memoQ Inside Out: Templates for Translators

In the summer of 2021, I was coaching a group of project managers and translators at a Portuguese service company, helping them to develop processes to overcome some rather complicated filtering and configuration challenges for recurring project types. It was clear to me that some of their difficulties could be overcome with the use of templates, but I had only recently begun to use these productively myself, and my attempts to communicate the subject matter overwhelmed the group for the most part, and examining the sample templates provided with memoQ installation simply made matters worse.

After several frustrating tutorial sessions and the failed acceptance of a template that I had developed which was tailored to a rather long wish list of automation that came out of our discussions, I decided that the only way to make the value of templates clear to this group of professionals was to wipe the slate clean, forget about all the myriad "wishes" and build a few simple templates which did just a few simple things. Starting from a new configuration with nothing at all. Surprisingly, less was indeed more, and the frustrated people began to "get it".

At almost the same time, my friend and colleague Marek Pawelec, a gifted teacher whom I often refer to quite objectively as "a consultant's consultant", mentioned that he was thinking of writing a book on memoQ templates, because he found that most people were unable to avoid the problems in the example templates provided with memoQ installation, nor were they able to work out most difficulties encountered when making their own templates. I could understand this very well, because the user interface in the configuration dialog for a template is not a stellar example of clarity, and it took me years to make proper sense of much of it. Disappointing, really, because I had been part of the chorus begging for something like templates for years, but when they were delivered, little about them made obvious sense to a dummy like me.

He sent me a chapter he had drafted, where I noted that he had adopted the same reductionist approach to getting started. A template with just a pick list or two for meta data to avoid the problem I've had for years of accidentally using different designations for the same clients, subjects, domains, etc. He had come to the same conclusion independently that the best approach to helping people use templates effectively is to start with one or two simple things they do all the time but often mess up.

That interesting draft chapter took time to evolve into a full-fledged guide of nearly 70 pages, with many practical, relatable examples of the kinds of challenges that individual translators (and many other service providers) often face in configuring translation projects. The topics cover the full range of options, from very simple tasks to extremely complex workflows involving pre-import scripts for preparing translation data and post-processing to recreate the original data formats. At every stage he offers clear examples and guidance on how to make things work in cases I have seen time and again in more than two decades of commercial translation work.

I had the pleasure to edit two drafts of this work as it neared completion. And pleasure really is the right word to use here. Marek has a very different explanatory style than mine, but one which I prefer for my own education. He manages very well the deep dive into messy details without drowning the reader in jargon and other unhelpful complexity. His guide gives valuable suggestions and information for every level of expertise. Much of the content can be understood and applied by unsophisticated new users of memoQ, but some of the details on content connectors and scripting can light a chandelier full of bulbs in the heads of alleged experts like myself.

Templates for Translators is an essential reference work for all memoQ users in my opinion, the sort of thing which ought to have been provided seven years or so ago when templates were introduced. Instead we got some imperfect examples which too often - especially in the hands of under-trained PMs at translation agencies - result in unworkable projects with 50+ translation memories and term bases grinding performance to a halt or a lot of mysterious and unwanted automation that does stupid shit like write unfinished and defective translations directly into one's master TM.

In addition to explaining clearly how to create your own helpful project shortcuts and automation from scratch, Marek included a great  chapter in which he describes in detail the templates provided for local projects, what works in them and what doesn't, and how to fix any issues so things work right for you. Even if you are a server user working primarily with online projects, there is a wealth of material in this version of the templates guide to help you work more effectively with templates for online projects. A second edition is planned for later this year, which will cover the additional features of templates for memoQ Server projects, but the real problems of most people working with those are covered in the basics presented in the "translators" edition, not in a lack of guidance on the many extra event "triggers" for online projects or other details. So if you are a server user, don't wait for the later edition, get this guide now, read every damned page and try to contain your exuberance as you finally understand a lot of stuff that has been confusing the Hell out of most of us for a long time. Then when the "server edition" of the guide is published, you'll be better prepared to absorb the increment of information it offers.

This book is now a valued part of my teaching "arsenal", and I recommend it without reservation to every memoQ user who aspires to work independently and create more effective processes for the special needs of various clients and subject matter. If you are a consultant or trainer at a serious level, it could well be considered malpractice to train without some of the information you'll find in Templates for Translators. But that's just what I see too often: discussions of templates glibly use the few defective examples installed with memoQ with little consideration given to how many translators should work in the real world with real, common client projects. This book is a welcome aid to move beyond all that and improve our satisfaction with the routine of translation in memoQ.

So for less than the cost of half an hour of consulting, the €30 invested here will save nearly anyone a large multiple of that and continue to pay dividends for a very long time, even if you understand and apply only 10% of the material presented. I charge far, far more to teach people less than that.

memoQ Inside Out: Templates for Translators is available for purchase at https://payhip.com/b/agrxM

Understanding and mastering tags... with memoQ!

Everything you need to know... in 36 pages!

Following up on the success of his excellent guide to machine translation functions in memoQ, Marek Pawelec (Twitter: @wasaty) has now published his definitive guide to tag mastery in that translation environment. In a mere 36 pages of clearly written, engaging text, he has distilled more than a decade of personal expertise and exchanges with other top professionals in language services technology into simple recipes and strategies for success with situations which are often so messy that even experienced project managers and tech support gurus wail in despair. Garbage like this, for example:

This screenshot is taken from the import of The PPTX from Hell, which a frustrated PM asked for help with just as I began reviewing the draft of Marek's book about a month ago. It contained nearly 32,000 superfluous spacing tags and was such a mess that it choked all the best professional macros usually deployed to deal with such things. Last year, I had developed my own way of dealing with these things that involved RTF bilingual exports and some search and replace magic in Microsoft Word, but when I shared it with Marek, he said "There's a better way", and indeed there is. On page 23 of this book. It was much cleaner and faster, and in a few minutes I was able to produce a clean slide set that was much easier to read and translate in the CAT tool. A page that costs 50 cents (of the €18 purchase price of the guide) earned me a 140x return and saved hours of working frustration for the translation team.

The book covers a lot more than just the esoterica of really messed up source files. It is a superb introduction to dealing with tags and markup for students at university and for those new to the translation profession and its endemic technologies, and it has sober, engaging guidance at every level for experienced professionals. I consider it an essential troubleshooting work for those in support roles of internal translation departments and, quite honestly, for my esteemed colleagues in First Level Support at memoQ. Marek is a superb trainer and an articulate teacher, with a humility that masks expertise which very often surprises, delights and informs those of us who are sometimes thought to be experts.

I am also particularly pleased that in the final version of his text he addresses the seldom discussed matter of how to factor markup into cost quotations and service charges for translations. memoQ is particularly well designed to address these problems, because weighting factors equivalent to word or character counts can be incorporated in file statistics, offering a simple, transparent and fair way of dealing with the frustrations that too often leave project managers screaming and crying in frustration shortly before... or after planned deliveries.

Whatever aspect of tags may interest you in translation technology and most particularly in memoQ, this book will give you the concise, clear answers you need to understand the best actions to take.

The PDF e-book is available for purchase here: https://payhip.com/b/tHUDx

A memoQ must-have: the definitive guide to MT use!

People who know me and my work know that I have a very low opinion of machine translation use in most language service situations. Even in the best scenarios, it offers no value to me in my routine work as a translator of scientific and intellectual property texts (patent filings and litigation mostly). So why am I totally excited about the new e-book by my friend and colleague Marek Pawelec? For several reasons.

• MT discussions bore the crap out of me. But when Marek asked me to review a pre-release copy, I was actually entertained by his clear, concise writing and the superb way he explained basic concepts of resource management in general that most memoQ users still don't master. I was shocked at how much fun I had reading about a subject I hate!
• He talks about more than just how to configure memoQ to use DeepL, Gargle Trashlate or some other MT engine. He details strategies and best practices for effective use that many people might not be aware of. He talks about how to circumvent prohibitions on MT use and how to catch people who do that. And more. I didn't learn something on every page, but it's probably not an exaggeration to say I did on every other one.
• Pseudo-translation using a special plug-in for the Pre-translation step is covered in wonderful detail. This technique has been very important to my work for nearly 20 years now. I use it to identify hard-coded interface strings in software I translate and to check and quote large documents that might have paragraphs or whole pages scanned and inserted as graphics that look like editable text - or charts whose text can be selected in the document but never show up on the memoQ working grid after import. Marek also discusses other uses of pseudo-translation I never thought of (layout checks, for example) which could have saved me a lot of grief over the years.

The only complaint I have about this book is that it's too cheap. The author teaches me more in its 36 pages than most can in 200 pages, and the learning is worth a Hell of a lot more to my business than fifty cents per page. Anyone else would probably have written much more and communicated far less of value, but that's a special gift that Marek has. Long ago, his talk at a memoQ Fest was the first time that regular expressions (regex) made any sense to me (as a casual programmer for about 40 years at the time I had approached the topic many times and mostly just found confusion). There aren't many people in this world who can take complex topics and make them seem simple and interesting to nearly anyone. Marek can. Richard Feynman could. I can't name many more on that list.

So... all I can really add is to tell you to go spend €18 here: https://payhip.com/b/tF62

The value you'll receive as a memoQ user at any level, even if you never use machine translation, is a large multiple of that price.

~

Update 2021-03-22
The Polish version of the book is now available at: https://payhip.com/b/RWcC

Update 2022-05-05

There are now editions available in Dutch and French:

Dutch: https://payhip.com/b/XaZSU

French: https://payhip.com/b/ltMwQ

memoQ Courses, Resources & Consulting at Translation Tribulations Tech

The new online school offers a variety of resources for new and experienced users of desktop and server editions

For many years now, I have advocated for better professional education for users of translation process support software at every level. I have tested curriculum delivery platforms, better ways of making information more accessible to those who need it, and more. In a limited scope, this has been a successful effort.

My greatest hope in these efforts was to encourage professional associations, technology providers and universities to do better by their clientele. I would judge the success there as mixed, at best. The wind of change discussed, for many of them, could fill one's sails... for a voyage off the edge of their flat Earth. Their reluctance to provide even minimal indexes for navigating copious video content is simply baffling, as an example.

Even with the current pandemic, I have seen little progress, though that may be as much for reasons such as those which kept me largely silent last year. It's hard to think about doing things better when you have to ask honestly which of the people you care for will be lost because of the refusal of so many national governments to do so.

In any case, I've always been one to advocate more personal involvement. If a person says they're hungry, give them food and listen to their stories. Cash may not be the answer. The courses, consulting and resources offered through my license of the Teachable platform will cover much of issues and assistance for which I have been an advocate in the translation sector for two decades. I also hope to involve other language service educators to offer their unique and valuable approaches in this venue. This is not to compete with any existing associations or companies, but rather to continue to show them how we can all work together to help users develop the competence and confidence so often needed and not found.

This, like all of us, is a work in progress. Check out Translation Tribulations Tech (here, or by clicking the school graphic at the top) and see if anything there provides missing elements for your professional toolkit.

Some of the initial offerings include:

• re-released help guides I've written for learning memoQ, including some material in Portuguese. The link provided here is for a bundle which includes books and courses.
• a course with quick tips for maximizing terminology leverage in memoQ
• consulting which provides quick, affordable glossary building support for projects
• a special memoQ ergonomics course to improve user experience and efficiency 

Additional courses, consulting and tools for

• regular expressions as an aid for translation of patterned information like currency expressions, dates, legal citations, coded information, etc.
• better source document segmentation in projects
• memoQ server basics for collaborating groups and small companies
• memoQ and other technology for legal translation

will be available soon.

This platform provides a long-needed mechanism for providing more detailed learning assistance than I have enjoyed with this blog and my YouTube channel, and future publication habits on my part will reflect that. I'm excited about many ideas for moving ahead in quick and quicker steps with memoQ and so many other resources that many of us depend on for professional relief and productivity.

Early English books now online!

The University of Michigan has recently made some of the first books ever printed online, including texts from the first printed editions of Shakespeare, Chaucer and Milton and more than 25,000 other manually transcribed texts from the period between 1473 and 1700. These are all available free here.

This is not just literature; the works include books of history, philosophy, mathematics and science and many other fields like gardening and cooking. This is the first phase in the Early English Books Online-Text Creation Partnership. Another 40,000 texts may be released as part of this project by the end of the decade.

There are no restrictions for anyone to read, reproduce, distribute and otherwise use these texts.

A tale for Halloween, perfectly horrifying!

The night of terror began with a puzzling tweet in the afternoon:

 

I clicked the link and read the latest on Susan Bernofsky's Translationista blog,which gave an update on some of her recent work. An upcoming release of her translation of Kafka's The Metamorphosis was mentioned; that caught my eye since I had reread it in German very recently, and I find the variations in its translation quite interesting. I made a note to look at her version when it comes out in January.

Her blog post also mentioned the release last week of her translation of Die schwarze Spinne by a 19th century Swiss pastor writing under the name of Jeremias Gotthelf. The Black Spider? I grew up in a basement  bedroom well-stocked with black widow spiders, so the title had a certain creepy, nostalgic fascination for me. I was unaware of the high regard this novella was held in by so many, but the description of the tale on the blog and in the Wikipedia articles I read intrigued me, so I checked in at Amazon.de and bought a Kindle copy of the new translation. For good measure, I grabbed a copy of the original tale in German and treated myself to an atmospheric introduction of the story with the LibriVox audio recording by what sounds like an old guy with a Swiss German accent, like the grandfather who relates this moralistic tale of mortal terror.

The German audio recording was a bit fatiguing, gave me a claustrophobic feeling with its heavy diet of adjectives and too-familiar village custom. I began to feel a flashback the the Brandenburg hellhole I escaped from earlier this year and the suffocating customs of its denizens. With some desperation, I abandoned my plan to finish the entire work in German before starting Bernofsky's translation, so with a little twitch of guilt, I grabbed my bag and headed off to the cantinho for dinner in a quiet corner with my Kindle. Her translation started off with very much of a period feel, over-rich with its double serving of adjectives and long sentences that reminded me of my first encounters with John Stuart Mill in the tenth grade. I began to get the same claustrophobic feeling I had from the German reading, yes, I was back in Oberkrämer in Brandenburg and that's enough horror for one evening, thank you.

But gradually without realizing the art with which her well-crafted English drew me into the Swiss Calvinist spirit of the tale I was caught in a well-paced story that kept my interest and made me wonder if I would enjoy the original as much in some parts. And so I was drawn, unwitting, into the open jaws of Evil, which closed slowly about my torso and squeezed the breath out of me, leaving me gasping more than once and failing to notice that the liter of sangria had gone too fast before I ordered more to quench the burning horror unfolding. The walk home was too long, and the way could not be lit well enough.

At home I paused for a while, centered my mind by translating a deadly dull document with terms and conditions for purchase, went on a safer bug hunt in the latest beta version of memoQ and then, feeling that the house was much too dark, I screwed up my courage and lay down to sleep... well no, to read just a bit more, because those jaws were still closed around me, and the several dull pains about my sternum and spine made me wonder if my heart and bones would last to the end of the tale. Don't be so dramatic I thought, and I wasn't, really, the real drama was before my eyes, transfixing me in terror as wished the dogs would lie heavier on my legs and chest and distract me from the dark corners of the room I could not see because my eyes were on the shadows in the book and what waited so terribly in them.

This is a damned good translation. Maybe. Let me put it this way: I hope the original tale can live up to what I read tonight. But I'm not going to make the mistake of finding that out in the dark again.

Book review: Found in Translation

When I sat down this evening to share my thoughts on Found in Translation by Jost Zetzsche and Nataly Kelly, I realized I had something important to do first. I logged in to Amazon and ordered a copy for my father. Many times in the past week as I read this delightful book up in my sleep loft at the end of a long day I thought how much he would enjoy the anecdote or the explanation I was reading. Although he never learned another language beyond bits of Saxon nursery rhymes distorted by a hundred years away from the Old Country and the smatterings of street Spanish one can't avoid working retail in many Southern California neighborhoods, I think it's fair to claim that a lot of the appreciation I have for books and the words in them as well as the words which never make it into books I have from him. He is very much alive to the nuances of language and its importance, and I think that those he taught in school, hospitals and home assignments probably enjoyed at least some of the enchantment with words that he shared with his lucky children.

This is a book that I feel good about sharing with family and friends, not because it will give them better insight into what I do (it certainly will), but because many parts of it cannot help but engage and entertain them and give them a better appreciation for the importance of language in today's world. If I were a middle school teacher in the US, I would read parts of this book to my students in most any subject I might teach, because it is very relevant. And fun. Hey, there's even a lot of good content for sports fans.

I bought the Kindle edition to read, because despite my initial skepticism about e-readers, since I got one last year, it has given me so many hours of reading pleasure at home, in my travels and in long hours in the hunting blind where I sometimes give a friendly wave to a passing deer and leave the rifle in the corner as I "turn" the page. I was a bit annoyed with the start of the book. Endless positive statement from various luminaries talking about what a great book it is. Yada yada. I know enough about marketing to realize the importance of text like that and placing it where it was placed, but I'm not interested in someone else's opinion of a book until I have read it myself. After a bit of a slog I finally got to the actual content, and I was hooked.

For a week, I looked forward to the end of the day, when I would digest a bit more by the light integrated in the cover of the e-reader. When I was so tired that the clear, interesting text stopped making sense, I resisted the urge to skim, because the details were simply too good to miss. As much as I wanted to go on and see what came next, I waited for the next rewarding end of a day.

It wasn't until I got very near to the end and wondered why there was an index with page references in the Kindle edition that I had anything to criticize. I learned a lot. I had a great read. And I'm excited about sharing this book with others, because I think that even non-linguists will really enjoy the stories and behind-the-scenes looks at the lives of sports and entertainment stars, political crises and so much more.

And that's all I'm going to say about the content - spoilers suck. If you want to know more, go get the book and read it yourself. I can't imagine you won't enjoy most of it.

Happy Thanksgiving memoQ tutorials & book special

After fielding quite a few questions in the past week on segmentation problems with translation files and alignments as well as questions from a few colleagues and clients about ways to get better-looking output of the data stored in memoQ term bases (with SDL Trados MultiTerm), I prepared two longer tutorial scripts and distributed these with a segmentation practice file to registered subscribers to my ebook, memoQ 6 in Quick Steps. This is a little thank you and dividend for their early support of my first commercial publication effort for translator education.

To celebrate the national holiday in my native country as well as my own thanksgiving for all the ideas for best practice which my colleagues and clients continue to share, I have also set a "Thanksgiving Weekend Special" with a special rate for the ebook until the end of Sunday, California time. Registered purchasers will receive the book update for memoQ 6.2 in December as well as any further updates for a year.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

E-book release: memoQ 6 in Quick Steps

This is the 500th blog post published on Translation Tribulations and a minor milestone of sorts. After some delay, I have released the first electronic edition of memoQ 6 in Quick Steps, a guide compiled from my collection of instructions and tutorials which I use for training and consulting. It contains over 190 pages of tips and insights for beginning and experienced users of the memoQ desktop editions.

Online distribution is being handled through Lulu.com initially until I decide a better way. Those who forward proof of purchase of this release to me will receive updates of the electronic edition for a year. The translation environment tool memoQ has evolved rapidly in the four years I have tested and worked with it, and I'll be adding and updating modules appropriately as the software and methods of working with it improve.

Some of the content in the book is taken from the memoQuickie tutorials on this blog, some of it has been shared only with clients and a few colleagues until now, and other material has not been published previously.

A print edition is in the works and will be released in time for memoQfest USA early next year after the book is updated to reflect new developments and services.

The Entrepreneurial Linguist and Online Media

One of my goals for 2011 is to catch up on a backlog of reading that has been accumulating on my shelves and disk drives. One professional resource that was particularly high on my list is the Jenners' book The Entrepreneurial Linguist; I had followed reports of its production with great interest for about a year as well as enjoyed their business tips on the Translation Times blog. I enjoy the perspectives and tips shared by my colleagues in a number of publications, and I have learned something valuable from every one I have read. I particularly value, perhaps more than many would, subtle variations on the same theme, because these help me to discover the context that works best for my business.

But how much is there to be said about the business of freelance translation that is really different or original? More than I realize, as I am reminded time and again. This profession is evolving quickly, though not always in the ways that the prophets of machine translation and others would have us believe.

The Entrepreneurial Linguist starts off with an excellent discussion of the business mindset needed for successful positioning and negotiation and follows with a chapter on organization and accounting that is for the most part good and relevant, but not particularly distinguished compared to similar expositions I've seen. The third chapter, however, on "Social Media and Web 2.0" is gold. As can be expected in a rapidly evolving field, some minor parts are already in need of updating, and I was surprised to see an excellent, extensive discussion of Facebook without a mention of Facebook "pages". But this is the best overview of the various online media options that I have seen yet for language service professionals, covering blogs, professional networks such as XING and LinkedIn, Twitter and more in a very focused, relevant way.

Innumerable times I have listened to friends and colleagues who "just don't see the point" of various social media for business or personal use or who are put off by all the stupid hype. In thirty well-written, balanced pages, Judy and Dagmar Jenner make the case and the limitations very, very clear. That by itself is worth the cover price of the book and a lot more.

Of course there is a lot more useful content as one would expect from freelancers with business degrees who successfully work exclusively with direct clients rather than agencies. What the authors excel at most of all is communication, both in online media and more traditional venues, and this provides the reader with a lot of unique, valuable and highly digestible fare.

Portuguese children's book reading in Berlin with Tânia Maria Rodrigues-Peters

Berlin is a wonderfully international city, offering a delicious cultural buffet in many languages. On December 11, 2010 at 4 pm at A Livraria bookstore (Torstrasse 159, 10115 Berlin) the feast will include a reading in Portuguese by Brazilian children's author Tânia Maria Rodrigues-Peters, whose works are available in English, German, Spanish and Portuguese.

Ms. Rodrigues-Peters is married to Carsten Peters, who recently launched the publishing venture Ceditora announced on this blog.

Alex Eames saves a life

Alex saved a fox tonight; I was so engrossed in reading a draft of the new version of his advice book for translators that I didn't see Meister Reinecke until he had finished off the tasty stink bait and was headed for the bushes to get out of the rain. Taking a netbook to the raised blind isn't conducive to hunting success it would seem.

The new themes of the book are found to some extent in the material of his recently revived tranfree newsletter, but there was a lot of other useful new content as well as interesting online media statistics. Although I suppose I could almost be counted as an "old pro" by now (well, "old" at least), I finished the book with a nice little to-do list of changes I need to make in my business marketing. Like earlier versions of his book, this one doesn't make any enormously surprising points if you are blessed with a little basic common sense, but it offers a nice, digestible summary and reminder list that can help brush the dust off the glasses of "old pros" whose vision of the profession has gotten a bit obscured. And the book is as useful as ever for those starting out in the profession. An earlier version was probably the best general advice I received on getting started and was worth in practice about two orders of magnitude more than I paid for it.

There are so many good points in the book that caused me to make a note to myself that I wanted to write a blog post on the subject. Simple, powerful stuff like the discussion of client acquisition costs and the high value of repeat business. Sure, it's "obvious". But how well have some of us learned that lesson if we are still inclined to turn the cannons on customers in difficult situations which, if handled with a bit of grace and intelligence, could be used as opportunities to reinforce one's professional reputation and increase customer loyalty? I've earned a few demerits there this year as I've dealt with reorganization stresses and other issues, and reading Alex's clear exposition on the subject was a fine and necessary mental Kur in a very real sense. The discussion of translator CVs (résumés) is another point which is discussed often, but the guidance of his clear examples will be a great help to many I think. It also reminded me that I need to trim half a dozen pages or so from mine... something I have been aware of and intended to do for a decade now as soon as things slow down a bit :-)

No idea when this year the book is scheduled for release, and some important additions and revisions of the content are apparently still under consideration. But the structure of what I've seen and the updates to the content make this book as relevant to survival as a freelance translator in today's market as the original editions were when I started translating full time. The markets for translation are indeed changing in some interesting ways now, and I think that this new edition of the book will be a valuable mixture of timeless good advice and strategies for staying of top of a rapidly evolving global situation that affects many translators. If you aren't already a tranfree subscriber, I recommend signing up for the free newsletter so you won't miss the release announcement later this year.

Alex Eames & tranfree are back!

When I first started translating commercially ten years ago, I had two primary sources of inspiration. One was my old college friend and present partner, Monique Simmer, who had served my medical device consulting clients with excellent translations for many years and who made the difficult transition from my beloved farm in Oregon to the urban Hell of North Rhine-Westphalia (Haan near Düsseldorf) much easier to bear. When I decided to translate in addition to my day job as a systems consultant (which was mandatory for visa reasons), I learned a lot of practical business details related to the German authorities and how to deal with them.

The other great source of inspiration and practical advice was Alex Eames, the author of the well-known title How to Earn $80,000+ Per Year as a Freelance Translator (and yes you can BTW). This cornball e-book full of goofy pictures, interesting anecdotes and first-rate advice on getting started in the translation business or adding life to a dead business is still one of my favorite references, though as Alex admits it's time for an update. The world changes, and we develop further as people and professionals. Nonetheless, most of the things and all of the basic principles Alex wrote about in that book are still valid, especially the advice on how to stand out from the crowd and earn the respect and love of your customers. It's more or less the same advice you find in any business book that is really worth reading: in our business, Oleg Rudavin and Corinne McKay say many of the same useful things in their own voices, filtered by their own cultures and lives.

Alex also published a newsletter called transfree, which was also loaded with great advice for freelance translators. The very suddenly, this source of information was silent. I knew there had been some changes in Alex's life; I remembered the birth of his child and something about building a house. Having been through all of that myself ten years earlier, I could understand all too well how he was probably too busy to write. But still I missed the advice from someone I considered a mentor of sorts, though our communication had seldom been direct. So when after registering on the new translators' networking site langmates I received a message from Alex, I was pleased to see that he was still involved in the profession. And I was even more pleased to hear that the issues which kept him busy are now resolved and that he will once again contribute actively to professional development for translators. I invited him to share a guest post with the readers of Translation Tribulations, and this morning I received a contribution from him, which I would like to share with you. Alex, you now have the podium...

tranfree Relaunch

Having been silent for the last two years, why relaunch now?

Simple answer. I’ve now got something to say – something worthwhile I hope. For the last few years, we’ve been having a fairly tough time and I’ve not been in an ideal place to be inspiring to others. One of the things I used to love about the emails I would get from tranfree readers was that they said they found it inspiring and helpful. It’s hard to be inspiring when you feel distinctly uninspired yourself.

Any idea why you felt like that?

Good question. It was a combination of things really. The life-changing impact of having a child, a building project, the cumulative effect of a few years of working too hard, the need to uproot and care for a dying family member for a couple of years, coping with the Polish health system, dealing with the consequences when my father-in-law died. Basically – life got in the way. It happens. If I had to sum it up I’d say burnout coupled with family crisis.

So are you inspired again now?

Actually yes. I started updating “How to Earn” a few weeks ago and, although it took me some time to get into it, the process kick-started me again. Often in life you read something you wrote last year or a few years ago and you think “that’s rubbish – I could do it so much better now”, but I really liked a lot of what I was reading and it’s still true (but then, good, sound business practice doesn’t change much year on year). OK, the technology and software bits all needed radically overhauling, but most of the rest of it is still very sound.

Anyway, the whole process has been very therapeutic. It’s good to look further afield than one’s own personal issues and do something to help others. That’s something which is all too easy to forget when times get hard and you switch to survival mode.

I’m not quite done yet, but in researching for the ebook update, I came across all sorts of issues that are facing translators today and felt inspired to write an article called “How to Kill Your Translation Business”. A rather negative title, but the content is designed to show mistakes that I feel freelance translators should try to avoid. And although the title is negative (it’s a headline designed to grab attention after all) the article is meant to be helpful.

I was amazed to see Wendell Ricketts’ article last week – a good few days after I’d written but not yet published mine – some of the sentiments expressed are very similar. I really enjoyed his article. I like articles that entertain and educate at the same time. It’s what I try to achieve. I think we can be too serious sometimes. Your blog sometimes makes me giggle, Kevin, so you’re not guilty of being overly serious.

So how can we access tranfree these days?

Anyway – the traditional email edition of tranfree goes out tonight (30 March 2010) to all those who are subscribed (subscribe@tranfree.com). There’s about 25,600 on the list but I suspect maybe up to 30% of those may have changed email address in the last two years. But it’s not all about email any more. There’s an HTML version (http://tranfree.com/tf68.html), a PDF version and even a podcast now – and the obligatory RSS feed too – and I almost forgot – I’m blogging it as well (http://alexeames.com/blog)

What’s next for translatortips.com?

Easy answer. A total overhaul of the entire operation. Reviewing and updating products, web site, relocating server. But it all starts the way it originally started way back in 1998 – with the original ebook http://www.translatortips.com/ht50.html 

Anyone purchasing now will automatically get the new edition when it comes out, hopefully in a few weeks. I’ll probably roll that offer back to any 2009 purchases as well. We’ll see.

I also wanted to thank you Kevin for your encouraging emails a couple of years ago. They made a difference. Sometimes the encouragers need encouraging too, when life gets in the way.

Agriculture & dairy terminology dictionaries

As a former small hobby farmer in Oregon and translator of agricultural texts, I can't resist a good dictionary - or even a bad one - related to agriculture and food production. These fields often have very specialized terminology, and the terms in English often vary by dialect (UK, US), so it isn't always easy to find the right expressions eve if you do have a reasonable grasp of the field. Despite the key role that agriculture plays in the international economy, this is also not an area overloaded with multilingual dictionaries like, for example, IT or engineering technology.
In many ways, the publisher Elsevier seems to play the role that VEB Verlag Technik Berlin did in the old GDR. The publisher distributes many specialized dictionaries which often appear to be the only ones of significance in their field. So it is with agriculture too. When haunting the used book options of eBay with my preconfigured searches, I have managed to net two useful volumes for a total of about 20 euros, which otherwise would have cost me the price of a plane ticket to visit family in the US: the International Dairy Federation Dictionary of Dairy Terminology and the Dictionary of Agriculture. I bought the former on a whim, simply because I like to collect dictionaries, but it has found practical use in a number of projects translating about cheese making, yogurt and milk hygiene. The second volume stays close to my knee when I'm doing combines and forage harvesters or other related topics. To be honest, I would have gotten full value out of these at the retail price, but I'm glad to have saved what I did. There are so many things to be found there that can often be found nowhere else. Internet glossaries cannot cover everything, especially if you don't know enough to filter the noise.

In any case, for colleagues active in these areas and the relevant languages, I can recommend these as backup resources to accompany good prior knowledge of the fields:

Title: International Dairy Federation Dictionary of Dairy Terminology (Second Revised Edition)

Publisher: Elsevier Science B.V.
Languages: English, French, German, Spanish
ISBN-10: 0444896449
ISBN-13: 978-0444896445
Year published: 1996
Cost: about € 120 new through Amazon.de

Title: Elsevier's Dictionary of Agriculture

Publisher: Elsevier Science B.V.
Languages: English, German, French, Russian, Latin
ISBN-10: 0444500057
ISBN-13: 978-0444500052
Year published: 2000
Cost: about € 155 used to € 230 new through Amazon.de

Aerospace dictionary bargain (DE/EN)

Although we've got a rather extensive library of German/English translation dictionaries and other reference works, I haven't been satisfied with its coverage of aerospace topics. Up to now the best I've had has been a Lufthansa dictionary and a bunch of general technical ones (the infamous Ernst and a dozen others). Then I found a copy of Roderich Cescotti's Aerospace Dictionary with Aerospace Definitions in an online auction. The price was right, so I thought I would risk a few euros. On Amazon.com the book sells for USD 125; one vendor there offers a copy for nearly USD 300. The regular price on Amazon.de is about 95 euros (around USD 140 at current rates).

It finally arrived today. I was pleased to see that the content is tagged according to subfield; if this dictionary had been on my shelf last summer when I did a big translation on helicopter canopies, all the helicopter-relevant terms would have been clearly labeled as such for my convenience. The first half of the dictionary is a decent DE>EN and EN>DE dictionary like most. The second half has both German and English monolingual sections which give detailed explanations of individual terms. We can't all be aerospace engineers, and this is very useful to help me understand some of the concepts. If a term listed in the first half of the book has a definition in the second half, this is indicated in the dictionary entry.

The dictionary isn't cheap as noted above, but it's a worthwhile investment if you do work in this area. It's even more worthwhile if you get it cheaper, which you can. I paid about 20 euros on eBay.de for it, and I see many copies of it there listed regularly on the German eBay site (eBay.de), most at a "Buy it now" price under 40 euros that includes shipping.

Here are the basic data on the book:

Aerospace-Wörterbuch / Aerospace Dictionary
ISBN 10: 3613021943
ISBN 13: 9783613021945
Year published: 2002 by Motorbuch Verlag
Hardcover, 1 volume
555 pages
Weight: 1.224 kg
Languages: English, German

My favorite legal dictionaries (DE<>EN)

Once in a while in a relationship, it's nice to check and see if both partners are still on the same wavelength. That's important I think both in business and in private life. So I wandered into the next office and asked the love of my life what the "best" German/English dictionaries in our library are (from the standpoint of real usefulness for our work). Without hesitation she named "Dietl/Lorenz" as #1. It seems that she and I are still in tune with one another, at least as far as dictionaries are concerned :-) This set of dictionaries is used frequently when we translate contracts, patents or other material of a legal nature. In fact, I usually find these volumes more useful than a specialist patent dictionary like Uexküll, which has some questionable English entries (at least from an American perspective). There are, of course, other legal and commercial dictionaries out there, some of which we have, other merely the objects of lust but not in the current budget, and plenty with which I wouldn't do more than start the barbecue.

Please note that new versions have been released in recent years; DE>EN in 2005 and EN>DE in 2009. A lot of the copies in circulation are older editions.

The basic data for these great references are as follows:

Dictionary of Legal, Commercial and Political Terms (Volume I, English to German)
(Wörterbuch für Recht, Wirtschaft und Politik, Bd.1, Englisch-Deutsch)

# Hardcover: 943 pages
# Publisher: C.H. Beck Verlag; Edition: 6., completely revised (January 2009)
# Languages: English to German
# ISBN-10: 3406441122
# ISBN-13: 978-3406441127
# Size: 25.6 x 17.7 x 5.7 cm

Dictionary of Legal, Commercial and Political Terms (Volume II, German-English)
(Wörterbuch für Recht, Wirtschaft und Politik 2. Deutsch - Englisch: Einschließlich der Besonderheiten des amerikanischen Sprachgebrauchs. Mit erläuternden und rechtsvergleichenden Kommentaren: Band 2)

# Hardcover: 899 Seiten
# Publisher: Beck Juristischer Verlag; Edition: 5. A. (22 June 2005)
# Langiage: German to English
# ISBN-10: 3406480675
# ISBN-13: 978-3406480676
# Size: 25.6 x 17.8 x 5.6 cm

First-rate dictionary for logistics (DE-EN)

I'm not a logistics expert, nor do I actively seek translations in this area. But logistics is often an important part of various projects, and I have a good friend working for a freight forwarding company who has sought my assistance for various projects over the past decade, so the field is not entirely unfamiliar to me. I bought this dictionary when it first appeared to enable me to help my friend polish his CV and cover letters when he was between jobs, and it has proven very valuable since then on projects such as quotations for shipping, manuals for special lifting equipment for military tanks, shipping and handling instructions and more. We also own and use the companion volume (EN>DE), which is useful when editing some of the crazy English my friend and his colleagues in various countries produce. When I have my doubts that an English term used is legitimate, I have a quick look i the EN>DE volume and I'm often surprised. Logistics terminology can be pretty nuts. Even with a great dictionary like this, it's good to know someone in the field who can tell you whether your apparently plausible translation really reflects usual usage.

When I looked on Amazon.com, I was quite surprised to see that the dictionary was no longer available through Amazon, though a number of vendors sell it via links there, starting at about $88. However, Amazon.de has plenty of copies listed at 64 euros and links to other vendors selling it new starting at 55 euros. I bought my copy ages ago for 60 euros and a week later found another on eBay that I grabbed for 10 euros and gave to my friend as a birthday present. It's worth the full price.

A customer review on Amazon.de stated:
Don't let the unprofessional design of the cover fool you - this is the most comprehensive dictionary and the best currently available on the market for the field of logistics. Its sole disadvantage is that, because every term only vaguely related to logistics is listed, the book is relatively thick, heavy and bulky.

I disagree with the comment on bulkiness - the volumes are no bigger than most of the good standard dictionaries in my library, and quite a lot smaller and lighter than many. It won't fit in your back pocket, but except for my favorite welding dictionary, I can't think of a worthwhile reference that will.

Basic data for the dictionary:

* Hardcover: 803 pages
* Publisher: Cornelsen Lehrbuch (January 2001)
* Language: German & English
* ISBN-10: 3464494365
* ISBN-13: 978-3464494363
* Dimensions: 23.3 x 17 x 3.7 cm

This one is definitely worth buying new or putting on the eBay watch list!

ES-DE-EN-IT-FR dictionary for art conservation and restoration

A few years ago we were asked to do an interesting translation for a small local museum in Germany which was applying to the Getty Museum for funding for some restoration projects. It wasn't an area that I was deeply familiar with, but I've haunted museums all my life, and I was particularly fond of the artist whose work was the subject of the project, so we took the job on with great anticipation. However, it quickly became apparent that ordinary reference resources and information available on the Internet were deeply inadequate for the task ahead. The chemical side of the text wasn't an issue, but the special vocabulary of the world of art conservation/restoration was not easy to discover.

Fortunately I had a few connections. My favorite professor from college days, a specialist for organic chemistry, was a scientific advisor to the Getty Museum who helped to establish its conservation institute after his retirement in the 1980's. I contacted him to ask if he could question his acquaintances at the Getty and find out if they had terminology resources available. They recommended the Diccionario Tecnico Akal De Conservacion Y Restauracion De Bienes Culturales: Espanol-aleman-ingles-italiano-frances, which was fairly new at the time and not so easy to get. We managed to acquire a copy, which helped us enormously in the project. In the meantime I can find the dictionary at a reasonable price on Amazon. Don't let the Spanish title scare you off; it's perfectly easy to use for persons competent in German, French, Italian or English as well.

Here are the basic data for the reference work:

# Hardcover: 1128 pages
# Publisher: Akal Ediciones Sa (August 22, 2006)
# Language: Spanish
# ISBN-10: 8446012278
# ISBN-13: 978-8446012276
# Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.6 x 2.4 inches (23.9 x 16,8 x 6.1 cm)
# Shipping Weight: 4.2 pounds (1.9 kg)

Old gold from the GDR

Throughout the early and mid-80s I spent a lot of time on the "wrong" side of the Berlin Wall, where despite the best efforts of certain elements to complicate my life, more often than not I met the "right" kind of people. Today I live in the former East Germany, in a small town near Berlin, where I am in most respects happier than in any other place I have lived before. One of the things which I always found notable in the GDR was its standards of education; my friends and family in the "old" federal states may cling to their prejudices, but I note that many "impossible" things from the east such as 12 years to complete pre-university education are now the cornerstones for reform. And the west has a looooooong way to go to catch up on child care!
My first trips to East Berlin were to buy books, usually technical dictionaries for German, English and Russian. As a poor student living off a small allowance I found that ten marks for a high quality Russian/English dictionary at Das Internationale Buch was a lot friendlier than 120 DM for the same book in Saarbrücken. The old days of the screwy command economy had plenty of low points surely, but the quality of literature and technical references was not among them. I'm much in awe of the reference works for forestry, agriculture, hunting, dog training, etc. translated from Czech and Slovak by my neighbor Oskar Kasperl, and the many ancient multilingual glossaries I've collected, which were produced in the 1970's and 1980's, will keep their honored places on my reference shelf. They are not perfect, and often they are outdated, but they cover subject areas which are often very difficult to find terminology resources for. From the publisher VEB Verlag Technik Berlin, some of the resources I am fortunate to have include

• Technik-Wörterbuch Hydraulik/Pneumatik (hydraulics/pneumatics) in English, German, French, Russian, Spanish, Czech, Polish and Hungarian
• Technik-Wörterbuch Spektroskopie/Spektralanalyse (spectroscopy / spectral analysis) in English, German, French, Russian, Spanish, Czech, Polish and Hungarian
• Technik-Wörterbuch Technische Akustik (technical acoustics) in English, German, French, Russian, Spanish, Czech, Polish and Hungarian
• Technik-Wörterbuch Vakuumphysik/Vakuumtechnology (vacuum physics and technology) in English, German, French and Russian

& alia

Most of these were collected from eBay.de for just a few euros or acquired inexpensively from used bookstores and street vendors. As older translators and engineers retire or pass on, the contents of their libraries become available, and it is worth panning these streams for gold nuggets like those I've found.

A good book revisited

The flu is not one of my favorite experiences. Whether the illness that felled me last week, screwed up the quality of my work and kept me in bed unable to do any work for a few days was the swine flu I cannot say, but it left me feeling like an old, roasted pig. Being on my back for a while did have one good side, however: I could finally get around to reading the hardcopy version of a very interesting book for international freelance translators.

A year ago I published a short review on this blog of Oleg Rudavin's Internet Freelancing: Practical Guide for Translators. The original review was based on two incomplete preview chapters from the Translator's Training site. Now that I've read the whole thing in preparation for writing a review I promised to do for the BDÜ, I can repeat my earlier recommendation without qualification. Sure, the English is quirky in places and makes me smile, but big deal - I would be a dishonest fool to ignore the fact that this is a clearly expressed overview of a huge number - dare I say most? - of the issues that face freelance translators on the international markets today. Best of all, it's written by a fellow faced with brutal competition in a language pair often noted for its cut-throat pricing. Mr. Rudavin does well I think, but he doesn't live in the German-English Land of Milk and Honey, so he survives and thrives by his wits and learning from experience.

As I mentioned in my last review, I love the first-person narrative of this book. Examples given are based on real experience, and some of that experience is pretty damned embarrassing. This gives the book as a whole a lot more credibility. A wide range of issues, including all-important matters of rates and reality as well as the complications of international banking are discussed. For those outside the US and Western Europe, this may be thought of as a critical business survival guide for Internet freelancing. For those like me inside the walls of Western Europe, it's a real eye-opener to see what a colleague in another country sometimes has to put up with just to accept a payment. Useful to know if I plan international cooperations or activity as a new agency.

Reading this book, I have the feeling that Oleg spent the week as my personal advisor, helping me to review my business and find ways of restructuring it in a more effective way. (And coincidentally, that's what I'm doing.) The advice in this book - the lessons to be gained from "listening" to his narrative - is worth a lot more than the cover price. If I stated the multiple I believe applies, I'm sure I'd just start a useless argument, but I'd laugh my way to a better business while arguing. Let's just say it's a fun and worthwhile reference book that has something of value for most freelancers, from rank beginners without a clue to old hands. You won't find every answer there, but you'll surely find more than you expect.