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! :-)
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