The Bright Side of Freelance Translation, o la parte buena de ser traductor autónomo

No puedo evitarlo, de verdad que no puedo: cada vez que alguien habla del bright side pienso en la canción de los Monty Python al final de La vida de Brian. Este bright side, sin embargo, no tiene nada que ver, no se trata de encontrarle la parte buena a una situación negativa. Trata de compartir las experiencias de compañeros que se han dado cuenta de que «las soluciones a los altibajos, las recompensas y los problemas de la vida de todo traductor autónomo están única y exclusivamente en sus manos, que se ponen manos a la obra, se niegan a quejarse y sacan su trabajo adelante».

Esta atrevida declaración, que para muchos describe un estilo de vida, también resume por qué este libro no ha sido bien recibido en todos los rincones de la esfera traductoril (sobre todo porque parece que muchos de quienes lo critican no leyeron más allá del primer párrafo de la introducción, donde aparece esta cita). No solo ha inspirado a Herman Boel para escribir una serie de entradas en su blog Alta Verba llamada The Reality of Our Profession (La realidad de nuestra profesión) también podría explicar por qué el nuevo eslogan de la conferencia de IAPTI que se celebrará en septiembre en Atenas es ahora «Ni nihilistas ni ingenuos».

Continue reading

Posts of the Day – July 2014

July Post of DayJuly has been a rather busy month. Besides the holiday fever rush of clients trying to get things done and dusted before they head off on their annual breaks (in Spain some companies virtually shut down for the whole of August), I have moved, which as we all know is an extremely stressful and time-consuming process. Now posting from my new work set-up in Bournemouth (which is not quite as I had planned since my desk collapsed en route and one of my bookshelves is decidedly wonky), I am surrounded by piles of boxes and stuff that needs sorting. I fear it could all take me a while, and certainly longer than I had anticipated. This will, unfortunately, have a knock-on effect on my CPD plans. Still, I’m sure it’ll all be worth it in the end once I’m settled. And I’m especially looking forward to escaping with my laptop to the comfy armchair and footstool in the summerhouse for a change of scene.

Continue reading

Posts of the Day – June 2014

Flowers4The results of the Language Lovers competition, organised by Lexiophiles and bab.la, came out in June. Congratulations to all the winners, many of whose articles have already featured as a post of the day. However,  a lot of my favourite blogs didn’t even make it to the nomination stage, something I’m planning on rectifying next year. These include Translation Wordshop by Marie Brotnov and Lines from a Linguist by Claire Cox. They both appear twice in this month’s list and had posts included in the May list as well.

Continue reading

Pay special attention to this translation or else

A translator is many thingsDon’t you just love it when the agency says in the very last email of the exchange about a job, when the conditions are supposedly already done and dusted: “Oh, by the way, the client says this translation is extremely important so please make sure you pay special attention to doing it well.” Even when they sweeten this a little by adding “We know you always do”, it still exasperates me no end.

Continue reading

Friendship and Laughter: Review of the BP14 Conference

Budapest park
Our view during the gala dinner on the second night

A chance remark on Facebook just over a year ago made Csaba Bán realise that his colleagues would quite like him to repeat his earlier conference-arranging success in Budapest. A few hours later BP14 was born; the following day the venue was booked; and the rest, as they say, is history.

In this case, however, BP does not primarily refer to the two settlements, Buda and Pest, flanking either side of the River Danube (which we sailed down whilst having dinner on the first evening of the conference) forming today’s vast city of Budapest. It actually stands for Business and Practice because the conference was held over two days, the first devoted to improving how we relate to clients and portray ourselves, and the second to perfecting our craft. That’s also why BP15, which is already in the pipeline, will not be held in Csaba’s hometown but in Zagreb instead.

Continue reading

Bite-sized Tips No. 8: Spellings Part 5 – Mostly Points & Hyphens

Spellings Part 5 – Mostly Points & Hyphens

Lantern2The more I do these bite-sized tips, the more I realise how desperately illogical English can be sometimes. I wonder how many of these spellings will still be valid a few years down the line. In the meantime, for the pedants among us, here’s another list of ten, which includes some more UK and US differences.

Continue reading

Los diccionarios en papel han muerto. ¡Vivan los recursos digitales!

Shelf4Una reciente encuesta en Proz.com se centraba en si los traductores compran las últimas ediciones de los diccionarios que utilizan cuando se publican. Esto rápidamente se convirtió en un debate sobre por qué molestarse en utilizar diccionarios en papel ahora que absolutamente todo está disponible online, e incluso se planteaba si los traductores profesionales necesitan o no diccionarios. Mientras estemos dentro de nuestra zona de confort (la cual, en teoría, no deberíamos abandonar nunca), no tendría por qué haber necesidad alguna de consultar nada…

Continue reading

Posts of the Day – May 2014

Flowers5May was quite a busy month for me one way or another. It kicked off with the conference in Budapest, which Alison Hughes summed up so succinctly in her poem (see below). Once I got back, in-between work and trying to find a new house to buy, I managed to find time to finish off the blogroll I had begun some weeks earlier. Well, I thought it was pretty complete with nearly 100 blogs included in it, but only a week or so later the total was nearing 150. Whilst the list has proved pretty popular, it also got me wondering how I, or anyone else for that matter, would ever be able to digest so many blogs and how I could keep a record of my favourites to come back to easily. That is how the “Post of the Day” started.

Continue reading