Tag: inspiration

?How to Help Your Clients Achieve the Perfect Translation

Posted on by drawingboarddesign in Client Zone, Inspiration, Professionalism, Translation

The first step to helping client’s get the translation they want is good communication between translator and writer. This is important so that you, as the translator, know the unique goals of the project and ensure the best possible translation project is created! Good communication starts with the basics – listening skills, and an ability to professionally and assertively state yourself both in written and verbal ways. Most translators possess these skills, some clients may not. Here are ways to encourage your clients towards the best outcome possible.

  • Encourage specific communication about budget and timeline.
  • Have your client state their main objective for the translation
  • Encourage your client to be organized with project documents
  • Communicate your own boundaries
  • Know your limits and communicate them

Stating or negotiating prices is often difficult to discuss yet it is fundamental when kicking off a project. Some clients come with a price in mind and some don’t know where to start. Encouraging your client to name a price, start a negotiation, or discuss this part of contracting can be a challenge when they don’t. Using language that is curious, open and inviting can help this process along. Equally important is the timeline of the project. Knowing when the project needs to be completed will help you in planning, but will also help the professional relationship as expectations will be set, maintained, and managed if this is all discussed up front.

Do you know what your client is trying to achieve with their translation? Did they communicate what the goal of the project is?  Once this is clarified with the client, it allows you as the translator to better integrate their voice with yours, producing a piece of work that aligns with the client’s needs.

You need things from your client in order to be effective and efficient for them. You need contracts signed, receipts, and of course, the documents to be translated. Missing documents, incomplete work, and late add-ons can result in deadlines missed and your additional work inaccurately reflected in the negotiated fee. The more organized and complete the source content, the easier it will be to ensure success.

Some clients assume you are available for them much of the time. Some expect emails returned within a few hours and may become persistent if this isn’t the case.  It is good practice to communicate to your clients your availability, such as when you spend time responding to emails, what a reasonable turnaround time is for correspondence, and what days you work and which you do not.  You can set an out of office email reminder that tells your clients you are not actively responding to emails at the present time. Being clear on your professional boundaries not only helps the progress of the project, but it supports your personal and self-care time, as well.

It is okay to be the person who doesn’t always say “yes”. Allow yourself to turn down projects if you have taken on too much, or the project isn’t a good fit for you.  In those rare occasions, it is okay to ask for a deadline extension, within reason and with good arguments as to why you need more time. Likely, your clients with respect and honor your ability to maintain your limits and will appreciate your dedication to ongoing communication and client – translator relationship building.

Self-Care for Busy Professionals

Posted on by drawingboarddesign in Industry Tips, Inspiration, Professionalism

Self-care is often defined as anything we purposefully do to take care of our emotional, spiritual, and mental health. But there is much more to it than that. What we often don’t hear about is self-care defined as the opposite – things we don’t engage in because they are not good for our health. 

Additionally, self-care isn’t always planned activities, but it can be anything that helps you move toward either stillness or growth, such as playing with thinking patterns, exploring attitudes, purposeful reflections, and meaningful connections.  Perhaps one of the most well-known terms in mental health but also one of the most misunderstood, simply because it is difficult to define something that can look, feel, touch, taste, and smell differently for everyone.

Self-care for individuals who work as translators or interpreters may look the same or different from those who work in other fields. Translators, who often work in solitude and interpreters, who have high paced expectations, need to take care due to these special circumstances. Here are 5 ways in which any busy professional may consider for self-care. 

?Connect to Others

Connecting to others is important, especially when working alone is very important. As human beings, we are creatures who not only thrive through human connection, but require it for sustaining life. From an evolutionary perspective, we need each other to stay alive. This was especially true in the past, but our brains have not evolved as fast as society has. We are generally safe in solitude, but at times our brains will tell us that it is dangerous to be alone. In fact, being alone and lonely can trigger our fight, flight, freeze response. Connecting to others (or allowing others to connect to us) is key to mediating this response and may be the most important self-care work we can do.

?Fuel Your Creativity

Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs” shows us that creativity is a human need that helps drive us towards “self actualization”, or towards fully knowing our potential and talents, which furthers us towards fulling knowing ourselves. Luckily, as translators and interpreters, you are often working within the realm of creativity. Of course, there are countless other ways to be creative, and integrating more into your life can be an important act of self-care.

?Live in the Moment Using Mindfulness

Mindfulness is a phrase that most people have heard of. It is defined as “a mental state achieved by focusing one’s awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one’s feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations”. This helps us understand, tolerate, and live with our internal experiences. There are many resources available for mindfulness, and finding a few practices you enjoy doing can be integrated into your repertoire of self-care.

Create Full Sensory Experiences

Our five senses have a direct pathway to our brain, and thus can help soothe and calm us, or can help us better integrate our learnings. Creating situations during which each of your 5 senses can explore, integrate, and experience can facilitate new brain connections, new behaviors and habits, or can simply produce stillness and calm.  

Validate, Appreciate, and Celebrate Yourself

Finding ways to validate yourself, which means to tell yourself that your inner experiences are all important and okay, is key to self-understanding and self-growth. Equally important is finding time to infuse appreciation in your life, whether it’s from big successes or from simply finding gratitude in the fact that you have the ability to take breaths. Recent research has shown us that gratitude can actually help with integrating learning and helps with decision making, as these areas tend to be more active during grateful moments. Finally, celebrating yourself through purposeful ceremonies and traditions, such as a weekly time to watch your favorite tv show, or a monthly get-together with validating friends, is a lovely tool for self-care, because it shows self-love. 

Five Ways that Translators are Actually Writers

Posted on by drawingboarddesign in Field, Translation

Translation is the act of taking written materials and converting it from one language into a target language. Any language can be translated into another, however, the degree of ease during which this happens can vary with the language chosen. A translator may work freelance, for a translation agency, or even in-house. Regardless of where at translator works, the act of translation is a creative process that is very much like writing. Some translators say that translating is similar to writing but is not the same, as the translators voice must not appear in the text. Others believe the process of translation has inherent creative processes that are similar or the same as the creative processes that occur during writing. Here are five ways in which they are very similar.

Translators are reading the written work for the first time, just as a writer does.

For some translators, the process of reading the book is one of discovery. The story has been written; however, the translator is discovering the written work for the first time. Just as “the writer hadn’t read the book before he wrote it.”, the translator is also discovering the book or written work for the first time, in a way that is separate from the reader. A reader is discovering the work but making no alterations to it.

The authorial voice of the book may shift from the writer’s to the translator’s.

During the process of translation, the voice of the translator may show up, whether it is intended to or not. Many translators work hard to limit their voice from speaking through the words chosen, but their contributions to the new version of the story may stand out. Translators make important decisions on how to convey the story’s meaning through the new language, and in doing so, the story may partially take on the translator’s voice, which creates something a work of art that is even more dynamic.

Translation is a creative process.

Every act of translation is a creative process, just as writing the original is a creative art form. Considering the definition of creativity, translation, then, means something new is formed. Translators read the original piece and make important decisions on what is happening, what to keep within the written work, what can be sacrificed, and what kind of voice to put to the text based on the nuances and cultural elements of the new language.

Translation expresses meaning and beauty.

What makes writing an art form is that both meaning and beauty are expressed to the literary audience. Translators are also faced with the task of communicating the meaning as well as the beauty of expressions, in the same way a writer conveys meaning and beauty through their original words.

Translation adds something to the original.

Some say that a translated version of a written work is very different form the original.  Every word or phrase can be different from the original text, given the complexities of the translated language. This means there will be additions, deletions, but also certain elements may be emphasized, and in this way, the original is built upon.

Translation is a creative process that communicates, shifts, and builds upon the original written piece. Writing and translation together is a marriage of art forms – like a silent, fluid dance between the author and the translator that balances the complexities of two languages in a harmonious way.

Creativity Boosting Ideas for Translators

Posted on by drawingboarddesign in Field, Industry Tips, Inspiration, Translation

?Translation isn’t always thought of as a creative process. Some view translation as a simple act of moving already created sentences and phrases from one language to another. Translation is actually much more complex. As a translator, you act as a gateway between two languages, as if you are standing along a border, balancing two worlds. It requires an understanding of the complexities involved in not only the original and translated languages, but also an intimate understanding of the two cultures.  Creativity is present, and even necessary, within the process of translation. 

Creativity, when defined as “seeing the intersection of seemingly unrelated topics and combining them into something new” (Brian Clark), nearly perfectly defines the life of a translator.  Another definition that perhaps fits even snugger proposes that creativity is “starting with nothing and ending up with something. Interpreting something you saw or experienced and processing it so it comes out different than how it went in” (Henry Rollins).  Both of these definitions fully ?capture the role and scope of translation. 

Creativity is sparked in many different areas of the brain. It requires heavy use of the prefrontal cortex, an area responsible for higher level thinking, logic, and cognitive flexibility. However, depending on the type of tasking and creativity you are engaging in will indicate which area will be used. For translators, Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas are more likely to be used in the creative process. Armed with knowledge on the neurobiology of creativity has given researchers and other professionals tools to cultivate it.   

 How to cultivate creativity? 

 1.      Increasing Curiosity 

Curiosity often leads to creativity. Like a developing child that has an innate drive to curiously explore his or her world and creatively provide input back to his or her environment, so too do adults have these needs.  By borrowing the wonder of a child, we can use your five senses to explore the world in curiosity, feel the need to creatively input into our world, and thus grow our creativity.  

 2.      Setting a creative mood 

You can alter your environment to boost creativity. What we take in through our senses can be soothing, energizing, and can change our moods.  It is worth experimenting with different sights, smells, textures, audio or music, and tastes to see what engages your brain into action. Remember, though, what works for one individual may not work for someone else, and this will require you to experiment with different environments, sensory tools, etc, in order to figure out what works for you.  

 3.      Titrating Creativity 

Going back and forth from the opposite forces of creativity and disengagement can lead to a boost in creative moments and decrease moments of stagnation. Further, a longer and more serious disengagement like sleep has been shown to boost our ability to find insight – that is, the sudden gain of knowledge or spark of idea, which are the offspring of creativity. 

 4.      Collaboration and Gathering Feedback 

Creativity can be sparked when we bounce ideas off one another, because sometimes we are too close to an issue or problem to be able to step back and find a new creative path.  Asking for help and advice from friends, peers, and people from your personal network that you trust and respect can provide valuable input to start the creative process. Every person has a unique skill set, experience, and knowledge. A fresh outside perspective can spark some new, creative thinking, particularly when ideas are stuck. 

 5.      Do Something Different, Do Something Fun, or Do Nothing at All 

Finally, when we are stuck and creativity is no longer flowing, it can help to change things up, step out of your professional role, or simply do nothing, Sometimes unplugging your mind rather than actively engaging it can give your mind the break and the rest that it needs. Sometimes the best ideas are born from spontaneous insights rather than active thinking processes.   

Creativity lives within interpretation. The transformative aspect of translation requires it. When creativity stagnates, there are research-supported ways to boost it. Not just for painters and authors of children’s books, creativity is found in all of us, and often in heavy doses in translators.  

The Top Bloggers for Translators to Follow

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

The blogging world contains a wealth of information. The subject content is endless, and there is no shortage of writers who are passionate about different topics. Bloggers spend time researching and writing articles for all of us to read and learn from. Like anything found on the internet, it’s difficult to know which blogs are credible, and what information can be trusted.

When it comes to translation, there are many blogs out there. No matter what kind of translation information you seek, you are likely to find a translation blog written about it. So we scoured the blogs and found the top 10 you may be interested to read.

Transblawg

As the name says, this is a blog that focuses on translation, in a humorous and entertaining way. Perusing the numerous articles written, you can find a lot about German to English translation, as well as German culture, in addition to some information on Spanish, French, and English languages and cultures. Transblawg offers some very good advice for translators, and even offers up a bit for writers. With new content updated frequently, Transblag tops the list of many translation blogger’s top 5 translation bloggers!

About Translation

This blogger writes on everything translation: from beginner tips on using CAT tools to professional development options for the more seasoned translator. This blog is updated regularly, the writing clear and engaging. Check the About Translation blog for practical tips and engaging writing.

Naked Translations

This blog is primarily geared towards English to French and French to English translations. The content, however, can be used by any translator. There are many different writers and guest bloggers, making the content fresh with different perspectives for all translators to uncover.

Translator Fun

Translation information that is infused with humor throughout is always fun! This site is dedicated to translation humor. Day to day work can become dull and perhaps at times, even boring, but this blog can liven things up with hilarity. Take a break, read some translation humor, as you continue on with your important translation work.

Thoughts on Translation

For those who want tips and tricks for how to get work done efficiently, this blogger really does put their thoughts on-screen. Filled with ways to achieve that sought after work-life balance for a translator, with topics including things ranging from time management to finding new clients, it’s a very useful blog for both the new and seasoned translator.

Translation Times

Like a newspaper, this blog is an easy-to-navigate site with professional level writing. It mainly focuses on translation in French, German, Spanish, and English. Not only are the topics more on the professional and business side of things, the various topics that the blog focuses on are easily searchable, making it a great site to use.  You can find information on software, workshops and conferences, book reviews, and even job opportunities.

There’s Something About Translation

There really is something about translation that connects us and also keeps many of us wanting to learn and engage more and more. This blogger tends to focus on speed and production, and provides many articles geared toward this. This writer keeps on top of translation news and conferences, and provides information highly useful to all parts of this industry.

Between Translations

An excellent blog to peruse between translation assignments, this writer helps translators learn more about helpful translation tools, resources, and professional development.

The Translator’s Teacup

This blog is geared towards the beginner translator. The writer describes problems that new translators commonly face, like rate negotiation, underpayment, choosing the right software and equipment, and other ways that a translator can fill up their teacup.

Diary of a Mad Patent Translator

A blog with an interesting title, lots of serious content and some not-so-crazy musings. The writer provides tips for translators, including content written on multilingualism, accepting payments and giving discounts, and professional development.

Whether you are seeking a professional resource or taking a break from translation to keep your mind fresh, reading a translation blog is a great way to get new information, gather tips or advice on experiences that are common to most translators, and even find some humor to infuse into your work day.