Only Human Translators
Mar 28, 2021 |
A few weeks ago, a translator raised a question in the Standing Up Facebook group. Quoting precedents from the content writing industry, he asked whether translators could or should have different quality standards for different clients with different budgets. In...
Mar 1, 2021 |
At some point during 2021, it will be my 20th anniversary as a translator. I only wish I could be more specific, but I can’t honestly remember when I did my first translation or who the client was. All I can say with any degree of certainty was that it is...
Feb 4, 2021 |
Every translation requires it: the essential balance between the two basic impulses governing our profession, and probably many other lines of work. On one hand there is the urge to do the best possible job – the perfectionist desire to check everything and make...
Nov 24, 2020 |
I’m sure I’m not alone among translators in hating invoicing. And what I hate even more than invoicing is that day after I send all my bills out, because it’s then that the queries start. “The total’s not right in this one.”...
Oct 26, 2020 |
A few weeks ago, there was a post in a translators’ Facebook group that appalled me. A woman translator described how she was telephoned by a supposed colleague with what was apparently a job offer only for the conversation to deteriorate into him making...
Sep 28, 2020 |
Many types of translation can be automated nowadays, with varying degrees of success. But there are still areas where the machines will always have their work cut out to compete with human beings. I was reminded of this in a job I was doing last week that also made me...
Aug 28, 2020 |
One of the few positive things that’s happened to me in this truly appalling year of 2020 is that I’ve become a published author for the first time. So apologies to those of you who don’t like to hear the sound of someone blowing their own trumpet,...
Jul 16, 2020 |
There is nothing like the COVID-19 crisis to teach us how important perception is. Of any group of people in the same place, at the same time, governed by the same rules, you will find some who are ultra cautious, going out as little as possible, always wearing a face...
May 26, 2020 |
All over the world, like other conferences and congresses, translation events have fallen victim to the coronavirus. The question I want to answer in this post is what they are going to look like in the future. And can online events ever provide a real replacement? In...
Apr 27, 2020 |
In my last post I talked about coping with the coronavirus lockdown we’ve almost all been living with in one form or another for several weeks. This time, although the confinement seems to be continually extended, I want to look forward. What’s our...
"As well as what they're about, books have to transmit emotions. A good translation has to be able to maintain that emotion in another language and that's not always easy. Simon Berrill has been working with Cossetània Edicions for some time and the books on tourism which he translates into English help put across the city's exciting cultural heritage to its visitors."