Bringing bliss back to blogging

Let’s face it: blogs have fallen out of fashion. We seem to prefer posting on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook instead. So why bother with maintaining a translator’s blog – or indeed a blog on whatever topic?

As Nikki Graham noted following her translation and interpreting blog survey, many translators’ blogs have either disappeared or haven’t been updated for months, and in some cases, years. One reason for this is that writing blog articles is time-consuming, and translators typically are very busy people!

Blogging is Not Dead - Translation & Interpreting Blog Survey Results - Part 1#xl8 #1nthttps://t.co/VhrGC96xru

— Nikki Graham (@nikki_graham) 3. März 2018

To blog or not to blog

As you can see, my blog is still alive and kicking; yet, with no room for comments, no RSS feed and only sporadic posting, it is unconventional. What’s more, my blog theme is unusual – perhaps even to the point of being off-putting.

After setting up this blog many moons ago, I soon became disillusioned with blogging for the translators’ blogosphere. I found (back in 2007) I was facing a select circle of “famous” bloggers, which I realised newcomers would find hard to break into (and even harder if they were non-native English writers like me).

Disillusioned with this situation, I changed direction without further ado: I overhauled my entire blogging approach, deleted old, purely translation-related posts, and basically stopped blogging with marketing or work goals in mind. To cut a long story short, I switched from blogging for business to blogging as a hobby.

Pick a blog theme that really fires up!

Does your blog theme fire you up?

I’d also happened to read something that had set me thinking: if as a blogger you want to be in it for the long haul, it is vital to pick a blog theme that really fires up. Sadly, blogging about translation alone did not fire me up, so I decided to weave minimalism into my blog theme.
 
Minimalism was an obvious choice, as in previous years some of the most charismatic people I’d met (in books and online) had been minimalists, and some of the most inspiring quotes I’d seen had been about minimalism. Minimalism did fire me up, and for the first time I felt I was suddenly all set for long-haul blogging!

Making the jump to unconventional blogging

Weaving minimalism into my blog theme was a move for the better which I’ve never regretted. I’d broken free from old thought loops about what type of content ideally should be on my translator’s blog. Blogging was something I could now do in my free time! Deep down, I realised I’d never really been keen to share industry news. The pressure was off.

The decision to wave goodbye to my old translation-only blog was liberating: I started seeing blogging as a way of practising writing, tucked away from the frenzy of mainstream blogging, in my own quiet little niche. Overnight, I stopped trying to seek others’ approval of what I’d come up with in my posts. And I’ve never looked back since.

A blog is still the place for self-expression!

Despite my initial disillusionment with writing for the translators’ blogosphere, I felt I still wanted to carry on with blogging. One of my teenage dreams, after all, had been to be able to write good English one day. This ambition seemed very far off when I was 15; thanks to practising writing by blogging, it no longer seems so far off today.

I’d also read some fascinating stuff on how to write for the web – and was itching to have a go at it myself! In the end there’s no denying that for writers a blog is still an excellent place for self-expression. A blog offers space to fully flesh out an idea, where you can go as deep as you want.

I believe it is beneficial for every one of us to identify a suitable medium to unlock our own channels of creativity, whether that’s music, drawing or writing. If there’s one thing that my first hesitant blogging attempts had taught me, it was this: I’d started loving that elusive, blissful feeling of being in a “flow” state when working on my posts. And I still love it today!

Translators’ blogs may have fallen out of fashion, but there are valid reasons even today to maintain a translator’s blog. For me blogging has become a way of practising writing in my free time. It no longer means business, but pleasure!

Digital decluttering: Combatting information overload

No doubt we’re all subject to information overload and overstimulation as we’re moving about the web nowadays. In the vastness of the online world, it’s easy to get lost very quickly.

Minimalist Francine Jay has just released a blog post entitled “Go placidly”, in which she notes: the world has become noisier lately – not in an auditory, but in an information-coming-from-all-directions way.

I suspect more and more of us are indeed slowly and surely starting to feel “digital fatigue” or “the urge to disconnect”. Francine suggests giving ourselves permission to occasionally tune out and do our own thing instead.

.@missminimalist: "Technology is wonderful—I wouldn’t have this career without it—but we need to be able to turn it off. We need to disconnect from the digital world and reconnect with ourselves." https://t.co/1WdvF8wRDp

— E. Hippe-Heisler (@detransferendo) September 6, 2018

There are lots of reasons why I became hooked on minimalism a couple of years ago. Francine’s page-turner “Miss Minimalist: Inspiration to Downsize, Declutter, and Simplify” was one of them.

We’re all having to grapple with information overload and overstimulation. In her blog post “Go placidly”, Francine Jay encourages us to step back rather than keep up with the social media scene and try to be seen, heard, liked or followed constantly.

Combatting information overload: Tuning out occasionally and doing our own thing instead

Translators and small things: 5 peculiar quirks

Translators have peculiar quirks and habits, especially when it comes to small things in language! While some of these are essential to the job, to outsiders they’re likely to come across as oddities. The following list of translators’ peculiar quirks is by no means exhaustive:

1. Translators can become agitated about a misplaced or omitted apostrophe or (yikes!) a spelling mistake in a book.

2. Translators don’t normally sleep too well following the identification of an error in one of their recently submitted translations.

3. If it turns out a product name is not correctly hyphenated on a label, a translator may no longer want to buy that product on her next supermarket shop.

4. It is not at all unusual for a translator to be engaged in a phone conversation with a client in regard to “that comma on page 27”.

5. Translators show great zeal in discussing even the smallest of words, and often invest lots of time in the hunt for that one word that is spot on.

Translators are extremely sensitive to details in language, and their detail-orientedness may seem odd or exaggerated to outsiders. It’s very often small things in language that they notice, have to be mindful of, and even get worked up about!

Translators often get worked up about small things in language

The 5-step guide to switching into minimalist work mode

This is my easy-to-implement guide to switching into minimalist office work mode for increased productivity, efficiency and job satisfaction:

1) Remove physical clutter.

Physical clutter invariably leads to mental clutter. Studies demonstrate that physical clutter around you tends to pull at your attention and hence impacts your ability to concentrate in a negative way. Therefore, creating a distraction-free environment by removing all physical clutter from your office will greatly boost your concentration.

2) Create a 3-item to-do list every morning.

I’ve already blogged here on the benefits of a minimal to-do list. I recommend it wholeheartedly! Having a 3-item to-do list in place will create amazing momentum that’ll keep you going until you’ve finished the 3 tasks that you’ve made your primary focus of the day.

3) Keep to your own natural rhythm of the day.

Whether it’s the early morning hours or late in the evening, it is vital to understand when your most productive part of the day is. Then make the most of that time! For example, I function best in the mornings, so I set aside mornings for essential work tasks.

It is vital to understand when your most productive part of the day is

4) Gear up for concentration.

I find that in my work as a translator – especially ahead of preparing the very important final version of a translation – I can best tap into the power of concentration if I “gear up” for it. For me, this usually involves taking in some fresh air on the morning school run, sitting down at the kitchen table to enjoy a cup of espresso mindfully, or having a power nap during the day.

5) Block out all distractions.

I love shutting out the outside world completely to create a hushed, tranquil and productive work atmosphere. I then most relish being a “minimalist translator” in that there’s just me and my translation for a while – with Twitter notifications, personal email and everything else far away.

Switching into minimalist work mode will remove many motivational barriers and help you become proactive and productive. Try it out!

Why eliminating non-physical stuff benefits translators

“Clutter is not just physical stuff. It’s old ideas, toxic relationships and bad habits. Clutter is anything that does not support your better self.” (Eleanor Brownn)

Are there any ideas, relationships and habits in a translator’s (or indeed anybody’s) life that had better be thrown overboard because they’re detrimental to our sanity or well-being?

"Clutter is anything that does not support your better self." (Eleanor Brownn)

Old ideas
The same old misconceptions about the translation profession annoyingly crop up again and again. Rooting out a few of them would require going out into the world to convince others. Yes, you need to be highly skilled to work as a translator. Yes, it is a good way to earn money. Yes, it is an enjoyable activity, as is working alone at home!

Toxic relationships
Is now perhaps the time to disconnect from people on social media who you constantly get worked up about? Or is the time ripe for saying goodbye to a few clients who, for whatever reasons, you don’t enjoy working with? Track down clients who are amazing, and surround yourself with people who are respectful and supportive.

Bad habits
Bad habits I personally struggle to overcome: being distracted by the news when I should be working; squeezing in rushed jobs, although my order book is already overfull; and eating too much junk towards the end of the day. Quitting bad habits means being intentional about what you would like to change and accomplish.

The benefits of saying goodbye to old ideas, toxic relationships and bad habits will be astonishing: more job satisfaction, higher self-esteem, and greater well-being in the long run!

Must-have "tidy" tools for translators and interpreters

On 5 May 2018, ITI Cymru Wales hosted an afternoon workshop entitled “Tidy tools for translators and interpreters”. The programme included short presentations about tools designed to improve translators’ and interpreters’ efficiency and productivity as well as the quality of translations, including: Dragon, APSIC Xbench, Protemos, ProjectTermExtract for SDL Trados Studio, PerfectIt, IntelliWebSearch, and ZipDX.

More efficiency: "tidy" tools for translators and interpreters

The event took place on a day blessed with glorious sunshine in the gorgeous city of Cardiff, which I last set foot in for the ITI conference 2017. Cycling down to Bristol Temple Meads train station, heading over to Cardiff on the train and cutting through Cardiff centre on my walk to the event venue (the Centre of Lifelong Learning on Senghennydd Road) therefore brought up lots of good memories for me!

I had chosen to attend because I was keen to catch a glimpse into tools I had heard about before, but had never had a chance (or actually time) to try or see on the screen, such as the much talked-about Dragon. The first thing I learnt, though, was that the word “tidy” in the event name has nothing to do with “neat” or “not messy” (as I had indeed erroneously assumed!), but is a Welsh word meaning “good” or “satisfactory”.

Joint coordinator Elvana Moore opens our workshop on tools for translators and interpreters in Cardiff #xl8 #TidyTools pic.twitter.com/2l3IeaPMIR

— ITI Cymru Wales (@ITICymruWales) May 5, 2018

I have gained rudimentary knowledge of tools I had heard about in the past, but had never seen in action. All in all, it was a really worthwhile event and for me a very enjoyable day out, too. Thank you to the organisers of ITI Cymru Wales for putting it on!

I have written up the event for the ITI Cymru Wales newsletter. To request a copy of my write-up, please contact me.

Machine translation in human translation workflows

With the cognitive computing age approaching at mind-boggling speed (before humans and technology likely will merge from about 2040), there seems to be a certain urgency in the need to familiarise ourselves with Artificial Intelligence. For translators this involves thinking about how (and whether!) to integrate machine translation into their workflows.

Post-editing a translation is not the same as revising it!

On 24 January 2018 an event on the use of machine translation in professional contexts was held at Clifton Hill House in Bristol. It had been organised by the University of Bristol in partnership with Universidad Pablo de Olavide in Seville and the ITI Western Regional Group (WRG), attracting academics, professional translators, translation companies and technology providers.

My main takeaways from the event:

The job of post-editor is a relatively new profession. Post-editing nowadays is either offered as a service in its own right or just used as a tool that is incorporated into the translation process.

Post-editing has been defined in the ISO 18587 standard. Yet, although it’s been defined and hence should be clear-cut, in practice it’s more complicated since clients tend to have different requirements.

Final questions, from @lnunesvieira:
1) Are more MT-friendly pricing mechanisms needed?
2) Do we need to train translators differently for post-editing?
3) What about the 'human side' of quality?
4) How to ensure positive use of activity tracking?#MTBristol

— Bristol MA Trans (@BristolMATrans) 24. Januar 2018

Machine translations often are over-edited, rather than under-edited. It is therefore important to note that post-editing a translation is not the same as revising it! They are two different skills.

Ideally, MT should be regarded as an additional tool, or translation memory, or source of reference, which for certain projects (!) can help improve efficiency and productivity.

A useful reminder from Rosario of @tatutrad: you can have good work that's cheap; cheap work that's fast; fast work that's good; but you can't have fast, cheap and good. You have to pick two!#MTBristol pic.twitter.com/BvifeHQI03

— Carol O'Sullivan (@carol_osullivan) January 24, 2018

There will inevitably need to be a move from word count-based pricing to time-based pricing for projects involving the post-editing of machine translations.

There has been a notable shift in the perception towards MT among translators because it’s becoming more capable of producing results that are usable. However, feelings of uneasiness, or strong dislike, towards MT continue to persist.

"The post-editor is as important as the MT engine." >María explained the human approach to PEMT services @SeproTec beautifully! #xl8 #t9n #MTBristol https://t.co/MATmcbI2DC

— E. Hippe-Heisler (@detransferendo) 24. Januar 2018

News headlines about advances in machine translation have led to inflated expectations by clients of what such tools can do. It’s worth bearing in mind we’re still very far from the point where machines can take over from us!

The upside of such news headlines, on the other hand, is they’ve drawn attention to professional translation and interpreting, an industry which had previously often been overlooked.

My thoughts after the event:

There is a bizarre discrepancy between “human translators are a dying breed” headlines and the real situation human translators find themselves in: All the translators who I know are up to their ears in work. Constantly. And the demand for translations seems to be steadily increasing.

So contrary to what headlines want to make us believe: No, translators are not a dying breed. So where does machine translation come in? Well, it’s been introduced as a new, additional type of translation activity. (And fair enough, perhaps the term “translation” is no longer an appropriate description of this new activity.)

The cognitive computing age is just around the corner, so should all translators integrate machine translation into their workflows? Well, it’s up to each one of us to decide that. As succinctly put by a colleague in an email conversion on that same topic recently: “People are always free to choose what they want to do both with regard to work and life in general.”

Find out more about this week’s event on the use of machine translation in human translation workflows by looking up the hashtag #MTBristol on Twitter.

Minimalism in punctuation

Web page visitors will click away and never return if what they see is a bit too hard to read. It therefore makes perfect sense to implement subtle measures to make such reading easier.

I recently came across a fascinating article entitled “Why you should be a punctuation minimalist” on the Articulate blog. It includes tips on the minimal use of punctuation, advocating the idea that “needless punctuation is a speed bump for readers”.

Web page visitors will click away if what they see is too hard to read

The writing approach favoured by Articulate is “to minimise everything that gets between our words and the reader’s brain”. This includes, e.g., replacing punctuation marks with words, not using the “Oxford comma” before an “and” in a list, and writing dates without superscripts.

As an aspiring “writing minimalist”, I already aim to give precedence to shorter over longer words when producing online content. And in the editing stage I eliminate as many unnecessary words as possible. However, I’m constantly on the lookout for new ways to improve my writing.

As writers, we choose our words carefully, but how much thought goes into the use of punctuation? It’s clear why applying some minimalist thinking to punctuation, too, is likely to attract more readers and keep them on the page.