Scotnet newsletter november 2013

Isabel Hurtado de Mendoza MITI Tel: 07762 300068 ITI Scottish Network Newsletter Editor Email: [email protected]

It’s autumn and I’m shedding

My mother always says that autumn is the

time of the year when you should cut your

hair. It’ll then grow stronger and healthier

for the rest of the year. Autumn shedding

might be a popular myth, but we would do

well to observe what happens to nature

this season and consider whether we, as

animals, follow similar patterns.

You might be happy to shed some

misconceptions about machine translation

and dig into the new niche of post-editing

(page 9) or perhaps even feel brave

enough to discover Twitter (page 16).

You might want to stick to ScotNet events

(page 3) like the last autumn leaves hang

on to their trees, but it might be time to

let your tree grow a few new leaves. Ute

did when she ventured to Bath for an ITI

Anglophoner Tag (page 14) and, if you’d

like to try out a national event, remember

you might be eligible for a grant (page

29).

Whatever you do, remember to take care

of yourself by taking some time off (page

23) and maybe even try new meditative

techniques (page 19).

Sit back, relax and enjoy our new issue!

Isabel ♦

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf

is a flower.

~ Albert Camus

[Photo: www.flickr.com/photos/31246066@N04/

5115966185]

Inside this issue

Dates for your diary 2

Culture in the Granite City 3

Focus on machine translation 9

Translating the (seemingly) untranslatable 11

An anglophoner Tag 14

Alison’s adventures in Twitterland 16

A favourite translation project 19

A Franco-Scottish affair 21

Working sustainably as a translator 23

Your committee under the spotlight 26

Member news 27

ScotNet grants 28

Looking forward to the next issue… 29

Your committee at a glance 30

November 2013

ITI SCOTNET NEWSLETTER

mailto:[email protected]

Page 2 ITI ScotNet Newsletter

Dates for your diary

ITI ScotNet AGM and Christmas lunch: Saturday

7th December from approx. 10:30, National

Piping Centre, 30-34 McPhater St., Glasgow.

For further information and to register (before

Monday 25th November!), please check out the

call notice here.

Freelancer meetup: Friday 22nd November from

19:30, The Antiquary pub, 72-78 St Stephen's

Street, Edinburgh. ScotNetter Sally McPhail is

hosting a freelancer meetup. See

www.meetup.com/freelance-friday-

edinburgh/events/104647862/.

The Scottish Society of the Chartered Institute

of Linguists (CIoL): Saturday 16th November

from 14:00, Holiday Inn Express, Picardy Place,

Edinburgh. This is the Scottish Society’s AGM

and, to follow, translator, interpreter and

lawyer Sue Leschen will be talking about

"Interpreting for French asylum seekers;

linguistic, legal and cultural considerations".

The meeting starts at 2 pm but everyone is

welcome to meet up for lunch beforehand at

12:30. For details, contact Anne Withers,

[email protected], tel. 0131 441 2519.

ITI Gernet copywriting workshop: Friday 22nd

November from 9:30 to 17:00, George Fox

Room, The Priory Rooms, 40 Bull Street,

Birmingham. Day workshop in Birmingham on

copywriting - not just aimed at translators

working with advertising texts. Presenter: Piers

Alder (wordbrain.com) who writes adverts,

brochures, customer letters for government

agencies and global corporations. He is also a

proponent of the Plain English Campaign. For

further information and to register, visit

https://iti-gernet-copywriting.eventbrite.co.uk.

ITI North East translator meetup: Every Saturday

afternoon from 15:00, Cafe de Vie, Newcastle.

This group of translators hosted by ScotNetter

Laura Ball holds weekly meetings and any

ScotNet member who happens to be in the area

is always welcome to join them. For more

information, follow @ITINERG on Twitter or

email Laura ([email protected]).

Business School for Translators: For this online

course, you can choose daytime or evening

sessions. The daytime course (10:00 start)

starts on Thursday 30th January 2014 and the

evening one begins on Tuesday 25th March

2014 (18:00 start). You can find more

information about this 5-week long eCPD

webinar on practical business knowledge and

skills here.

Creating a Client Satisfaction Survey for Your

Translation Business: Online eCPD webinar,

Thursday 5th December from 11:30. Back in

2011, Michael Farrell became perhaps the first

professional freelance translator in history to

send out a satisfaction questionnaire. He talks

about his experience in this online webinar.

For more events, remember to visit www.iti.org.uk, where you will find the

International Calendar of Events (ICE), or our own website www.itiscotland.org.uk/diary.

And, if you would like to advertise your own

event, please get in touch with us: [email protected]

http://www.itiscotland.org.uk/diary/View/55/Scotnet-AGM-%26-Christmas-Lunch-2013.html

http://www.meetup.com/freelance-friday-edinburgh/events/104647862/

http://www.meetup.com/freelance-friday-edinburgh/events/104647862/

https://iti-gernet-copywriting.eventbrite.co.uk/


http://www.ecpdwebinars.co.uk/page_2799144.html?utm_source=hootsuite&utm_campaign=hootsuite

http://ecpdwebinars.co.uk/events_114820.html

http://www.iti.org.uk/

http://www.itiscotland.org.uk/diary


ITI ScotNet Newsletter Page 3

Culture in the Granite City

ITI ScotNet’s 2013 Summer Workshop, which was held on 17th June at the Caledonian

Hotel in Aberdeen, proved to be yet another resounding success. In the following pages,

grantees Natalie Tucker, Sabine Citron, Barbara Divers, Pilar Carstairs and Maria Pelletta

report on this event craftily organised by Deputy MemSec Nathalie Chalmers.

A nosey Natalie reports on a cheerful Friday

evening

Before attending only my second ScotNet

workshop, I realise that writing a report

about Friday evening justifies approaching

people, asking questions and taking

photographs without being accused of

harassment. With this positive mindset, I am

confident this will be a fun, entertaining

evening.

Entering the stylish Caledonian Hotel, I hear

chatter and laughter from the bar and

wonder “Could these few really loud folk be

ScotNetters?”. After checking-in and

returning to the bar I quickly find out that

yes, indeed they are! No sooner have I

purchased a drink and sat down do I start

socialising (not to be nosey, but as report

research). Thankfully, everyone I meet is very

friendly and welcoming – characteristics I see

in all I encounter. Throughout the evening I

realise the obvious, i.e. as linguists we love

to communicate, and as translators we make

the most of being away from our desks and

mixing with people instead of dictionaries

and PCs!

Topics covered throughout the evening range

from how we came to the industry, Scottish

weather, countries to visit, health issues, ITI

qualifications, CAT tools and ProZ, to what

translation and interpreting jobs would be

available if Scotland were to go independent.

On a personal note, the clarification that I am

not the French Nathalie with an ‘h’ “who

sends lots of emails”, but the Scottish Natalie

with no ‘h’ who rarely sends emails, nor

Natalia who isn’t here this weekend, keeps

me busy throughout the evening. I meet

Nathalie with an ‘h’ and we have a laugh

about this.

You are morally obliged to eat haggis when in Scotland.

In a pedestrian convoy, we walk to the Stage

Door restaurant five minutes from the hotel.

We are spread around 3 tables and the vocal

noise gets louder as we are having a good

time and looking forward to our meal. As one

non-Brit explains, you are “morally obliged

to eat haggis when in Scotland!”, a good

enough reason for me (as a Scot) to choose

this starter. Seeing the number of empty

plates cleared after starters and main courses

have been devoured confirms that Nathalie

(the one with an ‘h’ who sends lots of


emails), made an excellent choice when

recommending this location!

An erstwhile fellow Salford student suggests

we approach our lecturer/tutor from years

gone by, having identified Jean-Pierre

Mailhac at the other end of our table. As our

workshop presenter tomorrow, we are

relieved to discover that he has not changed

much at all, albeit a slightly greyer beard.

After explaining the future of foreign

languages in schools (“they don’t know any

grammar at all!”), he asks whether he had

incorporated Adrian Mole, aged 13 and 3/4

into my course. I reply in the affirmative and

wonder how much may be included in

tomorrow’s workshop....

Several ScotNetters are still in the restaurant

when I leave at 11:15, deciding that the

wonderful atmosphere throughout the

evening paves the way for an enjoyable

workshop tomorrow.

JPM was reluctant to interrupt... during the session!

Sabine enjoyed a morning of theory…

Many of us had heard good things about

Jean-Pierre Mailhac’s (JPM’s) workshops, and

his Aberdeen session was therefore very well

(perhaps too well) attended. ScotNetters were

not disappointed. Jean-Pierre is a seasoned

lecturer. The strength of his presentations

lies in the fact that he is an academic and

made us think about the theory of

translation, which is after all what a good

workshop should be about: we had taken

time out to think about what we do. But JPM’s

approach is not about airy-fairy abstractions:

it is also very much grounded in the reality of

translation as an applied task, our bread-

and-butter activity.

Cultural references (CRs) sit on a scale from

transparent to problematic for the end user

and for the translator. To help resolve the

difficulties posed by tricky cultural

mismatches, JPM suggests a range of options

(or ‘procedures’), of factors (or ‘parameters’)

and of strategies.

At text level, procedures fall into two

categories: transplantation (everything is

transposed into the cultural realities of the

target reader) and exoticism (the source

culture is preserved: this can be done with

minimum or maximum translator presence,

or in a more or less invisible manner).

At CR level, JPM distinguishes 14 different

procedures and 21 parameters. Strategies

will combine procedures and parameters to

come up with the best possible solutions. I

felt the parameters were useful but not

always easy to distinguish clearly or indeed

to distinguish from procedures, but they are

all good pointers for us to refer back to. Here

is a checklist of the 14 procedures (with

some examples, mainly French):


1. Cultural borrowing – ‘Facebook’ in roman

letters in a Russian text

2. Recognised equivalent – Skyfall for the

French version of the film

3. Literal translation (calque) – ‘Pays d’espoir

and de gloire’ for the Elgar song

4. Definition – ‘Mills and Boon books’

rendered as ‘romans d’amour’

5. Equivalences – ‘National Insurance

number’ explained as ‘l’équivalent du

numéro de Sécurité sociale’

6. Cultural substitutions (equivalent from SL

culture) – to symbolise a powerful American

woman, replace Diane Sawyer (not well

known abroad) with Hillary Clinton

7. Cultural substitutions (equivalent from TL

culture) – ‘Bovril’ becomes ‘Viandox’

8. Cultural substitutions (equivalent from 3rd

culture) – the boxer Henry Cooper becomes

Muhammad Ali

9. Lexical creation – ‘conkering’ rendered as

‘casse-marrons’

10. Deletion – ‘terraced house’ avoided

where it adds nothing to the French text

11. Compensation – adding info somewhere

else in the sentence to make up for deletion

12. Translator’s note – gloss for ‘Blue Peter’

13. Combination of procedures – what it says

on the tin

14. Adapting accompanying visual or graphic

material – adapting images when preparing

the foreign version of a computer game

I hope that people who could not attend will

find this a useful toolkit, or that it will whet

their appetite to attend one of JPM’s

workshops. While we had some issues with

time-keeping, acoustics and the supply of

oxygen, and the talk was therefore less

interactive than it could have been, we all

came away feeling very stimulated and (even)

better translators for it.

…and Barbara an afternoon of Britishness…

After the thought-provoking morning

seminar, full of tips and examples, we were

all keen to sink our teeth into some practical

activities. First, however, we sank them into

some lunch (soup & sandwiches, consumed

in varying degrees of comfort). It was a lively

interval and an opportunity to do some

networking, particularly for those of us who

We all came away feeling very stimulated and (even) better

translators for it.


had missed the previous night’s dinner and

were going to miss the ceilidh. There was

even time for a stroll in the nearby gardens!

The workshop resumed punctually, but the

morning lecture spilled into the afternoon to

conclude the topic about strategies, and was

followed by some time for questions and

comments. There were about 50 people

present, (and all of us professionals, as

Mailhac pointed out with some surprise);

many of us contributed, but hardly anybody

used the available microphone, with

consequent hearing problems between front

and back rows. Nonetheless, contributions

went on for some time, and it was nearly

16:00 when we finally started looking at the

activities. Someone later wondered whether

our speaker’s reluctance to interrupt us had

been a form of “respect” towards

professionals... did he maybe feel that we

needed less practice and more of an

opportunity to air our views?

The first passage we looked at was a two-

liner taken from A Book of England, which

had us toiling for a good half-hour. The

context being cheap seaside holidays in the

60s, it read:

So the visitors must hunt around the cafés

for their dinners and suppers, crowding and

queuing for the “cuppa”, the baked beans,

and the fish and chips.

Each underlined element represented a

cultural challenge, tackled in different ways

by the separate groups that had naturally

formed. Some wanted to overcome all

culinary references (with no equivalents in

their own language) by applying a complete

cultural substitution to just give the idea of a

cheap holiday by the sea; others argued that,

this being A Book of England, it had to retain

its “Britishness”, so they either translated

each item descriptively (with mostly

unconvincing results) or left the original

English terms, to give the reader the

“pleasure of discovery”. To suggest the idea

of institution, French translators were

encouraged to create neologisms using

hyphens (“poisson-frites” and “haricot-

tomates”); others added the word

“traditional”. The “cuppa”, however, was the

hardest to crack, having to simultaneously

convey colloquialism, old-slippers-type

comfort and cultural icon...

A nice cuppa!

The second (and last) piece we looked at was

a promotional video for Liverpool, nominated

European Capital of Culture in 2008, the

highlight of which was discovering that even

the Beatles cannot be taken for granted as

shared information, when translating for

certain countries.

In short, it was a splendidly stimulating

event, for which I thank our Adorable

Convenor Pierre (gentle, yet firm when

corralling us into order), Norma, who made

the grants available, Ute, Fiona and especially

Nathalie, who guarded my gluten-free food

with commendable zeal, and always with a

smile!


…but Pilar didn’t enjoy the dancing so much!

To follow tradition, Saturday ended with a

dinner and ceilidh at the Caledonian Hotel.

The three course menu was very good in my

opinion, though someone in my table was

disappointed with the choice of puddings as

it did not include chocolate or fresh fruit.

Even though some people left in the

afternoon, there was a good turnout.

No chocolate dessert? Sacrilege!

The band ‘Ceilidh Mor’ had five members:

Nicola on the fiddle, Neil on the keyboard,

Bryan on bass guitar, Aly on drums and Ian

was the sound engineer. Apparently it used

to be a male-only band until the fiddler

joined with some female LOUD energy. Their

music was a mixture of Scottish and

Canadian Barn dance tunes, from the ‘Gay

Gordons’ to ‘Take me Down to Tulsa’. As

soon as the music started, people got up to

dance. The dance floor proved to be too

small for the number of keen Scotnet

dancers, though it didn’t deter them from

joining in. Feedback about the band in the

e-forum was generally very good, with the

exception of someone who commented: ‘We

left after the meal, the music (especially the

strident fiddle) was far too loud to come

anywhere near it!’ However, another

contributor commented: ‘The ceilidh band

Ceilidh Mor deserves a mention for their

virtuosity, choice of dances and easy to

follow instructions.’ She then added: ‘After

the sound check the noise level was down –

but of course still loud enough to drown out

the gaggle of translators’. Other comments

included: ‘My other half particularly enjoyed

the ceilidh’ and ‘brilliant ceilidh and band’.

I have to admit that after years of living in

Scotland, I still haven’t cracked Scottish

dancing and find the moves highly confusing.

I only joined in for one dance and everybody

on the floor was very helpful guiding me

through the moves. Jean-Pierre couldn’t

dance because of elbow tendinitis, though he

did join in at the end for “Auld Land Syne”.

Jean-Pierre took an active part in the

weekend event. Not only did he deliver an

excellent workshop, but he attended all the

activities. I sat next to Jean-Pierre for dinner

and enjoyed talking to him. I was very

impressed with his knowledge of music,

especially from Latin America.

The ceilidh ended at midnight and once

again the ScotNet members lived up to their

reputation for throwing a good ceilidh. I will

definitely go to the Summer Workshop next

year, wherever it is.

ScotNet members lived up to their

reputation for throwing a good ceilidh.


Maria rounds the report off… poetically

On Sunday morning, we woke up to yet

another sunny day. We took our cardigans

with us, still not quite wanting to believe that

we were so fortunate again! We said goodbye

to those who were heading back home; it was

Father’s Day, after all, and there were other

celebrations waiting. We counted 22 heads

and set off on our two-hour city tour.

I must say that what I had seen of the city so

far did not make me feel too enthusiastic

about seeing the rest. A granite city, grey

and hard as the stone that was used to build

it, where churches had turned into night

clubs and where pigeons were replaced by

seagulls… what was there to see? Our lovely

guide proved me wrong. He showed us some

hidden treasures, almost just round the

corner from the hotel where the event had

been held, and told us some funny facts and

stories, which I assume were funny because

everybody laughed. I would have been really

grateful if Jonathan Downie had joined us as

an interpreter!

He dropped us

by the sea. A

deep blue sea,

shimmering in

the sunlight, a

long sandy

beach and a

horizon really, really far away. He said

dolphins hang around boats in the North Sea,

and sure enough, there they were, greeting

us happily. Can one get used to seeing

dolphins? We walked away, wandering

through the cobbled narrow streets of the

Footdee district and, almost forgetting

people actually live there, we took millions of

photos in awe of that hidden gem.

A hidden gem in the Granite City.

Back on the bus, and several jokes later

(which I didn’t get), we stopped to wonder in

King’s College’s gardens, where apparently a

Bishop was “planted” in 1994! A small error

on the plate by the monument of Bishop

Mortlach. Our lovely guide set the date in

1494, which makes more sense. Then came

the oldest bridge in the UK, beautiful lush

green parks by the river Dee with historical

bridges crossing it and a lonely herring

standing still by the shore, the biggest

granite quarry (now full of rain water and

soon to be drained to create a nature

reserve). As always when you are having fun,

time just flew. Soon we were hugging at the

Thistle’s doors, saying our goodbyes to new

and old friends and to Aberdeen: the granite

city, the third most expensive city in the UK,

the place where there are more millionaires

than anywhere else in the UK, and the place

where we felt like one of them, due to the

wealth of good humour, friendship and

generosity of ScotNetters and, of course, of

Jean–Pierre Mailhac, who felt like joining our

network too! ♦


Focus on machine translation

Here, Marion Greenway reports on an SDL Forum held on 23rd May in Glasgow. The event

was certainly thought-provoking, and she soon had the chance to put to test everything

she had heard.

On 23 May 2013, a group of ScotNetters

attended the SDL Forum at the Radisson Blu

Hotel in Glasgow. The event began with

registration and welcome coffee (including an

excellent selection of flapjacks) and a chance

to meet the SDL representatives who would

present the topics.

The speakers were David Marshall, Sales

Manager EMEA, whose topic was ‘Assessing

the Need for Translation’, followed by

Anthony Perez, Sales Executive, on ‘The

Post-Editing Revolution’. After a coffee break

and a catch-up with fellow ScotNetters and

other translators, Lydia Simplicio, Business

Consultant, gave an overview of SDL Trados

Studio 2011, followed by a Q&A session.

In his introduction, David Marshall discussed

global pressures on translation caused partly

by the explosion in digital content and

customer expectations that online and social

interactions occur in their native language.

SDL’s solution to this is SDL BeGlobal, a

machine translation solution which

apparently meets the need for reduced

production costs and faster throughput that

traditional approaches cannot meet. He

asked if any of us had dabbled in post-

editing machine translation and a few people

admitted they had. One translator

controversially added that she worked as a

team of editors on a large, long-term

documentation project and found that

machine-translated texts contained fewer

errors than the contributions they received

from human translators, and she found them

much easier to edit.

Anthony Perez’s talk on ‘The Post-Editing

Revolution’ gave me a new perspective on

machine translation. We learned that approx.

75% of all web users use free machine

translation tools and 54% of non-

anglophones use machine translation when

visiting English language web sites. SDL

reckons machine translation is here to stay

and worth investing in.

Mr Perez explained that some documents are

more suitable for machine translation, such

as user forums/reviews, wikis, blogs, text

messages and e-mail, while other texts such

as marketing material, user guides, legal

documents and any text that requires heavy

creative content, require human translation.

He also emphasised that machine translation

is not a review stage, but replaces the

translation stage. SDL estimates that post-

editing plus review is 30% faster on average

than human translation, although this

depends on the subject, language, skill of the

editor etc.

He admitted that an end-user would notice a

difference in style between a human

SDL estimates that post-editing plus review is 30% faster on average than

human translation.


translation and post-editing plus machine

translation, but this should not affect quality

if the text is properly edited. The question of

consistency of style should not be any

different with post-editing of machine

translation than with human translation.

Practice in post-editing is required to achieve

proficiency and apparently it gets faster and

easier with time, like everything else. Mr

Perez concluded that machine translation is

still only translation. It will not replace

human translation, but is a useful tool just

like other CAT tools, which can be used to

increase productivity.

Finally, Lydia Simplicio gave us an

informative overview of SDL Trados Studio

2011 with lots of tips and tricks for users

and, of course, a hard sell to upgrade for

those of us still using Trados 2007 and

Studio 2009. She suggested we visit

http://ideas.sdl.com, a forum where

customers can propose new functions and

product features they would like to see in

SDL software.

[Photo: www.flickr.com/photos/22558336@N06/3239795544]

For Marion, translation beats post-editing.

Since attending the forum, I have done my

first piece of post-editing machine

translation for a regular client of mine. It was

IT documentation for a Danish airport and

was very suitable for machine translation,

being straightforward and concise, without

requiring much creative input. I found that

post-editing requires a different focus than

proof-reading another translator’s work.

Greater attention must be paid to ensure the

final result is free of errors. For example,

people’s names are sometimes ‘translated’ in

the machine translation output, the syntax is

often incorrect, extra words are sometimes

added or words can be missed out. Another

factor is the lack of consistency of

terminology in the machine-translated

material; it is necessary to check very

carefully that the correct terms have been

used throughout the text.

Overall, I found post-editing to be

significantly faster than translating the text

myself, but more frustrating. Due to the

greater number of errors, more time is

required to post-edit a machine-translated

text than to revise a human translation. I also

experienced less job satisfaction from post-

editing as I really enjoy the process of

translation and found post-editing to be

quite tedious in comparison. The challenges

that translation presents, the research into

various topics and the satisfaction of

producing a good text are what makes it

enjoyable. This is lacking in the process of

post-editing and I am not sure that the time

it saves overall makes up for this.

All in all, the SDL Forum was a well organised

event and an excellent chance to hear a

different perspective on translation and get

some free software training, as well as to

meet other translators and industry

professionals. ♦

http://ideas.sdl.com/


Translating the (seemingly) untranslatable

Just a couple of days later, another translation event took place in Edinburgh. Anne

Withers reports on a unique event jointly organised by the ITI Russian Network, the

Scottish Society of the CIoL and the Scotland-Russia Forum.

On Saturday 25th May the Scotland-Russia

Forum, Chartered Institute of Linguists

(Scottish Society) and ITI Russian Network

organised a joint event at the Quaker

Meeting House in Edinburgh. The speaker

was Natalie Shahova, an English to Russian

translator and translation agency manager

based in Moscow. Her talk focused mainly on

three major works which she has been

involved in translating – Bill Gates’ Business

@ the speed of thought, Linus Torvalds’ Just

for fun and Lynne Truss’ Eats, Shoots &

Leaves.

Natalie began by giving some background to

these major projects, describing the book

translation business in Russia in Soviet times.

The emphasis then was on quality and large

print runs. Translators were highly qualified

and projects involved editors and

proofreaders. However, only those texts

deemed ‘useful’ for the Soviet population

were selected for translation and publication.

One example cited was Gone with the Wind, a

hugely popular novel published in the 1930s,

which had to wait until the 1980s before

appearing in Russian because of its positive

portrayal of slavery. So, few foreign authors

were published in Russian but the print runs

were large and the quality of paper, print,

etc. high. The same could be said of the

quality of the translations. Translators

commanded quite high fees and formed an

elite group and those who also worked as

interpreters were allowed to travel abroad,

unlike most people in the Soviet Union.

Following ‘perestroika’, as we non-Russians

like to call the shift from Communism, and

the collapse of the Soviet Union, large

numbers went into the translating business,

translating everything, often without regard

for copyright. Natalie referred to all these

‘amateurs’, producing poorly laid-out work

on terrible quality paper and with lots of

typographical errors – even in the titles! Few

readers were prepared to buy more

expensive, challenging books.

Natalie traced the history of her involvement

with Microsoft, which began when the

company opened its Moscow office in 1993.

Microsoft asked EnRus to develop an IT

glossary, and later to check the terminology

in the translation of Bill Gates’ second book,

Business @ The Speed of Thought which had

been produced by a publishing house’s usual

literary translators. Natalie noticed a number

of translation howlers, for example:

In Soviet times, translators commanded quite high fees and

formed an elite group.


Natalie managed to persuade the publisher

that the whole job needed to be done from

scratch and worked at top speed with a team

of another three translators to avoid

disrupting the publication schedule.

However, Natalie did not have a great deal of

say in the layout or the appearance of the

cover and title page and her access to the

author himself was nil. Since then, her

agency has gradually been squeezed out of

the tendering process in Russia, as its fees

are considered too high. Microsoft’s Moscow

office, for example, now goes elsewhere and

Natalie’s agency only does occasional work

for them.

Her next experience of translating an

international bestseller was quite different.

With her background in computer science

(she formerly taught at the Moscow State

Institute of Radiotechnics, Electronics and

Automation), she was interested in

translating the book Just for fun by software

engineer and creator of Linux, Linus

Torvalds. Natalie bought the Russian

copyright and translation rights and arranged

publication through the same publisher

involved with Bill Gates’ book. This gave her

access to a wide distribution network. This

time she had direct contact with the author

and embarked on a whole series of e-mail

exchanges with him, later interviewing him in

person for a magazine. She highlighted a few

examples of the queries she raised with

Torvalds (all of the ones she chose to

highlight having nothing to do with technical

terminology and everything to do with US

slang or everyday language):

Natalie recommended the book as being a

good read and not just ‘for computer geeks’.

For example, it dealt with his life in Finland

and in the USA, his meeting with Steve Jobs,

etc. She also directed listeners to an

interview she conducted with Torvalds on the

topic of minorities and languages and other

issues of interest

(www.enrus.ru/en/publications/?6).

The third translation project discussed by

Natalie (and the one she said UK audiences

were most interested in) was very different

again: Lynne Truss’ Eats, Shoots & Leaves.

This project in 2006 was prompted both by

her interest in the book and what it revealed

about the English language as well as the

almost insurmountable challenge of

translating it. Again she bought the copyright

but this time no publisher was interested in

taking it on, so she paid for the printing and

design herself (and is still paying for it as

there are still plenty of unsold copies…).

Natalie stressed that she took on this

translation for the fun of it and not the

money. Fortunately, she did find translating

it fun right from the title, Eats, Shoots &

Leaves, which she rendered as Казнить

нельзя помиловать. This is a Russian

sentence where the position of the comma is

crucial: it can either mean ‘You must

execute, not pardon’ or ‘You must pardon,

http://www.enrus.ru/en/publications/?6


not execute’. However, with the exception of

the title, Natalie did not look for Russian

examples of the same problems that exist in

English – after all, some features of English

punctuation, such as apostrophes, do not

even exist in Russian. While Truss’ narrative

text is translated into Russian, her examples

are kept in English, with footnotes and

brackets used to provide explanations, literal

renderings into Russian and background

cultural information.

This time, the author had a secretary who

acted as go-between and again Natalie

shared some of the problems she had with

the more unfathomable cultural references

she came across in the text:

The critical response to Natalie’s translation

varied widely from unequivocal praise such

as:

‘This is one of the rare English books that

should probably be read in translation

(thanks to the translator, Natalie Shahova)

even if you have the original available: the

translation explains many subtleties of how

phrases are structured and rules applied

which you could miss if you aren’t a native

[English] speaker or linguist’ (online journal

diary.ru), to crushing dismissal such as: ‘It

doesn’t make sense to translate some books.

Great efforts and lots of highly qualified

labour were wasted’ (online forum

bakanov.org). The book was shortlisted for

the Unicorn and Lion award, co-sponsored

by the British Council, for best Russian

translation of British literature.

Where does Natalie go from here? What other

(seemingly) untranslatable works are in the

pipeline? She did think about translating the

next of Lynne Truss’ books but it did not

have such appeal. So we’ll just have to keep

an eye on her website (www.EnRus.ru) to find

out what this distinguished translator is

doing for fun. ♦

Natalie’s translation of Eats, Shoots & Leaves was shortlisted for the Unicorn and Lion award, co-sponsored by the

British Council, for best Russian translation of British literature.

http://www.enrus.ru/


An anglophoner Tag

Between 5th and 7th July, our Membership Secretary, Ute Penny, tried her luck at an ITI

event south of the border and, by the looks of it, she wasn’t attacked by the English…

quite the opposite!

641 kilometres south, in Mediterranean heat,

I started my second ever (!) ITI event (time

and money usually conspire against me),

being greeted at Bath station by ITI member

Regina Buechner-Brown, who, with her lovely

family, was going to be my kind and fun

hostess for the weekend.

The weekend started off with fruit juices and

soft drinks.

The weekend, organised by the friendly and

unflappable Cherry Shelton-Mills, started off

with an informal dinner on Friday night at the

wonderfully casual Jika-Jika café, followed by

a torchlight tour of the Roman Baths and

crowned by a visit to The Raven of Bath. This

free house had been recommended as a must

by Cherry to the four intrepid people who

still weren’t ready for their beds. Two expats

and two visitors to these shores shared a

rather nice end of our first day.

On Saturday morning, in the Bath Royal

Literary and Scientific Institution not far from

the centre of town, we settled down to the

first talk of the day by Laura Mountford, M.A.

Archaeology, Roman Baths Museum

Assistant: “Panacea – baths, bathing and

disease in the Roman world”. We were taken

on a fascinating journey through the history

of the bath house, which started off in the 1st

century AD as a place of vice, slowly

developed into a place of well-being for rich

and poor, and then into the panacea of the

title. Amongst many slides was a memorable

one of clay votives of healed body parts left

in a shrine. After a long period of neglect –

and pilfering of stone to build Bath Abbey –

the baths were once again used for their

original purpose by the Georgians. This time

however bathers entered the water fully

clothed!

Next, alternative

therapist Natasha

Wilson talked

about A New

Paradigm: Spas

and

Complementary

Therapies. A Way

to Well-being,

Health, and

Healing in Britain

and

Internationally. We learnt how historically

water has been associated with healing and

holiness and many proverbs and sayings still

bear testimony to this. After a period of

“taking the waters” in fashionable spas like


Bath, Harrogate and Leamington Spa, water

degraded to a utility in the UK in the 20th

century, far removed from nature, with a

slow re-emergence of old values in the 21st

century. Of the tens of thousands of wells in

the UK, which were holy pagan places and

later associated with saints, there are

however only a few now known or even

visible or accessible. An ensuing discussion

highlighted how, especially in Germany, the

spa culture had never really gone away, and

is indeed still a big part of German life.

After a delicious buffet lunch and much

standing near open windows, we were

divided into mixed German and English

groups, each working on a mixture of texts

about water. This proved to be a great

preparation for ScotNet’s summer workshop

in Aberdeen on “Translating Cultural

References”. A German text that had the

German natives in stitches in my group was a

guideline for parents on how to encourage

children to drink lots of water. If the title had

been translated literally, English readers

would have assumed the intention was to

raise young drinkers (of alcohol)!

Do the English not drink wine or

what??

After a lovely walk through Bath and its parks

with some of my hosts, our evening treat was

drinks and dinner in the beautifully relaxed

atmosphere of the Bathwick Boatman,

romantically situated on the banks of the

River Avon. Interesting conversations and

much laughter rang out late into the night,

and ensured that those of us who were going

on the canal boat ride on Sunday morning

would not be strangers.

On Sunday morning, after a short walk along

the canal, past residential narrowboats and

smaller, more modern vessels we reached the

elegant Lady Lena, “the oldest electric river

launch in existence” (first licensed in 1891).

Over the next two or so hours we enjoyed the

shade of the canvas canopy – as well as one

of two lace parasols that were handed

around! – the pleasant canal landscape, and

glasses of champagne!

Aaaahhh… at long last!

Those who didn’t have to rush away finished

an informative and enjoyable weekend off

with lunch at the canal-side pub The George.

The rest of us got whisked away in cars and

taxis to reach our respective modes of

transport home. ♦


Alison’s adventures in Twitterland

Theory? Practice? Poetry? What exactly is this piece that Alison Hughes wrote about

Twitter? Impossible to define! Read, enjoy and feel inspired!

They said I should use Twitter

I said it’s not for me

What about a blog then?

But I’d like some time left free…

Where would I find inspiration

to capture my potential readers?

Where would I find the time

to read tweets from other Tweeters?

And then I thought “why not?”

It seems Web 2’s really hot

If I don’t air what’s on my mind

I might just get left behind…

And so I took the plunge…

Through the twittersphere…

I love Twitter… and I can hear some of you

groan already.

“It’s information overload” (I know).

“I don’t have time” (yes, it can be time-

consuming).

“I don’t want to hear what a butcher in

Lincolnshire is tweeting about” (neither do I).

So why do I tweet?

First and foremost to get a feel for what

other translators are doing and secondly to

get a feel for what’s happening in the world –

and I don’t mean just the world of languages

and translation (shock horror!). I don’t tweet

to get my website up the SEO rankings or to

attract new customers (further shock

horror!!) because that would take time that I

simply don’t have.

I don’t actively search for followers although

I have a steady stream of people who follow

me. I don’t automatically follow people back

(I’m not sure how that stands in terms of

Twitter etiquette), but I am quite frankly not

interested in what the butcher in Lincolnshire

has to say, even although he saw me as a

potential customer after my tweet about

buying Tamworth pork sausages at the

farmers’ market. And I don’t follow

celebrities because most of them are totally

uninteresting on Twitter, even the comedians

I find very funny on the TV.

So what’s the point?

You must still be asking yourself this same

question. If I’m not looking for customers,

what’s the point? Well what I AM doing is

building a profile of myself as a person (first

and foremost) and as a translator. I love food

and cooking (and the odd glass of wine), car

boot sales and vintage shops, the theatre,

French films, reading, women’s magazines

(French and British), yoga… I could go on. I

love chatting and I love chatting on Twitter to

other translators. I almost feel I know these

translators… I know where they live, what

they like doing, what other skills they have

(many are musicians/sing in choirs), a little

about their families (if they choose to tell

us)… So if I am approached to do a

translation in a subject area I can’t handle, I

may have a Twitter follower who works in, or


knows something about, that area.

Conversely, by building my own “informal”

profile, I hope the other translators will do

the same. Indeed, I have already had work on

this basis.

I must stress that my Twitter profile is

essentially formal and business-orientated (I

save my mad stories for my personal

Facebook page). I retweet tweets from fellow

translators but also authors, French

companies and museums/galleries, yoga

contacts, coeliac organisations and gluten-

free food companies, etc. but I have one

golden rule – if there’s a link, I don’t retweet

unless I have read the information it

contains. This is where the time factor comes

in. If you tried to read everything your

followers posted on Twitter you would have

no time to work and would possibly struggle

to find time to sleep too. I am selective. I

don’t read many language-related tweets

because I specialise in creative translations

and it’s more useful for me to know what

beauty companies, fashion magazines,

authors, museums and galleries are saying

and doing. I often “unfollow” people who put

out strings of tweets or “dailies” because I

simply find them overwhelming. Some days I

don’t even tweet or retweet but I do read my

timeline (because I’m nosey and don’t want

to miss anything).

Although this is not intended as an article on

how to use Twitter, I have attended two

social media workshops and did pick up a

few tips I’d like to pass on:

Lists

You can create a list of people in a certain

category (translators and interpreters, for

example) and just look at the tweets from the

people on your list if you are short of time.

To create a list (on Twitter.com) simply go to

Me and click on Lists (in menu in left-hand

column above the photos) then Create list

(on the right), give it a name, enter a

description, decide whether it will be public

or private and then click on Save List. You’ll

then get a search box to find people you

want to add. Simply follow the instructions.

When you want to view your list, just go back

to the Lists link on your profile (Me) and

select the list or you can click on the little

wheel between the search box and

“compose” icon and select Lists.

[Photo: www.flickr.com/photos/37996583025@N01/2821633690]

Searches

You can search for tweets which contain

certain keywords. Simply enter the word in

the search box on the home page and click

return. You can save that keyword as a

“search” by clicking the little wheel in the

right hand corner and selecting “save

search”. Every time you click on the search

box in future a list of your saved searches

will appear. Simply click on one of them to


reveal all the tweets containing the particular

search terms.

Suppose you have saved “French Translation”

as a search, some of the tweets appearing

may be worth retweeting (keeps you active

on Twitter with minimum effort) or you may

want to follow the author of one of the

tweets who could be a potential client. And,

if they are not a potential client but retweet

one of your tweets, one of their followers

could be a potential client and, if they aren’t

but retweet… Can you see the power of

Twitter now?

Hashtags

This is where Twitter is unique and really

comes into its own. The 2013 ITI Conference

used the hashtag #iticonf13 and if you enter

that into the search box you will find all the

tweets relating to the conference, assuming

people remembered to use the hashtag. Plus,

our ScotNet newsletter editor Isabel Hurtado

de Mendoza gave a really useful session at

the conference entitled “The quest for the

perfect workflow – a collaborative approach”.

I tweeted some tips from the session using

her suggested hashtag #myperfectTW, and

many, many other translators joined in and

added their tips. Why not take a look?

Finally, I love Twitter for two more reasons:

Instantaneity

1) I have recently returned to Trados after

several years and by simply tweeting a query

I have twice had my queried answered very

quickly from other Trados users AND from

people from SDL.

2) While planning a city break in Berlin I

asked for recommendations of a central

district to stay in. Within 15 minutes I had at

least five suggestions and by the end of the

day I also had suggestions of museums to

visit, places to see…

Sanity

Translation can be a lonely job and there is a

fair amount of banter between translator

tweeters which you can either ignore if you’re

busy or join in if you’re bored, need a

distraction, need inspiration (brainstorming

sessions are not uncommon) or need advice.

Plus, when you attend ITI workshops and

events the chances are you’ll ‘know’ some of

the attendees already. It was lovely to meet

with some of my Twitter ‘friends’ who

attended the ITI conference in May.

Have I convinced you yet? Are you tempted?

With discipline and very little effort you really

can make Twitter work for you, even if this

simply means you no longer need to talk to

yourself. I generally limit my use to 20

minutes maximum three times a day, don’t

spend any time looking for followers and join

in the odd ‘afternoon banter’ if I need a

distraction. I do, however, have one Twitter

vice – I can’t stop myself opening up a link to

a photo even when I know there’s a good

chance it will be a translator’s cat sitting on a

keyboard. I simply had no idea how many

translators have cats… ♦

To get started, check out Pierre’s list of ScotNet tweeterers:

https://twitter.com/ArcTranslations/lists/iti-scottish-network




A favourite translation project

In a busy freelance career, translation jobs tend to come and go and very few leave a

lasting impression. This is the story of one project that was not only hugely enjoyable but

also had unexpected personal and professional benefits for Sue Anderson.

The translation

A UK publisher I had worked for before in the

field of management consultancy emailed

with a new and slightly unusual request.

Would I like to translate a Dutch self-help

book on ‘mindfulness’ – a meditative

technique derived from Buddhism – and its

use in easing the stress of our busy modern

lives?

The idea was appealing.

As a long-term

practitioner of yoga, I

was already familiar with

the subject-matter.

Internet research yielded

a glimpse inside the Dutch book and some

favourable online reviews. Previous

experience with the publisher made it easy to

agree a fee, a percentage of receipts, and a

translator’s credit inside the cover. I insisted

on the latter as it had been forgotten once

before and it was disappointing to receive a

complimentary copy without a name check!

One potential problem was the timing. Only

two months of the six-month production

schedule had been earmarked for the

35,000-word translation so a strict schedule

had to be devised. 7,000 words per week

over six weeks gave a fairly quick turn-

around while keeping me reasonably fresh

and leaving capacity for regular clients.

Instalments were sent in as completed, with

queries submitted in a single batch at the

end.

The publishers promptly sent a draft contract

based on their standard model. A tiny hiccup

was that one clause denied the translator

authorship or any other credit but fortunately

it turned out to be an oversight and the

amended contract was signed a month after

the initial email.

The only real

constraint on the

translation itself was

the title. The authors

and publisher had

already put their heads

together and come up

with their own title. The original, snappy

‘Voluit Leven’ evolved into ‘A Beginner’s

Guide to Mindfulness: Live in the Moment’. A

bit more of a mouthful!

The tight schedule meant having to start

before the contract was signed, which I

would not normally recommend. The authors

supplied a Word document to work from so,

choosing not to use a CAT tool, I simply

overtyped the manuscript while referring to

the accompanying hard copy with its

illustrations, tables, etc. that would also be

used in the English version. Actually

translating the book was a lot of fun, thanks

to a well-written and entertaining source text

and the bonus of feeling in tune with the

subject-matter.

Mindfulness is a mind and body practice that teaches us to observe what is going

on within ourselves.


Delivery was completed as scheduled and the

queries were answered promptly. The

publisher then brought in another pair of

eyes in the shape of a competent freelance

editor/proofreader. In a flurry of emails,

various finishing touches were applied: a new

appendix was added, up-to-date UK

statistics were obtained, an English reading

list was compiled and copyright permissions

were obtained. Then a huge package arrived

in the post - a complimentary copy of the

loose manuscript showing how the finished

book would be typeset. The whole process

was surprisingly smooth and efficient, and I

was delighted to receive appreciative

comments from both publishers and authors

and a lovely mention in the finished book.

Mindfulness

Mindfulness is a mind and body practice that

teaches us to observe what is going on within

ourselves, to become more aware of our

thoughts and feelings so that they do not

overwhelm us. It has been shown to help

with conditions such as anxiety, depression,

addictive behaviour, stress, insomnia and

chronic pain. It uses techniques such as

meditation, breathing exercises and

stretching to help us change the way we

perceive our experiences, especially stressful

ones.

Mindfulness is a popular subject for self-help

books, including a recent one by TV

comedian-turned-psychologist Ruby Wax,

who has used it as a tool to help overcome

her own depression and now holds

mindfulness workshops. Science writer/

presenter Dr Michael Mosley devoted a BBC

Horizon programme to the subject, in which

he observed clear psychological benefits

after a few weeks’ practice.

This particular book takes the form of a

nine-week DIY course of exercises and

meditations and sets out to equip readers

with tools for the future. Much of its advice

may strike people as simple common sense

but the added value lies in the way the

course helps you to slow down and think

things through systematically - something

that obviously does not come naturally if you

are feeling stressed or anxious. The steps

outlined in the book encourage you to take

stock of your life, analyse your ‘mental pain’,

get in touch with your body, observe your

mind at work, and identify your personal

bugbears and avoidance strategies. Dutch

readers are offered an accompanying CD of

meditation exercises and the option of

attending courses run by the authors

themselves. In the UK, mindfulness courses

are available from mental health charities,

therapists and the NHS.


The lasting benefits

Before taking on this project, I had never

read a self-help book of any kind and might

even have scoffed at the very idea. But as I

worked through the text, I found myself

automatically following the course and its

lessons started to rub off. Freelancing has

always been enjoyable but the pressure and

volume of work did occasionally get the

better of me and I would end up tired,

stressed and resentful – a pattern that is

probably familiar to many of us in ITI!

Mindfulness helped me to regain control by

identifying my true priorities, in work and in

life.

Changes prompted by this project have cut

my stress levels and improved my focus.

Specifically, I have drastically reduced my

working hours and identified the clients and

jobs that suit me. Working more efficiently

has helped to maintain earnings. Saying ‘no’

is no longer a source of stress and my

work/life balance is better. It does require

maintenance but if I ever find myself falling

back into bad patterns, I only need to reach

for the complimentary copy on the office

bookshelf! ♦

A Franco-Scottish affair

On Sunday 1st of September, Amandine Lepers married her beloved Douglas. They had a

humanist ceremony at Edinburgh's Institut Français d'Écosse and an evening reception at

Linlithgow Burgh Halls. Their day was everything they could have hoped for but, despite

being ultra-organised and fluent in both languages, they found organising the wedding a

bit of a bumpy ride. Here Amandine lists 10 things to consider when planning a bicultural

wedding.

1. Travel: Not everybody you’ll want at your

wedding abroad will be able to attend. Don’t

count guests in until they’ve checked travel

arrangements. Other guests who you’d never

imagine could come may surprise you -

whilst we had a bridesmaid drop out, my

grandparents made it all the way from Spain.

2. Expectations: With two cultures come two

sets of expectations. If you think that

Scotland and France are quite similar (Auld

Alliance and all), you’re in for a shock. Where

everybody sits, who gets to do or say what –

these are the kind of questions to expect.

Initially, this was stressful as it felt like

nobody was going to get what they wanted or

expected. But eventually that was what

united everybody, as in “I know this seems

odd, but it’s just the way they do X in Y

country and we want elements of both

countries”.

3. Administration: I’ve translated birth and

marriage certificates and know about

complications with French paperwork. But it’s

different when you have to jump through

hoops while sending a trillion emails,

deciding on flowers and finding shoes for

your page boy. British administration: tick.

French administration: 3 months and many

forms later, tick (phew!).


4. Invitations: When I gave my parents their

invite, they went “Oh, it’s very, er, different”.

Forget whether you want a modern or

traditional approach, you’ll have to work out

how to fit in all the text. And think about

your target reader, which for us meant a

good dose of politeness on the English side

and a detailed description of food on the

French side.

5. Readings: We spent weeks picking

readings we loved with a special significance

to us: Maupassant, Hugo, Brontë and McCall

Smith. Typically, the only thing left to do

would be finding readers. But linguists will

know that with great authors come great

translation challenges. Read 4 weekends of

hard work. I’m particularly proud of my

husband’s translation of Hugo’s poem.

6. Ceremony: Having a humanist ceremony

meant we could have a truly personal

wedding. Our celebrant was up for the

language challenge. It involved a lot of work,

e.g. we wrote (and translated) the story of

our relationship, what marriage meant to us

and our marriage vows – mine in French,

Douglas’s in English.

7. Speeches: Something I didn’t miss not

being involved in. If you do English-French-

English-French, you put your guests through

death by interpreting. My husband broke his

speech into manageable chunks, sometimes

swapping things around to keep people

listening. The chief bridesmaid played a

slideshow with French sound over pictures

with English text. And the best man finished

off with an introduction in deliberately bad

French and a snappy speech in English.

8. Music: Here again we wanted to have a

mixture of French and English. And also a bit

of Spanish which we both speak and a bit of

Italian as Italy’s where we got engaged and

some of my family’s from.

9. Culture & language barrier: Guests who

don’t speak the language will probably need

help finding accommodation and booking

flights. And you know those last couple of

weeks or days when you’re running around

to get the cake and decorations to your

venues in time? Well, try and squeeze in

restaurant bookings for family reunions and

airport transfers. Great happy times that have

to be organised too.

10. Honeymoon: Now that things have

calmed down a bit, we’ve started to make

plans for the honeymoon and it looks like

there will be French and English-speaking

locations – which just matches the bicultural

theme perfectly. ♦

Amandine and Douglas survived a bicultural wedding.


Working sustainably as a translator

In this new section, I am very proud to introduce a new series of short articles kindly

volunteered by Karen Tkaczyk and Laura Ball. Together, they took up the challenge of

analysing a tricky situation that was posted on our ScotNet e-group: what to do when you

hit a “wall”.

Introduction

As a translator, you love your work. Not just

the actual translation process and finding

just *that* right word, but also the challenge

of juggling different jobs and managing the

marketing, accounting, business

development and customer service aspects of

the work. At the same time you are

simultaneously your own boss, counsellor

and friend. You enjoy being good and

efficient at doing something and you thrive

on the challenge, even if it does get a bit

much sometimes. So there’s no way you’re

lazy; no way you’d be inclined to “pull a

sickie”. However, every so often something

strange happens. It makes no sense, you

don’t know how to avoid it and you don’t

know what to do about it. This is what it is:

After I have been [working] for a few weeks, I

tend to suddenly come up against a wall. I

can't stand the thought of doing another job.

Sometimes I've even turned down a 5-word

sentence, such is my disgust at the thought

of doing any more work. I then spend a few

days thinking very hard about what I am

taking on, generally erring on the side of

turning work down, until I can feel

reasonably cheerful about translation again.

This is the initial problem that sparked off a

hugely successful thread on ScotNet. The

resulting 10,000 plus words of comment

from ScotNetters cover a wide range of topics

and experiences. Our aim is to provide you

with a summary and analysis of all these

comments in a series of short articles. If the

problem resonates with you, we hope that

the articles, which take your comments as a

starting point, will provide you with a

structured way of examining your working

habits and attitudes to find out why you hit

this ‘wall’, what you can do when it happens

and, perhaps more importantly, how to avoid

hitting it in the first place.

As sole traders or small business owners,

one of our key concerns is to grow our

business and develop client relationships. In

order to do this, any business has to be

sustainable. Your business model has to be

viable not just in the short term, but in the

long term, over ten or twenty years or even

longer. A key factor in sustaining a business

is to ensure that its assets are sustainable.

As a translator, your single biggest asset is:

you. So, sustaining your business is all about

sustaining yourself. Therefore, going for

coffee, going swimming at lunch time,

bouldering on Friday afternoons, doing judo

or even taking an afternoon off to go

Taking time off to do something fun is rarely self-indulgent - it is instead an

important part of doing business.


shopping, are all a viable, indeed necessary

and integral part of running, maintaining and

sustaining your business. Perhaps

remembering this key factor will help you if

you find yourself thinking work is somehow

more morally acceptable than pleasure and

that taking time off to do something fun is a

tad self-indulgent. In fact, “taking time off to

do something fun” is rarely self-indulgent -

it is instead an important part of doing

business. With this in mind, please read on to

the first of our short articles, which is all

about taking time off.

Sustaining yourself through time

management

We all enjoy doing different activities to

relax. Some of us may need more time to

relax, others less. Some of us may benefit

from taking regular breaks and others may

prefer to work intuitively and take breaks on

a more haphazard basis, as and when they

feel like it. The following article will hopefully

outline some of the underlying factors that

make any leisure activity effective and help

you to recognise what might be useful for

you.

Choosing how to spend your time off wisely

Most of us are aware of the importance of

taking breaks. However, what seems to be

equally important is how you spend your

break. It is not enough to use your five or ten

minute break to move from your desk to your

sofa to read the paper. This does not involve

enough of a contrast to working to give your

brain the rest and variety that it needs.

Reading between the lines of the comments

made on the ScotNet thread, the types of

activities that you can do during a break to

make it most effective typically involve

something that a) gets you out of the house,

b) makes you actively focus on something

other than work, c) occupies your attention

entirely, d) is physically active and e) is

something that you perceive as pleasurable.

It is entirely up to you to choose which

activity or activities to spend your breaks

doing, as long as they meet some or all of

the above criteria. Some suggestions include

taking a regular break during work to

meditate or have a deep brain rest1, or to

intersperse work periods with cleaning the

house. Various leisure activities that were

cited as being helpful included attending Tai

Chi, yoga, martial arts or other evening

classes, going for coffee, to the gym or to

have a massage, visiting children’s

assemblies and classroom events, getting

into teaching or going cycling, swimming or

bouldering. However, if you find that

cleaning the house or going for a walk just

doesn’t occupy your brain enough, go cycling

instead or set yourself a series of

“housework challenges” whilst cleaning to

make it more demanding.

It would seem logical that an activity that

meets all the above criteria will be most

effective, whereas activities that only meet

one or two will be less effective. At some

points in the day it may only be necessary to

take a short break that fulfils just one

criterion. There is also nothing to stop you

from doing two separate activities that fulfil

different criteria to be just as effective.

Longer breaks, however, such as leisure time

spent at the weekends, on days off or in the

evening should meet more of the criteria.

1 www.yogajournal.com/health/2601

http://www.yogajournal.com/health/2601


That way you can be sure of using the leisure

time effectively as well as enjoyably and that

you will return to work feeling truly refreshed

and ready for a new challenge.

An example from Karen

Part of achieving success and sustaining it is

scheduling time off. In my house, both adults

work from home, so you can imagine how

the family's life could be taken over by work.

We choose not to work on Sundays. Whether

for traditional reasons or just logistical ones,

an entire day off every week can be a

powerful refresher. Many freelancers would

hate to limit themselves to working on

weekdays only, but planning for that as the

norm works for me. Another tack is to plan

for ineffective days when “life” gets in the

way of a schedule. For instance, for any

project that will take me more than ten

working days, I mentally schedule a “lost” day

when I commit to the timeline. This is a

realistic assessment that during any period

that long, personal matters or other

commitments will disrupt my work enough

that I will lose a day during that time, which I

may not be able to catch up easily. Assuming

that events will overtake me is sensible for

my personal situation. Another tactic is to

deliberately plan to translate fewer words per

day than you would normally expect, i.e.

2,000 words rather than 2,500, and then

quote delivery times based on that. ♦

Series authors:

Karen Tkaczyk, PhD, CT, MITI

is a chemist-turned-freelance

translator (MITI and ATA-

certified for French>English).

Her translation work focuses

on chemistry and its

industrial applications. She

has an MChem in chemistry

with French from the

University of Manchester and

a Diploma in French and a PhD in organic chemistry

from the University of Cambridge. She worked in the

pharmaceutical industry in Europe, and then in

pharmaceuticals and cosmetics in the US after

relocating there in 1999. She has hands-on experience

in many areas, from research to quality assurance to

manufacturing to regulatory affairs and now uses this

background to produce specialised translations that

use her subject-matter expertise.

Laura Ball is a translator and

language trainer working in

German and English. She

holds a first class degree in

German and Linguistics

from Oxford University and

a research master’s in

Mediaeval German from

Newcastle University. Her

professional qualifications

include the Diploma in

Translation awarded by the Chartered Institute of

Linguists and a TEFL certificate from Cambridge

University. She has previously spent three years living

in Germany, where she studied Philosophy and

Musicology in Tübingen, worked as a language

assistant in Halle/Saale and taught English and German

as a business language trainer in Essen. Now based in

Newcastle Upon Tyne, she offers language training

services both in person and online via Skype.


Your committee under the spotlight

As promised in our last issue, we’ll now get to know our new Membership Secretary, Ute

Penny. Deputy Membership Secretary Nathalie Chalmers interviewed her, but you’ll have

to wait until the New Year to read all about Nathalie!

Could you introduce yourself?

I was born in Stuttgart, southwest Germany.

In my year abroad I came to Duns (2000

souls) in the Scottish Borders as foreign

language assistant at two secondary schools

and fell in love with the country and one

particular young man.

Did you always want to be a translator?

I wasn’t sure what to study and plumped for

a teaching degree with English and History as

my subjects, but teaching young adults

turned out NOT to be my forte. But

languages, even just different German

dialects, were what we “did” at home.

What did you do before you went freelance?

I was a crafts person, producing painted

earrings and mobiles (the hanging down

version over cots or in windows) made from

soft wood and plywood. I also taught German

in adult education.

What kind of translation work do you most

like doing?

I love translating any kind of tourism texts –

for their challenges in conveying cultural,

historical and nature-related content and the

language used.

Since when have you been involved with

ScotNet, and what motivated you to stand as

Membership Secretary?

I joined ScotNet very early on, sometime in

the mid-1990s when I was still just

translating part-time and didn’t yet have my

Diploma in Translation. I was approached for

the Membership Secretary post and felt that

it was probably time I gave something back

to this wonderful and supportive group of

excitingly diverse people.

How do you see your future?

Two years ago I completely stopped teaching

and have seen my translation workload

increase, simply because I didn’t have my

teaching days interrupt my availability. I now

want to expand more – although I don’t seem

to be very good at finding new

clients/agencies. I have also just applied to

upgrade to MITI status.

What do you do when you are not

translating?

What DON’T I do! I sing in two choirs in

Dunbar, where I live, I go to yoga, I am

membership secretary of the Dunbar

Community Woodland Group and I

occasionally go on rides with the Dunbar

Cycle Group. I used to be a member of the

Dunbar Coastal Rowing Club, but gave that

up this year due to lack of time – my decision

confirmed in a round-about way by Hugh’s

thought-provoking post on the Yahoo group

[see page 23]. I love live music, art and the

theatre, the first two being very well served

in Dunbar. I love walking along our glorious

beaches and taking pictures of our stunning

surroundings – there is a “Dunbar in Pictures”

Facebook group which has become a bit

addictive. I love gardening too, but often

don’t make enough time for it. ♦


Member news

New members: Since our last newsletter, a

few new members - whom you might have

already met at one of our events - have

joined us, and there is now a new wee

ScotNetter too!

Lucy Chen: I was born and raised in Taiwan

until the age of fourteen. I was first exposed

to the English language at age six when my

father took a one-year post at the University

of Iowa. Since I was fourteen I had lived in

Vancouver, a city on the beautiful west coast

of Canada. Last year I married and moved to

Edinburgh, where I started my freelance

career and new life adventure in Scotland. I

have been translating Chinese<>English for

the non-profit sector for the past eight years.

Since I became a full-time translator, I have

concentrated on the translation of academic

works in the social and health sciences, and

official documents. I enjoy working with

language and the constant personal

development as a freelance translator

Katrin Frahm: I was born in Germany and

studied Russian/English interpreting and

translation at Berlin's Humboldt University.

After working as a technical interpreter and

translator at a shipyard in my hometown of

Rostock, I moved to Glasgow in 1991, where

I have worked at both Glasgow and

Strathclyde Universities (tuition; translation

management) as well as freelance (translation

and interpreting – English into German). In

my work, I aim to combine my enthusiasm

for teaching German with my work as an

interpreter and translator, and I divide my

time evenly between teaching German at the

Goethe-Institut Glasgow and working as a

freelance interpreter and translator. My

specialist subject areas are mechanical and

marine engineering, renewable energies,

health and safety equipment, Scottish politics

and education (blended learning, applied

linguistics, translation theory). I am a

member of the CIoL, the Institute of Scientific

and Technical Communicators and an ITI

Associate. I hold the DipTrans IoLET English

into German and work as a Masterclass tutor

(SDL Trados) on the MSc Translation Studies

(University of Glasgow).

Pablo Herrera: Working as English -

Spanish freelance interpreter and translator

since 1994. Specialist interpreter in sound,

music technology, film, and public health

projects. With over a decade and a half of

experience, I have translated legal literature,

poetry, subtitles, and film and theatre

scripts.

Jessie Linardi: Translation was by far my

favourite subject at university, so when I

finished my degree in Hispanic Studies in

2007, I naively assumed I would walk straight

into a job as an in-house translator.

Although I did find a part-time, in-house

position in Glasgow, it was short-lived. The

prospect of starting a freelance business

terrified me, so I decided to change direction

by obtaining a qualification in librarianship.

I've now been working as a paraprofessional

in educational libraries for over three years.

As much as I enjoy library work, languages

are what I'm most interested in and I'm keen

to begin building a career as a freelancer. I

work from Spanish into British and American

English and also do localisation between

these two variants of English. I'm looking

forward to meeting you all soon!


Katherine Parish: I was born and have lived

in Scotland my entire life. Originally from

East Lothian, I now live in Glasgow where I

am currently studying for an MSc in

Translation Studies at the University of

Glasgow. I graduated earlier this year from

the University of St Andrews with a degree in

German and Italian - I think you can guess

which languages I will be translating from!

I've travelled a fair bit around Europe and

spent my third year of university living and

studying in Verona, Italy, which was

challenging, rewarding and of course loads

of fun! Although I am relatively new to the

translation scene, I am keen to gain

experience and meet others in the translation

network who can share any advice or

knowledge they may have. My postgrad

course is really interesting and is covering a

wide range of Translation studies - from

theory to practice basically, and all that's in

between! By the end of the year I should

emerge with a broad knowledge of the topic

and also some practical SDL qualifications!

I'm really enjoying myself and can't wait to

meet others who are working as translators

too.

Elizabeth Pollard: I am a skilled

English/Polish/English interpreter and

translator with almost two decades of

experience in a range of fields. I have worked

with a number of different police forces

across the UK and have accompanied police

on two murder enquiries to Poland. My

knowledge of street and foul language allows

me to act in less than normal circumstances

and I am competent in consecutive,

whispering and simultaneous interpreting.

My area of work: Magistrates’ Courts, Crown

Courts, Coroner, Police, Customs and Excise,

UKBA.

Wee Sam: Here are a couple of pictures of

Beth Fowler’s baby boy Sam, when he was

just born in June and a few months after.

Others:

Congratulations to Nathalie Chalmers, Sally

McPhail and Marian Dougan, who have

recently become MITIs. Well done, ladies!

Félicitations to Amandine Lepers, who got

married on 1st September. You can read all

about her bicultural wedding on page 21!

Finally, we’d also like to include an

apology: in our last issue, we mistakenly

called Margret Powell-Joss by a different

name. Sorry about that, Margret! ♦

If you have any news to report, please let us know: [email protected]



ScotNet grants

The ITI Scottish Network offers 2 levels of

grants to members towards the cost of

travelling to ITI events:

1) Grants of up to £25 are available for

attending Scottish Network meetings.

2) ScotNetters may also apply for grants of

up to £60 for attending national ITI events.

How to apply for a grant

If you are attending a ScotNet event:

Contact our treasurer (currently Norma) at

[email protected] before

registering for the meeting. Subject to

availability, she will approve the grant and

notify you and the event organiser that you

may deduct £25 from the normal workshop

fee. You should also mention this to the

organiser when booking.

If you are attending a national ITI event:

Again, email our treasurer to apply for a

grant, she will notify you if it's approved.

Send her your account details and a receipt

for the event or transport expenses in due

course. She will then pay the amount into

your account.

If you are attending a free ScotNet event, but

you would like a grant to help with the cost

of transport and/or accommodation, then the

procedure is the same as for attending

national ITI events.

General conditions: Maximum one grant per

person per subscription year. You must be a

member of ITI – Friends of the Network are

not eligible. Also members living in the

central belt are not eligible to receive grants

for network meetings in Edinburgh/Glasgow.

All recipients must contribute a report on the

event to the ITI ScotNet Newsletter.

The level of grants is reviewed every year at

ScotNet’s AGM. Under the current budget, 8

grants of £25 and 2 of £60 are available each

year. From time to time the committee may

also decide to offer additional grants to

enable ScotNetters to attend particular

events, such as they did recently for the ITI

Conference. ♦

Looking forward to the next issue…

Did you enjoy the November issue of your network’s newsletter? I bet you did! Would you like to

make it a bit more your own? Then don’t hesitate to drop me a line ([email protected]) -

we’d love to read your articles too! And, until you're ready for that, you can look forward to

reading another instalment of our new series (“Sustaining yourself with an efficient office”), a

report on the ScotNet autumn event and an interview with our Deputy MemSec. I hope you can

wait! ♦




Your committee at a glance

Convenor

Pierre Fuentes

0131 6291023

[email protected]

Treasurer

Norma Tait

0131 5521330

[email protected]

Membership Secretary

Ute Penny

01368 864879

[email protected]

Deputy MemSec

Nathalie Chalmers

01888 562998

[email protected]

Events Coordinator (East)

Angelika Muir-Hartmann

0131 3334654

[email protected]

Events Coordinator (West)

Ann Drummond

0141 2219379

[email protected]

Webmaster

Iwan Davies

01738 630202

[email protected]

Newsletter Editor

Isabel Hurtado de Mendoza

07762 300068

[email protected]









Scotnet newsletter november 2013

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