Baby’s First Steps in T/I “Project Managing” and Networking

Today was an action packed day in translation between my full-time and part-time jobs. I didn’t do anything terribly thought provoking, but have been at my computer long enough to cause a good case of brain fry. I accidently placed a bunch of papers in the wrong folder in my desk drawer I thought to myself “Undo!” Not sure what that means…

Anyway, first of all, I AM NOT A PROJECT MANAGER. That being said, sometimes we get contracting assignments thrown our way when in house translating is slow, or when no one cares what you’re doing because they’re too busy. So, today was a big day for me on the phone calling interpreters who were less than thrilled by the prospect of work.

“Whaaa!?” I know! haha keep reading

We pay much better for translation than interpreting, and having worked as a part-time interpreter, I understand the love-hate relationship they can have with agencies that call in a bind and pay, but during most of the year, don’t call at all (I still get calls from my part-time agency to do assignments in the middle of the day once every few months when they’re absolutely screwed).

We are definitely more heavily engaged in translation here, so our interpreter database, were it not filed in the computer, could easily be covered in spider-webs. However, I couldn’t believe how damn difficult it was to find people. I was SCREAMING for work when I started out, and traveling to all corners of the city for it. Then again, after all that, the company I work for now found me, and not as a result of all my “whoring out for translation” and endless job hunts and searches…to each their own. Can’t have your eyes everywhere at once, right?

But back to Project Managing and Networking. Okay, fine, so my “Project Managing” was much more Dispatching than anything else, but I also had a chance to recommend a colleague for a freelance assignment I couldn’t take (I don’t usually do translation into anything but English). I also was recommended to someone else from someone I worked for a few weeks ago for a different translation assignment.

Networking is a huge thing in freelancing that I’m really not very good at getting started, however, you work long enough and you’re bound to interact with people in your field who are good at what they do. I normally roll my eyes when people start going on about the importance of networking (and when people start referring to any sort of social interaction as networking); but it’s a nice feeling to be recommended, and it also feels good when there’s an assignment out there that no one around you can do, but you happen to know someone who can. For people starting out, seriously, remember to grab a card or jot down info of other colleagues you work with when you get started if you ever have the chance to work on a group project. It seems pointless since often you may be looking for the same work at first, but as you start to specialize and move away from certain things (and they do as well) you’ll see how much you can help one another.

Anyway, I have an hour left of work and nothing due until tomorrow afternoon, so I thought I’d take some time to put out quick post. I spent a good hour this morning going through what I could find searching out Chinese translation blogs and resources and came across some good finds, granted, moreso in the general language study area but with some translation resources mixed in as well!

Journal of Chinese Studies

This is a journal from the Chinese University of Hong Kong that is based on Chinese studies in a broad sense, but includes articles on Chinese Translation specifically. All past volumes are available to read online, and while the only ones I’ve been able to open are in Chinese, there are book reviews with English titles which I’ve yet to be able to open that could be written in English.

Renditions Magazine

This is a magazine with Chinese literature in translation. Since they deal with so much translation, they also have links to translation research initiatives that I assumed were sponsored by them or related to them in some way. Not all of the PDF’s are accessible online, but there are some extracts as well as some full articles throughout the site if you search around a little. The link I’m providing is to the Translation Studies Research Series Page.

I’m going to spend the rest of my time at work on THE CURRICULUM!!!! haha I’ve added some more popular titles to the pile. I didn’t want to dumb the list down, because in the end I am supposed to be trudging through what I have not learned, not just reading for pleasure, but for like the 9th time I asked a friend from Taiwan for recommendations and, after telling me not to bother (the bar for foreigners is low, what can I say?), he told me classical lit. is boring and to read anything bu JIN, Yong 金庸. I was working as an intern at HKTDC way back (summer ‘06) and he actually visited the Exhibition they had that summer and spoke (I missed it..-_-), but ever since I’ve wanted an excuse to sit around reading Wushu novels all day. And I’m taking it!

The progressing Chinese translator hits AC

This past weekend was my sister’s fiance’s bachelor party in Atlantic City. I know, this is not exactly a theme that traditionally ties in that much with translation, but bear with me, for my nerdiness knows no bounds. I rode an ACES train down by myself, which I was ecstatic for because it gave me some time to go through my self-imposed curriculum! “Self-imposed curriculum?” you ask? Yessssss. As I said, my nerdiness knows no bounds. My last day at this job will be the 7th, and I don’t leave until about 3 weeks after that. I plan on using my new found freetime preparing for the Fall Semester.

Translation is great for building up vocab. in general, but since most of the translations I encounter have something to do with textbooks or professional/government documentation, I’m much better suited to reading a text book than a work of fiction. But, I’m a lit. major…. -_- haha That being the case, this next month in huge part will be devoted to catching up on reading what I’ve missed over the last few years before my first semester begins this Fall. Clearly I’m intimidated, but for once I’ve given myself some downtime before my next leap, and I think it’ll make things go much smoother. I’m working off of online sources because the NYPL has been really fussy about having classics on hand in other languages (::womp woomp::). For some old school chinese classics, here’s a link to 红楼梦 and another for 茶馆 online!

See how it’s all starting to come together?

So yeah, back to AC. After a night/day of drinking before a massive, massive dinner, I was already pretty tired once the boys were moving out for their next adventure. I decided to stay in and avoid the madness, and committed myself to an evening of channel surfing. What’d I find? CCTV4!?!? In AC?! (may have been a different number, it was in Chinese, I thought CCTV4 was the English station). Yes! Thank you, Chinese gamblers? In AC hotels, apparently it’s a regular station that’s provided in the rooms. I haven’t been in a hotel in the US for a very long time, but I can’t recall seeing CCTV find its way into the list of channels before. I got a real kick out of sitting there watching, since excluding my train ride down, nothing about studying or translation had come up (surprisingly enough, it’s not the biggest topic at a bachelor party), and I think all those drinks and ‘alleged’ extra O2 may have actually helped my listening skills. I wasn’t exactly focused or in much shape to pay attention to anything for longer than three seconds, but I listened to a whole story about CCTV’s Arabic station in the Middle East before passing out until everyone got back to the hotel at like, 4…

If I were a good blogger, this would have been posted on Sunday, not Wednesday….I’m a little behind on posts, and with the reorganizing between the blogs, it’s very easy to get distracted from posting dealing with other “maintenance” or just work BS, but more Translation/Chinese resources to come, as well as some highlights from my past year in full-time.

Freelance Woes

Since I was talking about ridiculous client expectations, I thought this was a good post to link here as well. The writer talks about being sick and forcing himself to work through it because the client he set a deadline with didn’t do so with the idea that the translator could get sick in mind. He makes the following point: “With the freedom to set your own schedule comes the responsibility to stick to it.”

It is a really good point. I’m glad I’m not part-time interpreting/transcribing/ everything anymore; because I think I picked up a lot of translation industry fundamentals in the office over the past year that will make me a much better freelance translator. At the start of things, when you’re still struggling just to fill your schedule, it’s hard to juggle learning the fundamentals of building a business while also building the fundamentals for how to produce good results within that industry.

One thing does strike me as I read more and more translation blogs, though. How do shotty translators keep getting work? I’ve been doing this for a few years not missing deadlines and have yet to meet a client who was blown away by that fact. I think most clients I work for, in general, have good relationships with the translators they contract, so my “on-time” (more often than not I try to make it before the deadline) service doesn’t make much of an impression. I need to start meeting the people with translation assignment who can’t keep a freelancer around for a week. I’d never have any more freetime!

Obviously there’s no shortage of people taking on workloads way beyond what they can deal with, so I understand there are millions of reasons for why people keep paying people to provide them with low quality translations. Still, I’ve built up a lot of anal retentiveness at this gig that has yet to be rewarded or pay off, on the contrary, I think I’m just becoming a bigger geek.

Today’s been a pretty low-key one at my office, I don’t think it’s that we aren’t busy, but my deadlines are for next week, so I’m not terribly worried about them at the moment. The only other “reality” from the translation world I’ve been faced with is that I absolutely cannot stand formatting for transcripts. Especially Chinese ones, because what can be squeezed into a page in size 6 font characters in Chinese rarely can be reduplicated in English being contained in the same space. Since we’re strict about reduplicating form as well as content in my office, I wind up hunched over a page with reading glasses to read the source and with my face an inch from my computer screen typing up the target language.

What can I say? In the end it’s good because it enforces good formatting habits when I work freelance, other than that, I guess if something in my life needs to irritate me on a daily basis, it’s not the worst work hazard to deal with.

Terminology

Good article which talks about measurement units for translators in general. Even if you’re not specializing in technical translations, science and technical jargon more than likely will find their way into your work. It doesn’t hurt to know the fundamentals before going into it, as this article suggests. Having fundamentals covered before hand can save you a lot of heartache, for one, and also, as the article says, it shows you’re familiar and comfortable with the topic at hand.

I find technical translation and specialization in translation interesting, especially from the perspective of a beginner. I’m no science buff, and even worse at math and computer science; however, since I’m still “full-timing it” at a translation agency that’s a part of a corporation that needs legal translations and does academic evaluations. As such, I still come across academic articles/article summaries/theses which need to be translated that come from engineering and sci-tech related majors. When that time comes, I force myself into research mode and try to convince myself I was a better science student than I was in college.

When you have the time to explore the field and do the research, taking on something a little challenging can be a fun way to improve your translation skills. Unfortunately, this isn’t always how it works.

However, the author warns about the dangers of “generalizing” by going into any technical field you come across just to have work, and how taking these assignments can lead to bad work He talks about how, often, translators who are just starting out wind up covering almost every field imaginable because they don’t want to turn down an assignment. I can see why from my experience already. I majored in Chinese and Spanish, and just finished translating an article on Neuroscience.

Fortunately, I had more than enough time and enough background from previous assignments where this wasn’t really the stretch it sounds like. That is not always the case. In many cases, assignments are posted and there’s no limit to the expectations clients and agencies can have for turnaround. Not all of those clients and agencies know exactly what they’re handling/what goes into that kind of work, and are more focused on budget. People are working quickly and are absurdly stressed, so don’t be surprised if someone’s expecting the expertise of a brain surgeon for the price of, well, most likely nothing. They may legitimately expect to be able to get it, too, so when they’re paying you a crap rate for really tough work, they’re still going to be critical of the results.

Under a situation where you’re expected to turn in your best in maybe half the time you’re accustomed to doing so, it’s very, very easy to wind up submitting something with inaccurate terms, or just filled with typos because by the time you finished looking up every term you’re too tired to accurately proof your work before the deadline. Technical translation can become a very, very time consuming process. You wind up cross referencing almost every term you translate just to be sure you’re not using a term that isn’t used in the field (for those of you who haven’t taken a look, here’s an example of how distracted this makes me even when it’s not technical). This can be stressful, can lead to shotty work, and in some ways backs the argument that starting out in translation sucks. Definitely don’t take on something you know is going to be a challenge if you won’t have ample time to take on the challenge.

Anyway, on the bright side, it also shows that in terms of learning new things, starting out in translation kind of kicks ass. I can already nearly see where I could do well if I decide to specialize, but after today, I’m kind of excited not to be there yet. I’d never expect to be comfortable reading science articles in Chinese, since I used to hardly manage in English, but today’s was maybe the third or fourth sci-tech article I’ve had to translate, and when I was doing research, I was navigating Chinese science terminology on the web very comfortably.  Once I do specialize, it’s unlikely that I’d get that kind of assignment (unless I change my mind and start taking neuroscience classes sometime soon.)

Adventures in Quoting

Since I am just at the start of getting to know the translation industry (I guess I’m nearing 3 years experience if you count part-time work), it’s funny to see myself fall back into bad habits I thought I’d rooted out over the last year. This morning it came from a quoting mishap. Or, rather, quoting desperation and stupidity.

For a little background: I work in an office and as a freelancer. Anyone who’s done this can relate to the dilemma of seeing people regularly paying your company absurd prices for your work and being unable to get the same for yourself when quoting for freelance work. It’s discouraging.

I stopped “bottom feeding” officially maybe a year ago, a move that came from the realization that the “.05 USD per word because I’m looking for experience” tagline would not get me anything but trouble, but I still have trouble getting the best rates, and often accept lower rates than I’d like (::womp woomp:: I know, who doesn’t).

Some Chinese customers want me to compete with Chinese prices (usually coming from non native English speakers providing much lower quality), and agencies, well, as I’ve mentioned, some of them have very high expectations for how low you should go.

With bottom feeding and not bottom feeding both leaving me a bit stagnant, I haven’t been quoting much lately; however, I this week did randomly bring in a few good short assignments and a very good long, sci-tech project that I was really happy to work on.

So, this morning I’m feeling good, and w/ the Fall Semester in Taiwan coming very, very soon, the prospect of extra cash made me a little eager to pick up the pace. I practically lunged at the chance to bid on a 3500 word project posted online. I sent off my quote and looked back on what it was…let’s just say I was frighteningly close to infringing on old territory, with a very low, very over-eager quote.

The person who receives it will no doubt either laugh, or worse, accept it and turn out to be a nightmare. Oh, what we do for extra cash before grad school…

What I’ve seen so far is that patience (and having something to offer to begin with) tends to win the battle for good clients. You’re bound to stumble into somebody who cares about quality and will pay you fairly if you keep doing good work. Dazzling someone with a low quote tends to bring in low-paying clients who wish to remain low-paying clients.

For example, I have a customer who continually emails me with offers to do Chinese-English assignments for less than .05 USD. This is because I accepted a really long project for him at .05 when I’d just gotten a full-time job to cover my expenses. I figured it’d be extra income, and it was the longest thing I’d ever worked on (and hysterical, but that’s beside the point)…I provided a good translation; however, I did not get a raise the next time around, believe it or not. Most customers think they can bargain down from their original price, so when you take something low paying mainly due to boredom, or with the state of things lately, maybe desperation, you’re going to find that the phrase “the only way from here is up” is rarely said from a point within the freelance translation industry.

In the end, “bottom-feeding” seems like a good temporary fix to no work, but it gets you lots of headaches in the long run, because you have to remember that just because a customer isn’t paying full-price doesn’t mean they won’t expect your full service. They’re “bottom feeding” too, but they will expect full-service, and get enough clients this way, and you’ll be overloaded with work that hardly compensates all the effort you will put into it.

Tamkang University!

I got accepted to Tamkang University (淡江大学) last month, and as of today will officially be starting Fall 2009! I applied to the Chinese Department to study for a Master’s in Chinese Literature, in which I’m hoping to incorporate some coursework in English and Spanish to Chinese translation/interpreting as well as one or two fundamental Chinese linguistics courses. My hope is to continue translating while I am studying. [laughter] I know, this requires discipline and attention, and I’m still going to do it! I think that this blog can only benefit from this whole move, since I’ll be a full-time student and (I hope) will have more time to follow up on research online, and likely more exposure to cool resources for studying Chinese and translation.

For anyone who’s not seen the old blog, please look, I have yet to move anything from that site to this one, so there are some great links for learning Chinese ‘dialect’ and some translating industry posts that are worth checking out.

Some new things I’m going to incorporate into this blog that will make it different from the old one: Less commentary about current events, more commentary Chinese in the context of Taiwan, a more exclusive focus on Chinese language and translation (from the progressing freelancer and/or document translator’s perspective), and posts in Chinese and Spanish. Also hoping for some guest posts here and there.

In the works: NEW BLOG?! Yes, I’m going to do it. This blog is part of a larger overhaul process. I’m going to want to post a lot of the new things I see and learn about Taiwan, although they may have little to do with language and/or translation, so I think it makes sense to keep them somewhere else.

Another potential blog may come up if I’m diligent enough. I have a tendency to obsess over lyrics, and might start posting transcribed lyrics and their translations together in posts for people learning Spanish and Chinese.

I’m very nervous about being away for so long, but there’s a lot to be excited about. The opportunity itself, you say? Yes, that, of course, as well as the daily discoveries I’m making about Danshui and Tamkang University. For one, they’re both gorgeous. Part of me feels as if I’m sneaking away from my job to go on a very long, very challenging vacation. Two, and this will depend on how things go with scheduling and what I’m allowed to do within my curriculum, but the resources at Tamkang are SIIIICK for Spanish and English to Chinese. For example, Spanish-Chinese translation classes actually exist there. WOW. It’s hard leaving friends and family at home, so it’s really reassuring knowing that I’m going be exposed to something I could never find in a school here.

Nerdy note: Romanization in Taiwan is a complicated subject as there is no official system and lots of opinions about what should be used. My active use of Chinese is heavily affected by Mainland Chinese, so while I can read traditional characters because of my job and listen to Taiwanese Mandarin speakers often, I still tend to write in simplified, and romanize in pinyin. If this really bothers you, hm, bear with me, please. Anyway, here are some links for Tamkang

University Tamkang University Webpage

Some Pictures of Campus from the Int’l. Student’s site

Why translating takes time

I’m in the middle of an interesting assignment. I’ve done work for this guy before, he’s a writer and he’s working on an action/comedy script that is likely to (if it hasn’t already) make the image of James Bond very self-conscious. That being the case, the terms I find myself researching can be really funny when you step back from the assignment and look at them.

For example,  屁股　(pigu) is the Chinese word for butt. Now, the sentence in question involves Large Bird’s beak (having already been turned to stone by a magic weapon) being fixed right at Agent *******’s ass___.  I say ass___ because the term he uses is 屁股眼　（’pigu yan），literally，in English,  ass’ eye.

As I’m sure you can imagine, this isn’t word without a feasible reference, albeit an awkward way to do so in English. In fact, 屁眼 (屁股 + 眼睛 = 屁眼) is the more common way I’ve heard to refer to one’s asshole in Chinese (to cite a common example,生儿子没屁眼! “Have a child with no asshole!”). However, since I usually see 屁眼 and not 屁股眼, I thought I should search the term in the dictionary and check how it’s used online, even though it’s likely that both are used for the same thing.

Unfortunately, no entries found for ‘pigu yan.’ Don’t you just hate that? Instead of being proactive and continuing my search as relevant to the task at hand, I noticed something else. One of the online dictionaries I use does provide close matches when it comes up with nothing, and among the many terms that involve 屁眼,  one was  鸡屁股，or chicken ass. I though, “Why on Earth would that come up enough that it’d need to be referred to in the dictionary, chicken + ass = chicken ass, damnit!　This isn’t new vocab”  then, to my surprise, I saw that the definition for the word wasn’t literally “chicken’s ass” (of course while I was ranting, I clicked the link). It wasn’t “chicken butt” or “chicken posterior” either. It was “Parson’s nose.”

Before today, if you asked me what a parson’s nose was, I would have guessed it had something to do with a human nose. It is, in fact, as I’m sure most people besides me have already learned, “the rump of a fowl when cooked.” So, a cooked ‘chicken’s ass,’ for the laymen out there.

During this whole process I had two realizations: 1. Wow, someone’s paying me to do this. 2. Maybe I should have been tested for ADD. At any rate, I thought this might serve as some insight into why translators seem forever trapped seeking out terms…once you start, the amount of stuff you find out is endless.  Just think, all of what I described above is without going into how I learned what “crupper” means…

Intro

This is a continuation of a blog I’ve been working on for the last year or so.  It’s developed from very general commentary on Chinese and China to a more specific blog about translation resources and resources for exploring topics in Chinese language (especially dialect, but grammar/linguistics as well).  Since I’m going to be leaving for Taiwan very soon, a lot of new research will be focused on that, however, I plan to update this with all the old translation resources I had at notes from a progressing document translator.

I chose Chinese Language and Translation Notebook as the title not specifiying what language Chinese is being translated into because I currently work from Spanish-English as well, and plan to also study English-Chinese/Spanish-Chinese translation at Tamkang University, so while it won’t be a central focus, translation resources for Spanish-English and Chinese-Spanish/Spanish-Chinese are most likely going to be included as well.

Since I’m at work, this updating process is going to go a little slowly. In the meantime, feel free to check out my old posts at Notes from a Progressing Document Translator