It’s still only July and like many of you, by this stage of the year the extent of my forward planning goes about as far as fantasising about my much-needed summer holiday next week. Life post-holiday is quite low down on my priority list right now, but there have been a couple of events which have caught my eye recently. I’m pleased to report that I’ve managed to muster the energy to reach for my pen to mark them in my diary now, as I’m sure the dates will have crept up before we know it:

The first, on 25th September, is the Chartered Institute of Linguists Members’ Day in Bloomsbury, London. The programme consists of a series of seminars with titles including ‘Translators or Consultant Linguists?’ and ‘Training Translators and Interpreters in the Next Ten Years’, and will finish off with a lecture by my favourite linguist, Professor David Crystal OBE HonFCIL.

The second is a webinar entitled ‘Specialising in legal translation’ by Ricardo Martinez of City University, a good one for those of us who specialise in legal translation. The webinar itself is run by eCPD Webinars. After ITI’s first webinar yesterday morning, in collaboration with eCPD Webinars, it seems that this training format is something translators and interpreters want to see more of, and I hope it will continue to grow.

The third is Portsmouth University’s 10th annual translation conference; this time entitled ‘Translating Multimodalities’. I attended this conference for the first time last year, after intending to go for years, and was not disappointed. As a translator ‘at the coal face’ I rarely get a chance to discuss the slightly more theoretical aspects of translation or explore other areas of work with languages, and this conference allows me to do that without offering up too many abstract theories.  Take a look for yourself here: http://www.port.ac.uk/departments/academic/slas/conferences/translationconference/

Alex runs Translator Tips, where you can download a free marketing ebooklet, or buy Alex’s ebook How to Earn $80,000+ Per Year as a Freelance Translator (the headline is designed to get your attention – admit it, it worked, didn’t it).

I’m really glad Alex decided to make a comeback.  I’m not sure whether he intends to update his ezine format by continuing to publish his content on his blog, but I certainly hope so.

Portsmouth Spinnaker Tower, courtesy of virtualtourist.com

Last month I spent a Saturday down in Portsmouth at the university’s Ninth Translation Conference, entitled ‘The Translator as Writer’. It’s incredible that I’ve never made it to the event before now, as I’ve always noticed the high calibre of speakers every year (a combination of practitioners and academics), and I’m pleased to say that having finally made it this year, the event lived up to my expectations.

It seemed to me that the event had a very similar theme to other translation conferences I’ve attended in the past 12 months: the translator beginning to take a more strategic and proactive role in the text (aka the product) production process and to bring other skills they offer to table in their role as intermediaries between cultures and as professional writers.

Here are some of my takeaways from the event:

Jody Byrne’s plenary lecture on technical translation:

* The traditional distinctions between the work of translators and writers are rapidly fading

* Technical translators have traditionally not been viewed as needing or possessing excellent writing skills in the same way as translators of more ‘creative’ types of text have been, but this is changing

* Customer expectations of technical translators are changing: technical expertise is often needed as well, with the translator assuming a greater role in the overall usability of a document.

Practical workshop by Fiona Harris on localising and editing press releases for the EU:

* EU press releases translated into English often need to be extensively edited and localised to ensure they are relevant to the everyday life of the people in the target country

* In the case of the UK, the press releases need to appeal to a British audience. For example, they are often adapted for a Eurosceptic press, in order to get the best coverage.

Luc van Doorslaer’s lecture on translation and journalism:

* Globalisation tends to emerase /emquestions of translation in the news media

* Fast communication needs do not pay attention to translation and will rather tend to make it invisible.

* Through this reduction in multilingual diversity, the world is often falsely conceived as being monolingual.

* National image-building in the media: do the media express or create cultural proximity? Reconstruction of a constructed reality?

Neil Bartlett’s inspirational keynote address on ‘Inspiration’:

* How can a translator facilitate the ‘breathing’ of a sentence?

Denise Merkle’s lecture on translating and expert writing in translator training:

* There are misconceptions among some translation students about what translation actually involves

* Many translation students have poor reading and writing skills, and tend to read less in general (I am still not convinced of this myself – is this measurable?)

* How do we define quality?:  a lot of LSPs focus mainly on their quality procedures in their promotional material. For example many make a lot of their Quality Assurance (QA) procedures and turnaround times, competitive rates etc., rather than selling the quality of the writing they are offering.

On the last point, I have since wondered how much of this was a sign of the times, where businesses in just about every line of work seem to be placing great emphasis on procedural aspects such as safety and reliability, sometimes over and above their actual product offering. I’m curious about why this might be. Do we live in such a complaint-fearing world that we feel we must set out these types of parameters to armour us against any risk of grievance? Are we not confident enough to place a bigger emphasis on selling the quality of the product we are offering, and to be able to defend it?

I’ve written a replica of that case study for my blog:

Job title:

Freelance Translator

Languages:

French, Spanish and Portuguese (into English)

Company/location:

My cosy home office in London!

Background:

I translate from French, Spanish and Portuguese into English (my mother tongue). I started off by doing a BA in French and Spanish at Cardiff University, then went on to do an MA in Translation and Linguistics (Spanish and Portuguese) at Westminster University in London.

After my studies I managed to get a job as an in-house translator, and this gave me the opportunity to really hone my language skills. However, after a few years I decided that freelancing was for me and so I launched a new career beyond cubicle life.

A typical day for me:

I’ll usually be at my desk quite early in the morning, since my commute only involves a short walk to my desk! I often start my day in the same way as most other people, by checking my emails. There may be urgent requests from clients that I need to respond to. I will also typically do some reading of industry-specific newsletters and foreign press or listen to podcasts in my source languages. When I start working on a translation project, I will need to consult with the client for any background references and will need to carry out my own research into the subject matter and terminology. The finished product will then need to be thoroughly edited and proofread before delivery to the client.

Working from home, I get to manage my own workload, but I generally try to work a standard 8 hour day, although I sometimes need to work evenings and weekends to complete urgent or large jobs.

What’s the best thing about your job?

Without a doubt, being my own boss!

So you want to be a professional translator?

You’ll need excellent writing skills in your mother tongue and of course fluency in the languages you translate from. You’ll also need to acquire sound knowledge of one or two specialist fields, for example medicine, law, IT, engineering or physics. I work mainly in the fields of law and marketing, so I need to maintain my knowledge in these areas through ongoing training.

You’ll also need to bear in mind that if you’re freelance, you’re effectively running your own mini-business, so take some time to check out what that entails.

*Psst! If you’re tempted by translation but would like to have a taster before committing, I notice that London Metropolitan University are hosting a Taster Day for Linguists as Mediators, through the UK National Network for Translation.

Attendees of the event who are new to my blog may be interested in reading a little more about how I got into translation, as just one example of how a freelance translator begins their career. Well, if you’re wondering, read on…

For me, translating freelance was something I’d aimed for since starting my MA in Translation and Linguistics at Westminster University over six years ago. Completing the course 9 months later, I realised that freelancing lark would require planning, careful consideration and funds (not to mention paying off various bills and loans). So, quite early on I started looking for in-house translation jobs in London, eventually accepting a job as a full-time in-house translator in the public sector. My plan was to stay in this job for about a year, save up and then launch my freelance translation business.

I remember that I was fairly overly confident about my abilities as a translator at that stage, despite not having much real-world experience of it. Embarrassing to think about it now! A year passed quickly and I realised that I still had a long way to go before I felt ready to go it alone, both in terms of my translation skills and my ability to run a business. I still felt that I was much more suited to freelancing than to cubicle life in a rather uninspiring air-conditioned office, but the value of what I was learning was too great to just ditch it so quickly. I decided to set myself a target of at least 3 years in the job, and then to go for it freelance.

So, apart from translating diligently, squirrelling away my pennies, making my escape plan and daydreaming about a fantasy life as a freelance translator, what else was I doing during those years? Well, because I was serious about becoming freelance, and felt that if I put my mind to it and got support from the right people I could really make a go of it, I spent a lot of my evenings online researching how others were doing it, what sort of hardware/software/ancillary skills I might need for my business etc. Like many translators, I did regular voluntary translations in my spare time in order to hone my translation skills. I joined several ITI groups, and started reading the e-group threads after work. I attended steadily more ITI and CIOL events (networking is a long-term activity so I thought it best to get started on that ASAP), and I started a blog. I had been reading other translation blogs, and realised that I was gaining so much from reading about the experiences of other translators that I wanted to contribute something of my own. This led to more networking and becoming part of a dialogue with other translators in order to share our experiences.

Eventually, I felt the time was right to finally go freelance. If anything, though, I felt even more terrified at the prospect of freelancing at that point than I did when I graduated years before, when I was blissfully ignorant about what it involved! But I was still determined to do it, and resolute that in-house translation was not for me at that point in my life. I needed something to make me take the plunge, but I also needed a security blanket. So, I hatched another plan. I started attending a TESOL course for 3 hours each evening after work to qualify to teach English as a foreign language – a sort of back-up plan just in case freelancing didn’t work out, or if it took a lot longer than expected to get going. I also sat the ITI exam to become a qualified member (MITI).

Happily, I passed both the TESOL course and the ITI exam and no longer had any excuses to put off going freelance. The next thing I needed was the ITI’s Professional Support Group course, as after years in the public sector I was still seriously lacking any business skills. So, one week after leaving my in-house job for good I started the PSG course and was at my new desk in my home office. I got a short-term part-time teaching job in central London to help pay the bills, and also some locum teaching and private tuition in Business English. By October 2008 (6 months after going freelance), I was finding it too difficult to fit all this in with what was by then a full-time translation workload and felt secure enough to stop the teaching altogether.

I think it’s fair to say that each freelance translator will have taken a slightly different route, and the length of time it takes to get to the point where you’re earning a decent full-time income with regular, valued customers will vary considerably (depending on your language combinations, experience, marketing material, and often just sheer good luck). However, hearing how other people did it and how long it took them is one of the best ways of getting a realistic picture of what to aim for. I started my career in-house, and I’m not suggesting that’s what everyone ’should’ do. However, I do think that however you do it, careful planning is one of the best routes to a successful, sustainable freelance career. Running your own business is very fulfilling but can be scary, and so ultimately, the crucial qualities are determination and the ability to be brave when it’s needed!

]]> http://blog.philippahammond.net/2009/10/22/getting-into-translation/feed/ 1 http://blog.philippahammond.net/2009/06/24/translation-tips-from-the-iti-style-matters-translation-workshop-perth/ http://blog.philippahammond.net/2009/06/24/translation-tips-from-the-iti-style-matters-translation-workshop-perth/#comments Wed, 24 Jun 2009 15:27:00 +0000 philippa http://blog.philippahammond.net/?p=369 Last weekend I attended a translation workshop organised by ITI Scotland and led by Ros Schwartz and Chris Durban. This was a great opportunity to get top writing tips from some of the best in the business, and the event was very well attended (despite the considerable distance for those of us travelling from southern England!).

The event was particularly useful for translators working on creative texts, such as marketing copy, but most of the tips provided can be universally applied to other specialist fields.

Here are my take-aways from the event:

Top tips:

• Remember that as a translator you’re also a professional writer
• Trust your instincts
• Imagine yourself as an actor, giving the text a voice
• If you’re struggling, look at each paragraph in turn and break them down to establish what each is talking about
• Careful of ‘translationease‘ such as the phrase ‘in terms of’ – look for ways to re-word this
• When editing, remember to keep the text snappy by pruning superfluous words (particularly applies to Latinate languages)
• Always take a break before the final read-through of your translation
• Try printing out the text in a different font for your proofread, to create distance and objectivity
• Try reading your translation aloud, paying attention to rhythm
• Invest in a style guide
  
• Four eyes are better than two!

Book recommendations:

• Stephen King ‘On Writing’
• William Zinsser ‘On Writing Well’
• Jack Lynch ‘Online Usage and Style Guide’
• The Global English Style Guide: Writing Clear, Translatable Documentation for a Global Market (Perfect Paperback)

One thing that particularly struck me during the group activity was that as translators we have a reputation for getting obsessive and overzealous about what we perceive to be mistakes in a text, but which may simply be a newer term, or a term used by a particular industry. The way I see it, our role is to be linguists observing language and how it changes, not prescriptive grammatarians. Each industry tends to have its own dialect, and sometimes our role is also about speaking our clients’ language.

Happy writing!

While there may be around 7,000 distinct languages in the world today, many of them descend from the same roots and therefore share many similar characteristics.

Romance languages, for example, comprise all languages that have descended from Latin, and today equate to 700 million native speakers across the globe.

And this goes at least some way towards explaining why over a third of Lingo24’s translation projects contain at least one Romance language, with French, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian ranking among the most commonly requested translations.

When is a rare language not a rare language?

Among the rarer Romance languages we’ve been asked to translate include Catalan and Galician, although between them they still have around 15 million native speakers.

Then there is the often-overlooked Romance language that isn’t all that rare at all. Romanian – spoken by around 30 million people worldwide (the majority of whom live in Romania, might I add) – is the 34^th most commonly spoken language in the world.

However, there are an estimated 47 Romance languages and associated dialects spoken throughout Europe, from the Swiss vernacular Romansh, with around 36,000 native speakers, to the Walloon language, spoken by some 600,000 people, located largely in Belgium.

Just how close is this language family?

As all translators will know, it takes a considerable amount of time and effort to learn a second language. But with genetically-related languages such as Romance, there is often a certain degree of mutual intelligibility that aids understanding between the two languages.

The word ‘black’, for instance, can be ‘negre’ (Catalan), ‘noir’ (French), ‘negro’ (Galician/Spanish), ‘nero’ (Italian/Venetian), ‘neir’ (Piedmontese) or ‘negru’ (Romanian). And the word ‘shop’ can be ‘magazin’ (Romanian) or ‘magasin’ (French).

Of course, there are always the infamous false-friends that come along and ruin the show, such as ‘carte’ which could refer to a ‘book’ if you’re in Romania, or a map/card/ticket if you are in France.

Spanish and Portuguese, in particular, are similar to the point of having a significant degree of mutual intelligibility for speakers of these languages. And to make matters worse, they can look almost identical on paper to those who have had little exposure to either language.

And this caused Lingo24 a little bit of bother recently, after being asked to carry out an English to Spanish AND Portuguese translation.

After receiving the translated and fully proofread texts from us, the client asked if they could be reviewed again, as the translations seemed identical to each other!

However, this is not too uncommon, whereby we have to explain the subtle differences between two seemingly identical languages. But fortunately, most of our clients are only too happy to take the advice of an experienced translation company.

This can often mean explaining to clients the importance of using, for example, a Latin American Spanish translator over a Spanish translator. Although this news normally goes down rather well, given that it is generally cheaper to translate into Latin American Spanish than it is Spanish.

Similarly, we are often asked to translate between French and Canadian French, Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese and even non-Romance languages such as UK and US English. The importance of localisation in a translation can never be understated, and this is a message that seems to be catching on across most industries.

Of course, whilst nobody can be held personally accountable for any similarities that exist between two Romance languages such as Spanish and Portuguese, it does serve as a timely reminder that, at a time when globalisation is one of the biggest business buzzwords, it certainly pays to be wary of the more subtle cultural and linguistic differences.

© Paul Sawers

A few weeks ago I gave a presentation at the University of Westminster as part of a National Network for Translation Careers in Languages Day. Some readers may not already know about this important body, a UK government initiative, and if you don’t I urge you to read about it on the website. Various events are organised as part of this initiative – my hot picks are  ‘How work-ready are graduates of translation programmes?‘, and then in November the conference ‘The Translator as Expert Writer‘ at the University of Portsmouth. Another feature of the network’s website is the posting of details of work placements.

The audience I was speaking to at this particular event mainly consisted of A-level students and undergraduate students, who for one reason or another had the drive and determination (or sheer craziness) to drag themselves up to the utter madness that is Oxford Circus early on a Saturday morning to listen to the likes of me tell them why they should most definitely consider a career in translation.

Now that I’m about 5 years into my translation career, the time when working as a translator was still a distant dot on the horizon is starting to get harder to remember, so when I sat down to plan my presentation I found it surprisingly hard to know where to start. It should be the easiest thing in the world just to tell them what I do, how I do it, and how I got to do it, right? As it turns out, for me, putting myself in their shoes was not as easy as I thought, and I realised that my first draft was really aimed at postgraduate students of translation or translation colleagues, not someone who was just at the very start of things.

Although when planning a presentation it may be difficult to identify with an audience that is approaching it from a totally different mindset to you, it is vital that you make efforts to identify and engage with them. In my case, this was not only beneficial as as part of a reflective activity,  as a way of making me assess my own progress by thinking back to the past, but also because as a professional working in your own little world everyday it is healthy to peel yourself out of that every now and then in order to situate yourself within a wider context. Heck, this could almost be a sanity-saving measure!

When doing presentations of any kind, before you even start drafting your pearls of wisdom, take some time to think about how this wisdom will be best received by your audience. If you believe in what you are saying, how are you going to encourage them to believe in it too without boring them into submission? We’ve all sat through self-important PowerPoint presentations delivered in a dry, overly speaker-focused way, with slides that read like they were the pages of books in another life. It doesn’t have to be that way. Giving a presentation is not exactly the same as teaching a language, but the basic approach should be similar.

Here are some tips I picked up today from a post by Chris Brogan:

• Ask your audience a question that frames the speech.
• Tell your audience how you’ll try and answer that question.
• Start with a personal or investigatory story.
• Drill down into the details of how the story applies to your presentation.
• Offer some takeaways or next-actions for this.
• Tell another personal or informational story.
• Repeat the drill down points, the takeaways, etc.
• Thread questions in earlier than the end.
• Finish with a solid set of steps people can use to take action based on your presentation.

Looking at the website of OneHour Translation, I’m sceptical (to say the least) about their ability to turn around larger documents (projects they say they can take on include websites and presentations) within just 1 hour. To me, the best use of this type of service is for something like Twitrans, not important or lengthy documents. What do others think about this type of service?

Last weekend I attended the conference ‘The Translator as Strategic Partner‘ here in London at the Camden Centre. Those following me on Twitter may have seen that I was live micro-blogging from the event throughout the weekend. I had intended to do this, as an experimental way of tracking the events and my thoughts in a more as-it-happens fashion than I would have been able to do otherwise, plus it meant  translators across the world on Twitter unable to attend could tap into the conference it virtually. The live tweeting seems to have worked fairly well (as far as it could – live tweets without links are rarely enough to supplement full text) and other tweeting translators seem to have appreciated it.

What I’ve done in this post is to paste in almost of all of my Twitter updates and use them as subheadings to structure my report summarising the main points I took away from the conference. Let’s see how this goes…and be warned that will be long!

Enjoying pre translation conference meal and networking at Betjeman Arms, St pancras, London 8:54 PM Nov 21st

The weekend really began on the Friday evening before the ‘official’ start to the conference.  Lots of delegates arrived promptly for the advance registration, not forgetting to leave enough time for a sneaky drink at the bar before heading out for a meal at the Betjeman Arms. It was great to meet so many other translators from the UK and around the world (it was an international conference), and be able to put faces to the names of people I’ve so far only met ‘virtually’ over the years. I wasn’t a huge fan of the meal itself (but thumbs up for being able to cater for such a large number of people) but the venue itself is awesome, and the company was ace.

Early start. I’ll now be live tweeting from the translator as a strategic partner conference this weekend. Stay tuned! 9:07 AM Nov 22nd

OK, so we get going early on the first morning to help with registration and welcome people on their arrival at the conference. I’m not accustomed to such early starts (6.30am) on a Saturday but I was really excited about the speakers on the agenda. Today we were due to hear from such distinguished translation professionals as Michael Benis (the organiser), Ros Schwartz, Bill Maslen, Cate Avery, Jay Kettle Williams, Jost Zetzsche and Nick Rosenthal.

Welcome address by Michael Benis: being quality driven rather than cost driven 10:14 AM Nov 22nd

Michael starts off by setting the theme of the conference, the subheading of which is ‘a workshop conference for a changing industry’.  The following two quotes basically sum it up:

Quote: “for a communications industry, the translation industry doesn’t communicate very well”. We have a problem guys 10:16 AM Nov 22nd

Quote: “the client cares about their business objectives and bottom line” 10:18 AM Nov 22nd

In short, the translation industry needs to roll with the punches and adapt to clients’ needs in order to survive. As shy, retiring translators we often undersell ourselves, and, in Michael’s words ‘effective cross-cultural communication requires a strategic partner’. What else do offer?

Next up: Ros Schwartz on client relations 10:33 AM Nov 22nd

I was really excited about this session, the title of which was ‘Client relations: Why and how to be proactive’. Ros, who works mainly in creative and literary translation, argued that in translation nowadays fidelity to the original is simply not enough. It has to be more than that; it goes without saying that clients expect us to be reliable, meet our deadlines and stay faithful to the original message of their texts, but what will really make a difference to the ‘bottom line’ (see above) is that their translated texts are fit for purpose. This was a crucial point, since cultural differences usually mean that what would be acceptable for one target audience would not make an impact on that of another cultural/linguistic community.

Copywriting skills and how they add value to your profile as a translator and what you offer to clients 11:02 AM Nov 22nd

Moreover, as translators we are also writers (this was echoed by several speakers at the conference during the weekend), and we can hone these skills in order to add value to what we offer. We can positively seek feedback from our clients to see where we can help them reach their business objectives, such as bringing our copywriting skills into play (Ros also provided a list of writing courses).

Working together as specialists to produce a project: be a problem solver 11:03 AM Nov 22nd

Ros went on to argue that clients have articulated and unarticulated needs from their translators – they may not even realise what they really need from their translations and it is our job to make that our business. As strategic partners and language specialists we are able to identify and highlight blind spots for our clients.

It’s all about communication, guys. Truly excellent talk by ros schwartz 11:25 AM Nov 22nd

All in all a really thought-provoking session. Ros was obviously coming from the perspective of a translator who mainly works with direct clients, but the crucial points should be applicable to those who work with translation companies as well. Highly recommended.

Bill Maslen encourages us to seek out feedback – ask to see the final product that goes to the client 12:34 PM Nov 22nd

Bill Maslen (of the Word Gym) was up next, with a session (intriguingly) entitled ‘Strategic partnerships: principles and solutions, triumphs and tragedies’. Bill used a chart he had clearly put a lot of thought into that very neatly illustrated his point, and demonstrated the buy-in from the top-level guys in companies throughout the product development process, i.e. right at the end, when the translation is commissioned, the buy-in from the top bods is almost zero. What does this tell us?

…seeing the final product will help you understand your client’s needs and the sort of copy they’re looking for for their target market 12:36 PM Nov 22nd

This session followed on very nicely from the one before, again commenting that in terms of the perceived value of what we do, translation really suffers from a brand image problem. To improve this we need to get more involved, and really understand our clients’ needs better. We need to demonstrate how we analyse the texts and the overall process. What’s to stop us asking for a brief?

Interestingly, Bill encouraged us to ask to see the final product that is sent on to the end client. I personally haven’t ever done this, as it’s often slightly more difficult to have a two-way dialogue with translation companies, rather than direct clients, but it’s a very good idea, and something I would like to try.

After a distinctly un-Italian Italian buffet lunch we move on to a translator-client joint presentation. Nice to see a united front 2:12 PM Nov 22nd

This session was with Cate Avery, a patent translator, and one of her clients. This wasn’t a format I’d seen before at a conference, and I liked it. Cate explained the process involved in patent translations with a good dose of amusing anecdotes, and she and her client discussed what it is that makes Cate a good supplier to them.

Update: What does a client look for above all? ‘Reliability’ ‘cost effectiveness’ ‘intelligent approach’ and ‘good working relationship’ 2:27 PM Nov 22nd

These were the words of Cate’s client on what they look for in their translation suppiers. In short, ‘reliability’, ‘cost effectiveness’, and ‘good working relationship’ shouldn’t be anything new, but ‘intelligent approach’ wasn’t something I’d heard before. To me it goes without saying that translators should have an ‘intelligent approach’ to their work, but perhaps this needs to be demonsrated more clearly in how we approach our clients and in our marketing campaigns.

Paraphrased quote from Jay kettle Williams: ‘the days when we can call ourselves a translator, full stop, are gone’. 3:00 PM Nov 22nd

I don’t think I was the only one amazed by Jay Kettle Williams’ superb oratory skills. He presented a very entertaining and lively session called ‘It’s not what you want to give the client, it’s what the client needs’. This may have been a controversial way of looking at things for many translators, but it continued the theme already established earlier in the day. An true expert on linguistics, Jay calls translators the ‘code-breakers’ for their clients; highlighting the fact that we often do so much more than simply ‘translate’ A to B.

Now speaking: Jost Zetzsche on idealised notions of translators. He asks ‘does quality spell u-s-a-b-i-l-i-t-y?’ 4:20 PM Nov 22nd

Jost Zetzsche, of Toolkit fame, spoke about our age-old idealisation of the patron saint of translators, St. Jerome. We risk being constrained by this idealisation of a translator who, let’s face it, innovative as he was at the time, was born c. 347. Instead, we need to roll with the times and think about the true purpose of our texts – I empathised with this, and it returned to the discussion around a text’s fitness for purpose again. Oh, and Jost also briefly introduced us to his cute little mascot Jeromobot.

Closing up the ‘official conference’ part of day 1. Q&A discussion, prize draw, and then much needed drinks and dinner! 5:27 PM Nov 22nd

The first day of the conference ended at around 5.30pm, following a comprehensive Q&A session with the panel speakers which dealt with issues such as ROI from marketing campaigns, ‘educating’ project managers who don’t like translators with ‘queries’, where agencies can find good translators, reference documents and translation tests (one panellist expressed the view that receivied wisdom tells us that quality translators will not offer to do free tests for clients – hadn’t thought of it that way).

A particular quote I remember from this part of the day was that ‘nobody is going to read your texts as carefully as a translator’ (I can’t remember who it was, unfortunately). How true that is.

An enjoyable evening’s networking was spent with 91 other delegates at Ciao Bella in Bloomsbury. My report on day 2 of the confernce will follow next week…