Archive for translation
Another Small Pleasure
Every time I go to the University of Chicago Graham School for another Translation Studies course, I am reminded how much I enjoy Julius Meinl fruit teas. Made in Vienna, there’s just something about these blends that I adore. Maybe they use real fruit, or something. There are only four flavors (see page in English), but I liked them well enough to visit one of their North American stores here in Chicago. Yes, I’m that crazy about these fruit teas. The Apple Cassis and Wild Strawberry are so right on. And they’re good cold, too. I hope they get more widely distributed, so I can purchase them at 7-Eleven in the middle of nowhere, at midnight.
web 2.0 & the world of corporate translation
I just finished the second course for the Graham School translation certificate. It was not at all what I expected. But in a good way, I’ve decided.
The course was on translation business tools and opened my eyes to an entire world of corporate translation and localization strategies. Did you know, for example, that Boeing, in an effort to cut translation costs, devised their own form of simplified English, which they used for all of their international communications? I can’t remember the number, but it was some insanely small vocabulary that they forced their technical writers to use in all documentation. The strategy was questionably English-centric, but has really paid off in the long run, because now they can translate their many documents into all the different languages with much smaller margins of error and a much higher rates of consistency.
The real take-home point for me was: translation is becoming less about translation, as we know it, and more about 1) culling what we put IN to the “translation machine” (whether that’s a team of globally-based translators or computer aided translation) and 2) polishing what comes OUT of the “translation machine” (post-editing).
So now, I’m a little intrigued by this whole thing. Maybe I’ll have a stint in the world of corporate translation after I finish this stint in educational technology. Who knows.
What I do know, however, is that learning to collaborate online using Web2.0 collaboration tools is an incredibly valuable tool. If you haven’t already, make sure you:
- have your own Skype account
- have gmail and yahoo accounts for chatting, audio, video
- have participated in a yahoo group to get something done
- know how to share presentations with tools like slideshare and authorstream
- know how to create a blog or and understand simple HTML
- know how to coordinate schedules across time zones
- can craft good emails and online writing
- can present your ideas online with tools like wikis, google docs, zoho, etc.
- have joined a social network before
- can quickly learn and use web2.0 tools (2/day would be a good start)
These might seem like simple things, but for all you people out there who have the time to do global collaboration work, I highly recommend it. These skills and experiences will put you far ahead of the pack when you finally enter the workforce.
first course in translation certificate
I just finished taking the first of four courses required for the Graham School’s translation certificate, which I hope to complete during the next two years. Each course is comprised of a three-day seminar, followed by an eight-week practicum in one language pair. Since I have one of the more common language pairs (Spanish to English), I’ve been wondering exactly what kinds of clients are “out there” with Spanish to English translation needs. I’ve asked a few people this question and mostly what I am hearing is medical (medical reports, journal articles) and financial (banking). It will be interesting, as I move forward with this, how I end up specializing. I’m really not attracted to legal translation at this point. Website localization might be interesting. We’ll see…
But I did learn some excellent points at this seminar:
- how to detect the reading level of a passage in English,
- some of the subtle differences between reading difficulty and translation difficulty,
- that the first year in the market can be brutal, because until you have experience and a specialty, you have to take what comes,
- how important it is to properly name your documents for clients,
- this book by Douglas Robinson is really a great intro to the field (I wish I would have read it earlier),
- I’ll need to work hard to drum up a consistent volume of business,
- eventually, I’m going to need to invest hundreds of dollars in style guides and other such books to have all the tools I need at hand, and most importantly,
- I think I can be a good translator.
This last point was rather critical for me, because I wasn’t sure going in if I had the ability to actually complete a good translation. Honestly, I’m still a bit afraid of the more technical assignments to come. But all in all, I think I have what it takes. This is one of those career paths I’m just going to pursue until I feel like I shouldn’t anymore… nothing like trying.
