The Sustainable Food Forum and the Speciality & Fine Food Fair – towards a better food system for a healthier planet
Harvesting opportunities
I’ve been out of my office more than usual these past two weeks. Two major food events have been early autumn highlights for me: the Speciality & Fine Food Fair at Olympia, London, and the Sustainable Food Forum, also in London.
It was such a treat for me to attend these two events, both centred on my number one favourite topic: good food. To me, good food means more than just food that tastes good; I want to know how it got onto my plate. The planet needs sustainable food that is good for the earth and good for people.
But why go to these events, as a linguist? Because I translate and copy-edit for customers in the food sector, it’s vital that I stay up-to-date with the latest trends, innovations and thinking. If I didn’t understand my customers’ challenges, I wouldn’t be equipped to make informed decisions when translating or editing their content.
Meeting the food system innovators and trailblazers
At the Speciality & Fine Food Fair I had the chance to meet innovative and ethical food exhibitors that are blazing a trail with their artisanal products. It was a privilege to see businesses that are experimenting with new ingredients and formulations and to learn about the latest trends.
I had conversations with exhibitors about how they produced their products and got them to market, and about future plans for selling their products more widely in the UK and beyond. Most importantly I sampled several of their mouth-watering products – cold-pressed gins, organic butters and cheeses, ethical and free-range ready meals. Yum! I was impressed with how well organised the event was – registration on the door took seconds and it was also easy to share contact details with exhibitors by simply scanning my visitor badge.
Making food system reform a priority
On 19 September I was lucky enough to secure a ticket with translator colleague Josie Worrall to attend Food Matters Live’s Sustainable Food Forum. This was held in the sublime venue of 30 Euston Square; also home to the Royal College of GPs. Josie and I agreed that the conference far exceeded our expectations. We were treated to seamless event organisation, top-notch food (par for the course, I guess!), and well-lit, comfortable conference rooms and cutting edge debate.
The Sustainable Food Forum was packed with expert-led discussions looking at key policies and challenges in our global food system. Chaired by journalist Samira Ahmed, we quickly got to the heart of the matter in the very first session: we are producing more food than we need, yet we are still hungry. How is this possible?
The answers to this question shared a common theme: the global food system is the single most destructive environmental force. Agricultural production generates more emissions than all forms of transport combined. But we just keep producing more meat to satisfy consumer demand. As consumers, we are so used to meat being the centrepiece of our meals, but it doesn’t have to be. A staggering 77% of agricultural land is used for animal production, something that seems crazy when we bear in mind that neither the meat nor the dairy industry would exist in the UK without subsidies.
If we fixed our food system it would pave the way for huge progress in mitigating climate chaos. There are powerful food lobbies pulling the strings, and many panellists argued that it’s time to call out these big players. The Netherlands has introduced a policy to reduce livestock numbers by 30%, the first in the world. Earlier this year, I attended another food systems conference that highlighted some other heartening global food policy initiatives - things ARE being done but we need to do more at every level, particularly at policy level.
Sustainability is not a trend
We often talk about sustainability as if it’s a trend. But actually it’s a must. Food industry coalitions and collaborations are the answer if we are serious about climate action. And the Sustainable Food Forum was a good place to start.
We heard first-hand from producers about how innovations in ingredients and processing may hold the key to a more sustainable food system. We face a doubling in meat production in future, as the world’s population grows. And yet most consumers still make their buying decisions based on taste and price – this means that customer acceptance has to be a priority.
There were some heated debates around new plant-based alternatives and meat analogues, and the extent to which they provide the answer. In my view, they do provide at least a large part of the answer.
It was highly relevant that one of the event’s key partners was ICEX. I attended an interesting presentation by Rising UP in Spain, the Spanish Government’s start-up programme to help international agrifood start-ups set up in Spain. As a Spanish to English translator, I’ll be keen to see how this start-up programme develops.
How can I help?
If you are a food system thinker, innovator or producer, I can help you hit the right note in your English language publications.
If you want to make sure your documents are fit for their intended audience, you need a specialist wordsmith in your corner. One who also cares about sustainability. If you are working hard to attract investment and new business to your region, your communication materials become mission-critical. You can’t afford to miss a beat.
That’s where I come in: as a translator and copy-editor specialising in sustainable food and food policy, I’m already helping my customers get their message across. If you’re interested in exploring how I can help you, click the image below to book a free chat.
Everything you need to know about my copy-editing service
You may have noticed that, as well as translation, I also offer copy-editing as a service. This service helps customers sharpen their sentences and make sure their message is consistent and compelling, and is for English-speaking customers and for multilingual authors writing in English.
Investing in copy-editing services can feel expensive and risky when you’re not completely sure what that editing service will involve. You may ask:
Will the editor go too far?
How long will they take to complete the edit?
This blog post will help you understand everything you need to know before buying my copy-editing services.
I want you to make the right choice, so this article will cover:
What a copy-editor does
What a copy-editor doesn’t do
Why you may need to work with a copy-editor.
Hopefully the information in this article will help decide whether my copy-editing services are right for you.
What exactly is copy-editing?
Everyone wears a different hat in an editorial project team
It’s possible you may not have even heard of copy-editing. Plenty of my friends ask me what exactly it is, even though they know I’ve been copy-editing for years now. Most people are aware of the importance of copy-editing in a publishing workflow.
You may have heard of proofreaders, but you may be surprised to learn that, although copy-editors and proofreaders are involved further along the publication chain, the scope of their work is different. I’ll explain this further below.
“In text terms, a copy-editor is your structural engineer.”
Let’s imagine you’ve built a house/car/other important asset that requires multiple professionals to get the final product through to sign-off. You can probably see where I’m going with this!
The architect will have designed the house, and a construction company will have built the house. But will you receive that house in its raw state, directly from the builder? I hope not!
Before you collect the keys, you’ll want someone to check the construction is structurally sound. Someone who can ensure the house will perform as it was intended and carries no risk. For a construction, this would be a structural engineer. In text terms, that person is a copy-editor.
What a copy-editor does
Language guardian angels are out there if you know where to look
David Crystal describes editors as ‘language guardian angels’. This analogy is my personal favourite.
Inside Book Publishing says that the ‘role of the copy-editor, who may be the only person other than the author who reads the book before publication, is to ensure that the text and illustrations are clear, correct, and consistent for both the printer and the ultimate readers.’
You may expect a copy-editor to check the nuts and bolts of punctuation and grammar at sentence level, but did you know that they also take a broader look at your document?
“Copy-editors have experience of a wide range of writing genres.”
Copy-editors usually work as part of a wider project team that may include commissioning editors, marketing teams, proofreaders and typesetters. Like other editorial professionals, copy-editors will need to be well read and have experience of a wide range of writing genres.
The specific tasks of a copy-editor include:
Labelling (with codes/tags) all the features of the text.
Correcting literal errors (typos).
Monitoring factual content and spotting internal contradictions or inconsistencies.
Reading the text for sense and clarity e.g. logical argument, tidying up expression and word use, checking for inappropriate use of terms.
Checking the structure of the writing is sound.
Checking for omissions, inconsistencies and potential legal issues
Ensuring consistency and clarity at sentence and whole-text level, for example by removing redundant words and phrases.
Formatting any tables and figure captions.
Checking consistency against house style,
Checking and troubleshooting the consistency of the content itself (e.g. factual inaccuracies).
Awareness of redundancy, ambiguity.
Delete irrelevancies, unnecessary repetitions and infelicities.
Checking references – a fiddly process that requires specific knowledge and expertise.
Fact-checking (if agreed with the author/client).
A copy-editor will also usually produce a style sheet for their customer so they can see what top-level changes have been made/suggested and why.
What results can you expect from my copy-editing service?
Copy-editors help readers see things clearly
My copy-editing service is tailored to what you need. I’m not prescriptive about language – I understand that language is constantly changing, and that writers are free to play around with language to get a message across in a particular tone of voice.
The focus is to make your writing easier for readers to digest – readers shouldn’t have to spend time reading and re-reading sentences until they make sense. Checking for and removing redundancies can also enhance the style, clarity and readability of your writing.
“Readers shouldn’t have to spend time reading and re-reading sentences until they make sense.”
Copy-editing gets your text ready for publication by ensuring that it’s clear, consistent, correct and complete, and that it reads well for its intended purpose. The types of documents I’ve worked on include project evaluation reports, education policy briefs, annual reports, newsletters and non-fiction books. I can also edit for plain English and edit digital content for education publishers.
Keeping things tidy
Some of the individual tasks of a copy-editor involve ‘tidying up’ a text, and this sort of task may not be visible to an author/customer. For example, ‘silent’ changes like converting two spaces to one, or making sure heading styles are consistent throughout, are helpful tidying tasks that a customer will appreciate but probably doesn’t want to have to worry about themselves.
Although I’m not prescriptive about it, I am a grammar and punctuation nerd expert. So my service can include advice on grammar and punctuation issues if needed, and/or producing a style guide for your organisation.
What a copy-editor doesn’t do
Copy-editing can get confused with other writing services
Copy-editing isn’t just about spotting literals and showering your text with red ink. Copy-editing is not about deleting lots of paragraphs or criticising an author. You shouldn’t expect to receive a surgically altered text from your copy-editor.
Copy editing is also not:
Rewriting
Proofreading
Revising translations
Copywriting or content writing
Journalism
Although a copy-editor may also offer these, all of them are separate services that demand related but different editorial skills.
For example, proofreading tends to come later in the publishing workflow, after the copy-editor has worked their magic and once the text is in layout. It’s the final quality check.
“Good copy-editors should not get bogged down in providing some sort of grammar police service.”
Revising translations, meanwhile, is a different service. It requires the reviser to check the translation against the original source. This means reviser is looking at two texts at the same time to check the translation is accurate and that it conveys the same tone of voice as the original.
When I revise translations, I do also check for errors in grammar and punctuation. This makes it similar to editing, but it’s definitely not copy-editing as copy-editors know it. That’s why I call this a ‘revision’ service, rather than an editing service.
What if an editor goes too far?
You don’t want someone to come along with a verbal bulldozer and drive it right through your text.
Authors are naturally close to their text. It’s their baby and nobody else’s. Once they’ve finished the hard work of their first or second draft, they need a second pair of eyes. What they don’t need is an editor who takes liberties with their carefully crafted writing and distorts their voice or message.
“Copy-editors are there to enhance the writer’s work.”
Good copy-editors should not get bogged down in providing some sort of grammar police service. Instead, they are there as the writer’s ally. They are there to enhance the writer’s work, not to impose their own style on an author’s work. If you’re working with an experienced and sensitive editor, the editor-author/client relationship is a partnership.
Going back to our house-building analogy, you don’t want someone to come along with a verbal bulldozer and drive it right through your text.
An experienced editor will have the training and experience behind them to know a zombie language rule when they see one, and to judge how far to go with any suggested changes to the text.
Why you may need to work with a copy-editor
Grammar and readability apps can be a blunt instrument
You may be thinking, ‘OK but couldn’t I just use a spelling, grammar, punctuation and readability checking app to save time and money?’
Or you may feel equipped to check your own writing, or get a colleague with great spelling skills to do it in-house.
Why apps just aren’t enough
Judgement calls flow from decision-making processes
Grammar and readability checkers can be useful for checking routine errors that might otherwise get missed. I sometimes use this type of tool like an office assistant that takes care of some of the more repetitive errors for me. I also use tools like PerfectIt to do some of the heavy lifting with more tedious and repetitive tasks (e.g. checking spelling consistency), saving time.
“You may expect a copy-editor to check the nuts and bolts of punctuation and grammar at sentence level, but did you know that they also take a broader look at your document? ”
However, these types of apps are a pretty blunt instrument. They can’t make an editorial judgement call. When I use them myself, it’s only in the initial or final tidying-up/consistency check stages, and I do need to review each suggestion individually. I remain the decision-maker.
To achieve the desired results – clear writing that conveys the author’s message loud and clear – a good editor must focus on the detail AND the big picture to sharpen a piece of writing. That’s something an app just can’t do.
A copy-editor also needs a systematic mind to keep tabs on myriad points, together with mastery of the subtleties of language and meaning (and, usually, specialist subject knowledge). Another thing that no app or online tool can offer alone.
Slay those zombie language rules
If you ask someone without copy-editing training or experience to check your text, they may not have the ability to judge how far to go. They may relish the challenge of getting out the proverbial red pen and spattering it all over your writing, but you may find this ends up creating more back-and-forth than you have the time or budget for.
Plus their knowledge of grammar, punctuation and good writing style may date back to their primary school days, so watch out for those zombie language rules!
Consistency for the win
A piece of text is rarely a one-off. Even if your reports and publications are not released regularly, they will almost certainly follow a house style and you’ll want your style and brand voice to be consistent across all your publications.
A readership may also vary both geographically and in terms of language and understanding. So a copy-editor could also help you to edit to the appropriate language level if necessary.
A winning team
So that’s everything you need to know about my copy-editing services. Hopefully, this post has helped you make some decisions, but if you have further questions about my services drop me an email at hello@philippahammond.net and I’d be happy to answer them.
In this post I’ve outlined:
· What copy-editing services involve
· Concerns about the scope of copy-editing
· What copy-editing is not
· Why you might need copy-editing services
If this post has made you realise that you need the text equivalent of a structural engineer to give your publication the all-clear, click the image below and we can arrange an initial chat to discuss what you need and the outcomes you want to see.
I hope this post has helped you. As a reminder, you can book a free call below to discuss how I can help you.
References
David Crystal (2021). Imagine an Editor. CIEP focus paper: https://www.ciep.uk/resources/fact-sheets-home/fact-sheets-free#IAE
Cathy Tingle. First principles: Using 5Cs with any format. https://blog.ciep.uk/using-5cs/. CIEP blog.
What is Proofreading? CIEP. https://www.ciep.uk/about/faqs/what-is-proofreading/
What is Copyediting? CIEP. https://www.ciep.uk/about/faqs/what-is-copyediting
Inside Book Publishing. Routledge, 2020.
4 common mistakes buyers make when hiring a translator or copy-editor
If you’re looking for advice on how to ensure you achieve the right results from hiring* a translator or copy-editor, you’re in the right place.
I love providing INGOs, foundations, non-profits and publishers with engaging English content that helps them reach a wider audience while protecting their reputation.
Whether you’re publishing a report or getting learning materials fit for purpose, getting your documents translated or edited can become a stumbling block when you have so many other things to do.
But before you jump in and hire a freelance translator or copy-editor for your next project, be sure to check that you’re not falling into the trap of making some of the costly mistakes others can make when buying professional language services.
We’ve all seen funny translation fails and hilarious misspellings, but a lack of planning and clarity about a translation or editing project can actually cause big problems. If you’re not careful, these problems could cost you, time, money, or reputational damage. Translated or edited English content should always solve problems, not create them.
Read on for how to ensure you don’t make these mistakes.
If you’re not careful, these problems could cost you, time, money, or reputational damage
Mistake 1: Lack of planning
You’ve spent ages putting together a report or other publication, and now you need to make sure it’s published on time. But oh wait, doesn’t it need to be translated and/or edited, too?
Have you allowed enough time to get the translation and/or editing done before the publishing deadline? For translations from French, Spanish and Portuguese (and other Romance languages) into English, the English word count may be at least 20% shorter. And even if only a light copy-edit is required, the changes required could affect the layout of the English version, and not realising this in time will create stress later.
How you can protect yourself
You can avoid these stresses by taking the translation and editing process into account earlier in the publication workflow, instead of making the mistake of finding an English translator or editor as an afterthought.
Be sure to ask them how long the translation or edit will take, to avoid any nasty surprises, and so you don’t miss your deadline.
If you book the translation or editing project with the translator or editor in advance, then you’re more likely to find a translation or editing professional who can dedicate enough focused time to producing something you’ll be proud of. Someone with the time and experience to spot all the errors. Be sure to ask them how long the translation or edit will take, to avoid any nasty surprises, and so you don’t miss your deadline.
With a bit of forward planning and discussion with the translator or editor, you may even realise that those hundreds of pages don’t all need to be translated or edited in full. Another cost saving!
Mistake 2: Sending an unfinalised version of the document to the translator or editor
At the opposite end of the scale, you may be under pressure to just get the text published. Waiting for the final text to be ready may just feel like another obstacle in your way.
So you just send the translator a draft or unformatted version of the text, telling yourself you can just add changes, styles and updates later on. But this won’t actually save you any time or money – it only makes the task more time-consuming for the translator (which will in turn cost you money). It also runs the risk of losing coherence and consistency in the text as the different versions float around.
Watch out for the risk of losing coherence and consistency in the text as the different versions float around.
A translator or editor will probably be more than happy to accommodate minor changes, but updating or deleting large passages of text will only end up wasting you money on the time spent on work they’ve already completed that’s no longer needed. Imagine asking a builder to build you an extension but then telling them it’s no longer required once it is half done. I’m willing to bet they’d still charge you for their work (and for undoing that work, too!).
How you can protect yourself
You’ll definitely save yourself time and stress in the long run if you are able to send the final, formatted and styled, version of your text to the translator or editor.
Before being tempted to jump ahead to translation or copy-editing your text, be sure to ask all stakeholders whether they have any final changes they wish to make to it.
Before being tempted to jump ahead to translation or copy-editing your text, be sure to ask all stakeholders whether they have any final changes they wish to make to it.
If you really must send a draft version of a text to a translator or editor, at least measure that you name each version, that you time- and date-stamp each version and clearly mark the changes you have made.
If the version you send to the translator or copy-editor is fully formatted and contains all images, figures and tables you intend to include, this will help them see how the final product will look and for them to visualise the content in its proper context. The result? English content that speaks authentically to its intended purpose and audience.
Mistake 3: Not providing a brief
Think specifically about why you need this text translated or edited. If you’re not sure, how can the translator or copy-editor be sure? Published materials are more than just words on a page; they usually serve a specific purpose or a specific audience. Assuming you want your English materials to have the same impact and outcome as the original source language materials, you need to provide a brief.
If you do know the purpose, target audience, and objective of the English text, don’t forget to tell the translator or copy-editor! If you don’t spend a little time on this, you’re much less likely to achieve what you want. You may end up with a literal translation or an edit that does not reflect your messaging.
If you do know the purpose, target audience, and objective of the English text, don’t forget to tell the translator or copy-editor!
Without specific instructions – even down to which spelling you prefer to use (-ise or -ize) and which style guides you follow – the translator or editor has no parameters for the project.
How you can protect yourself
Once you’ve grasped that translation is more than replacing English words with equivalent target language words, you’ll grasp why even a short translation or editing brief will get you better results. For example, translated or edited learning materials will not only teach the same content but will elicit the same response in the learners, while a consumer browsing a website for a health supplement will be just as likely to buy the product whether they are an English speaker or a Spanish speaker.
Mistake 4: Choosing the cheapest service
You may be short on time and just want to tick another job off your to-do list. The temptation to place your translation or copy-editing project with the first and/or cheapest translator or copy-editor you stumble upon may be strong, but it could cause big problems later on. You may find yourself with a text that’s still unclear, full of grammatical errors, typos and clumsy phrasing, or terminology that’s way off the mark.
At a low price, they may be working so hard to make ends meet that they forget about a deadline.
Choosing the cheapest translation or editing service will probably work out being more expensive in the long run, since you’ll probably end up having to correct mistakes. Or, worse still, you may not realise the translator or editor has created or missed problems with the text until the publication is out in the wild and your reputation is already damaged.
The cheapest translator or copy-editor is unlikely to be the most experienced one. At a cheap price, they will not have the latitude to specialise in a particular field. At that low price, they may be working so hard to make ends meet that they forget about a deadline.
How you can protect yourself
Ask these questions:
Is the translator or copy-editor accredited with any professional body. Examples in the UK are the Institute of Translation and Interpreting (ITI), the Chartered Institute of Linguists (CIOL), and the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP).
Does the translator translate only into their native language? (more here)
Does the translator or copy-editor specialise in a specific field?
What now?
Now you understand some of the costliest mistakes when buying translation or copy-editing services, make sure you avoid them to save yourself time and money.
And remember, forward planning and communication are vital!
If you would like my help to produce English language materials you can be truly proud of, and which get more eyes on your cause, click the link below to book a call.
I enjoy troubleshooting and making people’s lives easier.
I specialise in international development, education and governance, so I know the terminology used in those sectors inside out.
I’m experienced and reliable. I’ve been doing this for years, so I know when to ask the right questions.
I love making the written word more engaging and purposeful.
*When I say ‘hire’, take this to mean shorthand for commissioning, engaging or contracting translation services. I don’t mean ‘employ’ in this context.
From the blog post time machine…How translators can communicate their value as cross-cultural communicators to give clients what they really want.
Post about a translation conference for professional translators in 2008
This post is adapted from a post I wrote on my old blog back in 2008, around six months after setting up my business. Gosh, my blog posts in 2008 were long!
‘The Translator as Strategic Partner’ conference, London, 22nd–23rd November 2008
One weekend back in November 2008, I attended The Translator as Strategic Partner conference in London.
Because 2008 is so long ago in internet terms, very little record of this translation conference exists today. I was into Twitter big time in 2008, and was live micro-blogging from the event throughout the weekend. 😮💨
Because of the live micro-blogging, my original blog post about the conference was an expanded series of tweets – each tweet providing a subheading for each of my main conference takeaways. Happily, if you click on each of the links below they will still take you to my vintage 2008 tweets. It looks like I’d yet to learn about hashtags, though. Hi there, past me! 👋
At the time, I felt the conference was a wake-up call in the world of professional translation. Many of the key messages it communicated are still true today, most especially that change is a constant, and that we still have work to do in communicating our value as strategic partners.
The conference started early. We started with a welcome address by Michael Benis on being quality driven rather than cost driven 10:14 AM Nov 22nd.
Michael set the theme of the conference, which was ‘a workshop conference for a changing industry’. The following two quotes basically sum it up:
‘For a communications industry, the translation industry doesn’t communicate very well’. 10:16 AM Nov 22nd
‘The client cares about their business objectives and bottom line’ 10:18 AM Nov 22nd
The translation industry needs to roll with the punches and adapt to clients’ needs in order to survive. As shy, retiring translators we often undersell ourselves, and, in Michael’s words ‘effective cross-cultural communication requires a strategic partner’. We offer more than ‘just’ translation, so why aren’t we selling that added value?
Next up: Ros Schwartz on client relations 10:33 AM Nov 22nd
I was really excited about this session, the title of which was ‘Client relations: Why and how to be proactive’. Ros argued that in translation nowadays, fidelity to the original is simply not enough. It has to be more than that; it goes without saying that clients expect us to be reliable translators, to meet our deadlines and stay faithful to the original message of their texts, but what will really make a difference to the ‘bottom line’ is that clients’ translated texts are fit for purpose. This was a crucial point, since cultural differences usually mean that what would be acceptable for one target audience would not necessarily make an impact on a target audience another cultural/linguistic community.
Copywriting skills: how they add value to your profile as a translator and what you offer to clients 11:02 AM Nov 22nd
I’ve already written about how as translators we are also writers, and we can hone these skills to add value to what we offer. We can also seek feedback from our clients to see where we can help them achieve their business objectives.
Working together as specialists to produce a project: be a problem solver 11:03 AM Nov 22nd
Ros went on to argue that clients have both articulated and unarticulated needs from their translators – as in, they may not even realise what they really need from their translations and it is our job to make that our business. As strategic partners and language specialists, we are able to identify and highlight blind spots for our clients.
It’s all about communication, guys. Truly excellent talk by Ros Schwartz 11:25 AM Nov 22nd
Bill Maslen encourages us to seek out feedback – ask to see the final product that goes to the client 12:34 PM Nov 22nd
Bill Maslen of the Word Gym was up next, with a session called ‘Strategic partnerships: principles and solutions, triumphs and tragedies’. Bill used a chart that neatly illustrated his point, and demonstrated the buy-in from the top-level people in companies throughout the product development process: right at the end, when the translation is commissioned, the buy-in from the top bods is almost zero. What does this tell us?
…seeing the final product will help you understand your client’s needs and the sort of copy they’re seeking for their target market 12:36 PM Nov 22nd
This session followed on nicely from the one before, again commenting that in terms of the perceived value of what we do, translation really suffers from an image problem. To improve it, we need to get more involved and really understand our clients’ needs better. We need to demonstrate how we analyse texts and the overall process. Bill encouraged us to ask to see the final product that is sent on to the end client.
What does a client look for above all in translation? Reliability, cost effectiveness, intelligent approach, and good working relationship 2:27 PM Nov 22nd
These were the words of Cate Avery’s client on what they look for in their translation service providers. In short, ‘reliability’, ‘cost effectiveness’, and ‘good working relationship’ shouldn’t be anything new, but ‘intelligent approach’ wasn’t something I’d heard before. It may be self-evident that translators should have an ‘intelligent approach’ to their work, but perhaps this needs to be demonstrated more clearly in how we approach our clients and in our marketing campaigns.
Paraphrased quote from Jay Kettle-Williams: ‘the days when we can call ourselves a translator, full stop, are gone’. 3:00 PM Nov 22nd
Jay Kettle-Williams presented a very entertaining and lively session called ‘It’s not what you want to give the client, it’s what the client needs’. This continued the theme established earlier in the day. A true expert on linguistics, Jay calls translators the ‘codebreakers’ for their clients; highlighting the fact that we often do so much more than simply ‘translate’ A to B.
Jost Zetzsche on idealised notions of translators. Jost asks, ‘does quality spell u-s-a-b-i-l-i-t-y?’ 4:20 PM Nov 22nd
Jost Zetzsche, of Toolkit fame, spoke about our age-old idealisation of the patron saint of translators, St. Jerome. We risk being constrained by this idealisation of a translator who, let’s face it, innovative as he was at the time, was born c. 347. Instead, we need to roll with the times and think about the true purpose of our texts.
A particular quote I remember from this part of the day was that ‘nobody is going to read your texts as carefully as a translator’ (I can’t remember who said this, unfortunately). How true that is. In 2023, this quote is still lodged in my memory.
Day 2 of the conference and I’m sleep-starved due to too much coffee late at night and an over-excited kitten. 9:10 AM Nov 23rd
Oh, and by the way, there is snow on the ground in London! 9:52 AM Nov 23rd
Very much enjoying a style workshop run by Ros Schwartz – very creative and lots of different approaches to learn from 12:55 PM Nov 23rd
As a solo worker, it’s easy to forget how beneficial it is to be able to pick the brains of other translators. I learned a lot from this interactive session about how best to approach creative translation for marketing texts, for example. It’s hard to know how much licence the translator really has to adapt a client’s text for the target audience, but this is reason #2059 why it’s important to have an open dialogue with your client.
After a very impressive Caribbean lunch, Jost Zetzsche from translators’ toolkit is up again to ‘set priorities straight’… 2:27 PM Nov 23rd
Jost Zetzsche did another presentation, this time on Machine Translation, called ‘Setting priorities straight: Us or the Machine?’ – a contentious issue!
In 2023, we all know that Machine Translation, and now AI, continues to be highly contentious.
Quote from Jost: ‘how can we get back behind the wheel?’ 2:31 PM Nov 23rd
Jost said that we needed to acknowledge that progress was being made in Machine Translation (MT). OK the MT output was often extremely silly, but we needed to bear in mind what clients need their translations for. It may be in future that some of us would take on ‘post-editing’ of machine translated-text as part of our portfolio, but the important thing was for us to regain some control over how this pans out. We need to be drivers of change, rather than the passengers. This was a point I believe is fundamental to the future of our profession (or any profession, come to that).
So, in 2023, do we still think translation might have an image problem? Comment below 👇
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