Sarah's Archives

an archive of content from ≈ 2005 - 2015, relating to international business, translation, freelancing, and working online.

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Being a translator should be hard

by Sarah Dillon

Hard Work...One of the best perks in my former role as a Director of eCPD, the online training provider for translators, was that I got to attend some truly fantastic talks by the most interesting, inspiring and successful people in our profession.

So I was buzzed when I heard Judy Jenner, blogger at Translation Times and co-author of The Entrepreneurial Linguist, emphasise that building and growing a business is hard, and that freelance translators and interpreters need to expect it to be that way.

Yet not many translators (and dare I say it, even fewer interpreters I meet) seem to grasp this.

[Read more…]

Last updated: 26 October, 2011 by Sarah Dillon. Filed Under: Business of translation, Marketing for language professionals, Starting up in translation Tagged With: career development, Professional development, sustaining your career

Translators do more than "just" translate

by Sarah Dillon

At the AUSIT Biennial Conference in November 2010, Tineke Van Beukering shared her thoughts and practical experience of post-editing machine translation output. It was a great session so I was delighted to attend another more indepth talk by Tineke on the same topic a few weeks ago.

Among other things, she covered:

  • the role of the MT post-editor.
  • the advantages of using MT + a skilled post-editor (i.e. it’s not just about the money).
  • the differences between MT post-editing and checking.
  • a typical MT workflow, including other emerging sources of work, e.g. MT optimisation.
  • how to make a lucrative income stream out of MT post-editing.
  • how and why she got into this line of work.
  • what she finds most satisfying about it.

Machine translation: not a question of “good” or “bad”

Something that particularly interested me was Tineke’s discussion of her initial resistance to working with MT output, and how she came to terms with that.

She said it posed an ethical dilemma for her when she was first offered this work, because she didn’t want to contribute to practices which she believed might lead to the end of her profession. These initial concerns reflected many of the usual fears we  hear bandied about when the topic of MT makes an appearance, and I was impressed with the way in which Tineke went about  testing her fears, before coming to her current and ultimately more informed conclusions.

What constitutes a “real” translator?

I also got the impression that Tineke felt she had to strongly defend her decision to work with MT output to her peers. I sensed that she may have been at the receiving end of explicit or implicit criticism for her choice in the past. (To be fair, I didn’t get a chance to talk to Tineke about this so I could be way off base.)

It caught my attention because I’ve seen this kind of snobbery rear its ugly head in the profession before.  And it’s a shame that some translators feel they can look down on peers who apply translation skills in a way that may not fit the traditional “word-in, word-out” model of translation.

To stay relevant, translators need to be able to apply translation-related skills to a range of communicative tasks. I see it as an extension of the poverty-trap mentality which Jill Sommers refers to here, when those who dare to earn a living and adapt to a changing profession are somehow deemed less of a “proper” translator for doing so.

Translation professionals vs. people who translate

I didn’t entirely agree with all the points Tineke made though. For example, she drew some comparisons between the use of translation technology today and the automation of tasks during the industrial revolution, which saw so many workers lose their jobs.

For me, this doesn’t sit well for a couple of reasons, primarily because it compares translators to workers who were often unskilled and who did low-level, repetitive manual labour. While many such workers were indeed replaced by technology during the industrial revolution, some jobs were retained, and many new ones were created for supervisors, managers, skilled technicians, and so on. In my view, professional translators are more akin to these managerial, skilled and/or specialised roles.

Tineke spoke too about the financial benefits of working in this emerging field. This reminded me of an ITI salary survey from 10 years’ ago (the most recent one, as far as I’m aware). Those who reported generating the highest income were referred to as “language professionals”, while all other categories of earners were “translators”. At the time I hypothesised that maybe this was because these professionals applied more to their work than their (not inconsiderable) translation skills, and viewed themselves more broadly than through the prism of translation only.

Crystal-ball gazing has never been my thing. But I’m now more convinced than ever that this is how the careers of professional translators will look in the future. There will always be work for those with highly developed translation skills, but very few of us will work with words in a way we recognise today. This is not something to be sad about, any more than we should feel sad that accountants now use Excel instead of abacuses. Because as our roles become increasingly sophisticated and complex, we evolve, and professionalise, and gain greater recognition.

Above all, we need to be careful with our judgements and our snobberies (and I include myself in that). We need to encourage more translators like Tineke to stand up and share what they’re experiencing at the wordface, without making them feel like their commitment to the profession will be called into question in the process. Because we can’t prepare for the future if we’re not even aware of what’s happening around us in the present.

Last updated: 27 April, 2011 by Sarah Dillon. Filed Under: Business of translation, Technology for translators, Translation profession and industry Tagged With: Australian Institute of Interpreters and Translators, machine translation, Professional development

Website Building 101

by Sarah Dillon

e-commerce sketching

It’s fair to say that the online world has changed a lot since I built my first website. The demise of GeoCities is only one such change (and oh my, what a sorry change that was).

My first website was on the unmissable touristic delights of Ireland’s Shannon Region. As my geographical horizons expanded, so too did my website, and this was gradually replaced with hard-won advice from the study-abroad trenches in France, Germany and Spain: this bar in Jena hires casual student workers, that dorm building is to be avoided at the Université de Franche-Comté, and here’s another way around this pesky bureaucratic requirement at the Universidad de Granada. [Read more…]

Last updated: 7 March, 2011 by Sarah Dillon. Filed Under: Moi, Technology for translators Tagged With: Professional development, website building for freelancers, websites

New adventures

by Sarah Dillon

Well, it’s Friday (in Australia, anyway) and here’s my news. [Read more…]

Last updated: 11 February, 2011 by Sarah Dillon. Filed Under: Moi, Professional development Tagged With: eCPD Webinars, Professional development

Conference report: Transparency in subtitling

by Sarah Dillon

Add subtitles to video podcasts

What happens when your audience is constantly reminded that your work is a translation, and your words are only a small part of a much bigger picture of meaning? This heightened level of transparency adds an interesting dimension when it comes to translating for subtitles.

Dr Jing Han is a Chief Subtitler at SBS TV, Australia’s extraordinary multilingual and multicultural public broadcasting service. Her paper on cross-lingual & cross-cultural communication in subtitling at the recent AUSIT Conference made us all reflect on how we facilitate the transfer of meaning between cultures. [Read more…]

Last updated: 1 December, 2010 by Sarah Dillon. Filed Under: Translation profession and industry Tagged With: Professional development, SBS, subtitling

CPD Matters: Maintaining source-language skills

by Sarah Dillon

This post focusses on language development and maintenance (source languages). Language exchanges, newspapers, podcasts and Tweeting: that’s the last you’ll see of these options here. What other ways are there for professional translators to keep their source languages shiny and bright? The third in an occasional series on CPD.

[Read more…]

Last updated: 17 November, 2010 by Sarah Dillon. Filed Under: Language and languages, Professional development Tagged With: iTunes U, Professional development, source language maintenance

CPD Matters: Refining translation skills

by Sarah Dillon

Today I’m looking at maintaining and improving your translation skills. Ongoing development of your existing translation skills is quite distinct from initial translator training, and needs to be approached differently too.
26

The second in an occasional series on CPD. First one: What is CPD?

[Read more…]

Last updated: 13 October, 2010 by Sarah Dillon. Filed Under: Language and languages, Professional development, Translation profession and industry Tagged With: Professional development, translation skills

Hello AUSIT Queensland members

by Sarah Dillon

Hello to fellow AUSIT members who are dropping by after yesterday’s professional development session on building a strong professional presence online.

I will upload my slides, along with some additional resources, by the end of the day today. In the meantime you might find the following posts interesting:

  • A 5-minute video on how I use WordPress for this blog. This is the same system I use for my website.
  • Some 5-minute videos with demonstrations of how I use LinkedIn and Google Reader for professional purposes.
  • A half-hour presentation on social media for translators, which looks at Tweetdeck (co-presented with Philippa Hammond – check out her blog for a great guest post on search engine marketing (SEO) too).
  • Finally, here is a list of 107 blogs by (mainly) freelance translators. (There are also plenty of blogs by interpreters, but these can be a starting point for finding them if you wish). If you’re thinking of starting a blog, it’s a good idea to know what’s out there already. If blogging is not for you, that’s fine too: but you might be interested in keeping up-to-date with what other professionals are writing.

Thank you very much to everyone who attended last night, and for your interesting and insightful questions.

Last updated: 25 June, 2010 by Sarah Dillon. Filed Under: Moi, Professional development Tagged With: Australian Institute of Interpreters and Translators, Professional development, social media for interpreters, social media for translators

CPD Matters: What is CPD?

by Sarah Dillon

I refer frequently to professional development on this blog (in fact, I have an entire category dedicated to it), but life-long learning is not specific to translators or language professionals.

Doctors do it, engineers do it, and I have it on good authority that even educated fleas do it. So I’m running a mini-series on CPD over the next few weeks: what it is, how to do it and most importantly, where to get it, even if you’re not in a position to fly 10,000 miles for a one-day workshop. [Read more…]

Last updated: 16 June, 2010 by Sarah Dillon. Filed Under: Language and languages, Professional development, Translation profession and industry Tagged With: Australian Institute of Interpreters and Translators, Institute of Translators and Interpreters, online learning, professional bodies, Professional development

ITI Style Workshop with Chris Durban and Ros Schwartz

by Sarah Dillon

Cover of ITI Bulletin May-June 2010

My write-up of the Style Workshop held in London in February appeared in the May – June issue of the ITI Bulletin*. Here’s an extract: [Read more…]

Last updated: 15 June, 2010 by Sarah Dillon. Filed Under: Professional development Tagged With: event report, ITI Bulletin, Professional development

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