Sarah's Archives

my online archive

The Blushing Translator…

by

I went along to a talk on becoming a Chartered Linguist this week, which was run by the London Regional Group of the Institute of Translation and Interpreting (ITI). It was good timing for me and I thought it would be a great way to speak to those involved in developing the application process to get answers to a couple of questions I had about it all.

I hadn’t been to an event organised by the London Regional Group for well over a year. The venue was a cosy bar in Chinatown and the room upstairs was literally bursting at the seams. There were lots of familiar faces from various stages of my working life over the past 5 years. It was great to see quite a few of the more newly-established translators too, in addition to the more experienced crowd. I was all set for a long-overdue evening of talking shop. Or so I thought. When I got home, I realised I’d spent the entire evening with my flies undone… nice!

Oh, the talk was very interesting, and I’ll post some of my notes soon 🙂

AddThis Social Bookmark Button

Comments

  1. I know!! It made me laugh, and I still chuckle at the thought of it!! It’s just one of those things really, isn’t it?!
    My take on no-one saying anything was that no one noticed… convenient for all concerned, least of all me! 🙂

  2. I know!! It made me laugh, and I still chuckle at the thought of it!! It’s just one of those things really, isn’t it?!
    My take on no-one saying anything was that no one noticed… convenient for all concerned, least of all me! 🙂

  3. Oh no! How mortifying.

    I can’t believe nobody else at the event had the presence of mind to just TELL you that your flies were undone.

    Perhaps us translators could instigate some kind of common face-saving policy? Spinach in the teeth, mascara smudges, toilet paper stuck to the shoe… Let’s put an end to the madness! 🙂

  4. Oh no! How mortifying.

    I can’t believe nobody else at the event had the presence of mind to just TELL you that your flies were undone.

    Perhaps us translators could instigate some kind of common face-saving policy? Spinach in the teeth, mascara smudges, toilet paper stuck to the shoe… Let’s put an end to the madness! 🙂

Trackbacks

  1. […] One of the requirements for Chartered Translator status in the UK is that your main source of income for the previous 5 years has to be derived from translation activities. The idea is that chartered status is awarded to full-time, experienced practitioners with a consistent professional track record. This consistency then has to be maintained for the duration of the chartered award. Fair enough. But I still remember the silence in the room at an information evening last year when I asked what the guidelines were for translators who might choose to decrease their workload for various reasons, such as to take on family duties. Obviously this would affect the requirements for consistency of wordcount and income – would chartered status still be appropriate? OF COURSE this would be taken into account, I was assured. How? Well, you would just submit your application, explain the situation and the committee would just… understand. Next question?! It was a pretty obvious question to me, but I was left feeling like I’d raised something incredibly inappropriate. (Or maybe they’d just spotted my flies were down). […]

  2. […] One of the requirements for Chartered Translator status in the UK is that your main source of income for the previous 5 years has to be derived from translation activities. The idea is that chartered status is awarded to full-time, experienced practitioners with a consistent professional track record. This consistency then has to be maintained for the duration of the chartered award. Fair enough. But I still remember the silence in the room at an information evening last year when I asked what the guidelines were for translators who might choose to decrease their workload for various reasons, such as to take on family duties. Obviously this would affect the requirements for consistency of wordcount and income – would chartered status still be appropriate? OF COURSE this would be taken into account, I was assured. How? Well, you would just submit your application, explain the situation and the committee would just… understand. Next question?! It was a pretty obvious question to me, but I was left feeling like I’d raised something incredibly inappropriate. (Or maybe they’d just spotted my flies were down). […]