Guest post: Connecting with people

Posted in Guest post by Carol's Adventures in Translation

Tuesday is the international day of guest posts here on the blog, so here we are with another brilliant guest, Chiara Bartolozzi, Italian translator living in Macerata.

Welcome, Chiara!

The importance of being Honest

First of all, thank you Caroline for having me. It’s both a pleasure and a honour, because it’s the very first time I have been asked to write something for a colleague. So, THANK YOU SO MUCH for this opportunity. It means a lot to me. I hope that I chose to make a speech on a topic of great relevance to our careers.

I want to spread a positive message among people like us. It’s sort of a mission. I like to think about it as a path I have to walk on to achieve something bigger.

When I started working as a translator, around eight years ago, I didn’t know what my purpose was. I’ve always known I wanted to become a linguist, and I’ve always loved languages – I’m fond of English, I’m a true maniac – so my studies in Translation and Liaison Interpreting led me to take a first step into the field. In fact, I got my first assignment while I was still studying, but I already had a seasonal job in a press office.

Later on, after graduating and being awarded my BA degree, I started working as a professional freelance translator and proof-reader getting an Italian VAT no. in 2012. I felt like it wasn’t enough for me, something was missing. So, I started thinking about a bigger plan. It was just an idea, I didn’t know where to start or how to get the resources and gain the experience I needed to accomplish it. I stepped into a completely different world. When you become an entrepreneur, you work solo and have to be different professionals all rolled into one. You learn to take care of the smallest things, to schedule appointments, to organise your work, to connect with people, and, above all, to live every day as if it is the most important of your life. You can only rely on yourself. When it comes to your career, you have to consider all the available options.

Although I like working alone and being independent, I’m aware of the need to exchange opinions and points of view with other people in order to grow and enhance your skills. That’s why I’ve started networking, connecting to other professionals around the world. I gave it a try, because at first I wasn’t sure about the real effectiveness of the Internet and the interaction through social media. I started blogging, I created my Facebook page and twitter account, then, I discovered Pinterest and Instagram, so I had the chance to e-meet new people and share my vision, my favourite hobbies and passions. Thanks to that, over the last 3 years, my idea of working together has improved and changed a bit. In fact, I’ve rethought e-networking as a pioneering attempt to make the working network a real common ground where people can team up for developing new projects and build up a new way of working.

This way, working in the new millennium view means:

▷ To show your true-self: people need to know who you are;

▷ To be honest about vision, goals, and mission: people need to know what you want to achieve;

▷ To develop a project having a meaningful purpose: people need to see that together you can make a difference;

▷ To have a positive mind-set: the 3Ps, which are a positive attitude, patience and persistence.

People are the first resource you can employ to get a great result. The key to success is honesty as speaking the truth about our needs and intentions we can find people working on the same wavelength. The interaction with other professionals by sharing fears and doubts or by asking questions about business and daily routine is vital. We need to stand united. And, to date, I can say it has been a bet I’m winning. There’s a lot to do, a lot to plan, and no matter who we are – translators and interpreters, or linguists in general – we need to stay in touch with other professionals in the fields we would like to work in. Sometimes, we just think about the current value of something and we can’t make any projections on the future, but I learnt how important it is to plan and be organised being an entrepreneur. We have a great potential.

Entrepreneurship is a hard task. You have to build the foundations, and the course of studies you chose is just the very first step. There’s a lot to discover and diversification may be amusing, as your work can be shifted to something completely different. In fact, there are so many professionals out there. I e-met so many people I can proudly say that my team of colleagues is prepared and well skilled. Sharing experiences and way of working is of basic importance when you have to start your own business.There’s a strange attitude among professionals, especially in certain fields – unfortunately, I must admit that translation is one of them – to shield from the others. It’s like there was a particular kind of fear leading people to be afraid of other professionals like them. I’m sure there must be a reason I don’t completely get, but I think the winning strategy is to match our skills and knowledge. The key is sharing.

In fact, my aim for the year 2015 is to build a network of people working together and helping each other in synergistic cooperation to create a powerful resource. Firstly, I would like to work with realities based in Italy, spreading the idea of working with a chain of professionals, but also with international groups or companies. I am trying to create a team in my city gathering experts in different fields such as IT, web and social media, design, accountancy, and language. I would like to share an office located halfway, and work together, helping each other, in order to offer a set of customisable services in a single solution. I can’t tell anything specific about the project, because it is in the making. I promise I’ll reveal major details once it will be set and ready. At present, I developed a draft of the project with my designer Alice Ferretti and we are going to meet up with people and companies in order to start discussing business and new ideas.

I know it’s a very ambitious project, but I firmly believe that each one of us can be a brick of the yellow brick road that leads to a bright future. We can be part of a revolution in how we intend co-working, and here each translator/interpreter can have a leading role.

Thank you, Chiara, for accepting my invitation and the challenge to write your very first guest post. It is totally my pleasure to be the first blogger translator to invite and host you. 🙂

About the author
Chiara Bartolozzi is a freelance professional translator and owner of One Sec Translations. She translates from English, Spanish and (Simplified) Chinese into Italian. Former technical translator (mechanical and automation), her fields of experience are fashion, journalism, tourism and advertising. TV series addict and social media maniac, she likes singing and English lyrics are her favourite ones. You can find her on Facebook and Twitter or contact her through LinkedIn and her blog.

24Feb2015

Guest post: Working with agencies

Posted in Guest post by Carol's Adventures in Translation

Welcome back to our guest post series! Our guest today is Alina Cincan, from Romania, but currently living in England. Alina is learning how to speak Brazilian Portuguese, can you believe it? And did you know Romanian is also a Romance language? So they are quite similar. 😉

Welcome, Alina! 🙂

5 Steps to a Project Manager’s Heart

Standing out in a competitive market is a must, no matter the industry you work in. The translation industry is no exception, and it’s not just translation companies that need to stand out, but translators too, maybe even more so, especially if your language combination is not exactly rare.

Case in point: from our list of approved translators for English into German, we only work with a few of them regularly. Why? Because we LOVE them. Why we love them? See below.

For those translators who have not yet embarked on the anti-agency wagon and who like their agency clients, and want to forge a goodgreat relationship with the project managers, here are some tips.

1. Make a good first impression

You know what they say: first impression counts. Make sure your first email shows your enthusiasm and willingness to work with them (by addressing the person not Dear Sir/Madam), as well as impeccable language skills (a sloppy and full of mistakes email will not look good). All it takes is a little bit of research (the About section of their website, LinkedIn, social media) to find out a few things about the agency and person you want to talk to. Proofreading before hitting Send also helps, of course.

2. Respond quickly

One of my favourite translators replies within minutes. This is not always possible and sometimes it may even hurt your productivity. But there are ways to make this possible. For those who are not at their computer all the time (or checking their email regularly) and cannot give an answer as to whether they are available for a particular project, a short email explaining when you’ll be able to have a look and give an answer will do. Especially when the agency is not one to send a mass email and select the first translator to answer (we at Inbox don’t), meaning they want you to work on that project and any delay in replying is a delay for the project. If you are busy, a short line saying so as soon as possible makes all the difference. Automatic emails are another option too.

3. Respect deadlines

Pretty obvious, right? While we try to ‘educate’ (I’m not exactly fond of this term in this context) the end client about what constitutes a suitable time frame, sometimes urgent projects (or with not the most generous deadlines) do land in our inbox and ultimately in the translator’s. So, once a deadline has been mutually agreed, it should be adhered to. Sure, if there’s an earthquake, volcano eruption or some other natural disaster, no one would blame you for not sticking to them. Otherwise, if you encounter technical problems (we all have, I’m sure) or are going to deliver later than agreed (for various reasons), let your PM know as soon as possible. Depending on the project, a new translator may need to take over or, in most cases, the deadline extended.

4. Communicate effectively

Sometimes the source texts we have to work with as translators are not exactly the great literary pieces we’d love taking apart and putting back together in another language. It may be about typos or grammar mistakes, or maybe ambiguous sentences. When it comes to the latter, don’t just assume what it may mean, let the PM know (especially if they’ve been working with that particular client for a while, they may be familiar with what the client expects or style guides etc.); if they cannot help clarify the meaning, they can pass your questions on to the client. Of course, pointing out mistakes or suggesting improvements will always raise your profile in a PM’s eyes (and heart). Another important aspect here is to ask the questions before starting the translation or when you come across an issue while working on the project, not after you’ve delivered the translation, which will mean going back and forth with amended files.

5. Learn to say ‘No’

If direct clients may take this as rejection, a good agency should understand when you cannot take on a project (whether it’s not exactly a topic you are familiar with or have a very busy schedule which doesn’t allow you to accommodate a particular project) and, moreover, they should be thankful. They will appreciate a translator who only accepts a project if they can do a great job. So, don’t be afraid to say no.

Thank you, Alina, for accepting my invitation and kindly taking the time to write such an interesting and helpful article. I’m sure our readers will appreciate it as much as I did. I also agree with every single point you made. I’m a fully believer that a primeira impressão é a que fica (as we say in Portuguese), that’s why dressing adequately, having a polite behavior, writing properly, having professional profile pics, among others, are fundamental. I’m also a huge advocate of responding quickly to messages in general, but specially emails. I get instant notifications of incoming emails and whenever possible I immediately respond to them, and I appreciate when people do the same. Although obvious, #3 is a huge issue, right? How come people simply do not respect deadlines and not even bother to communicate the agency? Well, that’s it, otherwise, I’ll write another post myself.

How about you, readers, do you have any comments to add? Do you agree or disagree with any points made by Alina?

About the author
Alina Cincan is a former teacher, translator and interpreter with over 10 years’ experience, now Managing Director at Inbox Translation. She is a language geek who likes to keep up to date with what’s happening in the industry. When Alina is not writing on her own blog, she is writing on other people’s. You can get in touch on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn.

17Feb2015

Guest post: Common misconceptions about translators

Posted in Guest post by Carol's Adventures in Translation

Welcome back to our guest series! If you are from Brazil, you must be enjoying our Carnival holiday somehow. How about relaxing and reading the contribution of today’s guest? If you’re not enjoying it in Rio or in Salvador, that is, in which case you must have more interesting things to do. I don’t blame you. Just bookmark it for later. 😉

Our guest today is Emeline Jamoul, a translator from Belgium.

Welcome, Emeline!

Reclaiming the truth about our profession

It’s a universal truth that freelance translators are misunderstood creatures. Yes, translators have been around for thousands of years and we are probably doing one of the oldest jobs on earth, but that doesn’t mean that people are aware of our existence and purpose. If you’ve ever told someone what your job was, I’m sure you have faced a couple of answers worth their weight in gold. People always assume certain things about your career choices: either you are working as a freelancer because you are scared of the real world (hey, we have responsibilities too!) or because you happen to be bilingual.

I have been a freelance translator for 1 year and a half now, and in 18 months, the number of ridiculous comments I have heard regarding my job has done nothing but increase. Here are some of them, which I’m sure most of you must have heard too!

We only translate novels
To the eyes of common people, translators can only translate one type of material: novels. When I went to my doctor’s office last year, she asked me what I was doing now that I had graduated. When I told her I had become a freelance translator, she looked at me in awe and asked which novels I had translated. I had to disappoint her though – most translators don’t have the luxury to translate literature on a day-to-day basis even if that’s the dream of many!
Translators and interpreters are the same thing
We all cringe when we hear that someone is looking for a professional to “translate” one of their meetings. Blasphemy!
“Okay but… what is your real job?”
Because of course, working from home (in our PJs) is too good to be true. 🙂
“You’ll only translate user guides.”
One of my high school teachers told me that one. I still remember that day in class when we were all asked what we wanted to become when we were grown-ups – I was hesitating between journalist, translator or teacher. You can all imagine how naïve I must have been at the age of 13 – gullible enough to believe her when she told me that I would either translate user guides for the rest of my life or…
“Work at the European Union”
But this of course, was the job of a very select few. Okay, I’ll admit that she wasn’t too far from the truth on this one. But what about translating marketing documents? What about interpreting in hospitals? And translating international contracts? There is more to translating than user manuals and interpreting European affairs!
“Working from home is really not the same as working in an office.” (to be read that with a condescending tone)
No, in fact, it is much better. 🙂

And the list goes on and on. But what can we do about these common misconceptions about our job? If you look at the comments I have listed here, all of them stem from the same problem: ignorance about our profession. It is also our responsibilities to raise awareness about what it is really like to work as a freelance translator.

We should remind ourselves that many people are actually curious about what we do, and that it’s not so bad. Whenever I see question marks on my interlocutor’s faces, I make a point of elaborating, instead of saying “I just translate English texts into French.” I’m usually asked what and who I translate for, which clearly shows that most people don’t have any idea how and why translation is used. What better opportunity than to give a good (and accurate) first impression of our wonderful profession?

What about you, dear readers, which type of comments regarding your job have you faced so far?

Thank you for your kindly contribution to our blog, Emeline! 🙂 It’s a pleasure to host you here.

People indeed don’t quite understand what we do. They don’t understand the translation part neither the freelance part. It’s quite difficult to try to make them believe we don’t actually work on our PJs (I tried last Saturday to family – who should already be used to it – but it didn’t work).

About the author
Emeline Jamoul is a passionate English and Spanish into French translator. She mainly specializes in marketing, business and health. A self-confessed multitasker, Emeline is addicted to social media and has a soft post for African-American literature. You can contact her through her website or on Twitter.

10Feb2015

Guest post: Test translations

Posted in Guest post by Carol's Adventures in Translation

Aaaand we’re finally back with our guest posts! 😀 Who missed them? I did! But let’s look on the bright side, at least you had a two-week vacation from us. lol

Hope you like today’s guest, Olga Arakelyan, from Russia.

Welcome, Olga!

Are test translations always evil? What can they teach startup translators?

Those who remember my story probably know that when I came into the freelance world, I already had some experience in interpreting and in translation. But I had mainly done interpreting work before. Now, as you know, interpreting and translation are very different from each other, requiring a totally different set of skills. Yes, I have a good memory, so I don’t have a problem remembering how I translated this or that term and thus maintaining consistency of my translations even without using CAT tools. But consistency is definitely not the only challenging task in translation as even the smallest details are important here.

That’s what I didn’t know when I started working as a translator. Now when I remember my first tests (I was pretty confident about my skills, so I sent out CVs and sample translations everywhere) the only thing I feel is shame… Good thing I realized that my offers were turned down by companies for a reason. So I started learning from experienced colleagues, subscribed to their blogs, studied translation samples shared by other translators on the Internet etc. All of this helped me to become a better professional, so now I don’t have a problem with clients turning down my offers because of bad test translations. Although in our profession we must never stop growing. There is always place for more growth and more professional development.

Why am I sharing all this? Here’s why. Throughout my freelance career I read tons of articles about test translations being evil. Translators say that after they send their work to an agency or a direct client they never hear back from them.

Note: this article is not about experienced colleagues whose translations are so good that they are close to impeccable. By the way, those colleagues usually get pretty fast responses to their messages, and they aren’t asked to do a test (or those requests are rare). I am writing for startup translators who don’t understand why they are being ignored after they send their work having done their best. I assure you that it doesn’t necessarily happen because agencies or companies are evil. Perhaps my personal experience will help you to look at the process from a different perspective.

I have been working as a staff editor in a boutique agency for a few months now. And there was a period when we had so much work from our regular clients that we had to look for new translators. And here’s what happened when we asked freelancers to do a test for us.

We got a lot of responses. The tests went straight to my inbox as I was supposed to assess them. At first I responded promptly to all emails. But then as the stream of messages grew, I realized I would need a secretary in order to reply to all letters. After all, I also had to do my regular work. That was the first time I remembered my disappointment as a startup freelance translator when I got no immediate response from agencies. It can happen not because people working in those agencies are bad and don’t care about you. Maybe they are just very busy, sleeping no more than 4 hours a day trying to do their regular job, plus checking the tests. They are thankful for your message and for your test, and they will read and assess it by all means. But they have so much work that they can’t possibly reply to everybody.

But that’s not all. Checking those test translations turned to be a good patience lesson. Actually, the mistakes that I saw over and over again in tests written by different people motivated me to write this post. Here are a few tips from me as an editor and reviewer. I hope they will help my startup colleagues to get positive replies more often.

Don’t forget to not just check your translations by yourself, manually, but also by means of special programs. At least by Microsoft Word spellchecker, or by any other tools that you have. It’s surprising how many beginning translators don’t do that, totally relying on themselves.
If you do not use CAT-tools it’s ok! But if you chose to overwrite the source text with the translation, please don’t forget to delete the source text. It’s weird to read sentences beginning with the first letters of the original text.
After you have finished your test and have proofread everything, the best thing you can do is leave your desk at least for a few minutes in order to have a cup of tea or go for a walk. When you come back to the same text with a fresh mind you will notice some more things that need to be corrected. Besides, it will help you to notice typos that Microsoft Word spellchecker missed.
Please don’t stop at the “Ah, they will understand me anyway” level of tranlsation. Edit your work until there’s nothing or almost nothing you don’t like about it.

So those are some of my thoughts based on a few (dozens of) tests by startup translators.

However, it wouldn’t be fair to stop here. I have to mention scammers who also love test translations. You know why? Because they think a test is a perfect way to get professional services for free. So here are my tips that will (hopefully) help you stay safe.

Always google your prospective direct client or translation agency and see what other people say about them.
The test shouldn’t be very big. For instance, I don’t do test bigger than 250 words. There’s obviously something wrong with a test translation several pages long.
Urgency is another red flag. If a test is needed solely for the purpose of assessing your skills, then why is it supposed to be done urgently? I would definitely pay attention to it. Although, sometimes companies search for translators for a specific project and they need your test before the project starts. For those clients it’s important to get your test on time, so they do set deadlines. But in those cases I normally receive some kind of an explanation why the test is supposed to be ready by a specific date.
A test that is obviously a part of a bigger file looks the most suspicious. I received those tests several times in my career and every time it turned out to be a scam. People give different pieces of text to several translators hoping that each translator will do their “test”, and in the end they will get the whole text done for free! So we do need to be careful and stay away from all suspicious offers.

So be careful and I wish you good luck in your freelance translation! By the way, there is a mistake in the text. Have you noticed it?

Thanks a lot for your kind contribution to our blog, Olga! It was a real pleasure to host you here, after you having hosted me so kindly on your blog. 🙂

Any comments?

About the author
Olga Arakelyan is a professional freelance translator and a certified ESL teacher. She translates from English and German into Russian and specializes mainly in marketing, music, tourism, and education. Olga recently left the freelance world and is now managing Translators’ Training Courses at Alba Longa translation company, Saint Petersburg, Russia. You can find her on Twitter @Olenkaarakelyan, visit her English blog or, if you prefer reading in Russian, she’d be happy to see you in her Russian blog.

20Jan2015

Guest post: Blogging for translators

Posted in Guest post by Carol's Adventures in Translation

Hi, dear readers! Hope your beginning of the year is as productive and full of great news as mine. So much so that I’m even struggling to find the time to blog! So sorry for not writing last week’s weekly post! 😦 Let’s keep our fingers crossed I can find the time to write this week’s.

Meanwhile, luckly, we have our lovely guests who never let us down. Aren’t I lucky to have them? 😀

Today’s guest, Else Gellinek, will talk about blogging for other translators.

Welcome, Else!

Why blogging for other translators can be worth your while

To blog or not to blog?

For some years now, word on the street has been that blogging is a marketing and SEO must for solopreneurs. So I began blogging. At first I thought I had to blog for potential clients. Don’t get me wrong: If that’s the target audience for your blog, that’s wonderful. It just wasn’t really my conversation. I gravitated towards topics more of interest to other translators. Unfortunately, translators are often criticized for keeping to themselves on social media and blogging for each other instead of connecting with clients. I don’t see why you have to choose between the two. Neither am I convinced that blogging for our peers is a lesser option – unless you view blogging solely as a means of generating leads.

Reasons to blog for other translators

My blog – my rules

In her Pillar Box article Don’t blog, just write, Karen Tkaczyk explains why she thinks that we shouldn’t blog just because everyone else is. Indeed, if you don’t feel that you have anything to tell the world, then there really is no reason to blog. Nobody wants to read listless posts written from a dull sense of commitment. Instead, Karen says we should add to forum discussions or write for the bulletins published by translator associations, I think that’s a great idea.

But: Other people’s houses, other people’s rules. On my blog, I am the creator and initiator of content. I decide what I want to write about, how I want to write it and what I regard as valuable information. Excellent translator blogs covering many angles of our diverse profession abound. They could never all fit into existing channels and I don’t think that they have to. On the contrary, they complement the established platforms.

Easy access to information

Translators are spread all over the world. Blogs are one way of keeping up a conversation that is not confined to translator associations or other membership-only clubs. We’re always complaining about translators driving down prices or acting unethically. Establishing a public, easily accessible dialog on translation issues can provide information and thinking points for those who need it most. A simple Google search will turn up a wealth of resources provided by dedicated peers. If this information were communicated in specialized forums, mailing lists or similar channels, it would effectively be hidden from the public eye. Many blogs also feature carefully curated blogrolls and resource lists that point translators to the more specialized channels.

Keeping up the conversation with our peers

Freelancers can easily slip into isolation. Online conversation keeps us connected and in the loop. Sure, we can attend local networking events and conferences or use other forms of social media. But we can also read blogs, which are less ephemeral than Twitter conversations or mailing lists, thus transcending differences in work schedules and time zones. Tuning in at a later time won’t necessarily mean that you missed the chance to chime in.

Adding to the conversation with our peers

Blogging nourishes my introvert soul. It’s public but delivered in a fashion that feels private. For me, blogging has been the best way of tentatively testing the waters of public discussion. Some can show and share their expertise by offering training sessions or webinars, others will enrich forums and mailing lists with what they know and yet others will choose to blog.

Blogging also allows me to take my time before commenting on issues. Discussions in forums or Facebook groups flit by and dart back and forth. Writing a blog post at my own pace affords me the luxury of thinking everything through before committing my thoughts to writing and publishing them. There has been many a time when my initial take on a subject changed due to other people’s thoughts or simply after a good night’s sleep. The slower pace of blogging can protect us from the trigger-happy judgments encouraged by faster forms of communication.

Sharing your view of the world

Finding new topics to post about takes me from the sidelines of the translation community and offers me opportunities to add my voice. We all have a unique take on issues and that is reason enough to be worth listening to – whether an expert or not. Something caught your eye that no one else has noticed yet? By all means, share it with us.

Translators blog about professional development, CAT tools, social media, marketing, cultural issues, associations, good and bad experiences and their personal situations. Their blogs are lighthearted, solemn, scholarly, sarcastic and sometimes angry. Some will share their thoughts through other channels, but these channels may be unknown to me. Were it not for their blogs, I would never have heard what many translators have to say.

Finding clients

Lately, other translators have asked me whether blogging has paid off – and by that they mean financially. A number of direct clients have actually told me that my blog made a good impression when they were initially researching my services. Good stuff, right? I’ve also met a number of other translators through my blog who have referred clients to me.

I’ll add a caveat: If your blog exists primarily to get you clients, then blogging for other translators is probably less effective than targeting paying customers. Of course, for translators who offer marketing services or professional development for other translators, blogging for translators IS blogging for clients. For the rest of us, blogging won’t replace other marketing efforts.

Should you blog?

If you feel you have something to say, then go ahead and blog. It’s a low-cost, low-threshold way of letting the world know you exist. Blog the way that feels right to you and find the readers that are right for you (what Simon Berrill concluded in his post on blogging). If blogging doesn’t feel right for you, then don’t blog or stop blogging (Keep reading blogs, though!). There are other ways to join in and you can pick and choose what suits your personality and expectations. And we all benefit from a wealth of channels offering us information and inviting us to be part ofthe conversation.

Thank you, Else, for accepting my invitation and kindly taking the time to write to our blog. I totally agree with you on your opinion about blogging for translators. I’m one of those bloggers and just love doing it. Being able to help colleagues somehow is just rewarding and totally worth it.

What’s your take on the subject?

About the author
Else Gellinek ist a certified German to English translator specializing in marketing and corporate communication. She is based in a smallish German town and has been providing full-time freelance translation and editing services since 2013. She holds an M.A in theoretical linguistics and was a bookdealer in her previous life. When she isn’t translating, she blogs at Sprachrausch Blog and is active on social media. You can find her on Twitter (@Else_Gellinek ) and Google+.

13Jan2015

Guest post: Social media strategies

Posted in Guest post by Carol's Adventures in Translation

Welcome back from the holidays, dear followers! And Happy New Year! 😀 I hope you have enjoyed them as much as I did and are ready to take 2015 by the horns — I am!

Our first 2015 guest is Catherine Christaki, a Greek translator currently living in Canada.

Welcome, Catherine!

Social media for translators — Follow & connect tips

In order to get the most out of social media, you must develop an ever-expanding network. How do you do that? Who should you follow on Twitter and connect with on LinkedIn?

The people I follow and connect with on a daily basis on Twitter and LinkedIn are the most important factor on why social media has been such a rewarding experience for me. It’s definitely not about the numbers and each social media user has his/her own ‘strategy’ regarding the people they interact with. I don’t follow back automatically everyone that follows me on Twitter and wants me to join their network on LinkedIn. My follow numbers on Twitter (5,564 followers, 2,036 following) might look a bit far apart but, trust me, there is a thought process behind it 🙂

So, if I’m following you on Twitter or we are connected on LinkedIn, it’s probably because:

I know you personally
You tweet or share in a language I understand
We are in the same LinkedIn group and we have talked there in the past
You are one of my current or past clients
You write interesting or insightful tweets, posts, articles
You share interesting links about translation, interpreting or linguistics
You engage with me regularly
You sent me a personalized invitation to connect on LinkedIn (please people, stop using the generic invitation if you don’t know personally the person you are inviting to join your network)

How do you find and choose the right people to follow or connect with? These are some of the ways I’ve used to expand my network on LinkedIn.

Get LinkedIn to help you

Use the ‘people you may know’ feature, accessible from your home page or your contacts page. LinkedIn will make suggestions based on the people you are already connected to – the more people you connect to, the more accurate these suggestions get.

Friends of friends

It’s likely that you will have common acquaintances (or ‘mutual connections’) with some of the people with whom you are connected. Look at their connections list in their profile, and find the people you have in common.

Former colleagues

LinkedIn will give you a list of all the people who have worked at a given organization. If you add the organizations you have worked for to your profile, LinkedIn will keep you updated when people who work there join up.

Join groups

LinkedIn groups help you find like-minded people to connect with. If you strike up a conversation with someone in a group or find what they have to say interesting, try inviting them to connect.

Use Advanced Search

Next to the people search at the top right of the LinkedIn interface is an Advanced button. If you click it you will find a page where you can do an advanced search for people by profession, company, or whatever’s relevant to you.

It’s similarly easy to find great people to follow on Twitter.

Find your professional contacts

This includes colleagues, existing clients and other professionals, like your website designer. Maybe you just got back from a networking event. Many professionals include their Twitter handles on their business cards so they’re easy to find. Otherwise, use Twitter’s Search function to find them by name.

Suggestions by Twitter

In the Homepage of your Twitter account you’ll see a ‘Who to follow’ section on the right-hand side. Click ‘View all’ and then click on the names to check out the profiles and timelines of the accounts that look interesting to determine whether you’d like to follow them or not.

Twitter lists

Many Twitter users use lists to categorize the people they follow. For translators, the most common names for such lists are Translators, xl8 or t9n (abbreviations for translation), Languages etc. Given the high number of linguists that I follow, I have four (yes, 4!) such lists full of great linguists that are active on Twitter, check them out:

Translation-Languages, Translation-Languages 2, Translation-Languages 3, Translation-other (Associations, events, CPD, products)

#FollowFriday (or #ff)

Every Friday, Twitter users use these hashtags to recommend their favorite Tweeps to their followers. That’s a great way to find new people to follow.

Search for hashtags

Another great use of Twitter’s search function. You can search for the topics of your interest (usually #xl8 for translators or #1nt for interpreters), with the operator OR between the words, and see all the latest tweets that include one or more of those hashtags. In case of conferences, find out which hashtag is/was used for the event of your choice (for example #ata55 for the last ATA Conference).

These are the most regularly used hashtags by language professionals:

#xl8 & #t9n for translation, #xl8or for translator, #L10n for localization, #1nt for interpreting, #language, #CATtools, #g11n for globalization, #i18n for internationalization, #terminology

What is your favorite way of finding people to follow and connect with? Do you follow everybody back automatically? Let us know what you think and what is your follow/connect policy on social media!

Thank you, Catherine, for accepting my invitation and kindly taking the time to write to our blog. 🙂

My social media strategy is exactly the same as yours. I definitely do not follow everyone back. I only follow those who contribute with interesting things on Twitter. On LinkedIn, I only accept invitations from those I already know somehow or that writes a personal message explaining why they would like to connect with me. I absolutely despise those who randomly add people without even knowing them.

What about yours? Do have any strategies to follow people (back) on Twitter and send a friend request and/or accept people’s invitation on LinkedIn?

About the author
Catherine Christaki has been a full-time English-Greek translator since 2001 and co-owner of Toronto-based Lingua Greca Translations since 2012. Her specializations include IT, Medical and Technical texts. In 2013, she translated the popular guide for translation buyers, Translation: Getting It Right, into Greek. She is active on social media, especially Twitter @LinguaGreca, which has been voted among the Top 25 Language Twitterers 4 years in a row (2011-2014). She writes the translation blog Adventures in Technical Translation and regularly talks about social media and blogging for translators in interviews and conferences.

16Dec2014

Guest post: Translator competence

Posted in Guest post by Carol's Adventures in Translation

Here we are, on our last guest post of the year. And I’m very proud and happy to announce that today’s guest, wrapping up 2014 in great style, is the lovely Lynne Bowker, who I had the great pleasure to meet at UNESP’s Semana do Tradutor back in September.

Welcome, dear Lynne!

Translators and the need for speed

I’m very excited to be writing a guest blog post for Caroline, who I met at the XXXIV Semana do Tradutor in Brazil in September. Caroline indicated that I was free to choose any topic relevant to translators or translation, as long as it had not already been covered in a previous post. Therefore, like a good translator and researcher, I first diligently read the previous posts (I even attempted the ones in Portuguese!). And I’m really glad that I did. For one thing, I feel like I know Caroline a little better. I found out that she likes Alice in Wonderland, which means that she has something in common with Warren Weaver, who is one of my personal heroes in the field of translation. That’s Weaver as in “Weaver’s Memorandum”, the document that launched serious investigation into Machine Translation. Regardless of whether or not you are a fan of machine translation, Dr. Weaver was an impressive person in a number of respects.

I also learned that we share the same birthday week in January, which means that Caroline is a Capricorn. No wonder she’s so dedicated, hardworking and professional, as well as being a generous and all-around terrific person. 🙂 Thank you, Caroline, for the opportunity to get to know you better and to write a guest post for your blog.

In reading the previous posts, I observed some recurring themes, such as “translator education”, “knowledge vs skills” and “productivity”. I’ve decided to try to extend the discussion of some of these ideas by framing them in the context of my own experience as a professor of translation at the University of Ottawa in Canada.

The question of whether a translator education program should focus on knowledge (which leans towards theory or what Don Kiraly (2000) refers to as “translation competence”) or skills (which lean more towards the non-linguistic activities that support translation, or what Kiraly groups under the category of “translator competence”). Conventionally, universities have come down on the side of knowledge, contending that skills are too short-lived. For example, a university professor might argue that with regard to computer-aided translation, the important things to learn in class are the underlying concepts, and not the “how to” steps of using a specific piece of software, which may be outdated or out of fashion by the time the student graduates. Instead, the focus of a university education is on developing critical analysis, on honing evaluation, and on refining judgement. I think that few people would argue against this focus. Translation is a challenging task, and doing it well requires serious reflection. Learning to do it well, even more so!

Nevertheless, universities cannot ignore the fact that, after students graduate, they need to function in a professional work setting. One area where new graduates sometimes struggle is in meeting the tight deadlines which are a reality in the translation profession.

In many translator education courses, the focus is placed firmly on encouraging students to reflect fully, to analyze deeply, and to weigh options carefully before committing to a translation strategy, a terminological choice or a turn or phrase. There is no doubt that students must cultivate these deliberate analytical skills, and they must be given the time to develop them. However, in the professional world, there may be less time for careful deliberation. Instead, the translation must come quickly, if not automatically. Therefore, the addition of authentic and situated learning that tests and improves students’ translation skills under time pressure makes sense. It is an additional way to prepare students for the working world and to let them experience translation in a different form and under different circumstances.

Therefore, I have made a conscious decision to try to introduce some “speed training” into the courses that I teach. For the first time this year, in a 3^rd-year course on professional writing, I have the students begin each class by preparing a précis or summary of a longer text. The texts in question are popularized texts on topics of general interest to students in Canada (e.g. the International Space Station, the World Series baseball championships, the discovery of a 19^th-century shipwreck in the Arctic). Each text is approximately 600 words in length, and students are given 15-20 minutes to summarize the contents in about 200 words. The students receive feedback each week, although the exercises are not always graded. This takes the pressure off and allows the students to develop these skills in a low-risk environment.

The overall idea behind this “speed writing” summarization exercise is that it can allow the students to sharpen a number of skills and reflexes that are also useful for translation: the ability to analyze and grasp meaning quickly, the ability to extract key ideas and structure from a text, the ability to organize ideas, and the ability to convey ideas accurately and to recognize and avoid distortion in information transfer. By introducing speed training in a writing context, I hope that students will be better able to hone their capacity for making decisions quickly, and they can then extend this to a bilingual context at a subsequent stage of their training.

Students were surveyed at the mid-point in the semester to determine whether or not they found the exercise to be valuable. On the whole, their comments were positive and they indicated that they saw a genuine value in learning to work more quickly, and that they did feel that they were improving these skills as a result of practicing speed writing on a regular basis. There will be another survey at the end of the semester, and it will be interesting to see how their thoughts have evolved.

Meanwhile, from an instructor’s perspective, I have also noted improvements. Firstly, at the beginning of the semester, a number of students were unable to complete the exercise fully; however, now that we are nearing the end of the semester, students are able to finish within the time allotted. They are getting faster! With regard to quality, the information flow has improved significantly – the recent summaries read like actual texts, rather than like collections of independent sentences. The students are also doing a better job of differentiating between the key ideas and the more peripheral content.

So my questions to you, readers, are as follows: Did you ever do any formal “speed training” as part of your education? If not, do you think that it would have been helpful? Do you have suggestions for other ways in which “speed training” could be incorporated into a translator education program? Do you have suggestions for other types of professional “translator competence” type skills that could usefully be incorporated into a translator education program?

Some translation professors are genuinely interested in helping students to bridge theory and practice, but to do this successfully, we need input from practicing professionals! I look forward to hearing your thoughts! And thanks again to Caroline for the opportunity to write this guest post.

Thank you, Lynne, for promptly and so kindly accepting my invitation to write to my humble blog and taking the time to write such a wonderful contribution to our series. I really appreciate it. It was a lovely Christmas gift to the blog. 🙂

As a former translation student, I do think it is extremely important to add practical aspects to the formal theoretical education we already have. Trying to prepare the student as much as possible to the real world will certainly help them get into the market feeling less lost and more ready to take the bull by the horns.

Dear readers, please note that our guest series will be taking a three-week vacation for Christmas, New Year and my birthday (:D). We’ll be back at full speed on January 13th, 2015. Happy Holidays!

About the author
Lynne Bowker is a certified translator (French-English) with the Association of Translators and Interpreters of Ontario (ATIO). She earned a BA and MA in Translation from the University of Ottawa, an MSc in Computer Applications for Education from Dublin City University, and a PhD in Language Engineering from the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST). She has been teaching translation, terminology, translation technologies and information studies at the University of Ottawa since 2000. In spring 2014, she was an invited professor at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium. To find out more about her teaching activities, and particularly her thoughts on teaching translation technologies, check out this summary in Research Media.

9Dec2014

Guest post: Languages & The Media

Posted in Guest post by Carol's Adventures in Translation

This is our last but one guest post before the holidays, so enjoy! Our guest today is João Artur Souza.

Welcome, João!

From November 5 – 7, 2014, I had the opportunity of representing ACME E-learning and Genius Soft at the 10th Languages & The Media Conference. Some fellow participants were amazed at how far I had travelled to be part of L&M. I am really glad I was able to make it there so that now I can share a little bit of my experience with you.

One of the main qualities of Languages & The Media is to bring together the most varied range of people in the field of AVT: academics, practitioners, distributors, big and small companies and associations. All these profiles form a unique synergy and the perfect environment for collaboration and networking. Some of the most important researchers in the field were present: Jorge Díaz Cintas, Anna Matamala, Pilar Orero, Yves Gambier, Josélia Neves, Mary Carrol and Aline Remael were among them.

Professor Jorge Díaz Cintas, the chairman in the opening panel “Smart Technologies – Smart Translations”, introduced the event briefly to the audience, pointing out it was the 10th edition of the conference. Then, he mentioned some of the topics that would be encompassed during the next two days: The newest trends in Dubbing and Subtitling, the challenges of Machine Translation, Accessibility, Crowdsourcing and User-Generated Subtitling, Sign Language, Semiotics, HbbTV, Market Approaches and Innovations and Video Game Localization.

In this post, I will highlight the talks on accessibility, machine translation and crowdsourcing while bringing some insights on the 10th Languages & The Media.

Accessibility and the speech synthesis case

Accessibility has always been a challenging topic in AVT due to the fact that most broadcasts see it as “a necessary evil” instead of a right of a large number of individuals with hearing, visual or cognitive impairments or disabilities. Wojciech Figiel, from the University of Warsaw, Poland, a VIP (visually impaired person) himself, voiced his dissatisfaction with the growing use of speech synthesis in audiodescription in substitution for real actors on Polish TV and appealed for broadcasts, investors, software and site developers to always bear in mind the need to make every media accessible. Wojciech said visually impaired people do realize synthetic voices are being used and that it affects the immersion experience people search for in audiovisual products. Wojciech added speech synthesis might be the future, however, he does not believe it is good enough to be implemented in AVT right now.

Machine translation

Machine translation has become an increasingly interesting topic due to the recent technological advancements in the field. With the growing need for faster turnarounds, machine translation combined with post-editing efforts arise as a possible solution.

Aljoscha Burchardt, from DFKI (the acronym stands for German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence), presented the talk An analytic approach to Machine Translation evaluation and Improvement, introducing state-of-the-art technology and methodological approaches from the QTLaunchPad, a project aimed at kickstarting a new generation of MT that is capable of encompassing different elements like: closer cooperation between translators and system developers during research process, the development of new quality metrics and tools for quality assessment and automatic quality estimation of human as well as machine translations.

After all the excitement from the latest novelties and insights on Machine Translation, Tiina Holopainen, from the University of Turku, Finland, presented a more critical perspective on the role of MT, The machine translation of subtitles – a contribution to language and cultural diversity? She started out bringing some amazing data from a research by Yves Gambier that estimates that people in the so-called “subtitling countries” watch an average of 1h30min of subtitled TV per day which is equivalent to reading around 50 novels a year. Such numbers undoubtedly pose certain questions at the core of the culture of these countries, like: to what extent can we say subtitles are becoming the new Literature? What is the role of subtitles in the acquisition of a language? What about (second) language learning?

Tiina is a contrastive and clearly skeptical voice when it comes to the use of Machine Translation in subtitling. During her presentation, she pointed out some of the flaws of MT systems to base her arguments, like their inability to deal with semantics and textual coherence; to account for target communicational factors like target audience, norms and conventions and most importantly to deal with the multisemiotic nature of AVT. Tiina left the audience with two hard questions: What would be the consequences for languages that take mostly the role of the target language, if the language of subtitles would be subjected to the reductionist logic of the machine? And how to regulate it once the technology is out there?

Crowdsourcing

Emmanouela Patiniotaki was responsible for some of the most exciting talks of the conference for two reasons, I believe: her enthusiasm and overall skillfulness as well as the topic she was dealing with, which is classified by some, mainly professional subtitlers, as a “threat”. This threat is one of the main trends in Subtitling nowadays: crowd-subtitling, that is the process of providing subtitles through crowdsourcing. In her talk Crowd-Subtitling Platforms: Avenues & Pitfalls, Emmanouela Patiniotaki pointed out some of the reasons for academic skepticism around the topic and what may be the reasons why subtitlers are concerned with their jobs, like the involvement of non-professionals and its consequent association with fansubbing, the medium of production and distribution which often are cloud-based translation technologies, the use of machine translation and text-to-speech converters and last but not least the inherent problems that arise from such a practice concerning consistency of means and processes.

Emmanouela Patiniotaki showed that due to the rise in demand for accessible audiovisual content what was just a trend has become a business model for the Web, where fans, enthusiasts and professional translators coexist and the later are forced to adequate themselves to cloud-based platforms and a completely different way of dealing with norms and rules. I believe it is important to highlight the atmosphere of uneasiness created a couple of times when a subtitler raised his hand to ask about the threat crowd-subtitling poses to professionals like him. All in all, one thing is quite clear: we are in the middle of a huge change in the way we produce, distribute and consume audiovisual products. In my opinion, due to the inherently technological quality of the field, professionals will never experience periods of complete lack of changes. At best only fewer moments of restlessness.

Languages & The Media undoubtedly is a one-of-a-kind event that helped me grow as a professional. It was an amazing experience, and I hope to be back to Berlin in two years time for the 11th L&M Conference. See you soon!

Thank you, João, for accepting my invitation and kindly taking the time to write your impressions on the conference for us. 🙂

As I said in the introduction, next week is our last guest post before the holidays. After that, the blog will take a three-week break for Christmas, New Year and… my birthday! Yay! But before that, we’ll wrap 2014 up with an amazing guest. If I were you, I would definitely not miss it! Stay tuned! 😉

About the author
João Artur Souza is the Pedagogical Director at ACME e-Learning, where he teaches on-line courses, webinars and workshops on a regular basis. He is a visiting professor at Universidade Veiga de Almeida (UVA) teaching an Audiovisual Translation non-degree graduation course. João Souza has been a translator since 2009, having translated more than 150 hours of different genres for major TV broadcasts. His abilities extend to QC, proofreading and subtitler’s training.
He is a graduation student at PUC-Rio working on his dissertation on subtitle processing.

2Dec2014

Guest post: Time bank (in Portuguese)

Posted in Guest post by Carol's Adventures in Translation

It’s December already, huh? Christmas is around the corner. Can you feel it? 😀

Let’s welcome the first December guest, Víctor Gonzales.

Welcome, Víctor!

O banco de tempo é possível entre tradutores?

Sim! Por quê? Porque normalmente, ao longo de nossa trajetória profissional nos tornamos especialistas em determinadas áreas ou tarefas que, como profissionais de letras, podem ir além da tradução. Alguém pode ser especialista em uma área que eu não domino ou vice-versa, ou alguém pode dominar o uso de uma ferramenta de tradução que para mim é novidade e na qual nunca mexi, não é verdade? Pois bem, o banco de tempo só vem para nos ajudar. Trata-se de uma ferramenta baseada na troca e no excedente de demandas.

O banco de tempo tem uma grande vantagem que é não precisar de dinheiro. Porém, as desvantagens podem ser a dificuldade de coincidir a oferta e a demanda das pessoas envolvidas, por isso, além de poder ser usado entre dois colegas tradutores, em um grupo pode funcionar melhor, mas lembramos, é preciso encontrar uma unidade de valor para as trocas ou permutas. Tudo pode ser bem acordado e resultar em uma boa ferramenta de parceria entre as partes.

Então, a unidade de valor neste caso é o tempo, que pode ser definido em horas, como sugiro, ou como melhor convir aos envolvidos. No caso de trabalhar em grupo, o aproveitamento pode ser melhor, já que a possibilidade de a oferta e a demanda coincidirem é maior.

Os princípios do banco de tempo são os seguintes:

– Todos temos habilidades e especialidades nas quais nos desempenhamos melhor.

– A redefinição do conceito de trabalho dentro do grupo ou da dupla de colegas tradutores.

– O fomento da reciprocidade e da troca vs. a dependência.

– O fomento da aprendizagem e da partilha recíproca.

Vejamos, a ideia é contabilizar as trocas e ajudas, e assim, administrar o banco de tempo. Cada tradutor terá um controle das horas de crédito ou débito que tiver, então, cada tradutor pode oferecer ou solicitar serviços.

Como funciona: cada tradutor pode entrar em contato com outro para fazer a troca ou permuta de ajuda. Depois de cada troca, ambos os tradutores registram e contabilizam as respectivas horas de crédito ou débito.

Como mencionado anteriormente, as horas podem ser as unidade de controle do tempo. E os objetos de troca são os serviços que podemos oferecer ou precisar: uma parceira justa e controlada. Desta forma, é possível evitar o oportunismo, mas é preciso um acordo sério para evitar a desconfiança e entendimentos errados. Lembrando que o banco de tempo só pode se dar entre tradutores que querem oferecer ajudar e receber, e a reciprocidade de demandas precisa existir. O interessante dessa ferramenta é que, por se tratar de um mesmo tipo de serviço, a tradução e demais trabalhos relacionados a letras, facilita o trabalho de ambas as partes. Para terminar, o melhor, como nosso trabalho é 99,99% por internet, as pessoas não precisam estar no mesmo local para realizar a troca e o uso da ferramenta, o banco de tempo.

Tenho feito uso do banco de tempo com alguns colegas tradutores e escritores, em traduções, revisões e redações, e é uma experiência muito bacana. Pois bem, deixo com vocês essa sugestão. Se alguém já trabalha com essa ferramenta, por favor, comente sua experiência.

Thank you for your contribution to our blog, Víctor! Interesting idea! Thanks for sharing it with us.

What do you think about it? Share your thoughts.

About the author
Víctor Gonzales é editor do blogue El Heraldo de Ia traducción, tradutor técnico, principalmente nas áreas de comunicação e marketing, há mais de 10 anos. Trabalha com os pares de línguas português – espanhol como tradutor, revisor e redator. Formado em letras português – inglês pela Universidade Paulista, estuda e pesquisa sobre a tradução já há algum tempo e é um apaixonado pela tradução literária e pela produção editorial.

25Nov2014

Guest post: Sign language (in Portuguese)

Posted in Guest post by Carol's Adventures in Translation

Our guest today, Silvana Aguiar dos Santos, will talk about the education of sign language interpreters in Brazil.

Welcome, Silvana!

Desafios e reflexões sobre a formação de intérpretes de Libras/português no Brasil

No Brasil, a presença de intérpretes de Libras/português tem sido cada vez mais frequente nos diversos espaços da sociedade. Essa visibilidade conquistada por esse profissional nos últimos anos é consequência, em grande parte, das políticas linguísticas adotadas pelo governo brasileiro em relação à Língua Brasileira de Sinais — Libras. Ações como sua inclusão como disciplina curricular dos cursos de licenciatura e de fonoaudiologia, a criação de cursos de licenciatura e bacharelado em Letras-Libras, bem como a inclusão de pessoas surdas no sistema regular de ensino, ou ainda a difusão de uma educação bilíngue para surdos, são alguns dos fatores que contribuíram para o aumento significativo de intérpretes de Libras/português no mercado de trabalho brasileiro.

Quando abordamos o percurso de formação vivenciado por esses intérpretes, é possível observar que estamos em uma fase de transição entre diferentes contextos sociais, assim como em uma fase de articulação desses profissionais com os Estudos da Tradução, por meio de ações de cunho político e acadêmico. Há uma nova configuração do trabalho desse profissional, que passa a atuar de forma cada vez mais frequente em espaços acadêmicos. Além disso, vários cursos surgiram ao longo das últimas décadas a fim de qualificar esses profissionais, como os cursos livres de curta duração oferecidos pelas associações de surdos e/ou pela Federação Nacional de Educação e Integração dos Surdos (FENEIS) em parceria com universidades ou órgãos do governo.

Recentemente, o curso de Bacharelado em Letras-Libras iniciado no ano de 2008 pela Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (UFSC), em parceria com outras instituições, na modalidade de educação a distância, foi um dos marcos no percurso de formação dos intérpretes. O curso tem o objetivo de formar esses profissionais conforme preconiza o Decreto-Lei nº 5626/05, que regulamenta a lei de Libras 10.436/02. O foco principal de formação desse curso está voltado para o campo educacional, um espaço com grande demanda de trabalho, seja nas universidades públicas e/ou privadas, seja em escolas da rede estadual e municipal em nosso país.

Atualmente, o curso de Bacharelado em Letras-Libras é oferecido pela UFSC nas modalidades presencial e a distância. Além dessa instituição, destacamos a Universidade Federal de Goiás, a Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro e a Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo, que oferecem turmas de Bacharelado em Letras-Libras ou Bacharelado em Tradução e Interpretação de Libras. Outras instituições estão em fase de implantação do curso de graduação para formação de tradutores e intérpretes de língua de sinais. E o mercado de trabalho diante desse cenário de ampliação do campo de atuação dos tradutores e intérpretes?

No Brasil, muitos contextos de conferência, por exemplo, demandam o serviço de interpretação de Libras/português, uma vez que a participação da comunidade surda tem aumentado consideravelmente em nossa sociedade, estreitando interfaces de campos teóricos que se estendem desde as ciências humanas até a área de ciências exatas e da terra. Por outro lado, o índice de atuação de intérpretes de Libras/português concentra-se de forma evidente no campo da interpretação comunitária, abrangendo desde os contextos de saúde e jurídicos até o contexto educacional, sendo este último um dos campos mais procurados por tais profissionais. Nesse sentido, algumas ações desencadeadas pelo governo federal têm contribuído para a presença significativa de intérpretes de Libras/português no campo educacional. Um exemplo disso é o capítulo IV do decreto 5626, que aborda o uso e a difusão da Libras e da língua portuguesa para o acesso das pessoas surdas à educação. Esse capítulo apresenta uma série de providências a serem tomadas pelas instituições, dentre elas a necessidade de prover o serviço de tradução e de interpretação de Libras/português nas escolas.

Além desses espaços, aos poucos têm sido implantadas em nosso país as centrais de interpretação de Libras, as quais objetivam garantir o atendimento de qualidade às pessoas surdas em seu acesso aos serviços públicos. Nesse sentido, contextos da área médica ou jurídica, pouco conhecidos e praticados por intérpretes de Libras/português, tornam-se cada vez mais parte do cotidiano desses profissionais.

Diante desse cenário, as oportunidades de trabalho para intérpretes de Libras/português têm aumentado consideravelmente, o que exige um profissional competente e qualificado para atender todas essas demandas. A formação desses profissionais, por meio de cursos de graduação específicos sobre tradução e interpretação, é ainda recente em nosso país. Por exemplo, uma das primeiras turmas de tradutores e intérpretes de Libras/português formada em curso de graduação — o Bacharelado em Letras-Libras promovido pela UFSC — foi em meados de 2012.

A formação especializada desses profissionais é urgente, a fim de se garantirem serviços de qualidade nos mais diversos setores públicos em nosso país. Para promover essa formação, é fundamental problematizar e traçar diretrizes sobre as competências necessárias para a atuação de um intérprete e para cada contexto de atuação. Nessa perspectiva da formação por competências aplicada a intérpretes de Libras/português, elementos como a articulação entre as competências profissional, estratégica, tradutória, linguística e outras que constituem os processos de interpretação são eixos importantes para nortear uma didática de ensino desses profissionais.

Para encerrar, associando a minha experiência pessoal enquanto intérprete de Libras/português e, nos últimos anos, como docente e pesquisadora em Estudos da Tradução e Interpretação de Libras, ratifico a premissa de que prática e pesquisa precisam estar conectadas, articuladas, entrelaçadas para que de fato a formação de intérpretes se efetive e seja profícua. Considerar as experiências empíricas como parte constituinte da formação desses profissionais em consonância com os aspectos conceituais e as interfaces dos Estudos da Tradução é um dos primeiros passos para que tenhamos subsídios consistentes no processo de formação de futuros profissionais conscientes e qualificados para o exercício de suas funções.

Thank you, Silvana, for accepting our invitation and kindly contributing to our blog. 🙂

About the author
Silvana Aguiar dos Santos é professora adjunta no curso de Letras-Libras do Departamento de Artes e Libras, pesquisadora da Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina no campo de conhecimento: Estudos da Tradução e interpretação de Libras. Doutora em Estudos da Tradução e Mestre em Educação pela Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (UFSC), graduação em Educação Especial pela Universidade Federal de Santa Maria (UFSM). Tem experiência na área de Estudos da Interpretação, Políticas da Tradução e profissionalização de intérpretes de língua de sinais no ensino superior. Atua como vice-líder do Grupo de Pesquisa em Interpretação e Tradução de Línguas de Sinais – InterTrads.