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The Shift. An extract from the book The Shift about work of translators in the field (based on a true story).
Strong blast of biting blizzard struck me in the face just when I got out of the car. After a month spent here I still was not used to strange weather of the polar region...
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Have Language, Will Travel
when Gabe approached me with the idea of writing about my experience
in the profession, I thought, `what is there to write?` I`ve spent
most of my adult life in remote places and have never achieved many
of the standard milestones of success. As I actually tried to make
a timeline, however, I realized my life has been extremely varied
and I have been extremely fortunate…
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the full article…
Translation Can Be Fun
I have adapted the title for this article from one of my favorite
children’s books, Grammar Can Be Fun, by Munro Leaf, who is most
famous as the author of Ferdinand the Bull. He also wrote similar
helpful books for children on subjects like health, safety, and
manners, but unlike grammar, I found little fun in those subjects.
I have come to realize that my attitude throughout my whole life
has just been to have fun and not work…
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the full article…
Planning and
Passion
Juan Carlos, my uncle and a very successful accountant, once told
my children to make sure they pursued a career they were passionate
about. He has seen people pursue accounting because of the money
and they are never successful. You don't excel in anything unless
you are passionate about it…
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the full article…
The Joy of Translating
I got interested in languages when I was young. I grew up in California
and, though it had ceased to be part of Mexico well before then,
there are still reminders of its Mexican and Spanish heritage and
plenty of Spanish-speaking people. My mother comes from northern
Vermont, not far from the border with French-speaking Quebec. My
grandmother’s undergraduate major was French and she kept her college
textbooks at her house…
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the full article…
One Translator's
Journey
It may not be the most auspicious way to start a translation career,
but mine began with two serious misconceptions: I thought I was
going to make a living as a literary translator. And I believed
that interpreting was a glamorous job…
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the full article…
Another Accidental
Translator
I grew up on a dry farm during the Depression, drought, and grasshopper
plagues, all of which helped convince me that I was not going to
be a farmer. But after some pre-school home learning (my mother
had been a school teacher), a year in a one-room country school,
then through the remaining grades in a small town school, with mostly
very good teachers, I graduated from high school in 1946. Having
become fascinated by chemistry, I entered a nearby small college
as a chemistry major, and started taking chemistry courses…
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the full article…
Chance Favors
the Prepared Mind
Like many firsts, my first translation was unplanned. In the spring
of 1969 I had just dropped out of high school to enter the University
of California at San Diego as a biology major. Starting in the third
quarter of the school year, no beginning classes in the science
sequences were available, so I took electives. One of those classes
was an introduction to German literature. This class was taught
by Reinhard Lettau, a colorful professor, political activist, and
member of Gruppe 47, a group of German writers that included Heinrich
Böll and Günter Grass…
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the full article…
A Professional
(and Geographic) Journey
My early start towards my current life as a translator was not very
promising. During my first year in secondary school in my hometown
of Konstanz, Germany, on beautiful Lake Constance and in close proximity
to Switzerland and Austria, it was clear that I didn't exactly get
a jump start at French, which was my first foreign language. At
first I was actually looking forward to learning a "real"
foreign language in addition to Swiss German…
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the full article…
The translator
as an entrepreneur: an Indian perspective
This paper deals with Translators as entrepreneurs who are slowly
getting aware of their profession and have begun coming to a common
platform to share knowledge, experience and resources – a most desired
step necessary for the better future of the profession. Further,
this paper will propose “networking” as a possible solution to entrepreneurs
who can economize their process and speed up their growth by using
available resources and infrastructure without having to invest
huge…
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the full article…
Success through
Lifetime Learning
I felt really honored to be asked
by Gabe to write my profile for this issue, and since he asked,
here is my story. How did I get myself in this profession?
Mostly by fate, but I blame my mom. At home we spoke German; I learned
Spanish when I went to school. I was sent to a British grade school
in Buenos Aires. After that, I was forced to keep studying English
during my high school years…
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the full article…
Bringing the
Best Western Classical Literature to Turkish Masses
On October 29, 1923, the day Turkey
became a secular state, a revolutionary law aimed at unification,
standardization, and secularization of the educational institutions
(Tevhid-i Tedrisat kanunu) was passed effectively closing all the
religious schools and attaching all educational institutions to
the Ministry of National Education. Several other reforms in education
followed with speed and enthusiasm…
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the full article…
Uniquely Typical
or Typically Unique?
When Gabe Bokor asked me to write
a profile for the Translation Journal, I was, of course flattered
and honored. At the same time, I felt pressured to do a good job—after
all, I'd be writing for a community of language professionals. So
the first thing I did was read a few of the profiles that had been
written by colleagues before me. I was going to just read one or
two to get an idea of what's expected, and then knock off a quick
sketch of myself that would fit the bill. I also began jotting down
ideas of what to say…
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the full article…
Gerhard Preisser,
Translator
Does anyone ever set out to be a
professional translator? I doubt it. Does any promising linguist-to-be
in her sophomore year seriously dream of one day spending hour after
backbreaking hour in a small office, surrounded by expensive electronics,
staring at an oversized monitor, digging deep to find some appreciation
for the verbal finesse manifesting itself in the 116th claim of
some patent? Not likely…
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the full article…
José Martí, Translator
The main objective of this article
is to explore Cuban nineteenth century patriot José Marti’s
little known activity as a translator and, to a lesser extent, interpreter…
Translation Insights
from the Inside
- Interview with Dr. Mark Ritter, Chief Editor, McElroy Translation
native of Minnesota, Mark Ritter
discovered Austin in 1971, as many young people have, through attending
the University of Texas (UT). He was a mathematics major at Cornell
but studied German as an elective and eventually a second major.
After his undergraduate degree, he earned a doctorate at UT, not
in mathematics but in German…
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the full article…
Translation Trivia
Questions: Translation as an Agent of Social Change in the Past
What is the name of the Catholic
saint whose feast day serves as International Translation Day? For
what translation achievement is the saint in question #1 best known?…
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the full article…
Medieval Arabic
Translation: Rise and Decline
There is no denying the fact that
knowledge is a collective pursuit to which all cultures, past and
present, have contributed. A great deal of this knowledge is preserved
and augmented through a highly creative and rigorous process known
as translation. Medieval Arabic translators did really contribute
to the development and preservation of human knowledge…
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the full article…
Inttranet "Linguist
of the Year" Award for 2006
The members of the Inttranet™,
the global network of professional interpreters and translators,
have nominated the 216 interpreters killed in Iraq as their "Linguists
of the Year" for 2006. These honorary citations recognise the
struggle – and sometimes the personal sacrifice…
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the full article…
A Portrait of
the Translator as a Political Activist
This paper attempts to portray the
role of the translator as a political activist. It studies the character
of the translator Mansur Abd As-Salam in Abd Ar-Rahman Munif's 1973
novel Al-Ashjaar wa Igtiyaal Marzouq (The Trees and the Assassination
of Marzouq)…
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the full article…
Interview with
Gabe Bokor
VA: The ATA awarded
you its highest honor, the Gode Medal in 2000, but I would say that
your strongest credential as a translator is having been born Hungarian.
Since you could only use that extremely difficult language to talk
to other Hungarians, how many other languages did you learn as a
child in order to communicate with the rest of world?
GB: You're right, Vero, although I cannot take
credit for where I was born. Indeed, if you travel a couple of hundred
miles in any direction from Budapest, you must speak another language…
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the full article…
Inttranews Special
Report: Words Without Borders
In a world rife with ignorance and
incomprehension of other cultures, literature in translation has
an especially important role, hence the value of Words Without Borders.
Its purpose is to promote international communication through translation
of the world's best writing – selected and translated by a distinguished
group of writers, translators, and publishing professionals – and
publishing and promoting these works (or excerpts) on the Web. So
how does WWB see the future of literary translation, faced with
initiatives like Google Print, and growing illiteracy rates? Inttranews
decided to find out more…
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the full article…
The Hague Program
and how it could affect the translating and interpreting profession
The European Council meeting of heads
of state of 4-5 November 2004 endorsed the Hague Multiannual program,
aimed at strengthening the freedom, security and justice across
the EU over the period 2005-2009. The program is a step towards
fulfilling the EU's goal, introduced with the treaty of Amsterdam
in 1999, to create a European Area of Freedom, Justice and Security…
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the full article…
Inttranet “Linguists
of the Year” for 2005
The Inttranet (www.inttra.net), the
global network of professional interpreters and translators, has
nominated its "Linguists of the Year" for 2005.
These honorary citations recognise the struggle - and sometimes
the personal sacrifice - of linguists both alive and dead who were
the focus for media attention during the past year, and have increased
public awareness of the importance of linguists and languages as
a result…
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the full article…
Q
and A with Dmitri Popov
Dmitri Popov works as a technical translator from
English and Danish to Russian, as well as a freelance contributor
to major European and US computer magazines and websites. His articles
cover open source software including desktop and web-based applications
and tools. Recently, Dmitri released the book Hands on Open
Source, which provides a practical introduction to the
best open source applications…
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the full article…
Translate.org.za:
Passionate about open source, translation, and South Africa
Dwayne Bailey is a man of action; and the kind of person who calls
other translators to action as well. If you've never heard of Bailey,
you've got him to thank for the African language versions of OpenOffice.org
(currently Zulu, Northern Sotho and Afrikaans, to Bailey's knowledge
the first office software localized into African languages), the
Afrikaans version of Firefox, and the South African language versions
of Google…
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the full article…
Translation and Censorship in European Environments
Studying translation in the shadow of censorship means investigating
the manipulatory mechanisms used as an assault on original texts
in order to alter their meaning and exclude the reader from the
choices made in the Source Language. In strong nationalistic European
environments, censorship in translation has been used as a powerful
tool in order to help safeguard the nations' cultures from outside
influences and promote the regimes' ideologies. The purpose of this
essay is to examine the translation industry in Fascist Italy, Nazi
Germany and Franco's Spain, and provide short examples of manipulatory
processes that translations have been subjected to, due to the imposition
of strict censorship measures…
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the full article…
Intellectual
Property and Copyright: The case of translators
It is common knowledge that authors have the right to protect their
work against other people using it and profiting from it. What is
less known to the public in general is that translators hold the
copyright to the work they produce. This means that if I translate
a novel, for example, nobody can make any commercial use of the
text without my permission, and if anyone has the opportunity of
deriving any profit from this use, I have a right to a share in
this profit, and this right is protected and guaranteed by law…
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the full article…
On
Censorship: A Conversation with Ilan Stavans
VA: What is censorship?
IS: To deliberately expurgate material for specific
reasons. Ironically, the Oxford English Dictionary lists divergent
definitions for the word "censor," one historical, the other consuetudinary:
"the title of two magistrates in ancient Rome, who drew up the register
or census of the citizens, etc., and had the supervision of public
morals"; and "one who exercises official or officious supervision
over morals and conduct"…
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the full article…
Inttranews Special Report: Quality in translation
One of the latest sections to be added to Inttranews focuses on
quality management and assurance in the translation industry, quality
being the single most important factor for a successful career as
a translator, whether freelance or as an employee. As part of our
launch of the Inttranews Quality section, we have interviewed Juan
José Arevalillo, current Chair for the Spanish Association of Translation
Companies, and the head of the Spanish Committee working on the
EN-15038 European Quality Standard for Translation Services…
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the full article…
Translation and Interpretation Work for the LNG Tangguh Project
in Papua, Indonesia
Translation and interpretation are communication skills that a person
acquires through involvement in actual translation and interpretation
work. One who knows two or more languages is not necessarily a good
translator or interpreter, because not only linguistic issues, but
other communicative and cultural aspects are also involved. Accordingly,
a translator or interpreter always faces linguistic and non-linguistic
challenges in performing a job if they come to it unprepared …
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the full article…
"Fronting for Franco"
This is an article about my principal youthful sin, working as a
radio announcer for Radio Nacional de España in Madrid way back
in 1956. It was published forty years after the sin itself took
place in the June 1996 issue of Apuntes, a small specialist newsletter
for translators who work into and from Spanish …
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the full article…
Inttranews Special Report: Babels
Like any global conference, the World Social Forum which took place
in Porto Alegre, Brazil, on January 26-31, could not have taken
place without interpreters and translators – but in this case, all
550 of them were volunteers, organised by Babels (www.Babels.org).
Inttranews decided to find out more about what the organisation
does and why …
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the full article…
The Translator's Practice:
An Interview With Brett Jocelyn Epstein
This month “The Practicing Writer” considers an aspect of the craft
and business of writing that many of us don't necessarily think
about every day: translation. What does a translator do? What are
the ties between writing and translation? And where can we learn
more? In an interview with Erika Dreifus, Brett Jocelyn Epstein
shares insights on these essential elements of the translator's
craft and business …
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the full article…
Inttranews Special Report: Cihat Salman
Uniquely positioned between East and West, Turkey has always played
a strategic role. Now that the EC has accepted to start negotiations
for the country to join the European Union, the Turkish interpreting
and translation market is of even greater interest. Inttranews set
out to find out more, by interviewing Cihat Salman, Inttranet Regional
Administrator for Turkey and Managing Director of Mirora Translations
and Consultancy Ltd. in Istanbul …
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the full article…
Inttranet: Linguists Of The Year 2004
These honorary citations recognise the struggle - and sometimes
the personal sacrifice - of linguists both alive and dead who were
the focus for media attention during the past year, and have increased
public awareness of the importance of linguists and languages as
a result …
Read
the full article…
Inttranews Special Report: Fred Burks
In 1981, Fred Burks went to Indonesia as part of a VIA (Volunteers
in Asia) student exchange plan, and spent four years learning Indonesian.
After two years of living in the People's Republic of China, he
became a contract interpreter first in Indonesian in 1986, then
in Mandarin in 1988 …
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the full article…
It's party time
People on the continent often have a tendency to view those of us
living on the British Isles as a bit 'eccentric', or in any case
possibly a bit 'different' to much of the rest of Europe. At least
part of that lies in our traditional celebrations and festivities.
Even though the Member States of the EU are becoming 'ever closer'
some things are still done a bit differently in the UK to Belgium.
I have described the main festivals below - handy for the purposes
of recognition, or making sure you don't try to contact someone
on a day off!
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the full article…
Répondez s'il vous plaît
You never know when your company might want to hold an event to
celebrate a particular achievement or anniversary. And an invitation
can be just like a marketing text in making sure people will (want
to) come! This means you have to get it just right.
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the full article…
The
Situation of Turkish Literature in the German Polysystem: A Descriptive
Study
By presenting
its own literary works to its people, each society aims at improving
its literary culture. Society also attempts to satisfy the various
needs and wants of its members by providing, according to certain
criteria, a variety of literary works from different cultures and
countries via translation. These criteria may or may not benefit
the source culture. The main point is, in general, the enrichment
of the target culture…
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