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…

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! :-)

The Road to Translation. Part 3: Memory, Stress, Habit

One of the great things about working with languages is the variety of people you can meet. I don’t just mean foreigners, but even your own countrymen. Old, young, experienced, inexperienced – and the coolest part is the diversity of the journeys they all took to get to where they are today. Some trained as translators because they fell in love with a foreign culture at an early age, some because they were born and raised bilingually, and others because they found that they possessed rare knowledge in a certain language pair.

But however you came into translating, or if you’re still thinking of doing so, then there are certain key areas that are common to all of us, and these include our work habits and our personal attitudes. Today we’re going to have a brief, blog-size look at some of the key aspects of these ideas.

“Kept on along the narrow track of habit, like a traveller; climbing a road in a fog” – Edith Wharton

Multitasking is an important tool. There will be moments when everything happens at once and you need to quickly do several things at once. This is of course particularly true for interpreters, who must listen and speak concurrently, or listen and mentally prepare their translation at the same time.

On a closely related note, a good memory is important too – for interpreters, remembering what someone said from anywhere between 5 and 10 minutes ago, and being able to accurately paraphrase that with all the crucial facts, is a key skill. For translators, a good memory will help if you know, for example, where you saw or used a particular translation of a word before now. Particularly with contracted work where you do multiple, frequent jobs for the same client, a lot of words and phrases can occur and reoccur, and also style points and formatting issues, so it’s always helpful if you can recall that stuff at the time. Sometimes you’ll get a glossary or some previous documents that show you which words and phrasings etc that the client likes, but more often than not it’s up to you to work it out. Translating Memories in your CAT tools (more on them next week too) can also help here, or you can make your own glossaries and databases of words and phrases. A simple idea that works for me is keeping an Excel workbook, with one sheet per client, or subject category etc.

nil desperandum

Translating and interpreting are stressful jobs, make no mistake. So being able to cope with pressure and stress is also very important. Interpreters need to be able to think on their feet without becoming flustered or thrown off by anything unplanned or unexpected. Being able to control large groups of people, who sometimes all want to speak at once or become over-excited, is also a good skill, and requires a degree of imposition of will. Translators have deadline pressures, and must try to control their frustration with clients who are not afraid to complain about mistakes that are actually their own misunderstandings or ignorance, agency staff who don’t know the difference between full-stops and commas, and accountants who want to pay you 60 days after invoicing with cheques your bank can’t accept (thanks, America ;).

It’s somewhat beyond the scope of our article here to try and tell you how to cope with stress, (although it would be good to hear from some of you what your own coping strategies are); needless to say, you need to grow a thick skin and quickly (but not so thick that you let legitimate criticism bounce off you). Yes, it’s a cliché, but don’t be disheartened or discouraged. Every translator takes a beating now and then, even the most experienced ones. It’s just part of the job.

A małpa on your back

Personal responsibility: It doesn’t matter if you wake up late, sit in your pyjamas and spill coffee down your front whilst you go over the material for the conference you’ll be interpreting at the next day, but what IS important is that you arrive at the conference punctually, that you are clean and smart and appropriately dressed for the occasion, and that you remain respectful of the event’s participants.

When you work from home as a freelance translator, you can stay up late, wake up late, you don’t have to wash your hair for days, you can skip shaving… but you absolutely can not miss your deadlines unless you’ve agreed an extension well in advance. If you’re working on a long or difficult project with multiple parts that all require feedback and revision before being passed on, you must stay within reach of your computer as much as possible so as not to miss any incoming files, questions or requests.

Ultimately, it’s about paying the bills, and if you’re slow and late and not available half the time, you’ll either miss the job offers that come in, or you’ll get a rep for being unreliable, and that’s anathema. Your ability to constantly monitor your email is crucial. Fortunately, many mobile phones these days can also check email, although unless you have a really sexy one with a proper QWERTY keyboard, I would advise against replying with anything other than a brief message to say you’ll get back in touch with them as soon as you get back to your desk – clear, nicely written emails are as vital as clean, healthy blood!

That's it for this week. Please bear in mind that any non-specific 'advice' on this blog is based on my own opinions and experience; you're free to heed it or not, and as with all such things some of it may suit you, some not. I'm only here to give our junior colleagues some ideas, and perhaps refresh the memories of our more experienced colleagues. And, as always, if you want to add anything or tell me what bzdura I'm talking, comments are below. :) 

The Road to Translation. Part 2: School's Out!

Welcome to part two of our journey from linguistically-interested to professional linguist. We’re using the benefit of our wisdom and experience here to encourage or guide people who are perhaps interested in becoming translators and interpreters along their own personal journeys, so even though this may be well beneath you in terms of usefulness, please still feel free to add your own ideas and suggestions in the usual place. :)

Last week we looked at some of the formal education and training options available. Note that I’m not specifying ‘young people’ as being the target audience for this column, because although we may tend to automatically associate youth with studentship, translating is a field which is open to people of all ages to join. There are many people who come to it as a second, or new career, after becoming parents for example, or in their mid-life periods when they felt that a new direction would be a good thing. When I stopped by the UJ's Katedra UNESCO entrance exams a couple of years ago, most of the people I saw waiting to go in were middle-aged women with shopping bags and big dictionaries under their arms.

This illustrates, again, my firm belief that you can never be too old – or too experienced – not to benefit from a little refresher, or at least a small snack to chew on for a while, so let’s get cracking.

After School

So you’ve finished your schooling and you’re wondering where you’ll fit as a translator. The obvious options here are either freelancing, an in-house position with a translating agency, a company position within a firm, dealing with all their multi-language texts (although this seems to be something of a rarity these days as most companies are out-sourcing their language work), or even starting your own translating agency. We’ll have more on that soon when we welcome our first guest to the Article, a good friend of ours from Łódż, and also from someone who found a languague job in the media, but in the meantime let’s look at the first two options – freelance and in-house.

Pyjamas or Suits?

In terms of your immediate future post-school, these are the most likely options. You may even have done a praktyki at a local agency whilst in school, so you’ll have some idea of what the work is like. Agencies tend to run on a lot of contract work, i.e. annual bids for ongoing work from government bodies, large companies, cultural institutions etc. They win the bid, they get a giant lump of cash, and then for the next 12 months (for example) the client sends them whatever, whenever.

As an in-house translator, the work tends to be mostly the same types of things over and over again: business contracts, proposals, construction plans, media and marketing, PR stuff etc, which is further filtered by your own specialities. There may be two or three in-house translators, one of whom handles all the cultural and artistic texts while you’re doing the contracts and project documentation (although in practise the distinction is not always so clear, and you’ll be expected to to do a little of everything, esp. when it gets busy).

As a freelancer, you’ll probably be working mostly for agencies anyway, and so you’ll get the same stuff. There are advantages and disadvantages to not being in an office (which we’ll also look at at some point), but a lot of it boils down to a matter convenience. After a lifetime of dragging yourself out of bed to get to school, the temptation to just stay at home, turn on the computer in the mornings and go to work in your pyjamas is stronger than Darth Vader offering 50% discounts on joining the Dark Side of the Force.

Sign on the Dotted Line

On the other hand, the thought of an umowa pracę  guaranteeing a steady stream of money also has lots of charm, particularly after the economic merry-go-round of student life. Freelancing requires that you find the work yourself and take the time to do all sorts of low-level marketing and PR things, whereas a translating agency does all that for you.

As a freelancer though, you can of course truly ‘be your own boss’, and take as much or as little work as you like. There’s a certain amount of insecurity that goes with this of course, but in time you’ll find that you’ve built up quite a collection of established clients, and you’ll know who you can rely on for steady work etc. In terms of guaranteed work, everyone has a core group of reliable clients, a surrounding ring of clients who are less frequently in touch, and a peripheral bunch who you may only hear from a few times a year.

A third option is to try and get an umowa o dzieło with a translating agency, which roughly means that you’re ‘theirs’ to send work to whenever they need to, which it then falls to you to accommodate or prioritise in and around your own personal work. This can create scheduling problems, sure, but they’re a hazard of the job anyway and with such a contract you can be assured of at least a little bit of reliable money each month.

Okay, that’s all for now. Employment contracts come in a wide variety of flavours and are a subject one could talk about for a long time. We will be doing just that in the future, but you won’t be hearing it from me. For this treat, we’ll find an expert who really knows their stuff. And if you are such an expert, please do feel free to email us at the address at the top of the page and perhaps we can work something out for a future piece. Otherwise, comments, ideas and opinions belooooww!

The Road to Translation. Part 1: Becoming a Translator

Most of you who are reading this now are already translators. Whether still in education or having had a few years’ solo flight time under your belts already, you probably don’t need to be reminded of how you got where you are now. But in times to come, other linguistically-minded people may stumble across these words, and it is largely to them that this information will be most useful.

However! Always remember, that you can never be too knowledgeable nor too experienced not to benefit from a refresher now and then. In every branch of industry and creative endeavour, it never hurts to go back to basics. So pack your bags and come with us on a multi-week journey from the end of high school to the lofty heights of freelance translating! (or as we call it, sitting at your desk in your underpants all day). And as always, we want to hear from you. How has your experience differed from the précis given here? Let us know, in the comments below!

Basic Fundaments

Know at least two languages. This is the bare minimum, however this doesn’t automatically make you a translator (or interpreter). Translating and interpreting are distinct skills that need to be learnt, after which it’s all about accumulating experience. Having a real interest in the culture of your second language is a terrific boon that will serve you extremely well as a translator or interpreter.

Back 2 Skool

There are several ways of attaining the formal education required:

 - Linguistics degrees. In Poland, a linguistics degree is the best way, especially in Warsaw at the Instytut Lingwistyki Stosowanej, where they offer MAs in translating and interpreting. You can easily find them on the web. Linguistics degrees provide specific and detailed technical and mechanical knowledge for the potential translator/interpreter.

- Philology degrees. Although less specific than linguistics in terms of translator/interpreter  skills, philology degrees offer a great deal for the potential translator/interpreter in terms of cultural knowledge and understanding. This type of knowledge can’t be underestimated, as it directly contributes a huge amount to the final quality of your translation or interpretation (particularly the latter).

- General degrees. Another route to consider is using any other sort of degree as a launchpad into translating as a specialist. For example, a biology degree can be the basis for specialising in medical translations, a degree in engineering or business can be built upon to become a specialist in translating and/or interpreting in those fields. There is always, always going to be a need for translators and interpreters in very specific fields; although some areas (like business and medicine) may be more in demand more often than others, there are really no subjects which are so marginal that with the relevant degree, some proper training and a little experience, you wouldn’t be able to pay your bills with them at the end of the month.

- Certification courses, independent schools etc.  A completely viable alternative to university training is to attend specific translator/interpreter training courses at a specialist school. For example, UNESCO or TISCHNER here in Kraków, or the Centrum Tłumaczeń in Sosnowiec, over in Katowice, which offers seasonal courses and can fully train you in the principles and techniques of translating and interpreting. If you have a general degree or some sort of gift for languages, it’s well worth considering, especially as many such schools’ final exams result in recognised national and international certification from bodies such as TEPIS etc.

Beyond education

As we said yesterday, proper translating and interpreting is more than just a degree or a bunch of certificates. I’ve know many translators who had qualifications coming out of their ears, but who could make a translation of a children’s party invitation sound like a summons to a firing squad. Long after your initial formal training and education is over, an interest in and ongoing awareness of the news, politics and cultural trends of the countries of your chosen languages, is absolutely vital, beyond any question. Knowledge of history and culture are just as important as a good vocabulary and understanding of technique. For example, look how quickly language evolves – interpreting when a World War II veteran speaks, and when a Gulf War veteran speaks, goes well beyond just knowing the military terminology.

Don’t forget your roots

Hand in hand with all that, and as our friend Piotrek pointed out here, in the race to master your target language you shouldn’t let mastery of your mother tongue fall behind!

Next week we'll be leaving full-time education and looking for our own place, so start dealing with the hangover and let's meet again in seven. In the meantime, email me or leave a comment below if you want to say something about all this. :)

Love Your TL, Love Your Bank Account

Proper translating and interpreting is more than just the transformation of words and sounds from one language to another, it’s the transformation of cultural ideas and concepts. Your formal education in translating (or philology, literature etc) is just one part of your translator training – it’s the bread and butter in your linguistic sandwich. But an interest in and ongoing awareness of the news, politics and cultural trends of the countries of your chosen languages are absolutely vital, beyond any question. Knowledge of history and culture are just as important as a good vocabulary and understanding of technique.  This is the salad, mayonnaise, tasty cheese and fresh slices of ham that make your sandwich better than the next translator’s.

Good translators know that the more interest they have in the world of their target languages, the better and more successful they can be. Like the Force, knowledge breeds confidence, and confidence leads to speed. Quicker work output of a reliably good quality leads to... more money! (unlike the Force, which usually leads to awesome lightsabre battles). You can charge whatever you like, but if your work isn’t justified by your rates, you will eventually have problems. Believe it or not, established translators have reputations that carry not only across their home towns, but through their countries and overseas too, not to mention all over the Internet.

And, of course, reputation is what gets you the big money – at the end of the day, it’s all about paying your bills. Robert Kubica doesn’t pay his bills now by having lazed his way through karting and Formula 3. He took a greater interest in honing his driving skills until he could race at the very highest level of professional motorsport (and crash into a variety of foreign churches) in a wide variety of vehicles, and so like anyone else trying to advance in a career, you must know your game. Technique and mechanical skills improve just through doing the job. But style, flair and overall quality come from your own interest in your TL culture.

So every chance you get you need to open a newspaper, turn on the radio or television, surf the Internet or read a book – and do it in your Target Languages! When you do this, you are literally making yourself a better translator. Browsing Le Monde or Der Spiegel from Empik, listening to the BBC’s streaming radio on the Internet, surfing YouTube or actually getting on a train to Berlin or Prague or Rome or visiting a country whose language you work in, is a step towards knowledge – and another step towards paying your next bill.

Let me end this by asking you, how do you stay in touch with your TL culture? Have you found any unique or interesting resources that allow you to stay up to date with your English, German, Spanish etc? Leave a comment and share the mental wealth. :)