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!

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.


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.”