seen on a cotton clothing label:

Machine wash separately in cold water. Use mild detergent. Do not bleach or dry clean. Rince thoroughly in cold water. Tumble dry low or line dry. Remove rug frm dryer and shake well while damp. Keep away from flame.

La machine se lave séparément dans l'eau froide. L'usage détergent doux. Ne pas blanchir ou sécher propre. Rincer à fond dans l'eau froide. La chute sèche le niveau bas ou la ligne sèche. Enlève le tapis de plus sec et la secousse pendant qu'étouffe bien. Eviter la flamme.

Seen on a sweater label:

Rabbit hair
Cheveux de lapin

Seen at the back of a plate:

Microwave and dishwasher safe
Coffre-fort pour la micro-ondes et le lave-vaisselle

Seen on food packages:

Manufactured in a wheat-free and nut-free factory premise
Fabriquées dans une usine sans blé et sans écrou

Chick peas
Pois de poussin

Beef liver bites
Morsures de foie de bœuf

Preserved cucumber
Préservatif concombre

Korean citron juice drink
Boisson au jus de coréen au citron

Polish sausage
Polissez la saucisse

Low fat
Faible en gros

Posted on a wall in a guest house:

NE VOUS INQIETEZ PAS L'EAU CHAUDE MAIS UN PEU DE TEMPS AVANT D'ARRIVER.

DO NOT WORRY ABOUT THE HOT WATER BUT A LITTLE TIME BEFORE YOU GET THERE.

Writing blooper

 Rédaction  Dashing off without proofreading can also lead to unlikely messages. If they are funny and don't harm anyone, that's the place where they shall be!

when connecting to my f... account:

Mr f..., Mrs f...,  Are you looking for an editor? Because I'm here!

Context

Services de communication

Types of services

√  Consultancy - Audit
√  Proofreading - Rewriting
√  Web content - Marketing edition
√  Web and marketing  translation
√  Team / project management
√  Training to edition and translation
     techniques / English courses

Those services are proposed either as a global service delivery or as a task of a definite duration (per hour, day, week or month).

Communication à distance

Workplace

In your premises
At your client's premises
At my place, in Marseille

Tous supports de communication

Work equipment

Laptop and additional 27" monitor
Microsoft environment 
Adobe suite
WordPress software
Kaspersky anti-virus 

My experience

Over 25 years of experience in communication

My organisation skills, my creativity and my editorial quality to serve you and your leaflets, in-house newsletters, web and intranet sites, tutorials, e-learning modules, instruction sheets, catalogues, installation and maintenance guides, ...

in Paris area,
in Grenoble,
in PACA region

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You doubt of your comm materials’ efficiency? You’d like to stand out from your competitors and get ahead of them?

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Let me audit your communication activity, give you a professional advice about the quality of your materials, what can be improved and how to. Let me propose...

  • Day-long accompaniment to assess all or part of your communication materials and check if they are in-line with your strategic trends, if they reach their target and send out the right message.
  • To evaluate your strong and weak points, your differences and the positioning of your in-house and external communication.
  • To advise you, bring answers to your issues and plan actions of communication to focus on.
  • To produce an assessment report and suggestions to optimise your tools and make them consistent.

Your web site, your intranet, your articles or your guides contain errors?

Let me correct them, rub the imperfections, harmonise even rewrite them to make them more punchy.

  • Correct, rewrite, adapt your articles (too long, too short, unbalanced, and so on).
  • Detect errors: punctuation, spelling, grammar, language level, style, consistency, duplication, nonsense, heaviness, pleonasm, blunder, misapplied upper and lower case lettering, and so on.
  • Enhance the flawed sentences, avoid stereotypes and stylistic habits, make the texts more lively.
  • Have pieces of information which are true, serious, reliable, with no overstatement.
  • Structure your web articles in a simple way, jargon-free, without complicated words, using hypertexts if needed. Sentences must be short but rich, containing enough keywords to guarantee a good visibility on the search engines: the message must push your visitors to act!

You are looking for a project manager? A leader who will federate your marketing and/or documentation teams?

Business people meeting.

Let my organise and supervise your teams, set up precise specifications, control the operations. To boost your projects, let me...

  • Manage your team smoothly, ensure that everyone feels concerned and at the right place.
  • Set up detailed specifications and follow up with design, editing and DTP operations.
  • Control the quality of the writing stuff: articles, texts and illustrations.
  • Encourage and enhance all the initiatives.
  • Ensure the consistency of new web and print materials as compared to the existing ones.
  • Choose sub-contractors if necessary, negociate the terms of the contracts and supervise the work carried out (printing, translation, and so on).

You are looking for a web and marketing editor?

Closeup of Workspace with Modern Creative Laptop, Cup of Coffee

Let me bring you my editorial skills, my curiosity and my critical eye.

For your web materials, let me propose...

  • To create web content following the rules of natural referencing.
  • To be at the crossroad between an author and a journalist (web content editing being often based on journalistic principles, such as the 5Ws), to catch the attention of a reader within a few seconds and to bring him/her the answers to his/her questions.
  • Contents based on reliable sources that you can quote and overlap: official web site, media outlet, dedicated blog, interview of a well-known personality in the field, news feed, and so on. Considering the client's brief, I will organise the information he/she finds appropriate before I summarise it.
  • To follow some editorial techniques such as the Inverted Pyramid structure: the most attention-grabbing elements arrive first followed by supporting or explanatory information in order of diminishing importance, the least important information being placed at the bottom. The goal is to shorten and ease the internet reading.

For your web and marketing materials, I will add...

  • My creativity and my imagination, but also my rigour.
  • My ability to put myself in the shoes of my clients - to meet their expectations, their motivations and objectives - and those of their future readers.
  • My aesthetic sense.

Your English-to-French or French-to-English translations have form and/or content problems?

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Let me correct them, choose the right level of language and the right words.

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  • Apart from its purely technical aspect, translation consists in adapting a message to a society and a culture. The translator is more and more often part of the design team in order to produce documents which are consistent with the communication policy of his/her clients.
  • Proofreading of translated materials consists in checking that no sentence or part of a sentence, or word is missing. Also in correcting any false sense or misinterpretation, and in verifying that grammar and typographical conventions have been observed.
  • I can proofread a document at different levels - with different pricing: you can ask me to check only the form (syntax) or the content (semantics) as well; if so, on top of the target document, you'll have to provide me with the source document, information on the context and the style guide, if any.

    BEWARE! Those operations require to (and will) be done without distorting or altering the meaning of the articles, while respecting the original style.

You need an edition or translation trainer? You have to raise the level of English of your staff and their ability to write or translate?

You are a school, a university, a training centre?

  • I can teach your students how to be an editor or a translator, based on my educational background, my technique and my experience with big companies such as Alcatel, Bull, Rockwell Automation, Schneider Electric, and so on.

You are a company?

  • I will help you to find the right editor or the right translator, I will take part to job interviews and test your candidates.
  • If you want to add the editing skill or the translation skill to some of your team members with a different core business, I will teach them the basics of the job. I will observe them, coach them and bring them all my experience.
  • For your teams working in an international context, I will improve their level of English through practical courses (written and spoken) by group or individually, taking everyone's level into account.

Price list – Quote – Information

  • The services provided and the rates depend on your financing capacity, that's why I don't display any price list - But I have one, quite consistant, that I can discuss with you.
  • Please contact me, tell me about your project and I will send you a quote without delay.
  • I examine all service requests, even of a very small size.

  Let me know about your questioning, your issues, the service you need. Ask me more about the services I can provide you, about my credibility, my referents, my clients.