After a long summer of hard work which was briefly alleviated by a fortnight visiting my parents and friends in Munich, I gave a talk about marketing at the ITI German Network's Work & Playshop in Tunbridge Wells. The event was expertly organised by Amanda Conrad and Bernie Cooper of amanda conrad translations. Unfortunately, I had fallen prey to a particularly vicious bout of flu, but Bernie administered liberal doses of Iboprofen, and I managed to take my place at the speakers' desk.
The event was extremely well attended, the network coordinator Sue Young even mentioned that they hadn't seen such numbers for years. I would wholeheartedly recommend the ITI German Network to all ITI members who work in this language combination. It is a very active group with loads of friendly and knowledgeable members who help each other with terminology, grammatical, stylistic, and general issues.
Dienstag, 2. Oktober 2007
Donnerstag, 26. April 2007
Heidi speaks - a lot
Some of you may remember my talk about software localisation to which I have periodically subjected the unsuspecting members of our profession. Recently, Chus Fernandez, Director of Undergraduate Studies at Salford University asked me deliver and extend it for their translation students. So I gave a series of two lectures, one a general overview of software localisation, the market, the challenges and opportunities for translators, followed by a more in-depth look at some of the particular issues involved in dealing with localising software for various platforms including Palm and Symbian OS, help systems, and documentation. After the first session, I thought I had completely baffled them with my "supergeek" act, and I was pleased and surprised that even more people attended my second lecture.
From putting together these lectures, I rolled straight into preparing a workshop for the upcoming ProZ conference in Budapest, where I will lead a session on translation and adaptation of marketing texts. Since my own talk preparations were accompanied by a very large translation assignment consisting of a series of presentations, I now suffer from acute PowerPoint overload!
Next week I shall report back from the ProZ conference, but for now let me leave you with a picture of my latest pole dancing exploit.
Dienstag, 27. März 2007
Meine Übersetzer des Monats
Normalerweise bringe ich es ja nicht über mich, die deutschen Übersetzungen englischer Bücher zu lesen, denn meist finde ich spätestens auf der fünften Seite einen Ausdruck, den ich etwas anders übersetzt hätte. Ab und zu gelingt es aber doch einem Übersetzer, mich so in den Bann zu schlagen, dass ich völlig vergesse, eine Übersetzung vor mir zu haben. Das ist mir in diesem Monat sogar zweimal passiert.
Ich nutze meine Aufenthalte in Deutschland meist dazu, meine Bibliothek aufzustocken und viel zu lesen, was mir dadurch erleichtert wird, dass meine Ferienwohnung im Haus meiner Eltern sehr ruhig an einem der oberbayerischen Seen gelegen ist. Ich sollte vielleicht dazu vermerken, dass ich aus einer Familie ausgesprochener Leseratten stamme, und somit von allen Seiten stets über Lesenswertes auf dem Laufenden gehalten werde. So auch diesmal – als mir während meines Besuchs im Februar der Lesestoff ausging, bestand meine Schwägerin darauf, ich müsse unbedingt das Buch „Kristall der Träume“ von Barbara Wood lesen. Erst zierte ich mich natürlich, denn es war ja „nur“ eine Übersetzung. Dann habe ich mich aber in dem unterhaltsamen Schmöker fest gelesen und kann kategorisch erklären, dass ich die ganzen 656 Seiten lang nicht mehr daran gedacht habe, keinen deutschen Originaltext vor mir zu haben. Hut ab vor der Übersetzerin Susanne Dickerhof-Kranz! Ich muss gestehen, dass ich mich sogar etwas schuldig fühle, weil ich die Arbeit, mit der sie bestimmt viele Monate zugebracht hat, so einfach über ein paar Tage als Urlaubslektüre in mich hineingeschlungen habe.
Für die zweite Übersetzung, die mich diesen Monat sehr beeindruckt hat, zeichnet Reinhard Kaiser verantwortlich. Das fragliche Buch stammt aus der Feder von Irene Dische, einer Amerikanerin deutscher Herkunft. Sowohl der ansprechende deutsche Titel „Großmama packt aus“ des auf amerikanisch als „The Empress of Weehawken: A Novel“ veröffentlichten Buchs als auch jedes Wort, jede Phrase ist stimmig. Das Buch ist interessant, amüsant und durchaus lesenswert. Eine Geschichte von Frauen im 20. Jahrhundert, mutig, meist heiter und stets vor dem Hintergrund der deutschen Vergangenheit. Ich freue mich schon darauf, mehr von Irene Dische und Reinhard Kaiser lesen.
Call for audience participation: Would you like to read a translation of this post? Please let me know.
Ich nutze meine Aufenthalte in Deutschland meist dazu, meine Bibliothek aufzustocken und viel zu lesen, was mir dadurch erleichtert wird, dass meine Ferienwohnung im Haus meiner Eltern sehr ruhig an einem der oberbayerischen Seen gelegen ist. Ich sollte vielleicht dazu vermerken, dass ich aus einer Familie ausgesprochener Leseratten stamme, und somit von allen Seiten stets über Lesenswertes auf dem Laufenden gehalten werde. So auch diesmal – als mir während meines Besuchs im Februar der Lesestoff ausging, bestand meine Schwägerin darauf, ich müsse unbedingt das Buch „Kristall der Träume“ von Barbara Wood lesen. Erst zierte ich mich natürlich, denn es war ja „nur“ eine Übersetzung. Dann habe ich mich aber in dem unterhaltsamen Schmöker fest gelesen und kann kategorisch erklären, dass ich die ganzen 656 Seiten lang nicht mehr daran gedacht habe, keinen deutschen Originaltext vor mir zu haben. Hut ab vor der Übersetzerin Susanne Dickerhof-Kranz! Ich muss gestehen, dass ich mich sogar etwas schuldig fühle, weil ich die Arbeit, mit der sie bestimmt viele Monate zugebracht hat, so einfach über ein paar Tage als Urlaubslektüre in mich hineingeschlungen habe.
Für die zweite Übersetzung, die mich diesen Monat sehr beeindruckt hat, zeichnet Reinhard Kaiser verantwortlich. Das fragliche Buch stammt aus der Feder von Irene Dische, einer Amerikanerin deutscher Herkunft. Sowohl der ansprechende deutsche Titel „Großmama packt aus“ des auf amerikanisch als „The Empress of Weehawken: A Novel“ veröffentlichten Buchs als auch jedes Wort, jede Phrase ist stimmig. Das Buch ist interessant, amüsant und durchaus lesenswert. Eine Geschichte von Frauen im 20. Jahrhundert, mutig, meist heiter und stets vor dem Hintergrund der deutschen Vergangenheit. Ich freue mich schon darauf, mehr von Irene Dische und Reinhard Kaiser lesen.
Call for audience participation: Would you like to read a translation of this post? Please let me know.
Montag, 5. März 2007
Heidi takes on mentor role in ITI Peer Support Group
As of today, Heidi Kerschl is one of the mentors on the Peer Support Group set up by the Institute of Translation and Interpreting (ITI). I will be teaching the marketing module which is scheduled for May, and will guide the PSG participants through drawing up their marketing plans.
However, since marketing is not an isolated activity, and most effective if taken into consideration at all stages of setting up and running a business, one of my objectives will be to help the mentees develop and finetune their marketing skills. No activity, skill, objective works in isolation, as a freelance translator (or when running a small translation company) you are your own product and brand, you have to bear in mind that many things you do as a matter of course (reading, research on the internet, exchanging ideas and experiences with colleagues) can have a beneficial effect on your work, and as such are (or should be) part of your marketing plan.
In many ways, you can learn a lot about yourself as you draw up and further develop your marketing plan, and it is often a journey of discovery that can (and should) lead to a clearer picture of where you are, and where you would like to get to. I was most impressed by watching last years PSG mentee Rebecca Smith go through this process - she was unrelentlessly honest about her weaknesses, but also discovered a lot more about her strengths, and she ended up developing a realistic, feasible, and strong marketing plan.
However, since marketing is not an isolated activity, and most effective if taken into consideration at all stages of setting up and running a business, one of my objectives will be to help the mentees develop and finetune their marketing skills. No activity, skill, objective works in isolation, as a freelance translator (or when running a small translation company) you are your own product and brand, you have to bear in mind that many things you do as a matter of course (reading, research on the internet, exchanging ideas and experiences with colleagues) can have a beneficial effect on your work, and as such are (or should be) part of your marketing plan.
In many ways, you can learn a lot about yourself as you draw up and further develop your marketing plan, and it is often a journey of discovery that can (and should) lead to a clearer picture of where you are, and where you would like to get to. I was most impressed by watching last years PSG mentee Rebecca Smith go through this process - she was unrelentlessly honest about her weaknesses, but also discovered a lot more about her strengths, and she ended up developing a realistic, feasible, and strong marketing plan.
Freitag, 23. Februar 2007
Neues aus der alten Heimat
Es war wieder einmal Zeit für einen Besuch in "Barbaria" (O-Ton Max). Dank Internetanschluss (mehr darüber später) und eigener Wohnung im Haus meiner Eltern hat das Arbeiten einigermaßen nahtlos geklappt, einige meiner Kunden merkten gar nicht, dass ich mein Wirkungsfeld nach Oberbayern verlegt hatte. Es gab viele gute Gelegenheiten, "dem Volk aufs Maul zu schauen" und mich aus erster Hand über die derzeit in Deutschland brennenden Themen zu informieren.
Wie in England sind auch hier die Themen Umweltschutz, gesunde Ernährung und der Niedergang des Gesundheitswesens besonders brisant. Nach jahrzehntelanger beinahe an Überversorgung grenzender medizinischer Betreuung wird nun Schmalhans Küchenmeister und Deutschland findet sich in einer Zweiklassengesellschaft wieder, in denen Privatpatienten deutlich Vorrang eingeräumt wird.
Das ist natürlich besonders schmerzhaft, da die Krankenkassenbeiträge von 13 bis 15 Prozent des Bruttoverdiensts, die „gewöhnliche“ Kassenpatienten jeden Monat abführen müssen, sich bei Normalverdienern bereits ziemlich unangenehm bemerkbar machen. Man hat sich in den vergangenen Jahrzehnten auch sehr daran gewöhnt, dass man stets ohne längere Wartezeiten (abgesehen von der obligatorischen Stunde im Wartezimmer) Zugang zu Fachärzten erhält, die mit Ultraschallgeräten und mit eigenem Kleinlabor ausgestattet sind, so dass man für einen Großteil von Untersuchungen gar nicht erst ins Krankenhaus muss. Deswegen vermissen die meisten Auslanddeutschen das deutsche Gesundheitswesen meist stärker als Lieblingsspeisen, Kulturgut und selbst emotionale Bindungen. Was die am 16. Februar 2007 verabschiedete Gesundheitsreform mit sich bringt, ist vielen noch unklar, macht jedoch deutlich, wie sehr wir Deutschen das Reformieren lieben!
Wie in England sind auch hier die Themen Umweltschutz, gesunde Ernährung und der Niedergang des Gesundheitswesens besonders brisant. Nach jahrzehntelanger beinahe an Überversorgung grenzender medizinischer Betreuung wird nun Schmalhans Küchenmeister und Deutschland findet sich in einer Zweiklassengesellschaft wieder, in denen Privatpatienten deutlich Vorrang eingeräumt wird.
Das ist natürlich besonders schmerzhaft, da die Krankenkassenbeiträge von 13 bis 15 Prozent des Bruttoverdiensts, die „gewöhnliche“ Kassenpatienten jeden Monat abführen müssen, sich bei Normalverdienern bereits ziemlich unangenehm bemerkbar machen. Man hat sich in den vergangenen Jahrzehnten auch sehr daran gewöhnt, dass man stets ohne längere Wartezeiten (abgesehen von der obligatorischen Stunde im Wartezimmer) Zugang zu Fachärzten erhält, die mit Ultraschallgeräten und mit eigenem Kleinlabor ausgestattet sind, so dass man für einen Großteil von Untersuchungen gar nicht erst ins Krankenhaus muss. Deswegen vermissen die meisten Auslanddeutschen das deutsche Gesundheitswesen meist stärker als Lieblingsspeisen, Kulturgut und selbst emotionale Bindungen. Was die am 16. Februar 2007 verabschiedete Gesundheitsreform mit sich bringt, ist vielen noch unklar, macht jedoch deutlich, wie sehr wir Deutschen das Reformieren lieben!
Donnerstag, 15. Februar 2007
From Edinburgh to Budapest?
In November I travelled to Edinburgh for the ProZ conference which boasted over 140 participants from 22 countries. For those of you who are so securely established that you don’t need to tout for business on internet-based translators’ forums, ProZ is an internet based translators' forum where translators get webspace to market themselves, can post and discuss queries and work issues (http://www.proz.com/).
The audience was a fortuitous mix of more mature, experienced translation professionals like myself, and relative newcomers to the profession with only a few years of experience. This made for very lively conversation and evening entertainment, but more of that later. With the exception of the plenary key note and summary sessions, the conference was organised in three workshop streams, with parallel chat networking sessions for the main language groups. The program was well-rounded, with plenty of practical advice on marketing, research techniques, the use of translation memory software and other useful software tools that can improve our productivity. I particularly enjoyed the first day’s keynote address by Sarah Adams, an award-winning translator of children's literature. Her multimedia presentation was funny, informative, and highly inspiring. In most of us - as we slave away battling with annual reports, instruction manuals, patents etc. - slumbers a literary translator dying to give voice to an author who might otherwise not be accessible to millions of people. After all, most of us originally embarked on our path in pursuit of this dream, and although our creative limits and economic necessities may not ever enables us to spend four years of our working lives translating War And Peace like the very entertaining speaker Tony Briggs, it is exhilarating to spend a few hours playing with language instead of battling with file formats and trying to maximise throughput.
As a complete newcomer to ProZ - I had only joined six weeks before the conference as one of my strategies to revive my freelance career after six years as a director of Salford Translations Ltd - I was surprised, amazed, and delighted to find myself surrounded by a bunch of such vibrant, friendly people. This gathering was truly international, and although English mainly served as lingua franca, a lot of German, Italian, Russian, Spanish, Dutch, etc. could be heard. To my delight, there was a sizeable German speaking contingent, and as a German translator living in the UK, the opportunity to speak my native language with my colleagues for three days alone would have been a worthwhile professional development activity. The lunch buffets were absolutely wonderful, and although the Edinburgh Thistle is not noted for its architectural beauty, on the whole the conference facilities were good, and the staff helpful and friendly.
The social program was also amazingly well organised. The evening before the conference, we all met at lovely bar/restaurant, the conference dinner & ceilidh were a big success, and the following night most of us took over a wonderful pub with live music, and we absolutely rocked. At this point I would like to state that any rumours of me pole-dancing are a misrepresentation of the facts, the Pole in question was called Jerzy, a Trados expert and a Polish to German translator.
In summary, I must say that I am looking forward to the next ProZ conference which will take place in Budapest from 28th April to 1st May 2007 (http://www.proz.com/conference/10 ). I have met a number of colleagues who I hope will become very firm friends. On a more pecuniary note, attending the conference enabled me to make contact with a number of potential collaborators and work providers, and with colleagues whose specialist knowledge might just help me out in a difficult job. In my experience, attending conferences and workshops is one of the best ways a translator can invest in himself/herself and his/her business.
The audience was a fortuitous mix of more mature, experienced translation professionals like myself, and relative newcomers to the profession with only a few years of experience. This made for very lively conversation and evening entertainment, but more of that later. With the exception of the plenary key note and summary sessions, the conference was organised in three workshop streams, with parallel chat networking sessions for the main language groups. The program was well-rounded, with plenty of practical advice on marketing, research techniques, the use of translation memory software and other useful software tools that can improve our productivity. I particularly enjoyed the first day’s keynote address by Sarah Adams, an award-winning translator of children's literature. Her multimedia presentation was funny, informative, and highly inspiring. In most of us - as we slave away battling with annual reports, instruction manuals, patents etc. - slumbers a literary translator dying to give voice to an author who might otherwise not be accessible to millions of people. After all, most of us originally embarked on our path in pursuit of this dream, and although our creative limits and economic necessities may not ever enables us to spend four years of our working lives translating War And Peace like the very entertaining speaker Tony Briggs, it is exhilarating to spend a few hours playing with language instead of battling with file formats and trying to maximise throughput.
As a complete newcomer to ProZ - I had only joined six weeks before the conference as one of my strategies to revive my freelance career after six years as a director of Salford Translations Ltd - I was surprised, amazed, and delighted to find myself surrounded by a bunch of such vibrant, friendly people. This gathering was truly international, and although English mainly served as lingua franca, a lot of German, Italian, Russian, Spanish, Dutch, etc. could be heard. To my delight, there was a sizeable German speaking contingent, and as a German translator living in the UK, the opportunity to speak my native language with my colleagues for three days alone would have been a worthwhile professional development activity. The lunch buffets were absolutely wonderful, and although the Edinburgh Thistle is not noted for its architectural beauty, on the whole the conference facilities were good, and the staff helpful and friendly.
The social program was also amazingly well organised. The evening before the conference, we all met at lovely bar/restaurant, the conference dinner & ceilidh were a big success, and the following night most of us took over a wonderful pub with live music, and we absolutely rocked. At this point I would like to state that any rumours of me pole-dancing are a misrepresentation of the facts, the Pole in question was called Jerzy, a Trados expert and a Polish to German translator.
In summary, I must say that I am looking forward to the next ProZ conference which will take place in Budapest from 28th April to 1st May 2007 (http://www.proz.com/conference/10 ). I have met a number of colleagues who I hope will become very firm friends. On a more pecuniary note, attending the conference enabled me to make contact with a number of potential collaborators and work providers, and with colleagues whose specialist knowledge might just help me out in a difficult job. In my experience, attending conferences and workshops is one of the best ways a translator can invest in himself/herself and his/her business.
Getting started oder Aller Anfang ist schwer
Our esteemed IT translation guru Nick Rosenthal (visit his blog at http://www.salftrans.co.uk/blog/oversetter.htm ) has talked me into this, unter dem Motto "Blogging can every".
What do I want to share? I'm a member of a number of translators' groups and networks, and I am constantly thrilled and amazed at the amount of information and resources the internet has made accessible. It has completely revolutionised the way we research terminology and subject knowledge. So I want to share which sites and resources are worth a visit and/or investment, and which are not.
I also want to share my knowledge and experience of conferences and events, and will let you know where I've been, why, and whether I would recommend it.
As you can gather from my profile, I read a lot. So sometimes I will talk about books, articles, linguistic challenges, or other things that have caught my attention.
I hope what I have to share will be interesting to many of my friends and colleagues. It might be helpful, save you time, or perhaps just amuse you. Some of the postings will be in English, some in German. Some will be about the intricacies of having a foot in both camps, and many of you will know what I'm talking about.
Please come and visit occasionally, and share your thoughts, wit & wisdom.
What do I want to share? I'm a member of a number of translators' groups and networks, and I am constantly thrilled and amazed at the amount of information and resources the internet has made accessible. It has completely revolutionised the way we research terminology and subject knowledge. So I want to share which sites and resources are worth a visit and/or investment, and which are not.
I also want to share my knowledge and experience of conferences and events, and will let you know where I've been, why, and whether I would recommend it.
As you can gather from my profile, I read a lot. So sometimes I will talk about books, articles, linguistic challenges, or other things that have caught my attention.
I hope what I have to share will be interesting to many of my friends and colleagues. It might be helpful, save you time, or perhaps just amuse you. Some of the postings will be in English, some in German. Some will be about the intricacies of having a foot in both camps, and many of you will know what I'm talking about.
Please come and visit occasionally, and share your thoughts, wit & wisdom.
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