Archives for March 2008

Aim to be an expert performer, not just an expert

A lot of people are impressed by experts: people who somehow seem to know everything about something in particular.

But I remember my mom nurturing a cynical streak in me from an early age when, in response to my over-awed reaction to a confident young classmate, she told me to remember that “anyone who says they know everything really knows nothing. Because EVERYONE knows that no-one knows everything”. Now this may not be the catchiest nugget of wisdom ever, but it introduced me to two key ideas at an early age:

Perhaps the real clever clogs aren’t necessarily those who proclaim their expertise.
If you want to know a lot about something, there’s probably a lot you have to not know about something else. (Bear with me – it gets more concrete.)

There was a great article by John Cloud in Time Magazine last week which reminded me in a roundabout way of the wisdom of my Irish mammy. The writer argued convincingly that experience is not a predictor of performance. Gen Y proponents may well see this as fuel for the fire burning in their bellies, but I think there’s a lot more that can be pulled from of the ideas in this article. [Read more…]

Australian English

by Sarah Dillon

I’ve noticed a few peculiarities to Australian English since I’ve arrived (colourful slang aside, of course). For example, on the train up the coast the other day, we heard “… Passengers for Caloundra, please detrain here.” Detrain??! As in, disembark or alight?!

Detrain doesn’t get too many Google references (most of them are French, “…de train”, etc). And it’s not just me who finds it strange, either. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) News had a reader write in and complain about it here, and had the following to say about its origins:

The Macquarie lists “detrain” as meaning “to alight from a railway train” – and says it[‘s] chiefly military slang. Although it’s not listed in either D.H. Dowling’s Digger Dialects or in Amanda Laugersen’s Diggerspeak – so it’s not Aussie military slang. The opposite (getting on board) is covered by another military word “entrain”… And similar words are used in the military of aircraft: if you get on board you “enplane” and if you get off you “deplane”.

It even gets a mention in the online Urban Dictionary, but with very specific Australian (and even more specifically, Brisbane) references:

A newspeak-esque term QRail train conductors use to describe the act of getting off a train.

Train conductor: Passengers for the Ipswich, Beenleigh and Gold Coast lines, please detrain at Central. Make sure you collect all of your belongings before detraining. Thank you.

Passenger: WTF!?!?

The whole misuse of English debate is often levelled at terms like this, but I don’t buy it. (I’m sure being native to a country with a “non-standard” form of English plays a part in my opinion too.) Here we have an example of a word with valid origins being used as management jargon by Queensland Rail. That’s not misuse, it’s re-use. So pretty standard language behaviour, then.

Mind you, I’ve yet to hear the average Joe use it, but given it’s short, snappy and does the job, it seems to fit the requirements of Australian English just nicely!

To test translate or not to test translate?

by Sarah Dillon

There’s a very interesting post on test translations over here. I have my doubts about them myself, so was very interested to read this.

For the record, while I’ve not done as many test translations as Mr. Gerasimov, I have done my fair share and my experience has been pretty much in line with his, i.e. agencies inform me I am on their “freelance list” but I never hear from them again, or I get contacted with jobs well below my usual rates. Generally, I’m left wondering why I ever bothered. And then there was the agency who insisted on contacting me at 4.30pm every Friday for a period of about 6 months with a series of 5,000 – 6,000 word jobs due in for 9am the following Monday, even when I had told them that I didn’t work weekends… given I was usually working to my own COB deadlines on Fridays, I eventually decided I didn’t need the hassle and politely asked them to remove me from their database.

Nowadays, I demonstrate my abilities to potential clients in other ways, e.g. with references, extracts from prior translations (suitably sanitised), etc. and so far, all my clients have been happy with this. But overall, the advice I suggested in this post last year still stands, especially when it comes to doing test translations.

Finally, I don’t like plain old them-against-us posts, and it’s only fair to say that I can understand why agencies feel they need to ask for test translations. But there are loads of other ways to demonstrate your competence, and experience has taught me that nine-and-a-half times out of ten, test translations are a complete waste of time.