Category: Translation

Sidekick to your passions: why translation should be more than a job

Posted on by drawingboarddesign in Inspiration, Interpretation, Translation

What drove you to become a translator? Love of languages? Passion for intercultural communication? Or maybe an inherent flair for sifting through synonyms and finding one that’s just right? For many of us, it’s the profession’s agility and vastness that are most alluring, rewarding, and unique: the ability to pair translation or interpreting up with any of your passions, vocations, hobbies, or areas of expertise.

Think of translation as a universal soldier – a multi-tool that is not only a fascinating and fast-evolving field in itself, but is also a match to your interests; a sidekick to your grand ideas; a lifetime supporter of whatever forces you out of bed in the morning.

Along with the usual pairings—technical translation, court interpreting, medical translation, and translation of fiction—what other domains could benefit from linguistic diversity? More importantly, how can translation complement and enhance your life outside work?

The path to finding how translation can serve you lies within. You have to ask yourself how the unique professional skills you’ve mastered over years translate into your life at large—and find your unique pairing.

What do you like most about translation or interpreting? Is it doing background research? Editing your first draft? Since both translation and interpreting involve multiple stages and rely on diverse skills, you might gravitate towards one facet of the profession over another. While you might not have the luxury of pushing aside your least favourite tasks in a work environment, if translation or interpreting is more than a means of bringing home the bacon, doing what you love leads to a much deeper fulfillment.

What are you passionate about outside of work? In other words, what would you do on a Saturday morning if you had nothing planned? Listen to your authentic self and take some time to ponder this question. Discovering what truly makes you happy—trends, peer pressure, and money aside—is instrumental to leading a happy life. Next step is prioritizing your hobbies to identify those you’re most keen on nurturing.

Find your unique mix. Now that you’ve taken some time to single out your biggest passions, pair them up with what you love about translation or interpreting. There can­­—and should be—an overlap between professional and personal lives, the middle ground that marries your vocation with hobbies, causes you support, ideas worth sharing. As a result of this unique mix bearing your name, you’ll be getting the best of both worlds—fueling your passions with your expertise in translation or interpreting.

Among many perks of being a translator or interpreter, your ability to spread ideas across cultures and continents, educate, and shape the way we relate to each other will always apply to anything you do outside business hours. Are you passionate about hockey? Video games? Cooking? Start a bilingual blog where you share your favourite recipes; comment on the translation of video games; teach hockey terminology in your second language. When you use your skills as a translator or interpreter to give your hobbies a kick and your ideas a voice, you will create a greater level of satisfaction in what you do all while elevating your career and advancing your interests.

Preparing for, and passing, the Code of Ethics exam.

Posted on by drawingboarddesign in Guest Blog, Industry Tips, Interpretation, Translation

The Code of Ethics exam is just around the corner, March 9th to be exact, and if you are just as nervous as I was, keep on reading.

I always become very stressed out about writing exams; I try to avoid them at all costs.  However, sometimes they are unavoidable such as the Code of Ethics (C of E) exam you need to take if you want to become a member of the Association of Translators and Interpreters of Alberta (ATIA) and eventually a certified Translator/Interpreter.  I was especially nervous about this exam since the passing rate is below 50 percent. Many people I talked to failed this exam the first time, and sometimes the second time as well.

The exam I wrote (it is subject to be revised and changed by the Association at regular intervals!) consisted of 20 questions with multiple choice answers.  The passing mark is 80 percent which means you can have only four incorrect answers.  Each question will give you a specific scenario, and from there you have to form your answer. You will have a limited amount of time to write this exam.

I am very fortunate to have passed this exam the first time!  I am not gloating about it—ok, maybe a little—but the message is:  If I can do it, you can too!

How did I prepare for it?  A month or so before the exam I started reading the C of E every single morning as I sipped my first cup of London Fog.  I took notes, and I became very familiar with its content.

I also took the webinar? that was offered by ATIA, and I have to say this was extremely helpful.  It allowed me to think about the rules and regulations of the C of E from a different perspective.  Since the webinar was live, we were able to have discussions, questions, and exercises.  The week following the webinar, I reviewed the exercises we did and the reasoning behind the answers.

When it finally came time to write the exam, I knew I was prepared and felt confident.  Of course, once I sat down to write the exam my heart started to pound loudly, my mouth was extremely dry, my vision became blurry, and my mind was completely blank.  After a few minutes, I regained my composure and proceeded to write the exam.  I found most of the questions straightforward and the ones I had doubt about, I left blank to come back to afterward.  When writing this exam, it’s important to always think of the question in reference to the C of E and not just what you imagine the correct response should be.  Once I finished, I went back and made sure I had answered all the questions and quickly reviewed the answers.

If you are writing the C of E on March 9th, start reading it every day now, take notes, and become very familiar with it. Invest in the webinar?because it can be the deciding factor on passing this exam.  Once you are there writing the exam, take a deep breath and trust that you are prepared to pass this exam, and answer well.

Good luck!  I know you can do it!


 ???Paulina Ponsford was born in Chile and has lived most of her adult life in Canada.  She worked as an Accountant for thirty years in the Oil and Gas industry in Calgary.  At the same time, she always wanted to connect with people at a different level and for this reason, she became a volunteer Fitness Instructor and later on a Certified Facilitator in the area of human interaction.  Paulina is now preparing to become a Translator and Interpreter in the languages of English and Spanish.  Paulina also loves to travel and embraces what different cultures have to offer.  She is also an avid reader and some of her favorite authors are Paulo Coelho, Khaled Hosseini, Mark Mustian, and Isabel Allende.  If you would like to know more about Paulina, check out her blog at www.paulinaponsford.com where she shares some of her thoughts, insights, and experiences.  

5 Belated New Year’s resolutions, a translator’s edition

Posted on by drawingboarddesign in Community, Field, Professionalism, Translation

While you might have already committed to crushing personal goals, there’s still time to shine light on your professional persona and zero in on the path you’d like to pave for yourself this year. No matter how many hours a week you dedicate to translation, setting the right goals will help you advance your career. Before jotting down what will be your game plan for the next 300 something days, look back and notice the direction you’ve chosen for yourself and your career, and map out a plan that will strengthen and challenge it.

As translators, not only are we striving for linguistic excellence, but we are also following the trends and rapid changes in this fast-evolving profession. Before settling on your goals, think deeply and look widely. Apart from building up your technical skills in translation, what other related areas can bolster your career? What habits and routines will not only make you excel in your field, but also stretch your thinking?

  1. Read more. In all the languages you understand. It goes without saying that reading is one of the most important contributors to a strong, rich, and versatile vocabulary. However, picking up a few thick books and setting a deadline to finish them might seem quiet daunting. Reading for 20 minutes every day sounds a lot more realistic. And if you’re looking for an extra challenge, pick books in different languages.
  2. Befriend like-minded people. And by like-minded we mean fellow translators. Resolve to expand your professional network and meet new people who are as devoted to translation and languages as you. Not only that but who also share similar values and work ethics. Although we often focus on the quantity of connections, finding the people who truly value you proves much more valuable.
  3. Invest in workshops, seminars, and mentoring opportunities. Translators can live in silos, secluded in their offices, away from the hustle and bustle of the outside life. As a result of this almost solitary lifestyle, they might miss out on exchanging ideas. This year, commit to attending a professional seminar or signing up for a mentorship opportunity. Most professional organizations host a plethora of events throughout the year or even offer mentorship programs.
  4. Explore creative ways to use your skills. Challenge yourself to go beyond your regular contracts and jobs. How else can you put your technical skills to good use? Think of marrying your passions and hobbies with the expertise you developed as a translator. Are you passionate about technology? Why not running a blog about translating terminology in your field?
  5. Volunteer. Give back to the community. Pass on your passions. Share your talents. Find meaningful and rewarding ways to use your translation skills. Apart from volunteering as a translator, there are many other avenues you could explore as a fluent speaker of at least two languages: teaching foreign languages or poetry, bilingual art programs, and writing.

As you iron out your commitments, make sure they truly speak to you. Even if your professional path might seem murky, look back at the decisions you made in the past, your priorities, and lessons learned—they will help shed light on where you’re headed.

 

On the translator’s (in)visibility

Posted on by drawingboarddesign in Field, Industry Tips, Translation

A translated text is often structured as a cake – a dash of source language features, a handful of editor’s comments all layered on top of the message you’re trying to get across. Should the translator’s voice be added to the mix?

The role of translator in the process of rendering a text into a different language remains a hot topic in the theory and practice of translation. While a translator’s scope of responsibilities might be well-defined, the depth of their involvement in the project and the magnitude of their impact on the final text remain vague.

For a long time, translators were overshadowed by the fruits of their labour – words they crafted, cultural connections they nurtured, ideas they helped spread across the globe. Even now these humble wordsmiths often remain invisible behind their work, succumbing to the power of the text and the language system it belongs to. How many of you can name the translator of your beloved foreign text? Did you notice that the text was borrowed from a different literary tradition? Chances are, unless you take a keen interest in translation, you’ll remember words that beautifully flow in sentences rather than the translator who brought them to you.

In terms of translation, invisibility stands for following the translation canon, adapting to the target culture rules, and diluting the foreign flavour of a text. This often results in a foreign text being digested as native to the culture it has entered thanks to translation. For translators, invisibility means that their role in enabling the exchange of ideas is suppressed, along with their political or social standpoint as they attempt to meet the professional expectations.

Text’s visibility centres around recognizing its heritage and original environment.  In a way, a ‘visible’ approach to translation undermines the flow of the translated text, challenges the established traditions in the receiving culture, and shines a light on the translator’s contributions.  A ‘visible’ translator has more freedom to let their opinion and beliefs seep through their work. In practical terms, translator’s visibility is associated with more creativity, freedom to revisit the canon and innovate the field. A translated text’s invisibility, on the other hand, with well-established traditions, norms, and rules.

As a translator, you’ll come across projects of various genres and formats along your career path. Some of them might require a more ‘invisible’ approach; others, on the other hand, may offer room for innovation. Your job as a professional is to tell them apart. Don’t be afraid to voice your position to clients and suggest new approaches to handling a foreign text. As you grow in the profession, strive to develop a diverse skillset that would allow you to take on projects that prioritize a smooth transition into the target culture as well as those that value your input and creativity. Translation as a process of sharing ideas, cultures, and beliefs can take various forms – be informed about your options, know the current trends, be honest with your clients, and respect your opinion.

Five essential skills to help forge a successful career in translation

Posted on by drawingboarddesign in Field, Professionalism, Translation

You might be a word nerd, a polyglot, or a self-proclaimed linguist – does this mean you were born a translator? Nurturing the passion for languages and translation along with developing the required technical skills lay the foundation for a potential career in translation. Strengthening certain personality traits and forming the right habits are just as important. Talent alone won’t sustain you through the ups and downs of the business, pages of monotonous texts, memorizing terminology, or dealing with pesky clients. Your innate aptitude for languages needs strong companions to transform a gift into a rewarding career in translation.

Patience. There’s nothing more daunting than an 80-page technical specification. Filled with terms and formulas only engineers can decipher, the document might not be your first choice of a book. Yet it ended up in your inbox awaiting your time, brain energy, and words. Translation is not always about high-flown lexicon and elegant sentence structures; oftentimes, the source texts you’ll be getting from clients will be dry, complex, technical, or incomprehensible. Unless you hand-pick projects to take on, you need to build up your patience to power through pages of jargon you’d never use outside your work!

A patient translator practices self-patience: rather than giving up or flipping out every time you can’t find the right translation of a term. Give yourself another chance. Slow down and let your brain do its magic.

Creativity. Language can be a great means for creative expression. Rich and diverse, organized and agile, language offers all the right elements to put your thoughts on paper, the right way. The real challenge many translators face is not feeding creative juices when working on a poem or novel, but finding creativity in the mundane: a legal document, a scholarly article, the infamous technical specification. Even in times of regulations, amendments, and guidelines, find room for creativity in your choice of words. Think of new ways to translate similar sentences, research synonyms or idioms to expand your linguistic repertoire.

Precision. Also known as language surgeons, translators pick texts apart, channel them through their brains, and puzzle the pieces back together to convey the exact meaning of the source text in a new language. Strive for precision when transforming a text or selecting a verb among various synonyms; when looking for a corresponding expression or idiom in the target language; when deciding on a language structure.

Curiosity. There’s always something to learn from the texts your clients send you. Find one (or more) things that you love about law or business, medicine or engineering. Immerse yourself in the text, look beyond the language, and absorb new information. As a translator, you’re probably consumed by the intricacies of your language pair, leaving behind everything and anything that won’t help you deliver a high-quality product. While playing with language might be your bread and butter, don’t turn a blind eye to new information that your clients graciously present to you.

Optimism. As with anything in life, positive disposition can brighten gloomy days and bring joy to any text you’re translating. Remember, even the longest technical specification has an end and take pride in having seen all of your contracts to fruition!