Although I specialise in translating tourism, wine-related texts and corporate communications, I sometimes translate contracts too. This may seem an odd choice for someone who works on more creative topics. But the truth is I enjoy a change every now and then. And translating contracts is certainly a different beast. Gone is my ability to [...]
ITI Conference 2011 review: Transcreation workshop
This is the first in a series of blog posts, each covering something I learnt at the ITI conference. First up is transcreation. Before I attended the ITI conference I’d just finished reading the excellent “Translating Promotional and Advertising Texts” by Ira Torresi. It was an interesting read and I learnt a lot. But it [...]
ITI Conference 2011 review: technical writing
This is the second blog post on workshops I attended at the 2011 ITI conference. This time I’m going to focus on tips I picked up from Karen Tkaczyk, a freelance technical translator. Now you’ll know from reading about my translation specialisms that I’m not a technical translator. In fact before attending this talk I [...]
ITI translation course
To sharpen my translation skills I’ve decided to enrol in a 3 month distance learning translation course. Run by the Institute of Translation and Interpreting, the course began in January and ends in March 2011 The aim of the course is to give translators the chance to enhance their skills by working with other translators [...]
ITI translation course: Specialisation
Well I promised to update you on my translation course, and I’ve just completed the first module: specialisation. So what did we have to do? Firstly we were asked to think about the topic(s) we would like to specialise in and why. But specialisms are special for a reason. We either have an interest or [...]
ITI translation course: Proofreading
Another module completed on my translation course, this time ‘translation literacy’. In other words, how to spot inconsistencies and mistakes in the target text (punctuation, spelling, grammar, formatting). This is an important skill for anyone who writes for a living, or perhaps just anyone who writes. But it is essential for a translator. To the [...]
ITI translation course: test translation
Perhaps one of the most attractive elements of the course is that we are allocated a mentor. This person shares our language combination and specialism. Their role is to supply us with two sample translations, check the target texts we produce and offer comments. My mentor has more than 20 years of translation experience and [...]
ITI translation course: Word processing
We’ve just finished our third module: word-processing skills. Why study this? Well, a translator needs to know how to format the target text to ensure it reflects the source text. They may also need to tidy up a source text layout. So with this in mind our module leader supplied us with a document in [...]
ITI translation course: CV and covering letter
Well, we’ve almost come to the end of this particular course. I’ve just had feedback on my fifth and final exercise: CVs and covering letters. For this task our tutor asked us to prepare a CV and covering letter that could be sent to a translation agency or direct client. I chose to design a [...]
ITI translation course: summary and review
Ok. First things first: why the delay in posting about the ITI translation course? The training course officially ended on 18 March, a grand total of 40 days ago. Which is the equivalent to 3 years and 2 days in blog years. But there is a good reason for this blog inactivity: I’ve been busy [...]