London Conference on EU Accession to ECHR

The European Institute of University College London is organising a conference on 20 May 2011 entitled "Who will be the ultimate guardian of human rights in Europe? Implications of the European Union’s Accession to the European Convention on Human Rights". This is the information provided by the organisers:

The aim of this one day conference is to address the ever-topical question of the ultimate guarantor of human rights in the EU: the Union’s own court (the European Court of Justice), the European Court of Human Rights or national constitutional courts?

Given the envisaged accession of the European Union to the European Convention on Human Rights, there is ample reason for re-visiting this question: the accession might completely change the landscape of human rights protection in Europe.

The legal background is as follows: Article 6 (2) of the Treaty on European Union puts the EU under an obligation to accede to the ECHR. With the entry into force of Protocol No. 14 to the ECHR, an accession has now become possible. Negotiations between the EU and the Council of Europe promptly started in July 2010 and are expected to be completed by June 2011.

The conference is to be held as a one day event on Friday, 20 May 2011 in the Faculty of Laws, University College London. Its aim is to bring together judges, officials, politicians, practitioners and academics, who will discuss the outcome of the accession negotiations so far, highlight potential problems (and proposals to resolve them) and consider the potential impact of an accession on the legal orders of the Union and the Member States. It is hoped that the outcome of the conference will lead to new insights about the future of human rights protection in Europe. The conference will be rounded up with a discussion panel co-organised and hosted by the German Embassy.

You and Your Proofreader: Part One!

Yesterday a few of us from the office went  to a well-known language school in town and spoke for about an hour to a variety of students about the magical joy of working as a translator for our agency. Despite a slightly lower headcount than expected (bloody students! ;), it went well and lots of questions were asked at the end, which is always a sign that interest is being feigned. Err, paid.

When my turn came for ten minutes on ‘You and Your Proofreader’, I was already half stoned on a heady cocktail of prescription medication for this angina (which in less than 24 hours of taking it, is already vastly improving the situation, hooray for medicine!). Still, I managed to get something together in my head and spit it out to the assembled masses, and I’d like to offer a précis of those ramblings to you today. I’ll try not include all the bits that began with ‘errr... so as I was saying... what was I saying?...’.

In the beginning, there are a few different ways of checking a text, and I’m not even going to get into the whole debate about ‘how well can a proofreader proof if he doesn’t understand the SL and doesn’t read the ST note-for-note with the TT?’ I mean rather that proofreading is something one does with the final draft of a book or article for publication, and typically only very infrequent changes need to be made – a comma here, a spelling mistake there. Then you have copy-editing, which is a few steps before proofreading and will involve some editing and re-writing of a text, typically a newspaper piece.

Then we have proofreading for translations which sort of falls between both stools. The better a translation is, the more like proofreading it is. Do you see the logic? So:

Practical things: When you get a proofread translation back with Track Changes on, there will probably be much more red on it than you would think necessary. But it’s important to remember that about 75% of all those red squiggles are fairly meaningless things, like tiny formatting adjustments or language changes. So you shouldn’t panic, but rather check through it calmly and carefully to find the things you need to know.

Working for a translation agency you could either be based at home, or be coming in to the actual office every day. Coming in to the office can be a nice change from sitting at home all day working, and can also give you some insight into what kinds of work you’ll be getting over time. You can also find this out by being friendly with the coordinators and so on, but of course most of the time you’ll get a diverse array of texts and so you should prepare to be flexible. Agency work is good field training, and it’s good to get an idea of how these places operate since even in your freelance work you’ll be dealing with agencies and coordinators a lot.

You won’t always know if your work is being proofread, and I suspect it’s not that common to have a native SL speaker checking it. This is why, of course, one should always strive to be the best and do the best work possible, so that it can stand proudly with or without final checking. One thing to note though is that not all agency coordinators are themselves linguists, and so you should be prepared to answer what may seem to you to be silly, obvious questions about your work. These are not criticisms but rather just the coordinator needing to double check something about the text, to make sure it meets the customer’s requirements.

The other side of that coin is, with the non-linguist agency people, that if they have a proofreader who tells them there are ‘issues’ with your work, they may send the text back to you with a rather curt request to check it again. Now, sometimes they’re just rather graceless people with no idea how to communicate like a human being, but often they’re really only just hyper-busy, living on the edge of multiple converging deadlines and dealing directly with fussy, impatient, know-it-all clients, so do try always to be gracious and a little bit understanding in your dealings with coordinators, as this will pay-off in spades with continued work and increasing trust.

The third side of this rather oddly-shaped piece of pocket change is when you have your own countrymen checking your work. Now, in my experience, this is not always the best thing, because many times I’ve seen it happen that the checker will change something not because it’s wrong or needs fixing or improving somehow, but rather because they would have translated it differently, and so they replace your work with theirs. This gives the non-native coordinator the impression that the checking is taking longer than it should because your work sucks, and when they see all the changes the proofreader made, they think you’re a bad deal and they get nervous. The only thing I can tell you here is, if you’re in a position where you’re proofreading a document that was SL in your own language, do try to stick as closely as possible to the ‘only change it if it’s broken’ methodology. Ego should play no part at any stage of the translation process, even though niestety sometimes it does.

Righto, this is going on somewhat so we’ll cut it here and carry on tomorrow. I hope this is proving as interesting to you as it seemed to prove to our captive second-year students the other day. I assumed then that the smiles at the end were those of satisfaction, although come to think of it, they might have been for my wild, crazy eyes, standing-up hair and slightly unshaven mug. Hmm…

Article on ECHR Abuse Clause and Freedom of Expression

The newest issue of our Utrecht/SIM publication, the Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights (vol. 29, no. 1) includes an article by Hannes Cannie and Dirk Voorhoof, both of Ghent University, entitled 'The Abuse Clause and Freedom of Expression in the European Human Rights Convention: An Added Value for Democracy and Human Rights Protection?'. This is the abstract:

With regard to certain types of hate speech, the European Court of Human Rights and the former Commission have developed a tradition of applying Article 17 ECHR; the so-called abuse clause. This application leads to a categorical exclusion from protection of the right to freedom of expression (Article 10), an approach that contrasts sharply with the Court's general attitude toward accepting and even creating a broad scope of protection under this right. It also contrasts with the Court's usual examination of interferences with the freedom of expression in the light of the case as a whole, all its factual and legally relevant elements being taken into consideration. The aim of this article is to show that the abuse clause's application is undesirable, since it tends, even in its indirect variant, to set aside substantial principles and safeguards that are characteristic of the European speech-protective framework. The application of Article 17 is also unnecessary, as it in no way generates an added value for democracy or for human rights protection. We therefore strongly encourage the European Court to consider all forms of hate speech from the perspective of Article 10, without affording a decisive impact, directly nor indirectly, from Article 17 of the Convention.

civilisation - civilisational

Just a quick one today as my angina is kicking me in the dup with big, hob-nailed boots. I’ve got three or four different tabletki to try and beat this thing, but as we all know, the best medicine is a nice, relaxing translation. ;) This item at least has the virtue of being plucked fresh from the pages of a brand-new text I’m working on right now. It’s also something I’ve been seeing quite often for quite some time – the misuse and abuse of the word civilisation, including use of an invented adjectival form! Look ye here, oh civilised reader:

1a) The civilisation development brought a huge progress in science and technology.

1b) The development of civilisation brought huge progress in science and technology.

2a) Street-level Civilisational improvements include plumbing, indoor toilets, electricity, libraries and public health services.

2b) Street-level signs of civilisation include plumbing, indoor toilets, electricity, libraries and public health.

OED Def.

civilization (also civilisation) mass noun – the stage of human development social development and organisation which is considered most advanced.

Okay, I threw the whole definition in there for fun, but really all we need from the Oxford scholars is the bit that tells us it’s a mass noun. What would also be useful – in fact, most useful – but that is too much to reproduce here, is the rest of the page (316 in my edition), upon which there is no sign of any other form of the word. Hence, no adjectival civilisational (2a). I suspect it’s one of those words that sounds right, even though it isn’t or doesn’t exist. It sounds like organisational, which is okay, so we mentally shrug and say ‘bingo!’

Niestety, the fix for this pox on society is rephrasing, always the most tedious route for anyone. But all we really need to do is move civilisation in the sentence so it doesn’t have to do the adjective dance. Simplest route to take here is (1b), or if you’re feeling plucky, throw in a synonym and do the (2b) tango.

You’ll notice in (1a) there was a... bad article! I couldn’t resist taking it out for the ‘corrected’ version though. :D (of course, you all know why it was bad, right? Comment below and tell us!)

Italian Book on Role of the Judge and ECHR

Roberto Conti has just written a new Italian-language book on the European Convention on Human Rights and the role of the judge (La Convenzione europea dei diritti dell'uomo. Il ruolo del giudice), published with Aracne Editrice. This is the abstract in Italian:

In una pubblicazione, edita nel 2002, dedicata alla Convenzione europea per la salvaguardia dei diritti umani il capitolo dedicato al ruolo della giurisprudenza italiana nell’applicazione della CEDU constava di appena sei pagine. Le riflessioni presenti in questo volume intendono, per un verso, dare atto dell’ormai inarrestabile capacità della Convenzione anzidetta di diventare “protagonista” di numerose e rilevanti pronunzie giurisprudenziali domestiche, ma anche – e soprattutto – “fotografare” il ruolo centrale progressivamente assunto dal giudice nazionale nella protezione dei diritti fondamentali. L’approccio triangolare seguito, aperto a individuare i rapporti fra la Costituzione, la CEDU e la Carta dei diritti fondamentali di Nizza-Strasburgo, intende offrire al lettore uno strumento che possa metterlo in condizione di esercitare, a ogni livello, il ruolo di difensore dei diritti fondamentali.

The book focuses on the role of national judges in interpreting and applying European human rights standards.

The Sunday Review, 27/03/2011

A mixed week this one was; our translating rollercoaster went down, down the spiral of Missed Entries and climbed up, up to the heights of Guest Columnist. Personally, I really enjoyed being able to bring a different voice and a fresh outlook, particularly as it came from within your own ranks. There will be more, much more of that sort of thing. Unfortunately I’ve been so busy lately myself with the old eyeballing of words thing that I haven’t had time to send out my carefully-conceived-down-the-pub-after-three-G&Ts wywiady.

In other news, I fiddled around a bit back-stage and added some colourful buttons down the side, and an apparently non-functional FaceBook ‘Like’ button. I was assured we didn’t need an actual fan page for this, but oh well. At least I know how to do all that should the need, want or desire arise. What do you think, would it be cool/funny/life-enhancing to ‘like’ articles here that you, err, like?

Looking ahead, I can safely say we’re going to have more idioms, more formatting issues (seems to be a popular topic, the old formatting thing), and some more quiz work. In the meantime, enjoy the rest of your weekend, and if you’re working now, powodzenia. :-)

New Academic Articles on ECHR

A few recent articles concerning the ECHR in law journals: the Columbia human rights law review (vol. 42, 2010/11, no. 1), pp. 233-277 includes:

* A. Izumo, Diplomatic assurances against torture and ill treatment: European Court of Human Rights jurisprudence

The Fordham international law journal (vol. 34, 2010/11, no. 1, pp. 46-77)

* O. Akbulut, Criteria developed by the European Court of Human Rights on the dissolution of political parties

Finally, an article in the German journal Europäische Grundrechte Zeitschrift (vol. 38, 2011, pp. 1-11):

* J. Baumann, Auf dem Weg zu einem doppelten EMRK-Schutzstandard? Die Fortschreibung der Bosphorus-Rechtsprechung des EGMR im Fall Nederlandse Kokkelvisserij.

Addington Student, Role Model For All

Ahsan Ahmadi, also known as Ali, received an award in our full school assembly today. Ali is a refugee from Afghanistan,who with his family has been in New Zealand for only 8 months, received the award from the Addington Action Committee for outstanding contribution to the Addington Community, in the weeks after the 22 February earthquake. Presenting the award was Mike Peters of the Addington Action Committee and Jim Anderton MP.

After the earthquake struck, Ali got in touch with the AAC and with his Dad spent the next two weeks helping to clear rubble, dig toilets and deliver food and water to people in need.

We are all very proud of this young man, who is an inspiration and a wonderful role model. Well done Ali.

Ali was also featured in todays Christchurch Press.

Idiom! with Guest Columnist, Dotty

Idios, idiosyncratic, idiomatic, idiom... All begin with the Greek root idio, meaning ‘private’ and indicating something like ‘of the self’. It’s perhaps ironic then that common idiom, which begins as language private or internal to a person or group, spreads out and becomes commonplace. It’s also frustrating for translators, because literal translations of idiom rarely work well enough to make them worth the effort.

Today we have a special treat as we’re joined for this, our inaugural look at idioms, by a very good friend of the Article. She’s an experienced translator who found a job juggling English-Polish translations in visual media, and believe me, when she speaks, I listen. I asked her for a quote on the subject and she came back a couple of minutes later with this, so let’s turn it over to her now and see what she has to say. Please give a very warm welcome to Dotty. Take it away Dots!

***

One might think that translating idioms is a piece of cake. All you have to do is just find the TL equivalent, right? Well, right and wrong. Obviously, it all depends on the type of translation we’re considering, but in most cases the TL equivalent is the most straightforward and efficient strategy.

But what if we are dealing with an ST that is not an independent piece of written text, but that exists within a more complex picture-text relationship? Take a movie trailer, for example, or a promotional video for a TV programme, which is what I had to deal with quite recently and which turned out to be the most annoying idiom issue I have so far encountered (undoubtedly, another one is just around the corner). The promo was for a British cooking programme that was to be broadcast in Poland. The whole programme was a very competitive cooking contest and the video spot was for the final episode, so it was quite fast-paced and lively, and with the whole thing obviously taking place in a kitchen, the viewer could almost feel the extreme heat of the competition.

This was emphasised by repeated shots of the fires on the stove, and it begged the expression of the contestants getting “out of the frying pan into the fire”, which is exactly what the English producer had used. Now, if you think what the Polish equivalent for this idiom is, you will understand my annoyance back then. How on earth could you relate rain or a gutter to the heat of a fierce cooking competition? Literal translation was not going to work and the discrepancy in the spoken idioms’ imagery did not help.

In these cases, I need to think of a nice way to verbally fill in the idiomatic gap and link the visuals with the text by means of a witty description.

***

So, a little inventive wit was the answer to that problem, but since levity isn’t always appropriate, what else can we do? Of course, there are books full of appropriate strategies, but we want to hear from you. What clever – or brutal – solutions have you found to the problem of translating idiom? Email or comment and share your ideas! And don't forget, if there are any strange idioms you'd like to know more about, write and ask!

Pilot Judgment Procedure Included in Rules of Court

The phenomenon of the Pilot Judgment Procedure for a long time lacked a clear legal basis, although it had a stronger political backing by way of calls of the Committee of Ministers. In addition, it was not always clear when and how the European Court of Human Rights would use the procedure. Most recently, the Interlaken summit of last year asked the Court to develop clear and predictable standards for the procedure. A call which had also been made by various NGOs and academics, including myself in this article 'The Pilot Judgment Procedure at the European Court of Human Rights: Possibilities and Challenges' (amongst many other authors obviously). After a few years of 'piloting' the pilot procedure, the Court has now included a new provision in its Rules of Court. The new Rule 61, which will be effective at the end of March.

The new rule codifies the procedure. It provides that the pilot procedure can be used when facts in application "reveal in the Contracting State concerned the existence of a structural or systemic problem or other similar dysfunction which has given rise or may give rise to similar applications." The new rule does provide a stronger legal basis, but it does not take away many of the uncertainties surrounding the pilot judgment procedure. For example, it indicates that a procedure may be started by the Court of its own motion or at the request of one of the parties. It also states that the Court may set time limits for the remedial measures required, and that it may adjourn similar applications.

One could therefore argue, on the downside, that a lot of uncertainy remains. On the upside, it offers the Court the required flexibility to assess what is expedient. Where it does strengthen the existing situation is on the information side of things: not only the applicants in the pilot case, but also applicants in the adjourned cases should be notified of relevant developments affecting their cases. In addition all key players in the Council of Europe (Committee of Ministers, Parliamentary Assembly, Secretary-General, and Human Rights Commissioner) shall be informed whenever a pilot judgment is adopted "as well as of any other judgment in which the Court draws attention to the existence of a structural or systemic problem in a Contracting State." This should strengthen the supervision on implementation and the tackling of underlying problems more structurally. Also, the Court's website will give more information on the initiation, adoption, and execution of pilot judgments. Taken together, although not entirely ideal, the new rule is a step forward.

I Ask You, You Ask Me

Ah ha, bet you thought I was going to miss today's post too eh? I'll admit, the thought was tempting -- the coughing and sneezing and nappy-filling continues unabashed here at Chez Jim. But then I thought, come on old chap, can't let the readers down again eh? Bad form that. Shame it's not a Bad Article though eh? We could write about that. Ha ha, Jim said, and we toasted our own brilliant wit.

Hours later, when the worst of the fever had passed, I awoke to concerned looks. Are you alright?, my family enquired. You were raving and laughing to yourself for a while there. Hmm, thought I, briefly recollecting what I had assumed to be a lucid mental debate. Better play stupid here and get on with the blogging thing. Fine thanks, I replied, and hurried off, abandoning the back-to-front jacket on the way.

And so here we are again, and after that rather lengthy introduction, let's get down to business. Whilst I was drifting in and out of reality this week, an unresolved bit of Polish had flitted about my brow, driving me madder than usual. My friend, a human Anglo-Polish Słownik is on holiday in Sweden this week, so I couldn't ask her. So instead, I'm going to ask you, and in return, you can ask me any question you like about the whole English/Polish thing. Cultural, linguistic, anything, okay?

Alrighty then, since I'm here and you're all... there... I'll go first: When do I use ciebie, and when do I use tobie? I'm aware that ciebie is something that I use a lot, and I'm also aware that sometimes I should say tobie instead, but try as I might, I can't nail the distinction.

So, answers below, or email them to the address above and to the right, and don't forget to ask a question of your own! And hey, even if you don't know Polish and can't answer the question, feel free to ask something about English anyway! Tomorrow we're going to start a new ball rolling, all about idiom and slang -- again, email if there's some bit of English slang or idiom you'd like explained -- so until then, ufam tobie! (but why?).

Bluff Your Way Into The ECHR

The information department of the Court has compiled a small online brochure entitled 'The European Convention on Human Rights in 50 Questions'. Ranging from "Does the Convention evolve?" to 'What is a pilot judgment?', the small online booklet contains a wide range of factual information. However, this is not the kind of guide which will serve to explain the Convention to your little cousin. For to ask questions such as 'What is a third-party intervener?' one is probably already somehwat aware of the particular features of Strasbourg proceedings. More useful probably for law students or journalists who report on Strasbourg.

Working Paper on ECHR and Copyright Law

Robin Herr of the Copenhagen Business School Law Department has posted a working paper on SSRN entitled 'The Right to Receive Information Under Article 10 of the ECHR: An Investigation from a Copyright Perspective'. This is the abstract:

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the right to receive information under Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights in order to determine whether or not it is relevant to copyright law. The bulk of the article describes how the right to receive information operates. Focus is placed on the composition of the right, the scope of the test to justify an interference, principles that may affect the Court’s evaluation and any negative or positive obligations that may arise. In conducting this part of the research, over 125 cases were investigated. After detailing the case law, efforts are made to identify state obligations and trends that could potentially affect copyright. The article concludes with a brief statement of the areas of copyright law in which these obligations and trends could be relevant.

regulate - adjust

First of all, apologies for the absence of yesterday’s week in review; the two Small Proofreaders are chory znowu and my hands were full dealing with them most of the day. Having said that, let’s dive back into another week of juicy information, beginning with a look at something that, whilst not a common species, is still certainly worthy of attention.

Common Usage
1) The deluxe model offers both horizontal and vertical regulation.          
2) Tilt and lean can both be regulated from the main panel. 

           

Better Usage
1) The deluxe model offers both horizontal and vertical adjustment.
2) Tilt and lean can both be adjusted from the main panel.

OED Definition

 1- (v) control or maintain the rate or speed of (a machine or process) (also ¹) so that it operates properly.
2- control (something, especially a business activity) by means of rules and regulations.

What’s The Problem?
regulate is one of many words that is used incorrectly by both native and non-native speakers, perhaps explaining its common misuse in PL>EN translations. Whilst it does have the meaning of ‘adjust’ or ‘control’, this is only in terms of speed, or in the more abstract sense of controlling a society or business, and so on. In nearly all cases, adjust is the correct choice for describing technical actions. Verb use of regulate is not very common in ordinary, everyday English, and is unlikely to be found outside of news reports, legal docs, or engineering/architectural documents.

Surprise Visit For Addington Children

Today, our school was privileged to be visited by eight police officers, including members of the Australian Federal police force. These officers are in Christchurch to help in the aftermath of the earthquake, and are visiting schools as part of a Reassurance Team. The aim of this team is to talk to children about the earthquake and to acknowledge that there are lots of different people in uniform from all over the world helping in our city at the moment. The officers spent time with different classrooms answering questions and listening to the children tell their own stories. Later the children asked many questions of the Australian officers, including "How did they get here?" " By Quantas 757 "was the reply. The child responded "Oh , so you didnt come to Addington in a taxi" Wonderful!!! There were also many gun, taser and pepper spray queries!
It was a great visit that both the adults and the children enjoyed, and helped reinforce for us all the special relationship between Australia and New Zealand in times of crisis.

New Guide on EU and ECHR Non-Discrimination Law

Today is the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. It also marks the launch of a new book entitled 'European Non-Discrimination Law', which integrates the converging yet very complex interlocking system of non-discrimination law of the European Union and of the European Convention on Human Rights. In a joint project the EU's Fundamental Rights Agency and the European Court of Human Rights have endeavored to make the legal framework on the issue more accessible (and indeed it is written in a very reader-friendly way, enlightening the legal rules also for non-experts). This is the abstract of the book, which is being launched in Strasbourg today:

The handbook is the first publication to present and explain the body of non-discrimination law stemming from the European Convention on Human Rights and European Union law as a single, converging legal system.

The substance of non-discrimination law is set out according to the definitions of direct and indirect discrimination as elaborated through the European Convention on Human Rights (including Protocol 12) and the European Union’s Gender Equality Directives, Racial Equality Directive and Employment Equality Directive. The meaning of provisions is presented through analysis of cases delivered by the European Court of Human Rights and the case-law of the Court of Justice of the European Union. Comprehensive analysis of the law is ensured by supplementing this body of case-law with decisions and interpretive documents from national courts and equality bodies, as well as other international bodies such as the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the Council of Europe, European Commission against Racism and Intolerance and the European Committee of Social Rights.

The handbook is avalaible on the website of the Fundamental Rights Agency in English, French and German and other EU languages are in principle to follow later on.

Grand Chamber Judgment in Lautsi: No Violation

Today, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Italy did not violate the ECHR in the highly publicised case about crucifixes in classrooms in Italian public schools. The judgment in Lautsi v Italy follows two years after an earlier Chamber judgment in the same case and has led to the opposite outcome. The case had been referred to the Grand Chamber at the request of Italy. In a nutshell, the Grand Chamber ruled that the decision whether or not to put crucifixes in classrooms fell within the state's margin of appreciation. Although the cruxifix was above other meanings a religious symbol, the Grand Chamber found no evidence that "the display of such a symbol might have an influence on pupils." It was a rather "passive symbol" as opposed to active teaching on a certain religion or forced participation of students in religious activities. Thus the right to education (article 2 of Protocol one had) in the view of a large majority of the Grand Chamber (fifteen votes to two) not been violated. It held that although the presence of crucifixes made Italy's majority religion visible in classrooms, this as such did not amount to indoctrination.

This is probably the case with the largest number of state party interventions ever to come before the Court so far, including both states, NGOs, members of the European Parliament and others, and also one of the cases with the most elaborate concurring and dissenting opinions (18 pages in total).

The European Parliament Platform for Secularism in Politics has already issued a press release in which they deplore the judgment as a slap in the face for secularism. According to the chair of the platform, Dutch MEP Sophie in 't Veld, "This ruling is effectively scrapping the separation of church and state. The Grand Chamber apparently accepts that governments may impose a particular religion on its citizens. It is shocking that such a medieval practice gets the backing of the Grand Chamber. After centuries of enlightenment, we still have to fight against theocracy."

I still need to read the judgment in more detail, but my first impression is that the Grand Chamber did a better job at cutting this very difficult Gordian knot than the Chamber previously did, with nuance and leaving leeway for future cases in which children do directly suffer from religious pressure in schools and where the European Court would find violations. One might also argue that in the current political climate, with incessant attacks on the Court's jurisprudence in a number of European countries, a highly mediatised judgment as the present one, leaving explicit room for a country's own traditions and margin of appreciation albeit still obviously with the Court guarding the outer limits, is wisely timed from a juridico-political perspective.

For my earlier comments on the Chamber judgment, see here. For the Court's press release about today's judgment, see here and for the webcast of the hearing in the case before the Grand Chamber, click here.

Undoubtedly, this Grand Chamber judgment will elicit as much or even more discussion than the previous one in the same case.

The Road to Translation. Part 4: Daisy, Daisy...

Hello again, friends in translation! Welcome back to our shambling, rambling stumbling traipse through the early days of being a translator. Following our previous looks at education and qualifications, this week we’re going to have a brief look at some of the material investments we can make, from books and software to, umm, books and software. There’s quite a lot more to say about the software part which we’ll focus on in more detail later, and a certain big-name website (which again, we will be looking at in more detail in the future) gets a name-check, so settle down with some kawa or herbata, and let’s crack on.

CAT makes me sneeze 

IT Skills. Translators have a lot of different computer software options available to them (Trados and Wordfast are probably the two most well-known (and expensive)), and although it’s not essential to know how to use a Computer Aided Translation tool, it’s still good to know. Some agencies like, or even require you to use such tools, because the translating memories (TMs) these tools work with allow the agents to maintain consistency between multiple translators working on the same project. This often occurs with multi-lingual translations of instruction manuals etc.

The down side to CAT tools is that they allow the agencies to count the percentage of repeated words in a document, and so with an existing TM they can devise per-match rates that get cheaper and cheaper by percentage matched. In my own personal opinion, this is a hideous practise and I always refuse jobs based on such. What the ‘percentage match’ pay scale fails to take account of is that every word has to be translated and/or proofread; whether it’s being fetched from a TM or typed in manually by the translator, it’s all work done and work that should be paid for. /endrant

IT skills also extend to knowing, to a fairly good degree, how your own computer setup works. Knowing all or most of the reasons why your printer has stopped working or your Internet connection dropped, or even how to make your own macros in Word or Excel, is knowledge that can not be underestimated. Nine times out of ten, something will go wrong only when you’re 5 minutes from a deadline... If you can fix your own computer problems without having to wait for a friend to show up on Friday and click a few buttons that you could have done at the time; well, you just made your client very happy and increased the likelihood that you’ll get more work from that source.

Books

Training and education are investments – in yourself. But there are material investments that are beneficial to translators too. A good library is the key thing here. Dictionaries for all your chosen languages; bi-lingual dictionaries between two or more languages; phrase books, encyclopaedias etc. Also good are illustrated dictionaries and encyclopaedias such as you often find in the children’s section of bookshops. DK – Dorling Kindersley – do some of the best illustrated encyclopaedias. Again, you can often find really good stuff in the children’s sections of ordinary bookshops. There are also specialised bi-lingual dictionaries for nearly all subjects that can give you, if you’re not a specialist yourself, at least a very big helping hand. Military, IT, art – many subjects are covered, often by smaller or independent publishers.

Software

A good selection of computer software is also a must. The afore-mentioned CAT tools, and CD-ROM based dictionaries and encyclopaedias which are often given away with newspapers and so on can also be helpful. Quite often, on the Polish side these are based on PWN material, and whilst you can never beat a really good multi-volume bi-lingual dictionary set, I find that having something on the  hard drive that you can quickly check with just a click is really handy. At best, all your language software can give you an answer, and at the least it will confirm or deny a suspicion, thus allowing you to make a more fruitful search elsewhere. Sometimes, confirmation of a hunch is all you need too.

Actual translating software is, for actual translators, a bit pointless really, since it can never (esp. with structurally complex languages like the Slavic or Asian tongues) give you anything like a good result. Things like Google Translate *seem* (to me anyway) to work much better in French or German or Spanish than they do in Polish, Russian or Korean.

Other programmes it’s worth considering include something to convert PDFs to DOCs, and some sort of good art package. For the former, I’ve used  ABBY PDF Transformer for years. The latest incarnation is particularly accurate, esp. if you take the time to define the elements of each page (text, table, graphic). It’s not a pure OCR programme; for that ABBY also do things, as well as various other people – I forget which now – and although these programmes can be quite expensive, there are some reasonable free or cheap alternatives.

For the art package, MS Paint is not bad and is part of Windows anyway. Depending on your needs, it can be a bit limited, so try Paint Dot Net, which is a sort of expanded Paint, which also does layers and transparency, just like PhotoShop, except that PDN is free, which is always nice. :D In case you’re wondering, one example of an art programme being handy is when you want to transform a PDF or JPG of a particularly crappy, messed-up fax into a usable source document.

Meet and greet

One final point to make here is to keep an eye out for any conferences or seminars going on. The 100 lb gorilla of translators’ websites, proz.com, often organises meetings, or ‘pow-wows’ as they like to call them, and in many different countries too. It’s not often that you’ll get to meet your fellow translators once you’re set up on your own, and even less often en mass, the way you can at such an event. I’d like to say, finally, that in an ideal world other translators are not your enemies. Rather, the exchange of knowledge and experience between translators is as beneficial and invigorating as it is between experts in any field. The reality though is that as we move forwards, the translating field is becoming more and more full of, err, translators, and as such there is a deal of resentment on the part of the older translators, who are being priced out, not only by unscrupulous agencies, but also by their junior colleagues who are desperate to get a start. It’s easy to see both points of view, but again, I’d like to encourage everyone to play nicely and share their toys.

So, what books and programmes do *you* find essential? And what else do you consider a vital part of your translator’s toolbox? Share your ideas and recommendations below! :-)

exploitation - utilisation

The problem here is a fairly common one – legitimate words that are mostly used correctly, but that have negative connotations which make them either easily misinterpreted or that make the sentence they sits in sound weird and inappropriate. This is most clear in (1) and (2). You can imagine some comic villain at UMP with a black top-hat, twirling a long black moustache around his finger as he writes it, cackling away insanely. In the Warsaw example, it sounds more like a confession than anything else. Have a look:

Common Usage
1)  Warsaw is one of the biggest beneficiaries when it comes to exploitation of European Union funds.
2)  Come and join us in Poznań, where our exploitation of national and European resources is reasonable and effective.
 3) Exploitation of local labour sources is recommended.

Better Usage
1)  Warsaw is one of the biggest beneficiaries when it comes to utilisation of European Union funds.
2)  Come and join us in Poznań, where we know how to reasonably and effectively exploit the resources of national and European institutions.
 3) Use of local labour sources is recommended.

OED Definition
1- (mass noun) the action or fact of treating someone unfairly in order to benefit from their work,
2- (v) making use of a situation to gain an unfair advantage for oneself    
3- (v) the action of making use of and benefiting from resources   

Fixit-shmixit
So, what are the fixes? Luckily, there’s a really, really cool synonym – utilisation (1). This has the same meaning and sense as definition 3 of exploitation, without any of the extra heavy baggage from definitions 1 and 2. The verb form, utilise, should also be noted.     

As it does, context has an effect on the gravity the exploitation in your document. (2) demonstrates how a tiny bit of judicious rephrasing allows us to keep our exploitation intact, but clearly give it the productive sense of definition three.  Makes it sound less of a crime, and more like they know what they’re doing.           

(3) is a nice, simple fix, and also a prime example of how we don’t always need to use our best, multi-syllabic bombs to blow up the chicken shed.

Case Note to Gäfgen v Germany in International Legal Materials

I have just posted on SSRN my introductory case note to the European Court's Grand Chamber judgment in the case of Gäfgen v Germany, on which I posted earlier here, as it was published in the International Legal Materials of the American Society of International Law (volume 49, no. 6, 2010). This is the abstract:

This case note introduces and contextualises the key aspects of the European Court of Human Rights Grand Chamber judgment in the case of Gäfgen v Germany, in which several violations of the ECHR were found. The case concerned the threat of torture by police officers when questioning a suspect and the role this played in the ensuing trial. Also relates to the issue of 'fruit of the poisonous tree'.

Quiz Time! Round One: Answers, Discussion

Welcome back friends, did you take a moment to do the quiz last week? We’ll have a fresh set for you next time, but for now let’s have a look at Round One.

To make life easier, here are the original questions:

1) Funding will eventually reach a whole-country scale throughout the EU.

2) The plans of the City Hall include modernisation of the ring road.

3) Popovic was proud to announce that an all-country team of experts would be examining the case.

4) We would like to inform that the 13.00 bus to Olsztyn has been cancelled.

5) Since joining the EU, more and more beers of the brewery are selling overseas.

6) They are, without a doubt, one of the best in Europe dance teams, and all totally hot!

7) The tears of the angel dripped onto her feet as she sat alone on the swing.

8) Parking of 6-axle vehicles in the nearest area of the Old Town is prohibited.

Now let’s look at each one together. Remember that these are all based on common examples of mistakes in EN translations, and translators of all kinds can make them. So:

(1,3) Any time we have this idea of mass coverage, there are a number of ways we can put it. To begin with, we can stay close to the broken whole-country by saying country-wide, nation-wide, city-wide, Europe-wide, X-wide etc. This should be easy to remember. Note that beyond a continental scale, we wouldn’t say necessarily say planet-wide unless is was for a specific effect, but would instead go to global and its friends.

We can also use some handy one-word synonyms – national, international etc. (‘A team of international experts has been assembled to tackle the problem’, ‘Funding will reach a national level throughout the EU.’).

(2,5) What we're talking about here are the weird noun-preposition-noun phrases, the ‘thing of a thing’ stuff. This is actually quite a big can of robaky which we’re going to open in detail at some later date (or sooner if at least one of you writes and asks for it :). In the meantime, instead of saying Duration of trip, consider saying Trip duration  instead. Instead of putting According to directives of the EU..., consider According to EU Directives... .

The second album of the band was well received is to be avoided in favour of The band’s second album was well received, and so on and so on itd itp.

(4) As discussed earlier, inform always needs a subject, we can never just inform about or inform that. If you can’t or don’t want to extrapolate a subject, use announce instead. So, ‘We would like to inform you / announce that the 13.00 bus to Olsztyn has been cancelled’ is our friend here.

(6) Something similar to (1,3), we sometimes make our lives more complicated, and our sentences longer than need be, by not using a simple adjective. Here, best in Europe dance teams should be simply written as best European dance teams. The rule of thumb for good, flowing English is that less is more. If you can get in the habit of thinking of your English sentences as short bursts from a machine gun, rather than the sustained artillery fire of their Polish counterparts, you’ll be several giant steps closer to being an ‘invisible translator’. (Although see below for a caveat).

(7) A tricky one this (by the way, is anyone else sick of seeing ‘tricksy’ everywhere post-Peter Jackson LoTR film trilogy? Certainly in the English press it’s been picked up as a hot word by journos of all kinds, from highbrow arts press to tabloid ‘red tops’. Yuk, I wish they’d stop). Err, yes, sorry.

Anyway, on the surface this looks like it belongs with (6), but in fact it’s okay as it is since it’s hard to imagine a context for this other than art or literature, where it would be okay to use a slightly more long-winded phrasing.

Although this may seem to fly in the face of the advice above about being short ‘n sweet, there is a definite distinction between the faulty phrasing found in (1,3,6) (which can appear in any text) and what we have here (which is okay in a poetic, literary, artistic text). Again, something we’ll come back to, but in the meantime try to think of it as being ‘Okay because the context said so’, if that makes sense.

(8) As the Notorious Drab said in the comments here, vicinity is the Highlander* of synonyms for saying in the area of or it’s faulty, frightening  friend in the nearest area of (bleeee). Remember this word; let it in to your lives and it will serve you well.

Okay, next week, new questions and from now on I’ll be asking you to post an answer or two in the comments, or maybe to offer a key explanation of something. After a few weeks of that, whoever has the most right will win a prize. And if nobody does it, I’ll win a prize instead, yay! :D

* i.e. “There can be only one!”

Two Cases Referred to Grand Chamber

Recently, a panel of five judges of the European Court of Human Rights decided to refer two cases on which previously sections of the Court pronounced themselves, to the Grand Chamber. It concerns the cases of Kurić and Others v. Slovenia, on the rights of the so-called “erased” people, who failed to acquire or maintain citizenship of the newly-established Slovenian State in 1991, and Konstantin Markin v. Russia, on the refusal to grant parental leave to a Russian serviceman. Both requests were made by the respective states. I earlier reported on the Markin case here.

Requests for 37 other cases were rejected, which means those judgments have become final. For a full list, see the press release.