As the year draws to a close, it’s time to take stock of the past 12 months. I’ve been fortunate enough to have had a steady stream of work, including some very interesting projects and new clients, and have enjoyed regular networking events with fellow translators. At the same time, it’s also been a rather exhausting period, as I’ve regularly found myself working long hours and grappling with difficult translation problems in seemingly almost every text I encounter, so I’m more than ready for some time off to rejuvenate my energy and regroup for the coming year.
This time last year, I wrote a list of “resolutions” for 2016. In this post, I’ll look at how much progress I made with those goals, and take a brief look ahead to 2017.
This time last year, I wrote a list of “resolutions” for 2016. In this post, I’ll look at how much progress I made with those goals, and take a brief look ahead to 2017.
My first resolution was to work more on my proofreading. This is an area I’ve definitely made progress in: in March, I joined the Society for Editors and Proofreaders, later in the year I completed the SfEP’s Proofreading 1 course, and I’m currently working on their Proofreading 2 course. I’ve made some use of the SfEP online forums to discuss proofreading questions, though have not yet attended any networking events. I’ve also learned how to use the BSI proofreading symbols and have read Hart’s Rules from cover to cover. On top of that, I’ve also started using some software tools to support my proofreading, and attended two courses on translation revision: a talk by Kari Koonin and my first-ever webinar, “Finding mistakes in your translation” by Brian Mossop.
Overall, it’s been reassuring to know that I’ve been broadly doing things along the right lines, but I’ve also learned a lot. One common theme across the proofreading and revision courses was the need to distinguish between different types of reading: reading for grammatical mistakes at a micro-level, vs. reading for sense at a macro-level. My previous approach has been slightly too focused on the former, not necessarily thinking enough about the meaning of sentences or how they relate to other contextual elements (for example: does the text correspond to the picture or graphic directly next to it? Does the sentence make coherent sense in the context of the paragraph, the PowerPoint slide or its position on the page? Does this list have as many items as the text says it does?). It’s a tendency that can be accentuated by CAT tools, which segment sentences into discrete units, and it’s something I will be more conscious of in future.
My second and third aims, by contrast, I didn’t find time to concentrate on specifically. These aims were to work on my copywriting skills (and the style of my English writing more generally) and on my subject knowledge of some areas I work in (particularly advertising and marketing). At the moment, I am more reliant than I would like to be on source texts to guide me in how to write certain types of target text: I lack an independent familiarity with appropriate terminology and style for such texts. I carry out research and reflect on my style in the course of my work itself, of course, but this can be rather ad hoc and time-consuming. So I am planning to seek out mentoring and feedback on my writing style in future, and perhaps investigate some of the books on (translation) style that colleagues have recommended. Meanwhile, on the topic of subject knowledge, one interim step will be to move towards making more use of reliable specialised glossaries, rather than trying to reinvent the wheel from scratch whenever I come across terms I’m unfamiliar with. It may also be that I need to start trying to focus the type of texts I work on more narrowly, so that it becomes more time-efficient to carry out more detailed research; at the moment, the work I accept from agency clients in particular covers a wider range of subject areas than I could possibly hope to individually specialise in.
My fourth and final aim was to collaborate more with translator colleagues. As a freelancer, a lot of the time I have quite an isolated perspective on my work. I come into contact with a lot of other translators’ work indirectly (on client websites, or in reference material) and am aware of a huge variety in quality: translations ranging from abysmally inept to effortlessly brilliant (both rather disheartening in their own way!), but rarely get direct feedback on my own work or get to observe how other translators work (as opposed to seeing the finished product).
So this year, I made a conscious effort to try to work with other translators on projects – and thankfully, my efforts paid off. I’ve now worked with five or six colleagues on a number of different projects, including a regular collaboration translating blog posts where we alternate between translating and checking each other’s work. As with the proofreading and revision training, it has been reassuring – I have had largely positive feedback – but at the same time I’ve learned a lot about different approaches and techniques. And above all, it’s been a timely reminder that, contra the binary between abysmal and brilliant translators mentioned above, most people will tend to be stronger or weaker in different areas (perhaps with more stylistic flair but less pedantic precision, or with a superb understanding of German but a less creative technique for rendering it into idiomatic or plausible English). The collaborative approach is a chance to learn from other people’s strengths and to produce better overall texts that pool different abilities.
So what next? What lies ahead in 2017? I will be starting the year with another, much longer collaborative project: a book-length academic thesis, which should be an interesting challenge. I’ll be continuing my proofreading training, and receiving some more translation mentoring (after finishing legal translation mentoring earlier this year, I’ve just started a mentoring scheme on academic translation and am hoping to receive some mentoring on creative/stylistic texts too). I also have two big conferences lined up: in February, I’m talking at the Elia Together conference in Berlin, and in May, the ITI Conference is coming to my new home city of Cardiff (five minutes away from my front door, in fact).
My main new aim, beyond the aims I’ve already set myself, will be to develop a steadier, more sustainable way of working in order to improve both my work–life balance and the quality of the work I’m able to produce. This will require a combination of better time management and a refocusing of my work processes: at the moment, I sometimes feel I’m spending far too long overall on projects yet less than I would like on some of the crucial stages.
But for now, I’m looking forward to a week in Ireland with my family for Christmas, and some time off over New Year. A very merry Christmas to anyone reading! I hope you also have some nice things planned.
Overall, it’s been reassuring to know that I’ve been broadly doing things along the right lines, but I’ve also learned a lot. One common theme across the proofreading and revision courses was the need to distinguish between different types of reading: reading for grammatical mistakes at a micro-level, vs. reading for sense at a macro-level. My previous approach has been slightly too focused on the former, not necessarily thinking enough about the meaning of sentences or how they relate to other contextual elements (for example: does the text correspond to the picture or graphic directly next to it? Does the sentence make coherent sense in the context of the paragraph, the PowerPoint slide or its position on the page? Does this list have as many items as the text says it does?). It’s a tendency that can be accentuated by CAT tools, which segment sentences into discrete units, and it’s something I will be more conscious of in future.
My second and third aims, by contrast, I didn’t find time to concentrate on specifically. These aims were to work on my copywriting skills (and the style of my English writing more generally) and on my subject knowledge of some areas I work in (particularly advertising and marketing). At the moment, I am more reliant than I would like to be on source texts to guide me in how to write certain types of target text: I lack an independent familiarity with appropriate terminology and style for such texts. I carry out research and reflect on my style in the course of my work itself, of course, but this can be rather ad hoc and time-consuming. So I am planning to seek out mentoring and feedback on my writing style in future, and perhaps investigate some of the books on (translation) style that colleagues have recommended. Meanwhile, on the topic of subject knowledge, one interim step will be to move towards making more use of reliable specialised glossaries, rather than trying to reinvent the wheel from scratch whenever I come across terms I’m unfamiliar with. It may also be that I need to start trying to focus the type of texts I work on more narrowly, so that it becomes more time-efficient to carry out more detailed research; at the moment, the work I accept from agency clients in particular covers a wider range of subject areas than I could possibly hope to individually specialise in.
My fourth and final aim was to collaborate more with translator colleagues. As a freelancer, a lot of the time I have quite an isolated perspective on my work. I come into contact with a lot of other translators’ work indirectly (on client websites, or in reference material) and am aware of a huge variety in quality: translations ranging from abysmally inept to effortlessly brilliant (both rather disheartening in their own way!), but rarely get direct feedback on my own work or get to observe how other translators work (as opposed to seeing the finished product).
So this year, I made a conscious effort to try to work with other translators on projects – and thankfully, my efforts paid off. I’ve now worked with five or six colleagues on a number of different projects, including a regular collaboration translating blog posts where we alternate between translating and checking each other’s work. As with the proofreading and revision training, it has been reassuring – I have had largely positive feedback – but at the same time I’ve learned a lot about different approaches and techniques. And above all, it’s been a timely reminder that, contra the binary between abysmal and brilliant translators mentioned above, most people will tend to be stronger or weaker in different areas (perhaps with more stylistic flair but less pedantic precision, or with a superb understanding of German but a less creative technique for rendering it into idiomatic or plausible English). The collaborative approach is a chance to learn from other people’s strengths and to produce better overall texts that pool different abilities.
So what next? What lies ahead in 2017? I will be starting the year with another, much longer collaborative project: a book-length academic thesis, which should be an interesting challenge. I’ll be continuing my proofreading training, and receiving some more translation mentoring (after finishing legal translation mentoring earlier this year, I’ve just started a mentoring scheme on academic translation and am hoping to receive some mentoring on creative/stylistic texts too). I also have two big conferences lined up: in February, I’m talking at the Elia Together conference in Berlin, and in May, the ITI Conference is coming to my new home city of Cardiff (five minutes away from my front door, in fact).
My main new aim, beyond the aims I’ve already set myself, will be to develop a steadier, more sustainable way of working in order to improve both my work–life balance and the quality of the work I’m able to produce. This will require a combination of better time management and a refocusing of my work processes: at the moment, I sometimes feel I’m spending far too long overall on projects yet less than I would like on some of the crucial stages.
But for now, I’m looking forward to a week in Ireland with my family for Christmas, and some time off over New Year. A very merry Christmas to anyone reading! I hope you also have some nice things planned.
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