Here’s to new beginnings!

Posted in Holidays, Weekly post by Carol's Adventures in Translation

Created by Erick Tonin

Before I started writing yet another end-of-the-year post (this is the fourth of the blog), I took the time to read the previous ones (Unwrap your memories, A 2014 wrap-up/New Year resolutions, What I learned from a bad year and 2017 resolutions for translators) and to recall old resolutions. Have you ever tried recalling/reading your old resolutions? It’s nostalgic and it gives us that warm feeling inside. It shows us how much we and our priorities change with time. Try it for yourself.

Last year was one of those years to me, so I was really looking forward to it ending for good. At New Year, I said, “Finally! May it be gone for good and take everything bad that happened.” An uncle made fun of me, saying there is no such a thing as year-ending and problems magically disappearing, something along those lines. I know problems do not magically disappear, and nothing changes if we are not willing to and if we don’t actually do something. However, can you imagine living in a world without weekends and Mondays, ends of the year and beginning of new years, birthdays? I can’t. I think we need these time blocks and breaks to recharge our batteries, rethink our lives and find the inspiration and will to change things. At least that works for me. Luckily, my birthday is right after New Year, so it’s perfect timing as well.

New years are clean slates where you can write the story of your life the way you wish. Take in all the positive energy, love and happiness of the holidays and use them to your benefit, transforming them into determination, focus and attitude to change. Leave old thoughts and feelings behind, let them go with the year that ends, and restart fresh. Even a small change makes a difference. Start small and see where it takes you. Take it from me, you will not regret.

My 2017 was amazing! Why is that? Because I was determined to change what didn’t work in the previous year and took it seriously. I got back to exercising and eating healthily, and was able to drag other people with me, so now, when I need some inspiration, they are the ones who help me. I am more conscious of how valuable my time is and of what is really worth doing and what is not. I had two major changes of opinion: I never really fancied traveling to other countries in South America nor to the US. I went to both this year, and loved both experiences. I got new clients and rewarding feedback from the existing ones. Luckily and fortunately, I didn’t have any project downtimes.

Now, with eleven days left of 2017, I am feeling beat, but not in a bad way. It’s that feeling of exhaustion for doing a lot, accomplishing more than I expected and going beyond, and having a blast of a year. Now, after spending some quality and fun time with family during Christmas, traveling to have fun with friends during New Year, and traveling to the beach with family for my birthday, I will definitely be ready for yet another new beginning full of promises, new resolutions, dreams and wishes.

Are you also ready to a new beginning? If not now, when?

19Jun2015

Making a great first impression and standing out as a professional translator

Posted in Events, Weekly post by Carol's Adventures in Translation

Finally, the last “part” of the posts about the VI International Abrates Conference: the one about my own presentation. In case you missed the previous ones, read Part 1 and Part 2. In case you have already read both, please be aware that I’ve been constantly updating Part 2 – and by constantly I mean practically daily – with posts attendees have been writing about their impressions and presenters have been writing about their own presentations, including with links to slide presentations and the like. There are both articles in Portuguese and English, so take a moment to have a look.

My presentation was about branding and the importance of creating a brand to stand out as a professional.

Simply put, branding means managing your brand. However, its meaning goes beyond what mere words can explain, because it involves your values as a person and business, what people think about you – and what they say about you when you are not around – and how they perceive you. And by you, here, I mean your business, because we, as freelancers, are our own businesses; there’s no way to make a difference between one and the other.

I once read a comparison of branding with the shadow. When we go out in the sun, we cast a shadow, right? We can’t help it. It’s not a matter of choice. It’s the exactly same thing with our branding. People will form their own opinions about you as a brand and they will talk. We need to make sure we are doing everything we can to try to show the right image to people so they can say good things about us most of the time. And I say most of time because we can’t please everyone every time.

First of all, in order to create a brand that stands out, you need to follow three important steps:

1. Name

Think of a name. Do some brainstorming with things you like and that represent you and your business. Write every single thing that comes to your mind, from the languages you work with to your favorite color, for example. Take into account who you are and what you do. Make it simple: to pronounce, write and remember. Ask for your friends and family’s opinion. It may also be a good idea to create a survey with a couple of options and not only send it to your friends and family, but also share it on social media so more unknown people who absolutely don’t know you can give their opinion. Decide if you want to create a brand new name from scratch or if you want to use any or all of your own names.

2. Logo

You can have the name and logo as on single thing, like IBM, for example. They don’t have a separate image that represents their brand, but their name written in a unique font. In this case, the font certainly needs to be unique and customized. If you prefer to create a logo to go with your brand name, it also needs to resonate with your name and, again, your values and characteristics. It needs to be memorable and unique; simple, but not dull; and unforgettable. Great logos can, by themselves, create brand identification. Take the following logos, for example:

Can you tell what brands they are? Easy, right? This is the idea. 😉

3. Color

Last, but not least, color. According to a survey, 90% of first impressions about a product are based on the color alone. Colors influence the way consumers understand your brand’s personality. Take Harley Davidson, for example. Do you think pink would represent them well? I don’t think so. Color is almost always what makes a brand recognizable at first sight. Can you tell, for example, what is the color of Facebook? Starbucks? Coke? Barbie? Easy again, right? And I know I’m being repetitive here, but that is the idea!

It’s also important to have a look at what emotion each color refers back to. However, it shouldn’t be the only factor to take into account when choosing your color.

After creating your brand, you need to communicate it. The first and most important communication tool is the website. Create a professional and nice-looking page with the most important information a client needs to know, where to find you, the services you provide. If you work with more than one language, translate it to all of them. Buy your own domain and show the client you are a serious professional, and not a part-time translator trying to earn some money on your free time. Consequently, you will also get an email address with your own domain, and not an email provider, such as Hotmail, Yahoo or the like. Also, take some time to create a customized signature for your email with your logo, if possible, your name, contact info and site, mainly. Having a business card is also extremely important, but don’t clutter it with too much information. Website, domain-based email address and business card are the basics.

Now let’s move on to the internet. After all, if you are not on the internet, you do not exist! Simple like that, I’m afraid. The social media is your online brand, and since everything communicates, be extra careful when posting online. If you don’t really like social media a lot, choose one or two platforms you like the most and invest on it. If, on the other hand, you are like me, a social media lover, be careful not to leave a platform unattended. If you don’t use a channel too much, simply delete it. A ghost channel is worst than a non-existent one.

You may be thinking, “I don’t have anything relevant/new to share. Why people would care about what I have to say?” Here’s why:

“Most of us are quite interesting, but we need to let everyone know that.”

I always like to compare our brands to those at the supermarket. Some brands are well-located on shelves at eye level or carefully placed where everyone can see. Others are on the last shelves at the bottom, and we have to make an effort to notice them. And some others are in baskets with the sign “On Sale,” mixed up with dozens of others, and we have to make an even greater effort to try to find something of value there. What brand do you want to be?

Remember: you do not have a second chance to make a good first impression. And the simplest things make the biggest difference.

You can also read a brief summary of my presentation according to one of the more than 100 attendees: Laila Compan, from the blog Tradutor Iniciante, here (in Portuguese).

14Jun2015

My impressions on the VI Abrates Conference – Part 2

Posted in Events, Weekly post by Carol's Adventures in Translation

In case you did not read the first part, here it is.

Still on the second day of the conference, after the panel with representatives of some associations, we had a coffee break and, after that, our second keynote speaker, Renato Beninatto, spoke about Brazil’s position in the translation world. Beninatto talked about how Brazilians sometimes complain a lot about the local situation. According to him, translation, as well as its problems, is the same everywhere, not only here. The translation market is globalized. Renato also says it is a shame that ATA has the same number of Brazilian associates as Sintra: we should give more credit to local associations. To conclude his presentation, he shows this video and says a person is able to create a new initiative by themselves and inspire others. The first follower of the initiative is the most important, because he is the one that validates the leader.

In his presentation, he referred to this article: Brazil: The Social Media Capital of the Universe.

The second day was over and, while some attendees headed to a pizza place, I headed to a sushi place, where ACME E-learning hosted a Mixer with a dozen people. It was quite a pleasant evening, and I had the chance to get to know incredible new people from different areas and met a couple I already knew from other events. João, ACME’s director, will soon publish pictures and probably some words about this successful networking event.

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With João Artur Souza, from ACME E-learning.

On Sunday, the third and, sadly, last day of conference started with Renata Cassemiro’s presentation about the importance of the translator’s occupational health. Renata is physiotherapist and Pilates instructor, so she gave us some extremely important tips and orientations. According to her, some diseases take years to start showing its symptoms, therefore, we shouldn’t wait to try to find a solution. Did you know that the incorrect use of the phone is one of the biggest causes of problems? Don’t hold the phone between your ear and your shoulder. Use a headset instead. Fact: the human being is capable and prepared to walk 30 km a day. That’s why a sedentary lifestyle brings so many health problems! Some of her tips: establish pauses throughout your workday; avoid fried food and have lighter meals; therapeutic massage is advised once a week.

The second presentation of the day was by Débora Policarpo, who talked about financial planning. Débora is a business administrator specialized in wealth management and asset allocation. According to her, financial planning is the process of achieving our life’s goals through the adequate management of our finance life. There is nothing that takes more our attention than financial problems, right? We should understand the family’s budget and dynamics, as well as in which stage of life we are in. Débora said we must set our short-, medium- and long-term goals and the income we want/need to have when we retire. There is no magical formula to calculate how much we should save to achieve our goals: we need to know the time we have and the desired income.

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During Débora Policarpo’s presentation.

We had a coffee break and, after that, my presentation.

After my presentation, I watched part of Carolina Walliter’s presentation on coworking. Unfortunately, I missed a great part of it, but it seemed very interesting indeed. People loved it! According to her, coworking is a network society that generates quality of life and social awareness. Sheila Gomes, who was also watching Carolina’s presentation, recommends that we at least try working in one of the coworking spaces available. I do plan on working some hours or a day in a coworking space we have in my town. As soon as I do, I’ll write a post about my experience. 😉

The last presentation of the conference was with Isabel Vidigal, who mainly talked about ProZ.com and the possibility of getting clients from it. According to her, you have nothing to lose creating a free profile on ProZ.com, but work carefully on it.

After that, we had a lunch break and, finally the last keynote speaker, Ulisses Wehby de Carvalho, from Tecla SAP, who gave a really relaxing and enjoyable speech about the life of an interpreter. We laughed a lot with his funny and incredibly embarrassing/amazing histories! According to him, mistakes happen in the booth because there is no backspace. The interpreter has to learn how to properly deal with them when they happen.

And that was it (or at least part of it, since I attended only 1/6 of the wide array of possibilities). You can find some links to posts people have already published about the conference below:

Talking in the real world, post-conference article by Robert Lange Greene on The Economist
A LBM no Congresso da Abrates, by Ligia Sobral Fragano, from Little Brown Mouse
VI Congresso da Abrates – Parte 1, by Laila Rezende Compan, from the blog Tradutor Iniciante
VI Congresso da Abrates – Parte 2, by Laila Rezende Campan, from the blog Tradutor Iniciante
VI Congresso da Abrates – Parte 3, by Laila Rezende Campan, from the blog Tradutor Iniciante
VI Congresso da Abrates – Parte 4, by Laila Rezende Campan, from the blog Tradutor Iniciante
VI Congresso da Abrates – Parte 5 (final), by Laila Rezende Campan, from the blog Tradutor Iniciante
Impressões sobre o VI Congresso Internacional da Abrates, by Sidney Barros Junior
VI Congresso Internacional da Abrates – Um sucesso muito além do esperado, by Ponte de Letras
Línguas e Tradução: Outro Encontro de Tradutores, by Anita Di Marco, from Anita Plural
VI Congresso da Abrates: uma viagem pelo mundo da localização, by Maíra Monteiro
VI Congresso Internacional da Abrates, by Marina Borges
E o VI Congresso da Abrates?, by Thiago Hilger, from the blog O Jogo da Tradução
CAT Tools na tradução literária: para quê?, by Rafa Lombardino, from eWorldNews, about Reginaldo Francisco’s presentation (in English: CAT tools in literary translation: what are they good for?)
A TradWiki e a visibilidade do tradutor, by Daniel Estill, from TradWiki
Como foi o VI Congresso da Abrates para os iniciantes, by Lorena Leandro, from the blog Ao Principiante
Pesquisa em tradução literária: seleção de fontes e entrevistas, by Rafa Lombardino, from eWorldNews, about Candice Soldatelli’s presentation (in English: Research in literary translation: selecting and interviewing sources of information)
Impresiones sobre el congreso – Abrates 2015, by Víctor Gonzales, from El Heraldo de la Traducción
Vamos fugir do tradutês?, by Rafa Lombardino, from eWorldNews, about Ponte de Letra‘s presentation (in English: Let’s avoid translationese, shall we?)
Pensando a tradução de variantes linguísticas, by Rafa Lombardino, from eWorldNews, about Solange Pinheiro Carvalho’s presentation (in English: On translating linguistic variants)
O tradutor sob os holofotes, by Rafa Lombardino, from eWorldNews, about the round table with Carolina Caires Coelho, Alyne Azuma, Alessandra Ruiz and Candice Soldatelli, moderated by Petê Rissati (in English: Translators under the spotlight)
O papel do tradutor na nova era da publicação digital, by yours truly on the blog eWorldNews, about Rafa Lombardino’s presentation (in English, translated by Rafa herself: The role of translators in the new digital publishing age)

And here are links to some presentations that presenters made available somehow and that I became aware of:

Roney Belhassof’s presentation: Usando a internet sem ter que virar nerd
Val Ivonica’s presentation: A tecnologia vai acabar com o tradutor?
Juliana Samel’s presentation: Falsos cognatos e decalques na tradução médica inglês > português
Layla Penha’s presentation: Interpretação consecutiva e além – como se já não bastassem os desafios da tarefa em si (recorded presentation, part 1 – you can also search for the other parts)
Jorge Rodrigues’ presentation: Rumos e perspectivas da carreira do tradutor profissional
Jorge Davidson’s presentation: O ABC das CATs: o que você nunca se atreveu a perguntar
Paula Ianelli’s presentation: Quatro traduções e um original
Mitsue Siqueira and Bruno Fontes’ presentation: Gerente de projetos: de onde vem, para onde vai? You can also find a video of part of the presentation on YouTube here.
Carolina Walliter’s presentation: Coworking e os tradutores na vanguarda da nova era do trabalho
Fabiano Cid’s presentation: A situação do tradutor hoje no Brasil: problemas encontrados em três anos de LQA

On a last note, it was informed in the conference that there will be a series of talks on bureaucracy and translation, Tradutor vs. Burocracia. The first one will be held in Rio de Janeiro, on October 1^st.

Besides, a workshop is also on the make with the amazing Isa Mara Lando, organized by Luciane Camargo. It will be on a Saturday in July, from 10 a.m. through 6 p.m., in São Paulo. If you are interested at attending in, please send an email to lucianecamargo@hotmail.com informing your date preference (4th, 18th or 25th).

And if you are not an Abrates member yet, it’s now or never! They are offering a 50% discount on the annual fee for those who attended the conference. But it’s only until June 30th!

If you want to check what else happened during the conference, follow the hashtag #abrates15 on Facebook and on Twitter.

And if you are interested in attending the next one, it will be held in Rio de Janeiro, date yet to be announced. I’ll certainly let you all know when we have news about it.

Last, but not least, the next post – that will most probably come this week – will be about my presentation.

11Jun2015

My impressions on the VI Abrates Conference – Part 1

Posted in Events, Weekly post by Carol's Adventures in Translation

Last weekend, from June 5^th through 7^th I attended (and presented at) the VI Abrates International Conference in São Paulo (Centro de Convenções Rebouças). Abrates is the Brazilian association of professional translators and interpreters and, since 2013, they hold an annual conference in different Brazilian cities. The event is the largest and most important in the area in Brazil, and possibly now the largest in Latin America. This year, we almost reached 900 participants (last year, in Rio de Janeiro, there were 450 attendees; and in 2013, in Belo Horizonte, 390).

The conference officially started with great news: PayPal partnered with Abrates and will now offer special rates for receiving payments – for Abrates members only. For receiving payments from abroad, the rate will decrease from around 7.4% to 3.49% + R$ 0.60 per transaction. Everybody – including me, of course – was ecstatic with the fantastic news! Stay tuned on how to benefit with it if you are an Abrates member. The association will publish it on their site and share on their Facebook page when they do. Besides, you can also call PayPal’s SAC to know more. Following the official opening, the first keynote speaker, Robert Lane Greene, Berlin-based business correspondent for The Economist who writes the “Johnson” column on language for The Economist online, talked about languages around the world. He starts speaking in an impressive Portuguese and admits he is part of a small group of weird North-Americans who like to learn other languages. After his introduction, he starts his presentation in English and shows us some interesting numbers related to languages on the internet. On Wikipedia, for example, translations are mainly to and from English, indicating a lack of language connections. On Twitter, a great number of users tweet in two languages, and Portuguese/English is one of the most common pairs (behind Malay and Spanish). Greene also differentiates between business suit language and underwear language: the first is the one you simply wear/use for any reason, the second is close to our heart and intimate self.

The infographic on this page was one of the images he showed. Robert also mentioned this article. He also has a book, You Are What You Speak.

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With Robert Lane Greene.

After his interesting presentation, we had a cocktail party where we had to change to say hi to our fellow translators.

The actual presentations started for good the next day. The main characteristic of this conference is that we have plenty of choices to choose from: there were six different rooms with a diversity of topics being presented at the same time throughout the event. My first choice (always a difficult one, Paula Ianelli and Reginaldo Francisco, for example, were also presenting at the same time) was about technology and how we can use them to improve productivity, by Fernanda Rocha. Did you know, for example, that Windows and Mac’s calculators convert units and currencies? They also calculate periods of time. You can also add two other clocks (time zones) to your toolbar.

Time to change rooms! Off to room 5 where Rafa Lombardino talked about digital self-publication. Did you know that, in Brazil, a material becomes public domain after 70 years of the author’s death? She suggests creating a blog/site to document your book translation projects (it can also serve as a portfolio). You can find the newsletter about her presentation and the link to the Prezi presentation here.

Next one was in room 1, with João Vicente de Paulo Jr. and Giovana Boselli, who mentioned some important steps we have to follow when/before accepting a project not to have unexpected problems down the line. For example, read the allocation instructions carefully (delivery date/time, volume, subject), open the files and have a look at them, check if a big project requires partial deliveries, check if there is reference material to be followed (glossaries, style guides), payment method.

After the coffee break, I heard Monica Hruby, president of ATPI-Rio, mentioned some problems sworn translators face in Brazil and the regulation that surrounds it. An important point: translation agencies can’t be sworn translators! So be aware! I chose this presentation because I heard from a colleague last week that many sworn translators on Jucesp’s list are dead and their son/daughter are translating on behalf of the deceased translator! This is totally insane!

Back to room 1 to hear Raquel Lucas de Souza tell us about how she became an agency. Circumstances made her realize she could solve her clients’ problems not by translating, but by finding people who could do it, being a project manager. We need to fully understand ourselves in order to identify our qualities and find out our place in the market. A professional posture is essential for having good final results. At the same time, Capitain Israel Souza Junior, last year’s keynote speaker, was talking in room 4 about idiomatic expressions in war movies’ translation.

After lunch, I watched a panel with representatives of 10 associations: ATPIESP, ATP-MG, APIC, GALA, ATP-Rio, ASTRAJUR-RS, ATPP, Abrates, Sintra and ATA. The panel was very informative and useful, but I’d like to bring the attention here to the current situation of Sintra (Brazilian translators’ union). It once had only 173 paying affiliates and considered closing its doors. Nowadays, there are 233, but it is necessary 327 in order to have a financial balance. With its current budget, they can only run until October. Currently, 106 affiliates are in default, but they can only be removed from the union after 2 years not paying! The annual fee to become an affiliate is R$ 330.00. As pointed out during the panel, some people spend a fortune to attend ATA’s conference, but claim it’s too expensive to pay for the union’s fee. I’m an affiliate and I believe the union is essential for helping us defend our rights. See, for example, what they are doing, with ATP-Rio and Conati, to defend our rights regarding Simples Nacional here.

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Conference attendees featuring yours truly doing what I did best: tweet. 🙂

Please find the second part of this post here.

2Jun2015

Greatest Women in Translation

Posted in Interview series, Weekly post by Carol's Adventures in Translation

It does feel good to be back at writing posts for the blog, especially when there are announcements to be made – good ones, of course. Don’t you worry!

But first I’d like to thank you, my dearest readers, for always being so kind and active on the blog! Seriously, you are amazing! And, because of that, while I was giving some thoughts to the changes I’d make to the blog, you were crucial to the decisions I made. After all, let’s be honest, this blog is for you, so why would I not listen to you, right? So, THANK YOU! I hope you like the changes I’ll announce today and that you keep supporting the blog as you already do.

By the way, have you already voted for it as the Top Professional Blogs 2015? If not yet, please do on the button on your right, and fingers crossed!

Now let’s move on to what matters: the news! As you know, I’ve been more absent than ever from writing posts myself. Besides, I also had a couple of issues with the guest posts. This situation made me feel terrible, because I know I have an editorial calendar to follow and I was letting you down on it. Therefore, I decided it was time for a change! I thought of ending the guest posts altogether, but, as I said, you give me such a great feedback on them, that I really felt it would be a shame to end them. That being said, I declare the guest posts stay! As do my own posts, of course. However, their frequency will change. We’ll have both of them once a month, solving my lack of time issues and leaving me more time to plan the guest posts.

Now the great news is we’ll also have, from now on, an interview series, with which I’m really excited about! 😀 It will be called Greatest Women in Translation (#gr8estwomenxl8). As the name clearly says, I’ll be interviewing women only. I have already invited the first interviewee, and she has accepted the invitation! Yay! She’ll answer the questions I made up especially for her and will be responsible for nominating the second interviewee. That’s right! On this series, I’m not the one who gets to invite guests, the interviewees themselves will be the ones to do so. The idea is that each interviewee nominates a woman they look up to and admire in translation. If, for any reason, the nominee is not able to accept the invitation, I’ll invite another one and start the thread again. Are you as excited as me with this? 😀 Everybody has someone who inspires them, right? And isn’t it just lovely to learn more about the person?

Stay tuned, adventurers! I’ll soon disclose the monthly publication dates and when they start.

Meanwhile, how about trying to guess who the first Greatest Woman in Translation is? 😉

8May2015

Neither a night owl nor an early riser

Posted in Weekly post by Carol's Adventures in Translation

Missed me? I surely missed you all! Not one day goes by without me feeling guilty for not being so present on the blog. I will not excuse myself anymore. Something must be done! I’m already having some thoughts here as to how to revive my cherished blog and give it a fresh air. Meanwhile, please bear with me, since both my personal posts and the guest posts may be scarce.

However, today I found myself having an unexpected gap on my schedule, so I decided to write about a topic that was in my mind for a while.

You must have already read articles related to being a night owl or an early riser, right? All the discussions around being one or the other always intrigued me, because, you know, I always felt I was neither! Let me explain…

Night owls are people who enjoy working and doing any kind of activity, as the name says, at night. These people usually work all night long or prefer to work in the evening until late. Therefore, they hate waking up early or simply don’t wake up early because they need to sleep at some point.

Early risers, on the other hand, are the opposite. They enjoy waking up really early and are usually the most productive during the morning.

As for me, I completely despise having to wake up early. Waking up is my most difficult task of my day – especially now that winter is coming here in Brazil and it’s getting pretty chilly. My alarm clock goes off at 7:15 a.m. every single morning. Depending on my schedule for the day, I get up (not wake up, mind you) almost instantly. If it’s not that tight, I can postpone getting up up to one hour.

“So you’re a night owl! What’s the catch?”

The catch is I cannot function properly anymore after 6 p.m. And I say anymore because in my first year(s) I used to work almost non-stop, sleeping (when I slept) three to four hours at the most, so I worked until late at night. Nowadays, that’s impossible! I get really tired, cannot concentrate, my brain doesn’t work.

All in all, I usually work from 9 a.m. through 5 p.m., from Monday through Friday. Those are my business hours. And, yes, that is totally possible!

How about you? Are you a night owl or an early riser? Or neither, just like me? I look forward to hearing from you… 🙂

12Mar2015

O perfil do tradutor contemporâneo

Posted in Weekly post by Carol's Adventures in Translation

No dia 26 de fevereiro, o Centro de Idiomas Brasillis promoveu uma palestra online gratuita com a Sheyla Barretto, intérprete. Sheyla atualmente trabalha na Organização dos Estados Americanos (OEA) e já coordenou grandes eventos com a participação de importantes personalidades, como o atual presidente dos Estados Unidos, Barack Obama. O tema da palestra foi “O perfil do tradutor contemporâneo: o que mudou nos últimos 20 anos”.

Sheyla iniciou a palestra comparando como era trabalhar como tradutor há 20 anos, quando começou, com a prática atual. Segundo ela, antigamente, as traduções eram cobradas por lauda, não por palavra. Como a contagem de laudas não é tão simples, era mais difícil de o cliente entender como funcionava. Hoje, como a cobrança é por palavra e qualquer ferramenta facilmente oferece essa contagem, não há problemas quanto a esse aspecto.

No entanto, a ideia de que traduzir antigamente era mais difícil é relativa. Embora não houvesse tanta disponibilidade de recursos tecnológicos como há hoje, essa vasta opção de fontes também requer cuidado, pois é necessário filtrar as fontes confiáveis. Há uma grande velocidade na disseminação de informações e conhecimento. Além disso, hoje também é mais fácil alcançar o cliente, portanto, a concorrência também é maior. Isso requer muito mais do tradutor do que antigamente.

Alguns pontos no tempo:

1995: a internet tem alcance global
1996: 6,9% dos domicílios tem computador, segundo o IBGE (hoje, são 49%; desses, 28% têm internet)
Início do século 21 no Brasil: expansão das CATs (elas se tornam mais acessíveis)
2005: a SDL compra a Trados e se torna a maior empresa de tecnologia da tradução
2006: avanço das redes sociais
2008: a SDL compra a Idiom
Hoje: surgimento de novas tecnologias, como o Skype, WhatsApp, Google Hangouts, Google Docs, Doodle Pools, SurveyMonkey, Shutterfly, etc.

As vantagens das redes sociais e das novas tecnologias são: compartilhamento de informações e dúvidas com colegas, grande apoio aos tradutores iniciantes (importante para moldar o tradutor do futuro), formação (temos até doutores na área).

Tradutor 24/7

Bom leitor, escritor e pesquisador
Formação, treinamento
Boas ferramentas de trabalho
Certificações
Filiações (visibilidade, credibilidade e networking)
Mais idiomas
Presença na internet (divulgação, visibilidade)
Atualização permanente

Capacidade de: adaptação, interação nas mídias sociais, organização, captação/manutenção de clientes, empresarial, exposição calculada, senso de coletividade, gestão de tempo eficaz (distrações x prioridades), follow-up (emissão de nota fiscal/invoice, feedback).

No entanto, o excesso de atividades, e a impossibilidade de onipresença e onisciência do tradutor 24/7 geram insegurança e frustração. Quanto mais se sabe, mais se descobre que não se sabe.

Recomendações para dominar essa frustração:

Foco
Definição de metas claras
Controle do tempo
Networking
Diferenciação
Acompanhamento da tecnologia

Ser tradutor é fascinante e desafiador, pois é uma atividade complexa e técnica. A valorização é necessária e já está a caminho.

Juntos, somos mais fortes!

Você também assistiu à palestra? Gostaria de adicionar algo? Caso não tenha assistido, também é bem-vindo para comentar. 😉

26Feb2015

Guia de estilo: material de referência de leitura obrigatória

Posted in Weekly post by Carol's Adventures in Translation

Olá, leitores! Surpresa! Hoje a publicação semanal (que está mais para mensal ultimamente) será em português. Aos que sentiram falta da nossa língua tupiniquim por aqui, aproveitem! 😉

Os tradutores com mais experiência, principalmente os que trabalham com agências, sabem o que é um Guia de Estilo (ou pelo menos deveriam saber, né? :/). Àqueles que não sabem: um Guia de Estilo, como o próprio nome diz, é um guia que contém instruções e orientações sobre o estilo de determinado cliente, além de regras gramaticais e lexicais do idioma de chegada. Com o glossário, ele é parte do material de referência que os clientes fornecem às agências e/ou aos tradutores. O material de referência, também como o próprio nome diz, deve ser consultado antes de iniciar uma tradução, a fim de saber mais sobre os usos e as regras do cliente e aplicá-los corretamente na tradução.

Como tenho observado que muitos tradutores desconhecem algumas regras frequentes desses guias, meu objetivo hoje é abordar algumas orientações importantes que constam na maioria dos Guias de Estilo.

Uso de letras maiúsculas/minúsculas
A língua inglesa usa muito mais letras maiúsculas que a língua portuguesa. Em português, somente nomes de pessoas/lugares devem iniciar com letra maiúscula. Em uma frase ou título, somente a primeira letra da primeira palavra é maiúscula. O mesmo serve para comandos de softwares e caixas de diálogo (exceto em traduções para o Windows, que não deve ser usado como modelo para outros clientes). Nomes de cargos não começam com letra maiúscula.
Depois de dois pontos (:), usa-se maiúscula depois de “Observação”, “Cuidado”, “Aviso”, etc.
Pontuação
Em inglês, usa-se muito o traço (—), ao contrário do português, que raramente usa esse tipo de pontuação. Ele é normalmente substituído por dois pontos (:) ou vírgula (,).
As aspas simples (‘) só devem ser usadas quando precisar usar aspas dentro de uma frase que já está entre aspas (“Pressione ‘Salvar’ antes de prosseguir”).
Evite o uso de frases completas entre parênteses, que é muito comum em inglês. Normalmente, a simples remoção dos parênteses é a melhor solução.
Ao contrário da língua inglesa, a pontuação em português é inserida após o fechamento das aspas.
Números
Os números de 0 a 10, 100 e 1.000 são escritos por extenso. No entanto, quando houver uma mistura de formatos em uma mesma frase, usar somente o formato numérico. Se o número estiver no início da frase, ele deverá ser escrito por extenso.
Unidades de medida
As formas abreviadas das unidades de medida não têm flexão de plural, não são seguidas por ponto e são separadas do número por um espaço. Alguns exemplos: ºC (grau Celsius), l (litro), min (minuto), h (hora), s (segundo), kg (quilograma), km (quilômetro), pol. (polegada; exceção, pois é seguido por ponto).
Valores monetários
Deve haver um espaço entre o cifrão e o número (R$ 25 mil, US$ 50 milhões).
Marcadores e numeração
A numeração é normalmente usada para etapas sequenciais. A primeira letra de cada item é em letra maiúscula, e, se o item for uma frase completa, deve terminar com ponto final. Marcadores podem conter itens simples ou frases completas. No caso de itens simples, a primeira letra é minúscula e a pontuação final é o ponto e vírgula (;), exceto o último item, que deve terminar com ponto final. Já no caso de frases completas, vale a mesma regra da numeração. Dica: veja se os itens podem ser lidos como um todo ou se constituem frases separadas.
Símbolos
Substitua: “#” por “nº”; “&” por “e”; e “@” por “em/a” (quando não for parte de um endereço de e-mail, é claro).
Calendário
Abreviação consagrada dos dias da semana: SEG, TER, QUA, QUI, SEX e SÁB. Meses: JAN, FEV, MAR, ABR, MAI, JUN, JUL, AGO, SET, OUT, NOV e DEZ.
Gerúndio
Em títulos, o gerúndio, amplamente usado em inglês, é normalmente substituído por um substantivo (salva orientação contrária do projeto). Outra opção é usar “Como” + verbo no infinitivo.
Verbos
Como regra geral, em textos técnicos, evite ao máximo o uso de verbos no futuro, mesmo se a estrutura em inglês for essa. Use o presente.
Atenção com a concordância em frases condicionais: “Se o tempo estiver bom no fim de semana, jogarei tênis” e “Sempre que o tempo permite, jogo tênis”.
Sujeito
Embora a língua portuguesa permita a emissão do sujeito de uma frase, somente faça isso se o verbo deixar claro a qual pessoa ele se refere. Por exemplo, “posso” se refere ao pronome “eu”. Nesse caso, a emissão do pronome pode ser até melhor, a fim de evitar redundância e deixar o texto mais fluido.
Cuidado com a repetição excessiva de pronomes em uma frase. Tente limitá-la ao máximo. Se possível, utilize o pronome somente uma vez.
Pronome possessivo
Em textos técnicos, embora o original em inglês use o pronome possessivo, há casos em que é melhor usar um artigo em português. Por exemplo, “o computador” (your computer), “o navegador” (your browser).

O mundo da tradução não é um conto de fadas em que você sempre encontrará um texto original perfeito e sem erros. Na verdade, o contrário é muito mais frequente do que deveria. Portanto, além de saber as regras da língua portuguesa, também é necessário conhecer muito bem a língua inglesa, a fim de que o texto de partida não nos confunda.

Nosso trabalho não é apenas traduzir o significado do texto de origem como também fazê-lo de forma correta e fluida, independentemente da fluidez e adequação gramatical dele, a fim de produzir uma tradução com significado, mas também com beleza e de fácil leitura. Conhecer todas as regras gramaticais e de estilo não é fácil, requer tempo e muita atenção. No entanto, com o tempo, elas se tornam parte do seu conhecimento e o processo de aplicação, automático. Esse pode ser o seu diferencial entre tantos tradutores no mercado: atenção aos detalhes.

5Feb2015

Do not try to reinvent the wheel

Posted in Weekly post by Carol's Adventures in Translation

Ow, boy! I know it’s getting pretty common and sounding like lame excuses, but I am so sorry for the absence lately! To make matters worse, even the guest posts are not working as usual. 😦 This beginning of the year is on fire!

Yes, yes, I know, I’m not complaining at all. Actually, it’s completely the opposite, I’m really excited with all the new projects and clients and contacts coming up, all the new things happening… On the other hand, though, I feel really sad not having enough time for the blog. I love this contact with you, my readers. You know, one of my new year’s resolutions was to separate a dedicated time for social media and for the blog, so this wouldn’t happen. I’m glad with my resolutions so far, but I’m failing on this one. I do have to dedicate some thinking and time to working on it. And I will. As to the guest posts, they will definitely return next Tuesday to their normal routine. A couple of the guests had some problems (as you can see, I’m not the only one) and we had to postpone their publishing dates.

Hey, but I do have some great news! We’re making the rounds here! Some great people are mentioning the blog around and we’re getting noticed. Isn’t this great? You should know this is really fantastic! All this love you all share for the blog just makes me keep going, and that’s exactly why I hate letting you down and not posting anything.

Well, moving on to today’s topic, I want to share some thoughts I had yesterday regarding something that happened between a dear client and me. They started working with a new account with better deadlines, but worse rates (I think you may know where this will head, right?), but requiring high quality (oh, really?). Therefore, they told me they couldn’t count on me to do the translation, because I charge high rates (which are not high at all, FYI), but wanted me on board to be the editor, since they were aware of the quality service I provide. Fine. First of all, a glossary with dozens of words. Quick and simple – if the translator had helped, that is. To give you some context, the translation is IT related – this is my area of expertise. Well, our colleague the translator decided he wanted to revolutionize the IT and translated every single term, according to him, “avoiding Anglicism”. I don’t know how it works on other languages, but in Brazilian Portuguese, a lot of words remain in English, it’s already widely-used like that by many well-known IT companies. Well, I corrected most of his choices to what is commonly used in the IT segment. The problem is the translator did not agree with them, and told us, and here I quote, he “wanted to be more inventive”. Also according to him, “that’s the first step to achieve superior quality”.

Well, I won’t go on telling every single word he used to reply to my corrections. The thing here is, unless you translate for the literary sector, you are not free to translate however you desire. It doesn’t matter what you think about something – your opinion is of no value when dealing with technical translations. You need to follow what is used in the sector – and the client’s preferences. All the big boys in IT have already decided what is translated and what is not. If you try to translate mouse using a Brazilian Portuguese word people will not recognize what you’re talking about, right? So why revolutionize?

Quality is not about reinventing the wheel, but following guidelines and rules, using the target language correctly and being fluent, transforming the source into a text that doesn’t sound like a translation.

In Brazil, we usually say someone is trying to show they are working hard (mostrar trabalho), but it does not necessarily mean the person is working or doing the right thing. Therefore, do not try to show you’re a good translator, just translate the best you can, and the rest will work for itself. 😉

Note: I asked out of the project, because I anticipated long hours of arguments with the translator, and that is certainly totally pointless, in my point of view.

Since we’re sharing client stories today, how about you sharing one of yours?

22Jan2015

Are you ready for 2015?

Posted in Weekly post by Carol's Adventures in Translation

Welcome back to our weekly posts, dear followers! It took me a while to go back to the normal working routine after three weeks working at a slower pace, but now things seem to be at full speed. New clients, new projects and endless jobs are taking all of my time these last two weeks, my first working weeks of the year, so I’m totally excited!

I’ll be presenting a webinar next week (stay tuned for more info on my social media), I’m scheduled to take the online course Cultural Studies and Modern Languages: an Introduction, hosted by FutureLearn, next month, and I am trying to follow Marta Stelmaszak’s January Business Camp. Though I’m running late on this last one, I’ll definitely catch up soon. Talk about a hectic beginning of the year, right? Phew!

Speaking on hard work, today I read (and shared) an interesting article in Portuguese. The translation of its title is: 2015 will be a difficult year. As it seems, the GDP in Brazil will increase only a bit (if it increases), inflation will persist, interests will be high… However, the author states that, in a difficult year, those who are real professionals stand out, while only those who are not suffer its consequences. Therefore, we (real professionals) should not worry about it, since nothing changes to us. In an “easy” year, on the other hand, anyone thrives — though it may be more due to luck than to deserving it.

According to Daniel Castello, author of the article, in order to thrive in a difficult year, you need a professional plan that needs to be put in practice with discipline. I’d like to add here that not only in difficulty years should you write a business plan, but every year. Looking back to what you have achieved in the previous year, analyzing what needs to change and what worked, and knowing where you want to be in the new year are essentials steps to growing your business and improving your services. Therefore, if you are already used to doing so every year, a difficult year will be piece of cake to you, as you may only need to adjust a few things here and there.

The good thing about a difficult year is that the customer is more rigorous and demanding. Making mistakes is too expensive, so their investment needs to pay off. Therefore, they will only look for those who innovate, differentiate themselves from their competitors, add value and communicate well. Those who don’t take their jobs seriously and stand out will soon leave room for real professionals who are willing to work hard.

I’m ready for 2015. How about you?