Archives for December 2007

Read it and weep – THIS is why I read blogs

Penelope Trunk just got fired from Yahoo Finance and her post about it reminds me of 2 important things:

1. why I read blogs
2. how to successfully walk the tricky line between being truthful, while still maintaining professional face

In laying herself bare and admitting something I’ve never seen articulated anywhere else, Penelope manages to sound wise, clever and strong. Read this:

People ask me all the time how can they get this life that I have where I do something I love, get to make my own hours, and support a family. Seems great, right? But that life also comes with this: having no idea how I’ll get paid next. And it happens all the time.

[…] I am worried, and I think about not telling people that I feel worried because everyone who is negotiating with me now knows that money is super important to me, and I’m probably not going to walk away from an offer.

But more important than preserving an edge negotiating money is somehow documenting how hard it is to be true to yourself, how hard it is to be at risk all the time. It’s a tradeoff. Sometimes my life looks glamorous. Sometimes it doesn’t. It’s all the same life though.

Wow. This kind of honesty is refreshing, and more thought-provoking (and therefore inspiring, in my books) than a million career advice or management books.

Penelope has been one of my favourite bloggers from way back*, so I think it’s fitting that this, my 100th post, is about her. Here’s to being inspired for a hundred more!

* late 2006/ early 2007, i.e. a long time in blog years 🙂

These are a few of my favourite things

by Sarah Dillon

Lucy Kellaway speaks about the joys of fresh stationary, gossip and lattees in her FT.com management podcast dated 7.10.07. I thought it was funny because in listing the small but important pleasures of office life, she mentions many of the things I consciously try to recreate here in my home office – to varying degrees of success. Sure, the coffee’s better here at home, but the thrill of playing a bit part in a mini soap-opera is just not the same when the only other actors are Pat the Postman, Ed the Electricity Meter Reader and Chu the local Shop Keeper.

Lucy’s full list includes:

* enjoying lattees with lids and eating danish pastries at your desk
* doing email in the morning before anyone gets into the office
* a really comfortable chair at just the right angle and height
* a new packet of paper for the printer
* a fully stocked stationary cupboard, with just the kind of pens and battery sizes you need
* playing a bit part in your very own office soap-opera
* air conditioning in summer
* IT helpdesks
* doing the supermarket shop during work (much more satisfying than on the computer at home)
* ego boosters from colleagues, including generally being noticed by other people

I think it’s a great idea to make a list of the little things that bring pleasure to your working day. Mainly because it’s good to know what you like in life, generally. But also because these small pleasures are often transferrable, so can be re-created or maintained should you ever face of period of transition. After all, why throw the baby out with the bathwater, or indeed waste your energy re-inventing the wheel?

But if you find your morning routine includes getting fully suited and booted before kissing your partner and/or cat goodbye, only to take a walk around the block and return to work at your home office or kitchen table, I’d suggest you re-consider whether homeworking is really the thing for you.

Knowing your worth

by Sarah Dillon

Pamela Slim over at Escape from Cubicle Nation has an interesting post about pricing, with tips for freelancers to ensure they are pitching themselves just right. I especially like point number 5. It shows value pricing in action and offers some interesting food for thought.

As you are discussing the project with your client, define success metrics. Ask them “How will you know that our work together was effective?” They should say things like “I will get more clients” or “I will deliver better presentations” or “I will improve my credit score” or “I will capture more names on my mailing list from my website visitors.”…

Translators may feel they don’t have much flexibility to manoeuvre in this area, but do you always know what, exactly, your client is aiming to achieve with your translation?

The Fighting Irish

by Sarah Dillon

The latest issue of the Chartered Institute of Linguist’s magazine has an article about the renaissance in Irish language learning amongst those with no roots or connections to Ireland. It’s great to see that word getting out that Irish is very much alive and kicking. Journalist Siofra Brennan also does a good job of outlining the way in which these adult learners have acquired a good degree of fluency in the language, despite living in the UK.

However, for me, this article missed the point. As a linguist, I’m not surprised at why these people chose to learn Irish. It’s a fascinating language, with a complex grammar that makes it very different to the other languages most Europeans learn at school. It also has a fascinating (and often highly romanticised) history as the oldest spoken literary language in Europe.

I’m not even surprised about the where. There’s a wealth of beginners Irish language-learning material to be found both online and offline, especially in north London. I would even argue that there are more resources available outside of Ireland than there are in, but that’s a post for another day.

What I am curious to know is how hundreds of thousands of Irish adults at home and abroad, having learnt Irish throughout their compulsory education and possibly beyond, can ensure they maintain or even further build on their existing language skills.

Beyond beginners

I suppose I found this article particularly timely as I’ve grown increasingly frustrated over the years in my own attempts to maintain my Irish. I actually dropped into the offices of Gael Linn, an organisation which claims to support Irish language learners, during a recent trip to Dublin. I quizzed them on the options available for people like me, who have more than a beginners level of Irish but who are unwilling or unable to spend weeks at a time living in one of the Gaeltachtaí. Incredibly, for anyone unable to commute into the centre of Dublin for classes three hours, two evenings a week (so, quite a few Irish people, then…), there is nothing. No suitable books, worksheets, online classes or distance learning materials. Nada. Zilch.

(Please don’t email me to tell me about the embarrassingly gammy “multimedia language course” (i.e. DVD) called Turas Teanga, which features a blonde woman driving around Ireland in what’s supposed to be a sexy car, having unlikely and inane conversations in Irish along the way. Not even the most committed Gaelophile could find something to love there.)

I acknowledge that there is a range of Irish-language broadcast media which is the envy of minority language promoters the world over, with plenty of freely available TV, radio and internet content (I can especially recommend this podcast and this website). But not everyone has the skills or motivation levels to base their entire language exposure on reading and/or listening, especially when it doesn’t form part of a broader learning experience.

How can an organisation like Gael Linn claim to promote the language when they have completely ignored a huge tract of learners, people who have already acquired the basics but just want to brush up or maintain what’s already there?

Having said all this, I can certainly understand the need to divert resources towards beginner language learners. In a country where the percentage of immigration has risen faster in 10 years than over a half century in Britain, the Irish language could offer an exciting point of national unity on the changing face of the Irish Republic.

But I’m not asking for national funding. This is a service I’m willing to pay for and I’d bet I’m not the only one, which surely denotes a real gap in the market.

And this is where I think the real problem lies with the Irish language today. It would seem that to the Irish government, it’s not about how well you speak the language or the confidence with which you use it, it’s about increasing the number of people who claim an undefined level of “competence” in the language. But that’s just not good enough.

Anyone who has been through the Irish education system will have achieved a reasonably good level of competence in Irish. The chances are though, these skills will have fallen quite quickly into a state of rusty disrepair as attentions turn to developing other more marketable skills on leaving school. Fair enough.

Yet once further education has been taken care of, jobs have been secured, and the humdrum of daily life takes over, many of us remember Irish very fondly and with great pride, and – I believe – would gladly return to using it more regularly. But aside from the small numbers of speakers living in the Gaeltachtaí, there are very few structured learning opportunities to help us achieve the confidence required to whip out the cúpla focail once again.

We’re not talking about an insignificant number of people either. We’re basically looking at most Irish adults living in the Republic outside the Gaeltachtaí. Plus, a potentially significant number of the over 1.2 million Irish-born immigrants worldwide, who arguably may be even more motivated to re-learn a language that reminds them of “home” and of their childhood.

Attitudes towards Irish among Irish people

One of the learners featured in Brennan’s article spoke about the apathy she sensed towards the Irish language, especially among young people in Ireland. I would argue that the situation is a lot more complicated than that.

First, it’s a compulsory part of the education system in the Republic, and these are young people – of course she’ll sense a degree of apathy, especially if the curriculum is anything as dull as what it was when I was in school. (Remember, our education system is similar to the International Baccalaureate in style, with 6 – 7 subjects taken to Leaving Certificate level, i.e. English, Irish, Maths, another foreign language, and two optional subjects.)

Second, and most importantly, Irish people living in the Republic feel a strange mixture of emotions when it comes to the Irish language.

Over 40% of people surveyed in the Republic of Ireland census last year claimed they were competent in the language, and although the reality of this figure is frequently disputed (and indeed ridiculed), it still speaks volumes. Not of our actual language levels but of the pride we feel towards our first national language. Yet even among the most committed of Irish speakers, there is also a sense of unease around the practicality of making Irish an official language of the EU. I would also guess at feelings of guilt (a compulsory component of Irishness, after all :)), and maybe even shame and quiet despair too. The Irish government has spent millions to promote the language and gain it the recognition it deserves, yet those who live in Ireland often have very little confidence in their ability to use it, despite years of education. Surely all the more reason to provide this group with suitable language learning resources.

My call to arms

So to the Irish government, I say: the Irish people have had enough of the Irish language being hijacked for political purposes – give us a break and let us sort out for ourselves what our language means to us, away from all the political posturing.

To volunteer language organisations such as Conradh na Gaeilge, Comhdháil Náisiúnta na Gaeilge, Gael Linn, Coláiste na bhFiann, Glór na nGael and Comhluadar, I say: Don’t forget about the rest of us! We’re waving our wallets at you, if you’d only care to look.

Finally, with a nod to a particular pet peeve of mine, to everyone else (including the Irish) I say: stop referring to the Irish language as “Gaelic”. It’s sloppy and inaccurate. French is a Romance language, but you wouldn’t call it Romance, would you? The same applies to Irish. It’s Irish, Gaeilge, or if you must use generalisations, one of several Goidelic or Gaelic languages.

Join the translation neighbourhood watch

by Sarah Dillon

Originally published in December 2007

When I first started freelancing, it took me a long time before I felt like a Proper Translator. This was not because I lacked the confidence or even the workload to use the title (I was lucky enough to have a full book of well paid, satisfying work after about 3 months). It was because I just wasn’t doing the kind of work I thought I *should* be doing.

Looking back, my expectations were as realistic as they could have been at that point. I had spent two years carefully preparing for my freelance career. I had spoken to lots of supportive professionals, completed work placements in two different translation companies and dabbled in a reasonable number of small, paid translation jobs. I certainly didn’t have a pie-in-the-sky ideal of sitting around sucking on the end of a quill, or dashing through the corridors of the UN à la a translator-version of the film The Interpreter. But where were the translation jobs I was expecting? Where were the texts, the documents, the written words awaiting my careful rendering?

I eventually realised that that’s just a tiny part of how the translation world works these days. A whole raft of ancillary work has sprung up around the field of translation. Experienced translator Hugh Morgan summed it up perfectly in his paper at the 2007 Portsmouth Conference when he referred to these “other” kinds of work as near-neighbours of translation – neighbours that get looked down upon often and very unfairly. Proofreading, editing and revising are the usual suspects, but there’s so much more out there, including summary writing, semantic audits, analyses and a whole raft of other things that I probably haven’t heard of yet.

So here’s my list of top 5 things I think all new translators should know about Near Neighbours Of Translation (or NNOTrans):

1. By looking down on NNOTrans, you are cutting off your nose to spite your face.

NNOTrans don’t get the air-time they deserve because too many translators think that anything less than “pure” translation is a waste of their skills. As an eager newcomer to the profession, I found this difficult to get my head around at first. I was embarrassed and didn’t know if I could call myself a translator, when I wasn’t doing what many translators seem to mean when they refer to translation. I’m glad I got over myself and got on with it, and I’d advise other newcomers to do the same. If you like what you do and you’re drawing on your translation skills, no matter how remotely, where’s the problem? Instead, feel excited about being at the forefront of industry changes.

2. NNOTrans are the way to go to ensure career longevity.

I don’t know about you but I certainly don’t want to spend my whole career looking over my shoulder, afraid of being replaced by a machine or another professional working in a country where the cost of living is lower than the UK (i.e. most countries, then). Two ways to avoid this are be fussy about the kind of work you take on, and specialise. Translators are skilled at pulling together different threads of communication from a range of specialist fields, and that’s even before they bring a second language into the mix. There aren’t many professionals who can lay claim to these kind of skills, so let’s forget about restrictive job titles and use this to our advantage.

3. NNOTrans often pay better than per-word translation.

Hugh put it beautifully when he said this kind of work has “a more generous margin”. I say, unless you translate in a highly specialised field and/or are lucky enough to have a portfolio of top-dollar direct clients, you’ll probably find you earn more per hour for a NNOTrans project than a traditional “source-word in, target-word out” translation. There’s more to consider than “just” the money, of course, as few of us go freelance for the fame and fortune. But think about how these other sources of work can give you the breathing space you need in those heady first days of freelancing, to enable you to hold out for the kind of translation work you really want to spend your time on.

4. NNOTrans can be more more enjoyable than “pure” translation.

When I first started out, I saw NNOTrans as a good way to pay my bills, while also getting my foot in the door with work providers. I thought once the “real” translation work started rolling in, I’d drop them and move on to greener pastures. The real translation work did start coming in, but in the meantime I’d found my NNOTrans projects had evolved. My professional expertise was being requested on a range of projects and I was booked well in advance, so my time was respected and I was well compensated. No stressful deadlines, unreasonable demands or lowly rates. What’s not to love about that? I love translating, but I enjoy jobs which involve near-neighbours of translation too.

5. Use NNOTrans to make you a better translator

NNOTrans projects can be a great source of cross-fertilisation, a way to gain new perspectives, skills and ideas. You could even use them as a way to hone some of the sub-skills of translation – writing, analysis, proofreading, listening skills, applied linguistics, etc. Look at the bigger picture of how this kind of work can get you to where you want to be.

So check out those translation neighbours – you may surprise yourself and make friends for life.

Friday funnies: Make the naked translator into a super translator

by Sarah Dillon

I found this on a post from Translatorscafe dated WAY back to 2004. Ellen Kapuzniak was the original poster, and she called for translators to “dress” their stick-translator with the attributes required for a super translator, and then upload the results. Some of my favourite attributes include what looks like a million fingers (all the better to type 1,234,567,890 words per minute, apparently) and a fixed grin to dispel all doubts from the minds of prospective clients (sounds like my profile photo for Proz).

What would you add to the picture to make a super translator?

And more importantly, why am I faffing about with this today? I have a 5.30pm deadline that’s only getting closer…