hughmacdougall.com

The blogs on this site are in themes and the pages are either independent, with no relation to the blogs, or they are an introduction to a category.

First I’ll let you know I am not a linguist except in my native language, which I know well enough to be able to do a good job of proofreading and basic editing for clarity of expression. However, it is not my own skills which I am marketing here.

It is essential for Chinese scholars, companies and government departments to use the skills of a well educated and grammatically correct native speaking English proofreader. I have seen too many academic essays, websites, information booklets, government papers, airline magazines and company publicity pages that didn’t do their job. Instead of bringing the respect they should have brought to the person or institution that produced them they give the idea of low standards. The translators are well educated and competent but they just cannot have the experience of English of a native speaker who has read hundreds of books and novels and used the language every day since birth.

Most translators inadvertently use Chinese cultural ideas and phrases that seem strange and different to an English speaker. All translators I have worked with except one clever man made mistakes with small but important words like ‘and’, ‘a’, ‘an’, ‘the’…etc. Most had major word confusion. I will never forget the website that speaks about the number of ‘frog free’ days it’s city has. ’qing wa’, frog is not ’wu’, fog. Anyone can make mistakes and I am sure there are lots on my website. They take away from the impression intended. Tell me when you find mine. A non-native speaker, no matter how well trained, will make many more mistakes than I will.

This is a serious situation. Top scholars have their papers thrown away unread by western academics because of poor English. I helped a clever young man earn the right to read a paper at a conference in Brazil by correcting his English. Company CEOs face an audience that makes jokes about their English language address. Passengers sit laughing at travel articles in the in-flight magazine. It is good to keep the customers amused but not to lose face for the company. Government position papers are misinterpreted because the wrong word has been used somewhere.

I’ve had dealings with a few translation companies in China and based abroad and I have been asked by two of them to help them find clients. If I didn’t know anything about their staff and their origins I would have refused them. Fortunately I believe they are in an ideal position to provide the highest level of service to Chinese people, institutions and companies. One is a translation company based in England but owned by Chinese-born people, an ideal set up with quality staff. The other is a specialised proofreading and editing company staffed by a lot of people with high academic qualifications.

Here’s my OmniEnglish proofreading website http://omnienglish.info My blog has nothing to do with the business (disclaimer). OmniEnglish is a very thorough proofreading company, Canadian owned and with a base in Taiwan. Its work is of the highest standard. To talk about doing business with the company e-mail me at tepomni@gmail.com If you need English to Chinese or Chinese to English translation write to me at the same address. More news is coming soon about the translation company I’m associated with.