Way back in late 2014, I applied for the ITI German Network’s mentoring scheme. Specifically, I was interested in learning more about legal translation. Although this isn’t an area I do very much work in, I do occasionally translate bits of legalese (contracts, legal declarations or notices, etc.) for clients/accounts that I primarily translate marketing or creative texts for. By contrast with the latter types of texts (which I specialise in, and which were the focus of my in-house translation training), when it comes to legal texts I didn’t feel entirely confident about what I was doing. At the same time, I nonetheless felt happier working on legal texts than on, say, technical or financial ones, and was wondering whether this might be a prudent area to develop a secondary specialisation in.
For the mentoring, I was paired with Alison Layland, who – aside from her creative work translating and writing novels – also specialises in contract translation. At intervals over the mentoring period, she sent me three short contract texts to translate, and she then returned my translations with comments and corrections.
One helpful aspect of the process was a certain degree of reassurance that I hadn’t, after all, been doing things completely and disastrously wrong in my previous occasional forays into translating legal texts. I took the opportunity to experiment with approaches I might not have risked in an actual translation for a client and to flag up queries on points I’d always been unsure about (for example, conventions of capitalisation in contracts or the insertion of modal verbs where German uses “ist”), and on many of the points Alison confirmed that my proposed solutions were OK. In a profession where I mainly work alone without external feedback, this sort of feedback is very helpful, and one of the big advantages of the mentoring process.
Of course, Alison also pointed out plenty of cases where I hadn’t picked the best solution, or suggested approaches I hadn’t considered. She suggested a host of standard turns of phrase or neater formulations (“hereinafter”, “notwithstanding”, “reference is made here to”, “binding on”), drew my attention to the controversy about the use of the § symbol in English and clarified some terms that I wasn’t using quite correctly (“mandates” where “instructs” would be better, for example). As an added bonus, due to the subject matter of the contracts, I also received helpful advice on translating descriptions of various commercial activities and job titles.
By mutual agreement, we extended the mentoring over a longer period of time than is normal since we both have very busy schedules. We eventually started in early 2015, and finished in April 2016. From my point of view, I wanted to prioritise my paid work, and didn’t want to unnecessarily rush the mentoring texts just for the sake of returning them in a timely fashion; and between us we also had (I believe) three house moves during this time! In retrospect, it probably would have been better to stick more closely to the advised timetable for the mentoring scheme, which is based on the normal turnaround for a paid job, as otherwise it is easy to let things slide out over quite a long period of time.
At the end of the mentoring scheme, I do feel much better equipped to deal with the occasional legal text that comes my way, though after my work has taken off more in my main areas it’s no longer a field I’m actively considering developing as a specialisation. The scheme has, however, made me interested in doing further mentoring in future even in areas I’m more familiar with, since it has made me appreciate how helpful direct feedback can be (and, compared with other forms of CPD, it’s also extremely good value for money in terms of the cost-benefit ratio).
One helpful aspect of the process was a certain degree of reassurance that I hadn’t, after all, been doing things completely and disastrously wrong in my previous occasional forays into translating legal texts. I took the opportunity to experiment with approaches I might not have risked in an actual translation for a client and to flag up queries on points I’d always been unsure about (for example, conventions of capitalisation in contracts or the insertion of modal verbs where German uses “ist”), and on many of the points Alison confirmed that my proposed solutions were OK. In a profession where I mainly work alone without external feedback, this sort of feedback is very helpful, and one of the big advantages of the mentoring process.
Of course, Alison also pointed out plenty of cases where I hadn’t picked the best solution, or suggested approaches I hadn’t considered. She suggested a host of standard turns of phrase or neater formulations (“hereinafter”, “notwithstanding”, “reference is made here to”, “binding on”), drew my attention to the controversy about the use of the § symbol in English and clarified some terms that I wasn’t using quite correctly (“mandates” where “instructs” would be better, for example). As an added bonus, due to the subject matter of the contracts, I also received helpful advice on translating descriptions of various commercial activities and job titles.
By mutual agreement, we extended the mentoring over a longer period of time than is normal since we both have very busy schedules. We eventually started in early 2015, and finished in April 2016. From my point of view, I wanted to prioritise my paid work, and didn’t want to unnecessarily rush the mentoring texts just for the sake of returning them in a timely fashion; and between us we also had (I believe) three house moves during this time! In retrospect, it probably would have been better to stick more closely to the advised timetable for the mentoring scheme, which is based on the normal turnaround for a paid job, as otherwise it is easy to let things slide out over quite a long period of time.
At the end of the mentoring scheme, I do feel much better equipped to deal with the occasional legal text that comes my way, though after my work has taken off more in my main areas it’s no longer a field I’m actively considering developing as a specialisation. The scheme has, however, made me interested in doing further mentoring in future even in areas I’m more familiar with, since it has made me appreciate how helpful direct feedback can be (and, compared with other forms of CPD, it’s also extremely good value for money in terms of the cost-benefit ratio).
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