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

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?

So here, finally, is my take on day 2 of The Translator as Strategic Partner Conference. This one probably will be shorter than my report on the 1st day, because my note-taking on day 2 amounted to just a few lines, partially due to being in a zombie-like stupor due to lack of sleep (trust me, after only a couple of hours sleep I am not someone you want to hang around for long) and the onset of a cold, but mostly because the second day adopted more of a ‘workshop’ style. I really liked this – I presumed it would be an uphill struggle to coax a room of over 200 sleepy delegates (who also happen to be translators – we’re not necessarily used to working in groups, nor even speaking to real people, for that matter ) brainstorm on a Sunday morning, but this actually came off pretty well. So, let’s roll out the tweets:

Day 2 of the conference and I’m sleep-starved due to too much coffee late at night and an over excited kitten. 9:10 AM Nov 23rd

I should explain this tweet. The Saturday night meal at Ciao Bella was great. OK, so they struggled a little to organise our courses, but how many restaurants could cope with a over 90 people arriving all at once? The food was fantastic, as was the wine, and the restaurant was buzzing with conversation. Naturally, the following morning (a SUNDAY, people!), when my alarm sounds at 7am I’m not thrilled about dragging my behind out of bed. Besides that, our kitten Cosmo (he’s nearly 2 years old now, but I still call him a kitten) was hyperactive as he always when his normal routine is changed, had been waking me up with a paw in my face every 30 minutes during the night.

Oh, and by the way, there is snow on the ground in London! 9:52 AM Nov 23rd

Yes, it’s true! On the plus side, it was a treat to wake up to see snow in our garden!

Now happening at the conference: Michael Benis on translation technology 9:54 AM Nov 23rd

Anyway, enough about my sleep issues and the weather, let’s move on to the conference itself. This began with a very comprehensive run-down of translation technology by Michael Benis. There was something for everyone here – if you didn’t already use translation memory/Computer Assisted Translation tools, then Michael told us what their purpose was and showed some screenshots to demonstrate how they work; he also touched on PDF conversion software such as Nuance Scansoft, Mindtouch.com, and Collanos Workspace. Most translators will know Michael for his expert reviews of translation tools, and really sit up and listen when he speaks on the subject, so delegates were scribbling away fiercely at this stage.

Gradually coaxing my tired grumpy self into ‘workshop’ frame of mind at the TSP conference. Great atmosphere here, I must say 11:31 AM Nov 23rd

As I mentioned before, I was grizzly, so the last thing I thought I needed was a group workshop. BUT this was just the ticket to get my brain juices flowing. The workshop was run by Ros Schwartz, on ’style’. We were given a piece of paper with a text in French (an editorial) and its literal translation into English. This was a very creative exercise, and we needed to engage our copywriting skills to have any hope of producing a translated text that was effective in its own right.

Very much enjoying style workshop run by Ros Schwartz – very creative and lots of different approaches to learn from 12:55 PM Nov 23rd

As a lone-worker, I hardly ever get the opportunity to bounce ideas off translator colleagues, and it’s easy to forget how beneficial it is to be able to pick the brains of others. I really did learn a lot from this about how best to approach ‘creative translation’ for marketing texts, for example. It’s hard to know how much licence the translator really has to adapt a client’s text for the target audience, but again, this is why it’s important to have an open dialogue with your client.

After a very impressive Caribbean lunch Jost Zetzsche from translators’ toolkit is up again to ’set priorities straight’… 2:27 PM Nov 23rd

Psst – wow the Caribbean lunch was good – and I was delighted to learn that it was provided by a firm round the corner from where I live – ‘Cummin’ Up‘; glad to have been able to pinpoint another spot to grab a bite for a weekday lunch! After that, Jost Zetzsche did another brief presentation on Machine Translation, called ‘Setting priorities straight: Us or the Machine?’ – a contentious issue!

Quote from jost: ‘how can we get back behind the wheel?’ 2:31 PM Nov 23rd

Jost said that we needed to acknowledge that progress is being made in Machine Translation; OK the results are usually extremely silly, but we need to bear in mind what clients need their translations for. It may be in future that some of us take on ‘post-editing’ of Machine Translated-text as part of our portfolio, but the important thing now is for us to regain some control over how this pans out. We need to be drivers of change, rather than the passengers. This was a point I believe is fundamental to the future of our profession (or any profession, come to that).

Next conference gig: fellow tweeter Nick Rosenthal on content management systems 2:50 PM Nov 23rd

Nick had been tweeting from the conference too, so it was great to be able to share this via my own tweets. I’m completely new to CMS (Content Management Systems), so I was intrigued by this session, entitled ‘TM is dead! Long live CMS!’. I think this is still a fairly specialist area for translators, but again, we need to embrace these things if we want to remain in the driving seat. A quote by Charles Kettering about change and progress, one of my favourites, springs to mind at this point.

TSP As it happens: Bill Maslen on Blogging and Twitter! Benefits of social networking….go geeks! 3:09 PM Nov 23rd

Sooo happy to hear social networking tools, wikis etc mentioned at the conference…how much of it will sink in with freelance translators? 3:23 PM Nov 23rd

This was another dynamic presentation by Bill Maslen, which, to my delight briefly touched on Twitter and social networking. The presentation was called ‘Working methods: collaboration amid constant change’. He also discussed online collaboration and new working tools at our disposal. There is so much out there for us; it seems that what frustrates many people is that the tools change all the time, but to my mind this simply reflects the vastness of the worldwide web. Having so many things available is 90% a fantastic thing (10% an overwhelming thing), and we mustn’t forget that the internet empowers us to search for, select and control which tools fit us best. If you don’t work well with a tool then don’t settle for it, go out (and when I say ‘out’ I mean ‘online’) and find another one!

Major realisation from reading the slides at this conference weekend: I need to have another eye test 3:27 PM Nov 23rd

Next is Istvan Lengyel from MemoQ, with a presentation entitled ‘Getting the most out of references’. I was excited about this, as MemoQ has made such a good impression with most translators I’ve spoken to. I think this is one to watch, and I’ll certainly be looking into it myself. Unfortunately, with my tired, myopic eyes I had trouble reading most of Istvan’s presentation, so can’t report much else (sorry Istvan!) about this one. Mental note: call my optician about getting some new spectacles. After Istvan’s presentation, we moved on to another round table discussion with the speakers. This time it mainly focussed on comparing translation technology tools (we had brave representativesfrom SDL Trados and Wordfast there – NB. watch out for new developments from Wordfast). We also discussed translation clauses in company contracts which us freelancers are asked to sign. Again, the key is discussion with clients at all stages.

Closing up the conference now over a drink. Shattered but it’s been a productive weekend 6:05 PM Nov 23rd

And so, exhausted, we head to the bar for a well-deserved drink. I learned many things from the conference, especially the value of getting out there in the real world to meet people you’ve already met ‘virtually’ via social networking (for example). My live micro-blogging allowed me to keep a record of the event for my own future reference, as well as making it possible to share it with others. Instead of making endless paper notes I’ll probably be able never find again, I now have an extensive, meaningful record that I can refer back to online whenever I want to. The tweets also made it possible for me to make my report more ‘authentic’ – usually after these events people can remember things that never actually happened and as a result the write-up of the event is not quite as accurate as it could be.

Homeward bound from tsp conference…think I will be sofa-bound for rest of the evening. Signing off the live blogging now; it’s been fun! 7:51 PM Nov 23rd

By the way, check out Creative Alchemy for a guide to networking – essential pre-conference reading!

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…

This is the blurb from the site:

Welcome to our ???? ??? ????Literature in Translation store. Browse here for great deals on top fiction from around the globe. You can search by language or by genre to discover new authors, and see what other people are reading and rating.

Despite the slightly muted introduction of this new feature, I’m really pleased to see a large outfit such as Amazon allocating special space to translated literature, and shining the spotlight on non-Anglophone writers, particularly given that currently only 2% of the books on our bookshops’ shelves are translations from another language.

Kudos to The Bookseller.com for reporting this news.

One for linguistics enthusiasts: a truly fascinating interview today on Excess Baggage travel program with Daniel Everett, Chair of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at Illinois State University, US. Everett travelled to the Brazilian Amazon to live with the Piraha people, and In this interview he shares his experiences of living with the Pirahas and what he learned about their language, previously un-translated. Interestingly, it turned out that Everett was the one who was converted to their way of life and communicating, rather than the other way round.

His book, published this month, will certainly be on my Christmas list

This is a step in a new direction for the mighty Google, which is fast completing utter dominance of the  internet and follows their foray into machine translation with ‘Google Translate’. Google Translate received a fairly good reception when it was released, as being ‘not too bad’ as far as machine translation goes, if you need to get a very rough approximation of isolated sentences. It does surprise me that they’re now attempting to diversify into human translation, though. Perhaps they’ve seen the success of collaborative translation on open-source projects (by volunteer translators), and of subscription translator community sites such as ProZ and want a piece of the action.

But then, Google Translation Center doesn’t look like a translator community site, nor is there any mention of money changing hands, so I can’t help wondering what’s in it for them? Their stated aim is: “Google Translation Center is part of our effort to make information universally accessible through translation”, but surely, as a company as powerful and successful as theirs must have a profit-driven or market dominance-driven motive lurking behind everything it does, right?

According to Stephen Shankland:

“[...]the company also has technology called Cross Language Information Retrieval  (CLIR)  that builds            translation into its search engine.”

And:

“Google’s translation system uses a statistical model that works better the more it can compare the same text in two different languages. And Google evidently will track translation work in its database; according to the center’s introduction for translators, “our translation search feature matches your current translation with previous translations, so you don’t have to translate over and over again.”

Google is fervently interested in better machine translation. With it, it can use its search technology to link people with data around the world, regardless of language barriers, making its search engine significantly more powerful.”

Interesting stuff that may further enhance the way we search for information, not to mention the possibilities for a gigantic global translation memory. You can read Google’s own full explanation of what it’s all about here.

The wording of the the petition is as follows: ‘If the government really wants to promote language learning, it not only needs to encourage more pupils to take languages at GCSE, but also to support language departments at a higher level. Allowing these departments to close will be detrimental to the government’s long-term language objectives’.

A bit of background information: following the Government decision a few years ago to remove languages from the list of compulsory subjects at GCSE, the number of students choosing to study a language at GCSE, A-level and consequently, degree-level in the UK is said to have plummeted. In my opinion, that Government decision was a huge mistake. The value of studying another language and the insight that gives you into other cultures cannot be underestimated.  It is also a grave concern in terms of the future of professions such as translating and interpreting.

And finally…the second link I found on the Naked Translations blog and it made me giggle. It is an excerpt from the ITV program ‘Headcases’ showing French President Nicolas Sarkozy (he’s getting to be a recurring topic of my posts here).  Laugh away, but don’t forget about the petition!

In the UK the literature market is dominated by English-language books, and only 2% of the books on our bookshops’ shelves are translations from another language. As a result, we are missing out on wider cultural insights beyond our own, and our view of the world is in ‘mono’ when it could be in ’stereo’. In turn, literary translation is not normally given as much esteem as it deserves, and from what I know this is usually expressed through low rates of pay for literary translators. Faced with this predicament, many experienced and skillful translators stay away from this area of work and in consequence the resulting translated novels suffer. We’ve all read books in translation which we found less satisfying than books originally written in English, and I firmly believe that this sad situation should change.

The event I attended was an interview between Icelandic author Sjón, who you may know for his musical collaborations with Bjork, but who recently won the Nordic Council’s Literature Prize (about equivalent to the Booker prize, so no small-fry) for his novel ‘The blue fox’ (Skugga-Baldur in Icelandic), and his translator Victoria Cribb. The book is unique in many ways, and Sjón’s writing style provides an incredibly insightful perspective on the world, a perspective perhaps only possible from a country such as Iceland.

I found the event uplifting and encouraging, from a translator’s point of view. I was in awe of Victoria Cribb as a translator and of the symbiotic relationship between her and Sjón, who seemed to have an astute appreciation of the role of translators, and of the importance of translation as a whole. In fact, one of his final comments was ‘translation is the greatest human project of our time’.

Amen Sjón. Keep up the good work, Pen!