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Translating the Memoirs of a Holocaust Survivor

By late 2016, I completed what would certainly become the most important book translation I'll ever work on: "Eu sobrevivi ao Holocausto," the memoirs of Holocaust survivor Nanette Blitz Konig, who was Anne Frank's classmate after the school system in Amsterdam became segregated. In English, the book is titled "Holocaust Memoirs of a Bergen-Belsen Survivor and Classmate of Anne Frank," which was published by Amsterdam Publishers. There is also a Dutch version published by Prometheus.

I received a message in mid-2016 from a translation company in Brazil to work on a translation sample for the consideration of the author herself and her family. Nanette, who was born in Holland and moved to England after the war, married an Englishman of Hungarian descent who got a job offer in Brazil―and that is how she ended up in my home country. Once the sample was approved, the Brazilian translation company hired my services and I started working on this important historical memoir.

Nanette uses accessible language and sometimes readers will be able to see that young teenager materialize before their eyes as they read her words. Perhaps her language register, of an educational tone, is due to the fact that her work now consists of talking to students about World War II and the Holocaust in order to make sure that younger generations will be aware of what happened to her when she was their age―and what could happen again if society is divided due to prejudice, xenophobia, and extremism.

At the most recent American Translators Association annual conference, which took place in Washington DC in October 2017, I talked to attendees about the challenges of working on such an important piece of non-fiction literature, including the terminology accuracy required by real events that have been widely documented in the English language, as well as the difficulty in keeping an emotional detachment from the story in order to convey the author's message faithfully.

My ATA session was reviewed by Melissa Sabella Harkin―fellow Brazilian translator living in the United States who is a descendant of Dutch Jews who moved to Brazil―on the Winter 2017 issue of Source, a publication of the ATA Literary Translation Division (see "Too Close to Home" on pages 23-25).

I highly recommend "Holocaust Memoirs of a Bergen-Belsen Survivor and Classmate of Anne Frank," for the lessons it teaches us about one of the most senseless moments in our contemporary history.

(27/03/2018)

Sicilian Nostalgia: My New Italian-to-Portuguese Book Translation Hits Close to Home

My most recently published book translation is called "Minha terra, minha gente" and it is the Portuguese version of Era il mio paese written by Sicilian author Cristiano Parafioriti. It's a collection of short stories about his experiences growing up in a small town in Sicily called Galati Mamertino, which is part of the Messina Metropolitan Region, has a total area of 15 square miles (39 km²) and population of about 2,800 people (as of 2011).

In twenty short stories, Cristiano talks about watching soccer on TV while drinking pear juice or enjoying gelato alla nocciola (hazelnut Italian ice cream) at the local bar, playing in the streets, the tradition of religious beliefs and local festivities, getting to know interesting characters around town, the differences between Northern Italy and Sicily, and learning tough life lessons while hanging out with his friends or working with his father, a shoemaker, over summer.

The two main reasons I was attracted to this project were the fact that (1) I wanted to have more Italian-to-Portuguese book translations under my belt and (2) how much I miss Italy in general and Sicily in particular.

Over a decade ago―in October 2007 to be more precise―my husband and I went backpacking through Italy for a month before starting a family. We knew his great grandpa had left Sicily and established himself in Louisiana, having a prosperous life with a big family in the United States, but longing for the relatives and calm life he had left behind. We were able to locate long-lost cousins in the small town of Gibellina, which is less than a couple of hours from Palermo. Having a chance to find family there and getting to know more about the local history is, to this day, one of the highlights of our lives.

Having experienced Sicily first hand helped me understand more about the nuances described by Cristiano in his nostalgic stories. As a matter of fact, his nostalgia was, at a certain level, mine, too, since we're yet to go back for a second visit―just waiting for our two kids to be a little older.

Time seems to go by more slowly when you're in Sicily and you get to appreciate things differently, which is something the author addresses in his writings and rich descriptions of his surroundings―so much so that you can almost see this little town and its characters coming to life before your eyes.

One of the best parts of this project, as it is the case with most Italian-to-Portuguese projects I've had a chance to work on, was realizing how closely some Italian expressions translate into Brazilian Portuguese, considering the wave of immigrants that started to reach Brazilian shores in the late 1800s, especially my home state of São Paulo, as Italians looked for work in Brazil. Since then, our cultures have been inexorably intertwined, and I personally believe that this Italian influence is one of the main reasons why Brazilian Portuguese started to move away from European Portuguese.

Era il mio paese has a little over 25,000 words and it took me 40 hours to translate over the course of several months, in addition to another 12 hours just to proofread and polish it. Maybe I would have been able to finish it sooner, if it weren't for the incredible advent of Google Maps... All I had to do was type "Galati Mamertino" and do a virtual trip through its streets, visit the square, and actually see what "Rafa" was all about. It turns out it's a nice area up in the mountain, only a couple of miles outside town, where locals can take a stroll through the woods or go to the club, swim in the pool, and enjoy a stunning view.

With all these components―the resemblance with the town my husband's family comes from and the woods that bear the same name as mine―Minha terra, minha gente was more than a book translation project; for me, it was a true labor of love, longing, and nostalgia.

(30/01/2017)

Have you ever felt like a fraud?

In Brazil, we have a saying that goes, “Com a pulga atrás da orelha.” Literary, it reads, “To have a flea behind your ear,” but it really means that something doesn’t seem quite right. If your personal flea is nibbling at your ear, that’s when you need to go check things out to make sure it’s all 100% legit.

My little flea has been my faithful companion since I started working as a translator back in 1997. At first, my biggest fear was to be “found out,” that someone would come and point a finger at me saying, “You have no idea what you’re doing, do you? You’re nothing but a fraud!”

Back then, that fear was mostly due to the fact that I had just finished high school, was working full time as an English as a Second Language (ESL) instructor, and saving money for college. Even after I majored in journalism, I noticed that flea had stayed put behind my ear during those four years of undergrad school.

In 2002, shortly after graduating, I moved to California. My flea then became an Atom Flea—yes, you guessed it right; it’s Atom Ant’s cousin!—because I started to receive several requests to translate from Portuguese into English. For some, translating into your second language is considered the biggest sin a translator could ever commit, so my flea was working overtime to make sure I got my terminology, grammar, spelling, and prepositions right.

Despite almost two decades of experience and a couple of translation certificates under my belt, my companion flea has never really gone away, but the fear of being “found out” has somewhat subsided. It turned into something more pleasant, less heart-stopping than the idea of fingers pointed at my face. What I get now are butterflies in my stomach, because with each new project there’s that same excitement as if I were translating for the first time.

After all these years, I’ve learned to accept that a little bit of fear is good in our industry. It makes you check yourself several times, research information, ask peers for their input, and never assume that you’re the best translator who ever walked the Earth.

That kind of know-it-all mentality can backfire and leave you out in the cold if someone requests some supporting information and sources for your word choices, or even challenges your translation altogether. If your flea has been working with you all through the project, you’ll be able to go back through your notes and research to provide clients the information they need to see how confident you are in your work. And that confidence, fueled by your personal flea, is the trademark of a true professional translator. 

This blog post was originally posted at Carol's Adventures in Translation

(16/02/2017)

Is it Possible to Balance Your Biggest Life Project—Your Children—and Working as a Translator?

“Woman, what are you doing in front of the computer already?” or “How come you didn’t answer the email I sent you half an hour ago?”

These were the two completely opposite reactions some of my clients had when I got back to work a few days after my children were born. The original plan was to take at least 45 days off for my maternity leave, then ease back into working part time to learn how to balance being a mother and a translator. I was back before the first 30 days were up…

Marissa was born September 2008 and Lorenzo was born August 2012. Both were born naturally in a birth tub at a small clinic, under the supervision of a midwife. In both occasions, I was released from the clinic a few hours later, and was back home to start my recovery, enjoy all the love from friends and family, and fall in love with my babies.

But it was not all a bed of roses. Raising a little one inside you demands a lot of energy during 40 weeks (or more!) Despite the immediate relief when your baby is finally in your arms, your body still needs time to go back to normal. You have to learn how to walk and sit down again after nine months doing things differently to accommodate the growing belly, the swollen feet, and the achy lower back.

What about your mind? Ah, your cheating mind… You end up switching day and night, depending on the routine imposed by your baby. Your thoughts may be clear in your head, but exhaustion and lack of sleep will end up interfering with your reasoning. You can bet it will!

Am I Going Crazy? ― You open your mouth to say something you can’t finish a sentence, trying to save up some energy and hoping everybody around you can read your mind.

You get frustrated when you drop everything, except for the baby and the precious milk you’re pumping. By the way, if you want to enjoy the convenience of having bottles ready to go in the fridge, you’ll spend at least three hours using a pump in four to five daily sessions. And here’s a tip: fenugreek tea really works if your goal is to become a milking cow and produce 42 ounces of milk a day…

You actually start hearing voices! In my case, I couldn’t fall asleep one night because the neighbors next door had a karaoke party going on and wouldn’t stop singing Pat Benatar’s “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” over and over again. The thing is that, when I opened the slide-glass door to the backyard, I realized it was all in my head. Maybe a mother’s brain works in a different frequency when she has a newborn at home, so much so that it starts to pick up mysterious sound waves…

Despite all these unforeseen circumstances and what people may believe, taking care of a baby is not as complicated as it sounds. Actually, the complicated part is running after a four-year-old girl full of energy, who is going to half-day preschool Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, does gymnastics on Tuesdays and Thursdays, dance on Fridays and still finds energy to outlast the Duracell bunny.

Four-year-olds can talk and their answer to everything is, “No!” They also work on a schedule: eating, bathing, doing homework, and going to bed. However, four-year-olds are capable of helping out, can go get the burp cloth, and give you a tight hug that recharges your own batteries.

Yes, babies depend on you for everything, but you soon get used to the cycle: feeding, changing diapers, putting down for a nap. And, if you’re recovering without any surprises along the way, you can start planning to go back to work during the quieter times.

Making the Most of The Day ― I’m the kind of person that can’t sit still for too long. I need to always be doing something productive, so a few days after giving birth I already missed the sound of my keyboard as I type. However, taking into account all that physical, psychological, and emotional ups and downs, mothers need to be honest with themselves and ask the dreaded question: “Am I really ready?”

The last thing you want to do now is go back to work and turn your world upside down, making unforgivable mistakes, missing deadlines, and then blaming it all on sleepless nights. You need to know yourself well, learn when you’re more productive, and plan everything accordingly.

Are you one of those who wakes up when it’s still dark outside and can translate a thousand words before your stomach starts growling and demanding some breakfast? Great! If you went to bed at midnight, after walking around the house and singing all the lullabies you could remember until your baby finally fell asleep, just to wake up at three in the morning for another feeding, try to make the most of your insomnia and work for a couple of hours after your baby goes back to sleep. This way, you will get an early start and adapt yourself to your baby’s routine.

Are you a night owl? Wonderful! Try to nap for at least one hour every time your baby falls asleep after a nice feeding and diaper change. The night will then be all yours to type your keyboard senseless.

When you find yourself stuck on an annoying expression, and the dictionary becomes useless when you try to render it naturally, take 15 minutes off to put a blanket on the floor and lay your baby on their belly, so he can work out their little arms and legs and learn how to support their head while training for some crawling. While you have fun watching your baby develop their motor skills, your mommy’s mind will do some passive thinking. Several studies have found that your brain works better at finding a solution when you stop thinking about the problem and preoccupy yourself with another task, such as taking a shower, doing the dishes, doing the laundry, etc.

Use the minutes you spend breastfeeding or pumping to read the documents you’re getting ready to translate, thus working on a preliminary sight translation while you skim through the original and “interpret” your translation out loud.

By the way, considering your hands will be busy very often, it could be a good idea to acquire some voice recognition software and dictate your translations to the computer. I have to confess that this option doesn’t really work for me, because my brain works better with my fingers, rather than my mouth, so I’d rather type to dictate. But, go ahead and see if it suits you.

No matter which technique works better for you, whenever you find a window to get back to work, focus on it and make the most of your productive minutes without feeling guilty before you get back to your mommy duties.

Your Baby and Your “Other Children” ― Just like no two babies are exactly the same, translators are unique and have their own peculiarities. A couple of these tips may work for you, while you’ll find others on your own. Still, remember that you’re only one person and, the moment you become a mother, that’s your main occupation.

Yes, it’s hard to meet all of your baby’s needs, as well as all the requirements made by your “other children.” Nevertheless, good clients will understand you—they most likely went through the same thing—and, if they really like your work and appreciate your business relationship, they won’t walk away.

Sometimes even the strictest clients will let their hearts melt when you send out a notice, months in advance, that you’ll be taking maternity leave. I bet they—both men and women—will ask you a thousand questions about how you’re feeling, if you’ve already chosen the baby’s name, and when you’ll be due. Then they make you promise to send them some pictures as soon as the baby is born.

However, you’ll find out that other clients really lack some empathy… In those cases, the best thing you can do is be realistic and bring your client back to Earth, insisting that you absolutely cannot translate 5,000 words worth of an extremely technical project by the end of the business day.

If your client still can’t take “no” for an answer after you reminded him that you’re on maternity leave, explained that you’ve given birth only three days ago, and are in no condition to go back to working regular business hours at the moment, the best thing you can do is to get graphic.

Tell your client you need to keep your feet elevated, because they’re still a little puffy. It didn’t work? Move on to the next level: explain that you can’t sit for hours on end, because your lower belly still hurts from the pressure that your uterus is making on your nether regions, since the swell hasn’t come down yet after spending nine-month in free expansion.

That still wasn’t graphic enough? Ask your client—especially if you’re talking to a female client—whether she knew that, after giving birth, women may bleed for six weeks and you still feel uncomfortable sitting down to work, even so during the first week, when you need to wear an adult diaper…

In most cases, when you’re really driven to this kind of extreme, such a graphic image will help put your clients in perspective. They’ll stop and think, “Wow! My translator has just had a baby and, here I am, asking her to do something that is already practically impossible under normal conditions!”

One of the following two things will most likely happen: you’ll either find out that the project isn’t really that urgent and can then negotiate a more realistic deadline, or your client will ask you whether you know someone you trust who could take on the project.

Secret Weapon ― When you’re ready to transition from maternity leave to part-time work, whether it is three days or three months after giving birth, it’s always good to have a “secret weapon” to help you focus on your job.

In my case, the card I have up my sleeve is my husband, an A+ daddy who changes diapers, heats up a bottle, puts the baby on a rocking chair or on their tummy to get a work out. Your secret weapon could be your parents, in-laws, siblings, friends…

Finding support is crucial and everybody wins: you can go back to organizing your schedule and your company enjoys some one-on-one time with the baby. The little one will also benefit from this arrangement, since interacting with different people will help their developing brain to study different facial expressions, identify other voices, and memorize characteristics of people who will play an important role in their little life.

Believe me: juggling the thousands of things you need to do throughout the day is possible. Plan ahead and rely on your organization skills, making notes on your good-old paper planner or your Google calendar. The secret is not biting off more than you can chew and being honest with yourself.

Thinking about all these pros and cons, all these ups and downs, if I had a chance to do it all over again I actually wouldn’t change a single comma in my story.

(07/03/2016)

When 3% Felt Like 30: A Roundtable On Literary Translation In The 60s & 70s

During the 38th Annual Conference organized October 28-31, 2015 by the American Literary Translators Association (ALTA) in Tucson, Arizona I attended a panel titled “When 3% Felt Like 30: a Roundtable on Literary Translation in the ‘60s and ‘70s,” which was moderated by Steve Bradbury with panelists Stephen Kessler, Andrew Schelling, and Marian Schwartz.

Having started working as translators in the 1960s and 1970s, each one of them reminisced about how they first discovered literature not written in English and how, back in the day, it seemed that there was more translated literature entering the U.S. market than there is today. The title of their panel is a reference to the fact that, in average, 3% of all books published every year in the United States are works in translation, as indicated by Three Percent, a resource for international literature at the University of Rochester.

Steve Bradbury, a translator of Chinese poetry and editor of Full Tilt: A Journal of East-Asian Poetry, Translation, and the Arts, introduced the panel and started out by talking about his own experiences as a teenager in the sixties. “I remember it vividly. It was like I had put my finger in a socket and was electrified,” he recalled finding a shelf of foreign books at a local bookstore.

Spanish-to-English translator and poet Stephen Kessler said he was an A student of Spanish in high school and remembers discovering the works of Federico García Lorca and Pablo Neruda, the main Spanish-languages poets at the time. “You usually needed to go to Spain or Mexico to find material in Spanish,” he said, explaining these titles were hard to come by.

Andrew Schelling, poet and translator from Sanskrit to English, talked about the political context of the era. “Finishing high school in 1970, the main event was the Vietnam War,” he said, mentioning that reading foreign books was a way to resist the U.S. socio-political climate at the time. “That was part of that energy: finding these books, the search for alternative values, foreign literatures.” He said he decided to learn Sanskrit, mentioning the popularity of the “Beatles and bedspreads” counter-culture. “Popular culture kept India alive in our imagination,” he added.

When it was Marian Schwartz’s turn to talk, she said she found her presence in the panel a little contradictory. As a translator of Russian classic and contemporary fiction, history, and biography, she reminded the attendees that the USSR wasn’t very popular back then due to the Cold War with the United States. “If anyone read a Soviet novel, they’d be discredited,” she emphasized, saying that back in the sixties she was learning Russian in Harvard as a dead language. “There weren’t many Westerners going to Russia. Professors were not fluent in Russian because there wasn’t much contact.”

The panel was then asked about how exactly they started out as translators after falling in love with foreign cultures and literature. Stephen said he felt awkward at first when reading poems and comparing Spanish originals and English translations side by side, admitting he was young and impressionable. “I know grammar. I can read. I can speak Spanish when I travel... What’s wrong with me? When I read these poems, I get something completely different!” he recalled. “Everyone was just winging it, so that was how I got into translation: I was looking at the material available then and didn’t think they were that good. I thought I could give it a shot.” He said translating also made him a better poet.

Andrew added that being a translator wasn’t a full-time activity back then and many wondered, “If you want to be a translator, what are you going to do for your day job?” Marian agreed, saying that she was still freelance-editing to pay her bills and couldn’t live on translation work alone.

She told attendees that she started working in the seventies, when students of Soviet culture and literature were discovering the Silver Age of Russian Poetry from the 19th and early 20th centuries. “Established U.S. poets were bringing Russian poets to the American audience through translation,” she recalled.

On the more practical side of things, Marian said publishing houses were more artistic back then. “If someone had an MBA, they’d be laughed at,” she joked. Soon after that, the corporate mentality started to take over and publishers were being bought and merged. “That’s when the number of literary translations dropped,” she contrasted.

She also mentioned the underground feeling of literary translation dissemination at that time, and remembers typing five copies of translated material in onion-skin paper, keeping a copy to herself, and passing the rest on to four friends, so they would do the same and carry on the tradition.

Stephen agreed with the improvised character of translations back in those days. “Our group had a fly-by-night operation. We’d put a circle around a C for copyright. We didn’t even have ISBNs. We just wanted to publish and I was semi-visible for a few seconds.”

The panel discussed the relationship between translators and publishers at more length. “New Directions, by then, was an endorsement of high-quality work,” Steve emphasized. “A third of their titles were translations. And we didn’t care they were translations; we just wanted to read good material. We wanted to read books that would change our lives.”

Marian mentioned New Directions as well. “I didn’t have copyright back then, but they wanted to publish my translations when they took over, and they wanted me to have copyright of my translations.”

When talking about what changed since then and, considering the lack of official numbers, whether they believe that the “electrifying feeling” may give us a false notion that more translations were being produced in the sixties and seventies compared to now, they admitted that they may see the past through rosy goggles.

“We weren’t just reading literary translations; we were reading the same literary translations and talking about it with passion,” Steve chimed in. “There are a lot more translations being published today, but who’s reading them? The real problem for us isn’t to have books published; but having books read,” he added.

“Maybe we think of it as a golden age because we were young,” Stephen admitted. “Back then, the U.S. felt like a broad culture, instead of the specialized culture of nowadays. That’s what we’re nostalgic about it: it was easier to find those books that would change our lives.”

“We also don’t have bookstores as a meeting place anymore, where people discovered things together,” Marian explained. “There’s money out there for something that is potentially exciting,” Steve added, on a positive note, mentioning the digital culture, the popularity of audiobooks, and the “clicking generation.”

Stephen agreed, but didn’t rule out printed literature altogether. “Paper books are becoming LPs. It’s for hipsters,” he suggested. “Something becomes viral for ten minutes. Then something else becomes viral. That’s why people are so stressed out nowadays,” he joked.

(17/12/2015)

Why I Use A CAT Tool To Translate Books

Computer-Assisted Translation―that's what CAT stands for. If you're not in the translation business, or if you're in the book translation business, odds are you're not familiar with it. No, CATs don't do the work themselves; we still need humans to translate documents (and books) from one language into another because a machine-powered translation doesn't have "gut feelings" or "cultural sensitivity" and it just won't cut it. But that's another story.

What this translation technology does is keep track of what translators type. Each sentence of the source document is isolated, so the translator types the respective translation and the combination is saved to a database. This is very useful when we translate technical materials and have been working with the same client for a long time, because there is a great chance that you'll come across sentences that are 100% identical or a close match to something you've translated in the past. So, in other words, CATs work as your memory and you don't have to remember or look through old files to make sure you're using the same words you did in the past.

Well, why would someone who mainly translates books be interested in a CAT tool? The sentences in a book will hardly repeat themselves, right? Wrong! I've had such an experience and it shows how valuable CAT tools can be. When I was translating Beto Córdova's "The Alliance," there were many repetitions that called for this technology, considering a book with character-centered chapters that have distinctive voices in each one of them, as well as lots of internal monologues and flashbacks, so it was only natural that key sentences were reinforced throughout the story.

In general, once you load a document into a CAT tool, you can see the original sentence on the left-hand side or top of the translation screen and then you can type the translation on the right-hand side or the bottom of the screen. This translation unit (language A = language B) is then recorded into a database and, once that sentence or something similar shows up again, the CAT retrieves the recorded translation unit for you and you can choose to use the exact same translation or adapt it according to the changes in the new original sentence.

Besides that, CATs can also be useful for glossary management. Some books will have keywords that you'll need to use over and over. Maybe a character uses certain lingo and you want to be true to that by using the same equivalents and register in the translation, so it's important to stay consistent with the vocabulary. The easiest way to do so is using a CAT as well.

While you're translating a sentence, you can highlight a word or expression in the source and highlight the corresponding terms in the translation, then save it to a database called glossary. Having the CAT display relevant words already added to your glossary, depending on the sentence you're currently translating, really beats spreadsheet-style glossaries, because you don't have to stop and look through it alphabetically, as you would a dictionary, to find the word you're looking for. And, believe me, that saves a lot of time and effort, while keeping consistency.

The CAT I've been using since 2008 is called Swordfish and I've selected it because we run Linux computers in the office, and this is one of the very few tools that actually works in any operating system, no need for emulators. It also gives me the advantage of working on either my desktop or laptop, because I only have to disable the license in one and enable it in the other to pick it up right where I've left it off. It's also compatible with other tools, so I can collaborate with clients and colleagues using other solutions without major complications.

If you're a translator and haven't tried out a CAT tool yet, I highly recommended that you take advantage of 30-day free trials to get an idea of what they're all about―whether you're translating technical documents or books. I'm sure a CAT will come in handy.

(14/12/2015)

Finding The Author’s Voice In Literary Translation (While Silencing Yours)

During the 56th Annual Conference organized November 4-7, 2015 by the American Translators Association (ATA) in Miami, I attended a presentation by the Literary Division entitled “Finding the Author’s Voice in Literary Translation (While Silencing Yours.)” The presenter was Mercedes Guhl, administrator of ATA’s Literary Division and the mind behind Traduzco, luego escribo, a blog about reading, writing, and translating that is written entirely in Spanish.

Mercedes was born in Colombia, started translating children’s books in 1990 while completing her BA in philosophy and literature, and later received her MA in translation studies from the University of Warwick, in the UK. Recently, while talking to her husband―who is also a translator―he asked her whether all books translated by the same translator end up having the same voice.

While pondering the question, she realized that (a) No, books translated by the same translator shouldn’t “sound” the same because translators re-enact or re-create the author’s voice in the target language, and (b) Yes, translated books may seem to have the same voice sometimes if the originals sound the same because they belong to a series, fall in the same genre, or were poorly written in the first place. “Editors don’t understand that sometimes a book could be translated in different ways,” she added, indicating that her husband’s question doesn’t seem to be very unusual after all.

Paraphrasing Umberto Eco, Mercedes said that the best-case scenario for book translators would be to read as the ideal reader, but translate with the common reader in mind. As a general concept, by reading as ideal readers, translators can learn to emulate the author’s voice, since “the original provides a grid” for the target text to be produced.

She also mentioned the contrasts between translators from an earlier age, who translated books to understand and acquire knowledge, and modern book translators, whose work is intended for publication and distribution. Because book translations nowadays serve the purpose of being a product for mass consumption, translators must exercise their writing skills in order to “have the tools and resources required to imitate, innovate, and create when necessary.”

In order to learn more about the work process other book translators follow and how similar or different it might be from her own method, she decided to carry out a study. One of the main questions she added to a questionnaire sent out to fellow book translators was whether they preferred reading the entire book before translating it, as she does herself, or if they would rather read each page as they are translating it.

Mercedes was surprised to find out that many would rather not read in advance, since she believes that some texts “should be understood as a whole” after a thorough reading, for they could contain “landmines that need to be simmered.” One of the opposing views she highlighted was by a translator who, in turn, contended that “reading as you translate yields a more vivid and spontaneous version.”

“Do you read to understand or do you translate to understand?”

Another curiosity Mercedes had was how translators first approach a project, which she calls “the first ten pages struggle.” Because she translates mainly children and young adult books, she says “it’s easier to just turn to the teenager you have inside and go… After the first ten pages, things come together and click. You go with the flow,” she added.

As for quality standards―which is always a hot topic when it comes to book translations, given the exposure that the final material gets―she wondered what her peers considered to be a good or a poor translation.

“I’m a little fearless,” she admits. “I was trained as an editor, so I am always thinking about the poor reader. It’s like a ménage à trois, and you have to be faithful to both the author with the original and the reader with the translation.” The two questions she asks herself to assure the quality of her translations are: “Is it internally coherent?” and “Is it adequate for the market?”

Among other questions she had for her peers were:

• Is a book a 100% mind-consuming task? In other words, do translators read or work on more than a book at a time?

• When and how do you read? Or, do you read to understand or do you translate to understand?

• Do you look up criticism and reviews about the book you’re translating?

• Do you talk to editors about your translation choices?

• Do you follow a given method, or do you just “go with the flow?” That is, do you compile glossaries and take notes while reading, or just see what happens in the first draft?

• How do you deal with dated expressions? Do you research equivalents or just make something up in the target language to make it sound contemporary?

• How about loaded words? Do you provide a direct translation, replace it, or coin a new term?

• When finding the voice of an author/character who is of the opposite sex, do you usually have any problems with that?

• How do you translate dialogues?

• What is your view about footnotes? Do you see them as a way you can “manipulate” readers, or would you rather remain silent as a translator?

• During the final stages of the project, do you make minor or major changes?

• Do you always have a chance to review your translation after it’s edited, so you have the final say?

The conclusions she reached at the end of her study were as follows:

1. There are no sure methods or tried paths when it comes to translating a book.

2. Each individual profile, set of skills, and background calls for individual methods.

3. Likewise, certain projects call for a different approach.

4. Creativity rules, not only in the general method, but also in the way a given project is undertaken.

(01/12/2015)

The Translator As Author

During the 56th Annual Conference organized November 4-7, 2015 by the American Translators Association (ATA) in Miami, I attended a presentation by the Literary Division entitled “The Translator as Author.” The panel was composed of Mercedes Guhl (administrator of ATA’s Literary Division), Abe Haak (translator from Arabic, French, and German) and Faiza Sultan (Arabic and Kurdish interpreter and translator.)

Abe Haak introduced the material, which focused on the theory and practice discussed in “The Translator as Author: Perspectives on Literary Translation, Proceedings of the International Conference,” an event that took place in Italy in 2009 to discuss the issue of authorship in translation.

The first topic the panel addressed was when it is acceptable for translators to delete or replace content from the book they are translating. Some examples included complementary information that supports central ideas, but become meaningless once removed from the original context: references to local history, characters, and rituals, as well as figures and statistics. In order to support the argument, a fragment of Julia Alvarez’s “How the García Girls Lost Their Accent” was mentioned, in which part of a dialog was omitted in the Spanish translation because it referred to the character’s accent, so it was turned into an explanation:

“Stop!” Carla cried. “Please stop.”

“Eh-stop!” they mimicked her. “Plees eh-stop.”

“¡Paren!”, lloró Carla. “Por favor, ¡paren!”

Los muchachos la remendaron, burlándose de su acento hispano en inglés.

(The boys mimicked her, making fun of her Hispanic accent in English.)

Another subject addressed by the panel was when an explanation or addition is welcome or even required. The scenarios presented included when the main idea could become confusing, contradictory, or plainly nonsensical once it is out of context. That would also be the case when cultural differences or historical references make more sense once they are supported by a brief explanation. Likewise, substitutions can be introduced by a translator when a statement or example is lost in translation and there are equivalent references, situations, or circumstances that can work as replacements.

Other subjects included adaptation (when information that is central to the text cannot be translated directly or replaced by an equivalent) and suppression (whether it is okay to remove passages that are considered inappropriate, and when it becomes censorship).

Lastly, Abe talked about the degrees of intimacy, when translators go from literalness to creativity, and the degrees of departure, that is, the level of interference they can resort to when intervening in the texts they are translating:

Notional departure = inspired by

Schematics departure = based on

Textual departure = translated from

“The farther you go into creativity, the less money you make, it seems,” Abe joked. “General interest books; that’s where you have to exercise most of your creativity,” Mercedes suggested.

(24/11/2015)

The New Normal: Cuba And The Power Of Translation

During the 56th Annual Conference organized November 4-7, 2015 by the American Translators Association (ATA) in Miami, I attended a presentation entitled “The New Normal: Cuba and the Power of Translation,” presented by Esther Allen, a writer and translator who teaches at Baruch College and was selected as the Literary Division Distinguished Speaker.

A two-time recipient of National Endowment for the Arts Translation fellowships, Esther was a fellow at the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. She also co-founded the PEN World Voices Festivalin 2005, and guided the work of the PEN/Heim Translation Fund between 2003 and 2010. In 2006, the French government named her a Chevalier de l’ordre des arts et des lettres and, in 2012, she received the Feliks Gross Award from the City University of New York Academy for the Arts and Sciences.

Esther’s ATA presentation was based on an article by the same name, which she wrote for Words Without Borders only two days after the normalization of U.S. relations with Cuba was announced on December 17, 2014. She mentioned that many U.S. commentators foresaw an “invasion of tourists, traders, and investors.” ”The mentality is that Cuba existed in a vacuum and now it will be Americanized overnight,” Esther disagreed, explaining that the country is no stranger to globalization, as its founding father José Martí had already written about the diverse origins of Cuba extensively.

The presenter told us that Martí spent most of his adulthood in New York City, where he wrote about the United States, and his articles were published throughout Latin America at a time when Cuba was still a Spanish colony. Martí was killed by the Spanish forces in the beginning of the insurgency he had initiated, which resulted in the Spanish-American War that led the United States to occupy Cuba and establish a naval base on Guantánamo Bay. The rest, is history, as we all know.

As the translator of José Martí’s Selected Writings and currently a Biography Fellow at the Leon Levy Center for Biography, working on a book about Martí’s life, Esther analyzed how President Barack Obama mentioned the Cuban founding father in his speech. “Obama turned to address the Cuban people directly. He began with a citation from José Martí: ‘Liberty is the right of every man to be honest.’”

She wondered how Obama had arrived at that precise quote from Martí, and whether he had made a conscious decision to leave the second part out of it.

Libertad es el derecho que todo hombre tiene a ser honrado y a pensar y hablar sin hipocresia

― MARTÍ, José. Tres héroes: Bolívar, San Martín, Hidalgo. “La edad de oro” (1889), part of a series that is very popular among Cuban children.

The possible sources she found were:

1. “Freedom is the right of every man to be honored, and to think and speak without hypocrisy” ― English-speaking guide at the Monumento a José Martí, La Habana, Cuba, February 2015.

2. “Liberty is the right of every man to be honest, to think and to speak without hypocrisy” ―Cuban student translation exercise cited in Enseñar inglés básico a partir de textos de José Martí (pedagogical study done in Santa Clara, Cuba, 2011.)

3. “‘Liberty,’ Martí wrote, ‘is the right of every man to be honest, to think and to speak without hypocrisy.’” ― Carlos Ripoli, letter to The New York Review of Books denouncing the “Marxification of Martí,” July, 1988.

Esther went on to say that, in the late 1800s, Martí used to write for Patria, located at 120 Front Street, which is now Wall Street. “He wrote in English as a Spaniard,” she explained, “because Americans were more interested in what Europeans had to say about the United States, rather than a Latin American from a country that did not exist yet.” He also wrote a letter disapproving of a mainstream newspaper that talked about how annexing Cuba to the United States would not have been desirable.

The speaker said that Martí’s work as a journalist was paid, but not well enough, so he turned to translations. Martí translated Helen Hunt Jackson’s Ramona, which came out about thirty years after Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom's Cabin and is compared to it because the former raised awareness of the plight of Mexican Americans just as the latter raised awareness of the plight of slaves in the United States. Martí then decided to self-publish and distribute the Spanish version of Ramona mainly in Mexico. Esther said that he used to call it nuestra novela (our novel), meaning that he believed the book spoke to the real struggles of Latinos, albeit within the context of the years following the Mexican-American War.

Going back to normalization of U.S. relations with Cuba, Esther reminded that, in the early 20th century, Cuban anthropologist Fernando Ortíz coined the term "transculturation" to describe the distinctive cultural characteristics of Cuban history. “And that history holds some significant lessons about the roles translation can play in the process of globalization,” she assured. Whether the new generation of American translators will now be able to keep in touch with Cuban culture and learn more about its literature is something yet to be seen. “Canadians visiting Cuba each year don’t have Communist cooties,” she added, hinting at how our neighbors to the north, just as much as British and Australian individuals, may be better equipped at attempting to bring literature from Cuba to English-speaking countries at the moment.

(04/11/2015)

Trials And Tribulations Of Translated Literature From The Margins

During the 56th Annual Conference organized November 4-7, 2015 by the American Translators Association (ATA) in Miami, I attended a presentation by the Literary Division entitled “Trials and Tribulations of Translated Literature from the Margins.” The presenters were Vivan Steemers, associate professor of French at Western Michigan University who has published Le (néo)colonialisme littéraire, a book about sub-Saharan Francophone literature translated into English, and Faiza Sultan, Arabic and Kurdish interpreter and translator and founder of DarSafi, a publishing house that specialized in translating and publishing literary and creative works.

Vivan started the presentation by saying that, for sub-Saharan authors, the very act of writing is an act of translation because, instead of writing in their native language, they write in French―the language of their former colonizer―in order to have more exposure.

She highlighted that, despite the fact that publication of sub-Saharan authors continues to be modest, the number of sub-Saharan books translated into English has increased since the 1950s. Two of the main books to start this wave were Camara Laye’s “The African Child”―which had originally been published as “The Dark Child”―and Mongo Beti’s “Cruel City.”

According to her, this increase is especially true thanks to the African Writer Series published by Heinemann Educational Books between 1962 and 2000 and, more recently, the creation of smaller, independent publishing houses. Still, “cynical, commercial publishers” in France act as “gatekeepers of ideas,” for they aren’t as aware of these authors writing in French and may not push for their translation into English. “These writers are left at the tender mercies of the Paris literary establishment,” Vivan wrote in her book.

Next, Faiza Sultan talked about another group of authors living on the margins, more specifically those producing Arabic literature about the Kurdish people, and how few of them are translated into English.

She emphasized the fact that publishers in Iraq aren’t authorized to publish anything before getting the approval of the Iraqi government. “They called it editing, I called it censoring,” she added.

Likewise, Iraqi readers don’t have access to some books coming from different parts of the world, which are banned for political, cultural, social, and moral reasons―and those who smuggle books face government persecution, even execution. Due to this censorship, Faiza explains it’s much easier for expats to get published and, consequently, most of the works written about the Kurdish people are in Arabic and Persian.

Faiza then talked about her own initiative to establish a small publisher to bridge the gap between East and West and tell untold stories about her people. The title she introduced to the audience was Salam Ibrahim’s In the Depths of Hell, the touching story of a man who survived chemical warfare in Iraq.

(30/10/2015)

Credit where credit is due (or "Let me Google That For you")

As translators, one of the technological advances that has revolutionized the way we work is this little thing called Google. Since the late 1990s, a world has opened up to us, language professionals, so that we could research terminology and read articles in our second language not only to keep up with trending expressions, but also to acquire more targeted knowledge in our specialty areas.

Well, it's been almost 20 years since this great search engine was invented, so how come people still don't know how to use it?

These past few months, I've been stunned by at least three separate issues that could have been easily resolved with a simple action: googling it. Having worked with book translations and covered the subject closely, I'm always amazed by the fact that, to this day, translators still don't get credit in the media for the books they translate and, worse yet, sometimes journalists completely ignore that the book is even available in their own language!!

Okay, let me take a breather... And a couple of steps back before I lose my train of thought.

In my "past life," I went to Journalism school―all while working as a translator and language instructor―so I have a good insight on how things work in the media. Even more intensely now than back in the early 2000s when I was in college, the news nowadays is largely moved by press releases, because it's easier to report on something when you've already received all the information in a press kit put together by companies and event organizers. In other words, all the leg work involved in reporting is already done for you and, as a journalist, you just need to get the word out through the media outlet you work for.

So, let's get some specific details on the three issues that triggered this post:

1. Really? You couldn't even look up the publisher's website to get the correct information on a book?!

We all know that book reviews rarely give any credit to translators, whether the review is on the media or on a blog. So we should praise publications that point out (1) that a book was indeed translated and (2) who the translator was. Or so we thought...

Fellow Brazilian translator Cláudia Mello Belhassof specializes in book translations and noticed that Brazilian newspaper Folha de S. Paulo ran an article about one of her translations. Philomena: Uma mãe, seu filho e uma busca que durou cinquenta anos became famous because the original book in English inspired a movie by the same name starring Judi Dench.

Cláudia read through the review and not only was it mentioned that the book had been translated into Portuguese, but credit was also given to the translator! (Maybe not everybody knows it but, believe it or not, books don't translate themselves...) And, to her surprise, credit wasn't given to her, but to ANOTHER TRANSLATOR!

This mistake could have been easily avoided by one simple trick: googling it!

And, of course, googling it is not always enough. Checking the credibility of sources returned by the search engine is what makes a difference―as we all know, since translators must research reliable terminology in order to complete their work accurately. In this case, going straight to the most credible source means visiting the publisher's website, which will most likely point out exactly who worked on a book translation they published.

2. Really? The book is yet to be translated and released in Portuguese? How come I have a copy?!

"Amon," written in German by Jennifer Teege and Nikola Sellmair, was released last April in English (translated by Carolin Sommer) with the explanatory alternative title "My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me: A Black Woman Discovers Her Family's Nazi Past." But I've had a paperback copy of the book for more than six months now―in Portuguese! When I heard about the story and learned that a dear friend, Petê Rissatti, had translated "Amon: Meu avô teria me executado" from German into Portuguese, I asked my parents in Brazil to send me a copy for Christmas.

Following my theory that journalists feel more comfortable processing and roughly translating press releases―or even foreign news from prestigious international media websites―and simply "forget" to research information when writing their own articles, this is the only explanation for Brazilian newspaper O Globo to have completely missed the fact that "Amon" had already been translated and published in Brazil before the English version became available. The newspaper most likely had access to a press release written by The Experiment, which published the English version of the book, and decided―rightfully so―to report on this incredible story.

As any good book translator should do, Petê likes keeping tabs on news stories and reviews on translations he helped make available to Brazilian readers. But, to his surprise, O Globo originally said in its story that the title remained unpublished in Portuguese...

This mistake could ALSO have been easily avoided by one simple trick: googling it!

Petê contacted the newspaper to let them know that he himself had translated the book from German into Portuguese and that publisher Agir had released it in 2014. Since the story ran on April 5th, the Brazilian newspaper removed that section of the article, updating it three days after the original publication to finally mention that the book came out in Brazil in September 2014.

While searching the newspaper archives, I also found this story from 2013, which was probably published when they received a press release after the original German edition was published. It seems that NO STORY was published last year by the same newspaper when the Brazilian version came to light.

3. Really? You decide to translate the title of a book "freely" even though it was published in the target language decades ago?

After Hillary Clinton confirmed that she was running for president in 2016, Brazilian magazine Veja published an article about ten things readers probably didn't know about the former First Lady. You would think that, when writing about such a prominent figure as Mrs. Clinton, journalists would double check all sources to make sure they got things right.

Nope! While probably "translating" a story found in English, the journalist responsible for the article in Portuguese didn't even bother to research the name of a book Mrs. Clinton wrote back in 1996, when her husband was still in the White House. The Veja story brought this "Did you know?" fact to Brazilian readers, mentioning that "It Takes a Village" could be "loosely" translated as "Leva apenas uma cidade"...

His mistake, too, could have been easily avoided by one simple trick: googling it!

É tarefa de uma aldeia, which is the correct title in Portuguese, was published in Brazil in 1997 by Revan.

And, to make things even more entertaining, Mrs. Clinton recently wrote yet another book, entitled "Hard Choices," which might as well be in the process of being translated into Portuguese and could be released in Brazil any moment now. When running a brief article about this new book, Agência Estado freely translated the title as "Escolhas difíceis". Nothing wrong with that, since there's no official title in Portuguese, but they didn't pay attention to how the original name is actually spelled and ran the story mentioning "Hard Joices". Close enough, right? :-O

In any case, my little article is only intended to point out the lack of attention that books in translation get from the Brazilian media, but I can assure you that it's a worldwide problem. We often read the translator's name in a publication when the reviewer is pointing out something they didn't like about the book and that could only be attributed to a translation mistake, obviously―even when reviewers themselves aren't able to read the original in order to have enough grounds to support their gut feeling about the so-called mistake. When reviewers don't find anything wrong with the book, they usually don't even mention that it was translated, maybe because it would go against their views to actually praise a translator for a job done well...

Having said that, since this is the month we celebrate International Translation Day, let's raise awareness of what translators do and how we contribute to worldwide communications. Revisiting a wonderful campaign initiated in September last year by the Brazilian Translators Association (ABRATES), let's urge publishers to always mention the translator's name on their website and all press releases they sent out to the media. Let's also urge the media―including blog reviewers―to always indicate the translator's name as well when reviewing an international book made available in the local language.

In Portuguese, the hashtags created for the campaign were #NomeDoTradutor, #CadeOTradutor and #QuemTraduziu. I'd like suggest the following counterparts in English: #NameTheTranslator, #WhoTranslatedIt, and #TranslatedByWhom. What hashtags could you use in your language?

(04/09/2015)

3 Ideas To Avoid Boredom And Stress On A Tight Schedule

Working on multiple projects is a big challenge. Each item needs your undivided attention so you'll meet your deadlines, achieve your goals, and keep clients happy. But you can only work for so long before you run out of steam, right? And, even if you have a flexible deadline, the smallest disruptions can bring about chaos. Here are 3 ideas to manage your boredom, meet your expectations, and get all projects done on time without giving in to stress or finding a way to procrastinate.

1. Follow your schedule and rotate different tasks around

First of all, you gotta organize yourself! You can use a daily planner, a whiteboard, or an online calendar, but PLEASE plan your day beforehand to avoid any headaches. For example, I work with multiple translation projects and, besides completing my own translations, I also supervise colleagues who translate the same documents into their own language. If we didn't use a scheduling system, it would sure be a disaster―that means, missed deadlines and unhappy clients.

So, step one is setting up the slots of time you'll dedicate to each project. If it's something short and simple, it'll be over and done with before you take a break and move on to the next task. But if it's a larger project you're dealing with―let's say, a 10,000-word corporate sustainability report that is only due next week―plan yourself to dedicate a couple of hours to it here and there, intertwined with some much-needed downtime and tasks of a different nature to give your brain a break and still meet the deadline.

Using this 10,000-word translation as an example, one way to approach it is to schedule a couple of hours in the morning to get it started, take a quick break when the time is up (go get some coffee/tea/juice) and then do some unrelated task for the next half an hour or so (managing social media posts, writing a blog entry, answering emails, making phone calls...) Go back to the translation project for another hour and you'll most likely get a boost of productivity and work more easily on it, since it's now familiar to you, while still making progress on your to-do list and keeping your productivity up before it's time for lunch.

Even if you still do the same kind of task, but use a different approach, you're already allowing your brain to switch gears, restart and keep going for longer without getting tired. For instance, let's say I'm translating a long Portuguese-to-English document, so I take a break from it after a couple of hours and fit in a small English-to-Portuguese task to reboot. Otherwise, I run the risk of hitting a roadblock―my brain gets stuck―and my productivity drops.

The key here is to stay organized and let all the pieces of the puzzle fall in the right places to make your tight schedule work. Still, don't overschedule yourself and leave room for unforeseen circumstances. Few things are really worth stressing about and sometimes it's best to just take a quick break.

2. Find your ideal "attention buffer"

Have you ever suffered from the Watching-the-Clock Syndrome? I guess everybody has, at one time or another. It's not that you dislike the task you're working on in that particular moment―okay, sometimes you keep at something for way too long and end up getting bored! It's usually just a matter of feeling that you're not making enough progress. Sometimes you think you should have written/translated/compiled X pages and you feel like you're trapped in quicksand and not moving forward at all.

Well, besides the "take a break and switch gears" approach above, there's one trick you could try: Implement an "attention buffer!" What I mean by that is simply something that will keep one of your senses preoccupied, providing some sort of time reference, so you don't feel you're lagging behind.

Some people think it's about multitasking and are completely against having any of their senses connected to something other than the task at hand, but what I'm actually talking about here is just allowing your brain to have some sort of an escape, so you don't get tired fast.

I'll explain: if I'm translating a document from Spanish to Portuguese, I like having some Brazilian music playing in the background. (And, before you ask me, yes, we speak Portuguese in Brazil... Here's some historical reference if you're still confused about it!)

Listening to something in the language I'm writing in or translating to/from actually helps me relax and stay focused at the same time. Had I been listening to English or Italian while working on the Spanish/Portuguese language combo, then it'd certainly be a distraction! Sometimes, when I switch to an English-related task, having an NPR interview, a TV show, or a movie in the background actually works as motivation to get more mundane tasks done, including project management, scheduling, invoicing, etc. 

It also works when I'm eventually stuck on a translation task and, I have to say, more than once Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have actually helped me find the perfect word I was looking for while eloquently making their point across in some of their seriously hilarious reports. You might not have realized it, but these two and their writing staff are true word nerds. Talk about serendipity!

All I know is that, if I have absolute silence while working, I actually feel uncomfortable and restless, as if I weren't making much progress on my tasks (30 minutes end up feeling like 3 hours!) and I soon get tired, distracted, and frustrated. However, there are always exceptions, of course. I usually can't have much going on in the background if I'm translating a novel, for example, because I need to be completely immersed in the universe that the author has created, as if I could see, hear, smell, taste, and touch everything that the characters are experiencing. So, in that case, music is indeed a distraction―unless it's a soundtrack mentioned by the author in connection to characters and events.

There are many naysayers when it comes to having background noise while doing creative work. Well, the key here is that different people function differently, so what works for me may not work for you. I highly encourage you to find an "attention buffer" that works for you, though!

3. Exercise to get a boost of productivity

Okay, this is definitely my favorite trick, because it not only helps me increase my productivity, but it also keeps me healthy and sane. In addition to running, I take a few group classes at the nearest YMCA every week. When people try to make a point that I'm exercising "too much," I tell them I need some endorphin to manage stress!

Anyway, getting up, breathing in some fresh air, stretching and sweating a little bit is a welcome change when your work has you chained to a desk for hours on end. Gardening, walking the dog, chasing your kids around the park, going for a bike ride, dancing, and lifting weights... You can even prancersize if you want to, just get moving already! These are all great ideas to fill in your breaks with some physical activity to compensate for all that mental hard work.

When you exercise, you'll get the obvious health-related benefits, but you'll also be giving your brain a much-deserved break and possibly allowing it to solve any issues you may have encountered. In my case, it's usually a sentence that is difficult to crack, or a word that I can't quite translate naturally. People say they have their best ideas in the shower or when they're about to fall asleep; with me, it usually happens when I'm in the middle of a workout session and my brain can find an answer while working more passively.

Oftentimes you use all your energy to get the job done that you get completely drained, bored, stressed, and frustrated. So, instead of procrastinating, a better way to get things done without driving yourself mad is to get moving and push those problems to the background, so the answer can come to you more organically and without so much struggle.

In conclusion, you don't need to become a marathon runner or a triathlete to start enjoying the benefits of getting your blood flowing and your heart pumping. The key here is to find an activity you truly enjoy―otherwise, it's just more added stress!

(28/07/2015)

Taboo: Translating Into Your Second Language

It is clear for everyone to see: translators translate from a foreign language into their native language. However, there's always an exception for every rule. I was born in Brazil and grew up and went to school there for the first 22 years of my life. Then I moved away. I could already bring English and Spanish to the table, since I had been working as a translator for at least five years by then, although I was only translating into my mother tongue at the time.

The change of address also triggered a change in demand. There are few people worldwide who make a decision to learn Portuguese, and those who do so usually have a pretty good reason: personal (most likely a Brazilian spouse) or professional (working for a company that has commercial ties with Brazil). And, among these very few individuals, the amount of English speakers who end up going into translation is even smaller. That is why, unfortunately, we see a lack of foreigners translating from Portuguese to English.

As a Brazilian who immigrated to California, I started to receive requests for translations from Portuguese into English. At first, these were personal or business documents. There were many diplomas and school transcripts from Brazilians who wished to continue their studies in the United States. There were many agreements, contracts, business communications, and brochures from Brazilian companies who wished to do business with American companies.

In both cases, these translations can be done fairly easily, especially with the help of the Internet―when I started translating back in 1997, Google still didn't exist and it would only take flight in Brazil during the turn of the century. Nowadays, it's easy to research the curriculum of several universities to learn more about the classes they offer and, consequently, be in a better position to compare the subjects studied by a Brazilian and those taken by foreign students in the same area of interest. And, when it comes to corporate communications, many translations from Portuguese to English can be done (almost) with your eyes closed, considering the amount of English jargon and style that is either kept or adapted into Portuguese in this segment.

But, what about book translations? In 2010, I started to diversify my portfolio because literary translation is what had first attracted me to this industry. That was when I created a project dedicated to translating Brazilian short stories into English. And what a pleasure it was―and still is! What a great way to exercise my creativity, after it had been pushed to the far corners of my mind!

And, what about the challenge? The challenge was even bigger! What can you do when you come across a diversity of voices, styles, and slangs that exist in a country with continental dimensions, such as Brazil? The way I found was to research equivalent expressions exhaustively, always trying to get as close as possible to what had been said by the author. That certain Brazilian flavor may get lost sometimes, but the feelings and emotions experienced by readers is somehow conveyed in English.

In addition to these short stories, I also translated several books by Brazilian authors who wished to have their work available in English. These translations, while equally rewarding, are way more intense. Short stories are ready in a short amount of time; books take months until they're finally ready to go. And, when you're translating into your second language―no matter how fluent you are in that foreign tongue―you are always prone to having more questions than you'd have in your mother tongue, that language that provides you that “gut feeling” deep down that tells you, “This is right! But that's not cool. This reads very naturally! Now, this looks like Translationese.”

Prepositions... These are the true villains when you translate into English. These short, little words can be a huge pain in the neck! In, on, at, out, off, up, away. Use the wrong preposition, and you'll change the entire meaning of a sentence. Instead of putting out the fire of desire, you actually put off your reader. And, if you no longer have the reader's attention, you're doing a disservice to authors, who hunched over their manuscript for months or years, trying to find just the right word. Well, that is true of any language, though.

And what happens when you hit a roadblock? That's when you have to be resourceful and grab a “native” to help you in your translation cause. I turn to my husband and ask, “How would you say XYZ in English?” I send out a text to a friend, writing a sentence and leaving _____ in the middle of it, so that she can fill in the blank with a verb or preposition she would use if she were writing it in English, her native language. I sometimes play charades when I have friends over, just to clear up some term that may have been pending.

We try things out, make things up and learn something new. And this kind of learning doesn't always come on demand. Sometimes you're watching a movie, a TV show, or listening to the radio in the car and then it clicks. It's a constant exercise in capturing an instant in that language to preserve it in your mind, just in case you might need it later.

Book translations are made of sensations: imagination, colors, flavors, and smells. When you catch one of these sensations just like that, while it's hanging up in the air, you must cherish it and incorporate it, so that one day―whether it's a distant or near future―you can make it fit like a glove in one of your translations to trigger that same sensation you've experienced in the language you started learning from the time you heard the first sound from the outside world. After all, in order to translate into your second language, you must live in it with both feet on the ground, but with your heart back in your homeland, always.

(23/07/2015)

On Translating Linguistic Variants

On June 5-7, 2015, I attended the 6th International Conference organized by the Brazilian Translators Association (ABRATES), which took place at the Rebouças Convention Center in São Paulo. On Saturday, June 6th―the first day of presentations―I spent most of my day in Room 5, where several presenters talked about literary translation.

The fourth session I attended was On Translating Linguistic Variants, presented by Solange Pinheiro Carvalho. She talked about her academic research on the work of Andrea Camilleri, an Italian author born in 1925, when few Italians were bilingual and most only spoke their regional language.

Solange explained that, for Camilleri, Sicilian was the "language of affection," while Italian was the "language of authority." Back then, it was not possible to talk to elderly people in Italian, since they only understood their own dialect. As for young people, they started to learn Italian at school, then oftentimes moved out of their hometown and, upon returning, could no longer understand the local dialect. This Italian reality is shown in Camilleri's writings, mainly as a way to indicate a character's language register, as well as the (social and hierarchical) interactions between characters.

The presenter studied different approaches from academics, such as Pym, Lane-Mercier, Morvan, and Eco to base her research, but warned that "It's impossible to think about a general translation theory; we must analyze each particular case separately." In order to illustrate this linguistic reality, the researcher compared the evolution of national language in Italy and Brazil: While multilingualism was the rule in Italian territory―where minority or regional languages contrasted from standard Italian―in Brazilian territory there has always been a multiplicity of dialects that are mutually understandable.

However, she emphasized that translators should avoid attempting a localization that could create an incorrect parallel between a dialect in the original and an accent that is characteristic from a Brazilian state, for example. In other words, it would be wrong to change a Sicilian character into someone from a northern Brazilian state.

Solange said this Italian multilingualism causes conflicts in both Camilleri's writings and translations, because what is considered "the educated standard" clashes with the translation of linguistic variants. "In the general consensus, we're able to match different linguistic norms," she stated in regards to the translation of a standard language into another. "But how about the linguistic variants that exist within the same language?"

As an example, Solange mentioned some fragments of one of Camilleri's books, in which a character is talking to his girlfriend and ends up mixing some Sicilian with Italian, which deeply irritates her―since she only understands the latter. The presenter then reflected about how to manage this conflict in a translation into Portuguese: Instead of translating everything into the target language, which would certainly change the interaction between characters, she said some adaptations are required.

"Sometimes you must find another language to create this foreignness, especially if one of the characters will resolve this conflict throughout the dialog," she suggested, mentioning that she found inspiration in minority languages from the Iberian Peninsula, such as Galician, Aragonese, Mirandese, and Asturian, which are somehow connected to Portuguese―at least enough to be understood by the reader, while creating the same effect present in the original because of some terms that are indeed out of place and incomprehensible.

In some other instances, she opted for misspelling something to cause this oddness. During her explanation, she highlighted a piece of dialog from Camilleri's book in which the word signora (or "Mrs." in Italian) had been written as signura and, in order to be true to the author's intention and making the reader feel a bit off, she'd misspell the Portuguese senhora as sinhora, which is actually used in Galician.

"By introducing Galician into the text, we're able to show that the character doesn't quite speak the standard language used in the original, thus keeping the same level of oddness in the translation," she assured. "I just don't know how far this solution would be considered acceptable at a traditional publishing house, because we all know there's some resistance to regional variants," she reminded the audience, adding that Camilleri's work in Italy isn't as widely accepted as it should because Italian readers think his writings are "too difficult."

"If I were to translate it this way and a published put the book out like that, I'm sure they would receive many complaints about the book being badly written," she lamented.

Let's Avoid Translationese, Shall We?

On June 5-7, 2015, I attended the 6th International Conference organized by the Brazilian Translators Association (ABRATES), which took place at the Rebouças Convention Center in São Paulo. On Saturday, June 6th―the first day of presentations―I spent most of my day in Room 5, where several presenters talked about literary translation.

The third session I attended was "Let's Avoid Translationese, Shall We?", presented by Ponte de Letras, a group formed by Petê Rissatti, Carolina Caires Coelho, Flávia Souto Maior and Débora Guimarães Isidoro, four book translators (and very good friends) who got together to write a blog about the subject.

They started the session with Petê reading a thank-you note to ABRATES and, at first, it all sounded very weird to those in the audience. At the end of his reading, we found out that the odd language and behavior had been intentional: the presenters wanted us to feel uncomfortable with how unnatural it all sounded. After all, they were there to talk about "translationese."

Petê then recommended Paulo Henrique Brito's A tradução literária as a reference book for those who wish to learn more about publishing. However, he warned us that "You translate for publishers, but readers are your end client." With this reminder, Petê went back to the subject of keeping a natural language in book translations in order to hold the reader's attention.

Here are some other reminders made by the group:

• Translation, at its best, doesn't sound translated.

• When someone thinks about the translator, it's because something went wrong.

• The more translators work on a text ―making an effort to respect the original and, at the same time, make it sound natural in the target language― the least it will make themselves present in it.

• The more invisible translators are, the more we can see them.

Still on the topic of sounding natural, Flávia talked about one of her book translation and how she tried to strike a balance between making it flow and keeping true to the space and time "atmosphere" created by the author. In this case, she was referring to a noir book written by James Elroy and set in 1940s Los Angeles. With that in mind, she had to adapt slangs and language of that space and time. Her tip? "Get as close as possible to what is really being said."

Petê then mentioned the “tapestry analogy” according to which Miguel de Cervantes said translations are like the back of a tapestry: people can see the knots in the plot, some threads hanging on the backside, but can't quite contemplate the beauty of the image created. "We must strive to make sure our tapestry isn't loose and comes apart; it must be tied together well, without knots and patches," he explained.

Carolina said that "translationese" happens when translators go into "autopilot," when the deadline is too tight, or when editors change something during the reviewing process. Débora complemented that thought saying that we must read and re-read our translation to make sure our final product will be as natural as possible. For example, she likes reading her translations aloud to check if they're "easy on the ears." "There are no rules and each one of us must find our own way to accomplish it," she assured.

(17/06/2015)

Research In Literary Translation: Selecting And Interviewing Sources Of Information

On June 5-7, 2015, I attended the 6th International Conference organized by the Brazilian Translators Association (ABRATES), which took place at the Rebouças Convention Center in São Paulo. On Saturday, June 6th―the first day of presentations―I spent most of my day in Room 5, where several presenters talked about literary translation.

The second presentation I attended, Research in literary translation: how journalism techniques contribute to selecting and interviewing sources of information, was by translator and journalist Candice Soldatelli, who translated Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road (published in Portuguese as “Ghost Rider: a estrada da cura,”) written by Neil Peart, celebrated drummer for the rock band Rush. She talked about how this translation was, at the same time, a dream come true―she's a huge fan of the Canadian band―and a real nightmare―considering the amount of research required.

She highlighted some of the similarities between translation and journalism: being faithful to a statement and/or source text, being careful not to impose your own point of view as a journalist and/or translator, and selecting and interviewing reliable sources of information. "Writing news stories is like translating reality," she compared. "Among all qualities a good translator must have, being a researcher is crucial."

Before going into detail and telling the audience, in a very fun way, how the translation process was, Candice challenged those who attended the session: how many people there knew most of the professionals she had to resort to while trying to understand the variety of subjects mentioned in the book? Her list, which was quite extensive, included bikers and drummers―as expected due to the nature of the book, considering the author's occupation and the fact that he had gone on a lone motorcycle ride through the roads of Canada―as well as an ornithologist, who studies birds.

As an amateur bird watcher, the author mentioned several species and features observed during his trip, and these items needed to be translated precisely as not to attract negative criticism from readers familiar with the subject. "When I read the book in English, just for pleasure, I thought: 'Poor translator! He'll have to look up the name of all these birds!" she recalled, saying that she recommended the original book to Editora Belas Letras and ended up being hired as the Brazilian Portuguese translator after passing a test.

At first, she tried to look for bird names using Wikipedia, expecting to find a link to the Portuguese page on the original English page. Candice admits she often hoped to find at least a link in Spanish that could help her "see the light" and find the name of each species. However, after not finding any reliable sources, not even for the scientific names in Latin, she decided to call an expert.

"Can you imagine if an ornithologist reads it and it doesn't match?! I'd be ashamed of myself!" she explained, saying that she took her research with her when she found a specialist in the area, with whom she talked for over an hour. "When you work with an expert, you can't expect to get an education about the subject," she warned. "You must come in with a few solutions, so the two of you can have an exchange." After their conversation, she and the ornithologist ended up creating a name for a bird that only exists in Canada and, so far, hadn't made it into any Brazilian catalogs. Once they had made a decision, the expert even added the species to Wiki Aves, the Brazilian wikipage on birds.

Candice said that she followed the same researching method with bikers and a drummer. "I was able to bring arguments to the table when talking to my copy editor. How come? Because I did my homework," she pointed out, saying that she also needed precise terms for motorcycle parts and movements made by musicians who play the drums. She said it was a "total-immersion process" to understand what had been written by the author, so that she could interpret, adapt, and indicate each term with precision to a Brazilian Portuguese audience.

Once the book translation was completed, Candice had the unique opportunity of taking part in a book release event side-by-side with the author. "It's the best book about mourning that I've read in my entire life," she summarized how she felt about this rock star's story, who was pushed to the edge and decided to reflect about life and find himself again after losing his own daughter and, a few months later, his wife.

(16/06/2015)

CAT Tools In Literary Translation: What Are They Good For?

On June 5-7, 2015, I attended the 6th International Conference organized by the Brazilian Translators Association (ABRATES), which took place at the Rebouças Convention Center in São Paulo. On Saturday, June 6th―the first day of presentations―I spent most of my day in Room 5, where several presenters talked about literary translation.

The first presentation I attended was the one by translator Reginaldo Francisco, who talked about the use of CAT tools in literary translations. Reginaldo highlighted the overall benefits offered by CAT tools, such as improved comfort and ergonomics, because translators don't need to use two screens or, worse, read the original straight from a paperback copy.

Another improvement is how previous translations can be leveraged, because your work is recorded in a database and reused at a later time. Glossaries can also be compiled, so that key terms will be suggested automatically whenever they show up in the original. Besides, many of these programs help with typing as well with "auto complete" or "auto suggest" features that guess what you're trying to type based on the first letters being entered and the words most commonly used in the project.

Reginaldo talked a little about some of the most popular tools, such as Trados and Wordfast, and explained that their classic version used to work within Microsoft Word by isolated segments on a document and providing a field where translators could type the respective translation. This combination of original segment and translation are then stored within a database to feed the translation memory.

"These are good starting points, because the learning curve is less steep," he indicated when referring to the fact that many translators are already familiar with the Microsoft Word environment, and they'd only need to get used the additional menus and hotkeys that are particular to each tool. "However, the fact that they work within Word is the best and worst of advantages," he warned. "You may be used to Word, but you also get all the bugs that come with it."

When demonstrating Wordfast Classic, Reginaldo compared it to the rule many of us have already used on top of a sheet of paper to indicate the line we're translating. With a tool of this nature, we benefit from improved ergonomics, because we avoid discomfort and the literal pain in the neck caused by looking from paper to screen.

He then demonstrated Wordfast Pro, which is a stand-alone version of this tool and works within its own window, without resorting to an additional program. Reginaldo talked about looking up previous translations, be them at the sentence or vocabulary level, and how translation memories work.

When talking about literary translation specifically, he recognized that a translator will very rarely find matches and repetitions within a memory database while translating a book. One example he did mention, from an Italian-to-Portuguese book he translated and that was written in a diary-like format, showed similar dates that were identified as matches, and it only takes translating the first date for the tool to understand the syntax and simply replace the number, while keeping the translation for the month.

Still, he says that these tools are useful for consistency and quality assurance purpose, including character names, for example. Translators can also look up terminology by doing a search and finding all segments in which a given word was used, so that they can recall how it was translated throughout the book.

Finally, making it a habit to translate books using CAT tools is something healthy for a translator's production control, because this type of software generates reports that indicate the amount of words translated and what's still left to translate, thus helping professionals organize their schedule.

(15/06/2015)

Translators Under The Spotlight

On June 5-7, 2015, I attended the 6th International Conference organized by the Brazilian Translators Association (ABRATES), which took place at the Rebouças Convention Center in São Paulo. On Saturday, June 6th―the first day of presentations―I spent most of my day in Room 5, where several presenters talked about literary translation.

The fifth session I attended was a discussion panel entitled Translators under the spotlight, which was moderated by translator Petê Rissati and featured translators Carolina Caires Coelho and Candice Soldatelli and editors Alyne Azuma and Alessandra Ruiz. The subject of their discussion? The interaction between publishers and book translators.

Petê's shot out the first question: Is it true that there's a clic in the world of book translations?

Alyne, who acts as an Editorial Coordinator, confirmed that yes, there is a clic, but things aren't quite like that. “This situation exists, but it's way less affectionate than people imagine it to be,” she explained, saying that when an editor puts together a nice team that functions well, it's only natural that they'd keep working with the same people time and again.

Alessandra said clics are inevitably created, but there's always a starting point: “It's a matter of acing your translation test or having a solid recommendation letter, because there are publishing houses that are more air-tight and have a set team.”

Petê completed that thought: “That's why it's so important to attend literary events, book releases, and get to meet different people...”

Carolina confirmed this idea saying that, in the beginning, things weren't easy for her, but recommendations helped her build her resume and, when an editor likes the job you're doing in a given genre, they'll most likely keep you around.

The second topic brought up for conversation was more directed to the translators on the panel: What do you expect from publishers?

Carolina said that she'd like to see publishers paying more attention to translators, pointing out the fact that book editors sometimes take too long to answers questions and clear things up during the translation round, or when exchanging comments and suggestions during the proofreading round.

Alyne agreed with her, saying that communication is crucial, so everybody needs to establish a dialog, give feedback, and have a proper briefing session.

Alessandra added that, as a matter of fact, "nothing is set in stone; not even authors are always ready to go" and that the relationship between translators and book editors must be built.

Candice echoed that sentiment, reminding the audience that translators also need to go the extra mile and study a publisher's catalog if they wish to join the team, thus learning about the company's editorial philosophy. According to her own personal experiences, she said that, once the relationship between her and the publisher was created, their collaboration started to flow pretty well. "From then on, he [the editor] started to see me not only as a translator, but as a professional who truly understands his business," she explains.

Making the most of the segue, Petê asked the book editors on the panel to talk a little bit more about the editorial process in Brazilian publishers.

Alessandra said that, first of all, translators must sign a contract to give up their copyright. She justified this step as a way for publishers to minimize their expenses, paying only for services provided and avoiding long-term payments based on sales results.

 "Publishers try to pay the least amount of money and make as much profit as they can while making minimal effort," she explained. "Publishers are companies; despite all the literary aura around it, they are corporations and don't do charity work. They want to get the best work and the best profit ―not only for readers, but for company executives as well." However, she warns businesses that, when they set out to pay very little, they won't attract the best professionals and, consequently, they won't get a good job in return, thus confirming that sometimes publishers give up working with a good translator due to lack of time and feedback.

Once these issues were brought to the table, Petê moved on to the next question: How could we improve the relationship between publishers and translators?

Candice shared her own experience, saying that translators could also make an effort to recommend competent collaborators to play other roles throughout the editorial process. "Our team worked together: editor, translator, and copy editor had a briefing session," she recalls. "We had problems with the proofreader, because he hadn't been part of the process from the beginning, so we changed the way we work since then."

Additionally, she emphasized that, since translators speak both languages involved in a book translation and can evaluate books that could potentially be translated, they are the ideal team member to help publishers in their capacity as scouts. That is exactly what she did at the Frankfurt Book Fair two years ago―when Brazil was the guest of honor―participating in the editorial process from behind the scenes in order to select authors and titles, negotiate translation rights, and bringing material to the publisher she was representing.

Candice left the following message to beginners: "Pay attention to these small publishers, because they're doing things differently and growing very fast."

Changing the subject, Petê asked the panelists to talk a little bit more about the editorial flow.

Alessandra said nobody can bring a book to life all by themselves and, if they try, they'll need to wear many hats. "If you have a big ego... We in the publishing business run away from vain people. If translators, proofreaders, illustrators, and editors want to be better than the rest of the group, they'll end up messing the project up," she warned. "It's great when you have a good final product, but the best professional isn't necessarily the one who has the most prestige in the business; it's the most humble people, those who communicate better. Sometimes your text is translated well, but there are so many questions and issues just because you didn't do your research."

Carolina agreed with the idea that translators must be humble and keep an open channel for communication. "This exchange [between translators and proofreaders] is an exercise in humbleness. When translators get the revised translation back, they end up learning valuable lessons," she added.

As a translator himself, Petê voiced his agreement as well. "It's an empathy thing. What kind of text would you like to translate, proofread, or copy edit? The least trouble you cause to the copy editor, the better. Hand in the kind of text you'd like to read for pleasure," he suggested. "We must remember that we're all working together towards the same goal."

Here's the last question that the panel was asked: After a book is released, are you concerned with what is being said about your work?

Candice told the audience that she didn't have much choice. "In my debut, I had my feet held to the fire, because I was there for the book release event," she recalls, saying that she was face to face with readers of her very first book translation. "They asked very pertinent questions and I needed to be prepared to answer them. It seems to me that readers are more aware of translators now. When a publisher acquires publishing rights and announces upcoming books on their website, readers are now asking: 'Who's gonna translate it?'"

Carolina said each book she translated is like her own child to her, because translators are there from the project conception, even though they know that books are translated for the world. "We always follow up on it, especially on social networks, visiting blogs to learn about what readers think... We move on to the next project, but we always keep an eye on it to know how the book is doing."

As a publisher, Alessandra is of the same mind. "It's something that lasts forever. We go to bookstores and put our book on top of others... We may start working for another company, represent another publisher, but our books, like our children, will always be ours," she confessed.

Likewise, she also agrees with Candice's perspective about readers' reactions. "Brazilian readers, especially the young ones, are becoming very professional. They know what's happening in the world and, before we release a book, they're already asking, 'Will the cover stay the same? Will you change the characters' names?'"

Alyne also used the mother-and-child comparison. "We always get to the point where we think: We could have done things better. But, some other times we say: This is my kid, I love it just the way it is." As for the relationship with readers, she goes a step further. "Today, we can interact in the social media, and people go after you, but this exchange is always more intense and readers become our partners in the process."

After such an animated talk, there was only enough time for one question from the audience, but what a great question that was! What happens in the editorial world that exists away from books written in English?

Candice was the first to speak, saying that U.S. publishers have recently found out that there's literature in other languages, but they are still very "green" when it comes to literary translation. "They had so many questions," she recalls her interactions in Frankfurt. "It got me thinking: Wow, Brazilians have so much to teach them about it!" Consequently, she says that Brazilian publishers have seen that Americans are paying attention to other languages, so they started to be on top of international literature as well.

The same audience member who asked the question followed up saying that Brazilian publishers needed to invest and really value more those translations that are done directly from a foreign language―different from English―into Portuguese.

Candice recognized that many publishers in Brazil usually wait for the English translation to be released, so they can use it as a bridge, instead of translating straight from the original source language. Alessandra complemented that comment by suggesting something to translators working from other foreign languages: "Take a book that has been badly translated using an intermediate language, edit a chapter or so, and try to talk to a publisher about it."

(04/06/2015)

Why should translators combine skills and technology?

For years now, translators have been worried that they may soon be replaced by computers. Personally, I hardly believe it will happen in our lifetime―or in my kids' lifetime―but that doesn't mean that translators should shun away from technology altogether. Once you see technology as your ally, you'll notice how much easier your job gets. By combining technology and your sharp translation skills, you can become the most efficient translator you could ever be!

For example, I've been using the same computer-assisted translation (CAT) tool since 2008. It's called Swordfish and the reason I migrated to it after using another tool for about four years was the fact that it's a cross platform solution. What does that mean, exactly? Well, it means that regardless of the operating system you use (Windows, Mac OS, or Linux) you can run this tool without the need for any “magic” (i.e. emulators to “trick” your computer into thinking it's something that it is not, just because some software may have been designed with a certain operating system in mind.) We use Linux in our offices by the way, or the Ubuntu distribution to be more precise, and Swordfish has eliminated our need to have a Windows computer, making our company's operations more reliable, virus-free, and with minimal bugs and downtime.

By using the same CAT tool consistently, I'm able to keep my translation memories (TMs) organized. These TMs are databases where you record your work, so you can use it later on―days, weeks, or years down the road―without the need to remember how you've done it before or go through old files to locate that same sentence you feel like you've translated in the past.

I decided to create different TMs, one for each client, in order to keep things separate. Should one of these clients ever request a copy of their dedicated TM, I could send it to them without breaching the non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) we've signed. In other words, I could send Client A a TM containing past translations completed for them without disclosing any confidential information about Client B, because the latter's content won't be mixed up in the same TM.

THE CAT BASICS

Actually, let me take a step back to talk about how TMs work. First of all, it's important to say that no, CAT tools don't do the work for you. All a CAT does is separate a file into segments, which can be sentences, titles, headlines, photo captions, or any other complete line of text and have it ready for you to translate it. You basically see the original segment on the left (or on the top, depending on your settings) and then have a blank field on the right (or the bottom) where you'll type the respective translation. Once you're happy with this source + target combination, you save the translation unit (TU) to your TM.

If you work for the same client very often, or translate the same subject time and time again, you can “leverage” your past translations when working on new material. Think about legal translators who work with contracts that have very similar clauses, dispositions and wording. Once they translate a sentence and record it to the TM, they can use that same translation―with some adaptation, when needed―whenever a similar new sentence comes up.

MATCHES AND REPETITIONS

The best part of it is that good CAT tools actually highlight or somehow indicate exactly what needs to be changed while comparing the current segment to your legacy material. Then, all you have to do is use your past translation and change a couple of words to make sure your current translation is faithful to the source text.

When this wonderful thing happens, you have what we call a “match.” Using some complicated computer equations that we don't need to dwell on, these matches can be classified as having a 50-99% similarity between the source and target sentences. When you get a 100% match―jackpot!―that means the sentence you are about to translate is IDENTICAL to a sentence you've translated in the past, and the CAT found it for you.

Just to make it clear, that can only happen if you have been consistently working with the CAT and feeding your TM with your work. As I mentioned before, CATs won't do the work for you, but they'll remind you how you translated something in the past.

CATs will also identify what we call “repetitions,” which are similar to 100% or exact matches. The only difference between them is that repetitions only exist inside the document you're translating. In other words, they don't refer to a TU that has been previously recorded to a TM; they refer to a segment that repeats itself several times throughout your current project.

GLOSSARIES GALORE

Everything I've talked about so far refers to the translation of the source text itself. TMs will recall TUs based on the sentences you've translated in the past, but they'll only be able to provide recommendations at the word level if you create a glossary, or terminology database (TB), and feed it as well. In my particular case, I have a single multilingual glossary to which I can add terminology in all my work languages (English, Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian) and it allows me to cross-reference them in a central location.

Different CATs work differently, but what I do on Swordfish is pretty much highlight the source term, then highlight its counterpart in the target segment, and use a hotkey to record it to my TB. That way, I don't have to research the same terminology several times. When that same term shows up on a different segment, the CAT will display your glossary entry and―if it matches the context―you can use it again.

I don't know about you, but if I translate something during my first shift (let's say, between 9 a.m. and 11:30 a.m.) then I get up, get lunch ready while watching some T.V., talk to my husband or discipline the kids... Well, my point is, when I go back to my second shift (between 1 p.m. and 4:30 p.m.) I'll most likely have forgotten how I translated a particular term. And, because some expressions can be translated differently―very few translations are absolute!―keeping an updated glossary, sometimes with several options for the same term, saves me a considerable amount of time when it comes to remembering how I've translated it a few hours, weeks, or days ago.

THE CAT IN ACTION

So that these concepts won't be too abstract for people who have never used a CAT before, here's a more practical example. Because I've been using Swordfish for 90% of my translations since 2008, keeping a very organized TM and recording every single sentence I type in the target language, as well as updating my TB with key terminology after proper research and context verification, my CAT helps me reuse my translations whenever needed.

The other day, I was able to complete 9,652 words on an English-to-Portuguese technical manual in only three hours of work―all before lunch time! And how did that happen? Swordfish identified several repetitions inside the same manual, as well as some matches to what I had previously translated in other manuals for the same client.

Besides translating everything that was considered “new” material―segments that I had never translated in the past―my job in this particular translation was to make sure that matches were aligned with what I had translated in the past, given the changes needed, and all repetitions were uniform across the document.

In a different scenario, had I not been using a CAT, I'd have to go back and forth through the pages of this document, and possibly have opened several other documents I previously completed for this client, so that I could cross reference everything and make sure my translation was consistent throughout the document and the length of my collaboration with this client so far. That would have taken me hours (maybe a couple extra days!) were I following a purely manual system.

THE TAKEAWAY MESSAGE

The takeaway message here is: Having sharp translation skills is a given for anyone who intends to become a professional translator. But, if you want to become efficient, effective and accurate, having the ability to improve your average output (how many words you translate per hour, day, week, or month) you must take advantage of the resources that technology makes available to you.

(11/04/2015)

Looking at the Translation Industry with Fresh Eyes

Today I had the opportunity to sit with my dear friend and fellow Brazilian translator Cris Silva and have an online conversation about the translation industry. Cris teaches at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey and invited me to talk to her students―who are working towards their Master's Degree in Translation & Interpretation―about what it is like to be a professional translator. This informal interview was intended to give students some guidelines and ideas on how to interview a translator in their language combination in order to learn more about the reality in their market for that segment of the industry.

Among so many things, we talked about getting your foot in the door as a beginner translator, the main challenges translators have to face, how to seek continuing education opportunities and find a specialization, using social media to establish contacts in the industry, networking with clients and colleagues, building a sustainable translation business, and work-life balance (i.e. having kids and working from home.)

Even though the purpose of our conversation was to shed some light on the profession so that students could have a better idea of what's in store for them, I greatly benefited from our talk because it gave me an opportunity to look at the translation industry with fresh eyes.

Having worked as a translator for the past 18 years―first as a more sporadic activity to complement my income as a language instructor, then part time while in college, until the complete transition to full-time translator and business owner―I sometimes forget what it was like to learn the ropes and explore a new professional territory. The little things I take for granted nowadays, because I've been doing them for so long, are the same things that looked like insurmountable obstacles I was unsure whether I'd be able to overcome.

The learning curve is indeed steep, but when you're passionate about what you do, you are able to come out on the other side wiser and with a few scars you can be proud of.

(09/03/2015)

Jost Zetzsche: "We Are Doing A Great Job In Telling Poor Stories About Ourselves As Translators"

During the 55th Annual Conference organized November 5-8, 2014 by the American Translators Association (ATA) in Chicago, I attended a session entitled Why We Need to be Good Storytellers, presented by Jost Zetzsche, tech-savvy English-to-German translator, editor of The Toolbox Journal, and author of Found in Translation, Translation Matters, and Characters with Character: 50 Ways to Rekindle Your Love Affair with Language.

Jost started out by highlighting the power of translators and translations in worldwide communications, mentioning two fascinating examples:

• the Inuit people needed to create a word for Internet, considering their lack of technology use, and came up with ikiaqqivik, which means “traveling through layers”

• the Chinese had to create a special character for “God” that would be a gender-neutral and match their all-encompassing philosophical interpretations

The speaker then moved on to point the finger at the translation community: “We are doing a great job in telling poor stories about ourselves as translators,” he pondered. “Disagreements are fine, and there are great reasons to have disagreements, but we don't do it in public. We're not helping each other when being so critical.”

He was referring to discussion forums and social media posts in general, in which translators seem to be always complaining and being negative about everything related to our industry―from prices to competition and especially technology.

Jost then highlighted a couple of headlines that support his idea that we must tell better stories about ourselves as professionals, and as the translation community as a whole. “Success demands that we harness the power of telling a killer story,” he read from Psychology Today. “Telling stories is the best way to teach, persuade, and even understand ourselves,” he read another headline.

"We need to present ourselves well and be aware of who we are. We identify ourselves with St. Jerome, who wasn't really tech-savvy when he translated the Bible."

He moved on to talk about how the media is covering stories related to translation. For example, he mentioned the first Skype translator demo and emphasized that it was kind of a fiasco. “But the press loved it, so the story was positive,” he stated. “The press was really interested in translation; maybe not just the type of translation that we want to talk about.” As a contrast, he indicated that for 350+ articles found online about the Skype translator demo, there were only 13 articles on the International Translation Day. “The latter is not an attractive story,” he concluded.

“We are right now in the process of a supernova”

The speaker reminded those who attended his session how there wasn't much of a translation industry before the 1980s. Back then, there were mostly individuals offering their services, but then translation technology came along and things really changed.

Here's the time line Jost presented to the audience:

• 1980s ― Translations (Documents, paper) > 10 languages

• 1990s ― Localization (Software, digital) > 25 languages

• 2000s ― Globalization (Simship, static web) > 40 languages

• 2010s ― Integration (Integration in enterprise systems, dynamic web) 6 < > 60 languages

• 2020s ― Convergence (Embedded in every app, on every screen, personalized) 150 < > 150 languages

“We, individual translators or small business owners, can't offer what large corporations have to offer, because we're using different technology,” he explained. “But the demand for boutique-style specialist translation businesses could grow. We're no longer an industry; we're a supernova!”

Where do we tell stories?

In the last part of his session, Jost listed a few ways translators can tell better stories about themselves and our collective activities.

• Professional websites and blogs

• Social media posts: “You can create a good on-line persona with 100 tweets; but it only takes 1 tweet to kill that persona!”

• Other forms of electronic outreach: podcasts, YouTube channels, Tumbler, Pinterest, Instagram, etc.

• Industry-specific engagements: conferences such as the ATA's

• Not-for-profit engagements: Translators Without Borders's take on how translators have helped spread news about ebola

• Talks: sharing your knowledge with peers or educating potential clients

• Publications articles, books, etc.

• Any kind of communication with potential clients