And what about DTP?

17/4/2018

I have had this blog post in my drafts for months and now I have finally managed to finish it and have the chance to publish it in the very interesting and highly relevant blog Apertis Verbis.
Please, feel free to check it out here.
It's just a beginners guide for anyone who is starting out as a freelancer or a project manager and would like to know a bit more desktop publishing, but I think that many people will benefit from it.

Thanks for having me on your blog, girls - Miruna, Ele and Lara!

3 reasons to write

9/4/2018

Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash

Before moving to the UK and starting the MA, I had never written on any publications, journals or websites, neither in English nor in Italian, mainly because the jobs that I was in were not very intellectually stimulating and because Italian universities are, let’s say, not very dynamic or young.

For these reasons, I had really no self-esteem in terms of my writing skills (my skills in general) and I didn’t know where to start. Therefore, it was actually my partner who pushed me to open a blog and to take any opportunity to write and put my name out there.

These chances came when, as I said before, I started university again and therefore started writing reports about the Professionalisation Talks I was attending. After that, I did some volunteer project coordinating work for Translator Without Borders and I started a position as Project Manager in Leeds. Even though I was always busy, I tried to keep this writing exercise active, not only because I wanted to keep up with my writing skills in another language (reason #1), but I also wanted to share my point of view on translation subjects and, why not, helping a cause I believe in. Thus, I wrote a few times on the company’s blog, on some friends’ blog, as well as, on the first ITI Student Bulletin.

On this note, writing short articles and reports, helped me get transferable skills (reason #2) that I could use when writing complicated emails, which in my job happens almost every day. You just want to get your point across without fussing around too much.

On top of this, this practice helped me networking and meeting new very interesting and highly intelligent people that enriched my knowledge and life experience (reason #3); and what's even better is that you can share what you have been working on social media to make other people know what you are doing and possibly inspire them.

To provide some examples of easy ways to start, I added here below some of the blog posts and short articles I wrote.

Available here : https://www.leeds.ac.uk/arts/news/article/4350/third_cts_professionalisation_talk-translation_transadaption_and_subtitling

Available here: https://www.leeds.ac.uk/arts/news/article/4581/cts_students_volunteer_with_translators_ without_borders

available at: http://apertisverbis.wixsite.com/mels/single-post/2017/02/14/Working-as-a-Translation-Project-Manager

Available here: https://www.iti.org.uk/attachments/article/1139/Final%20%20ITI%20Student%20Bulletin%20-%20Ignition.pdf

available at: https://www.andiamo.co.uk/blog/death-office-working-freelance-future

Hence, considering all I have mentioned above, I suggest everyone to write more to keep your brain busy and your mind active!

What do you think? Will you start a blog about your opinions too? It doesn't need to be about translation, it can be about anything you like :)

The underestimated importance of reference material

5/7/2017

Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash

The translation industry is known for being unpredictable, many times new projects come in waves. One week is slow and quiet and the next one is so busy and fast that you don’t even realise that is almost the weekend.

When everybody remembers that it’s almost the end of the month and they forgot to send the files for translation, things can get very busy and stressful and right at the point, we PMs forget the importance of reference material.

But what is reference material? Well… this term covers a very wide variety of files that are normally sent to the translators to help them understand the source material or the subject matter of the project, and to be consistent with the previous translated material. They can be Translation Memories, Terminology Databases, previous translations (for example, this can be very useful when translating manuals as well as marketing material) or visual material, such as pictures, CAD drawings and so on.

These files can be supplied by the end clients when requesting a job, however this is a very rare occurrence, as PMs need to ask for them every time a project goes ahead. It is true that translators should do their own research and spend time looking for what they are translating to better understand the subject matter, however having all the files ready for a project can speed up the whole process a lot, improving the delivery deadline and translation too.
It is the classic PPPPP rule – Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance!

Unfortunately, this step is often overlooked in the fast-paced industry of translation. I believe that agencies should take more care of storing and using properly all the reference material that is necessary for a project. An example are TDs which are not as widely used as TMs mainly because looking after terminology is a long process compared to simply throwing everything in a TM and then ask the translators to search for the terms they may need. Also, to create TDs, you need to make a small investment and spend time researching what the preferred and correct terminology is. On a positive note though, the programmes needed to maintain them are very cheap and are already included in other main packages, such as Excel and Trados Multiterm.

All in all, I believe that taking some time to look after terminology and do some research to provide more context are a crucial step to improve the quality of translation and make a translation project flow smoothly. This will also avoid receiving negative feedback mainly based on terminology and a ton of questions from the translators! 😊

On the importance of organisation...

23/5/2017

Sometimes it’s hard to keep on top of everything. We always have a lot going on: very long lists of emails to answer, people waiting for us, the phone ringing and just things to do - working as PM is also this. For how much you try to be organised, there is always that new project or query that pops up and makes everything else slide on the bottom of the list for the day.

What I found particularly challenging when I first started managing my own projects and clients, is that every day I would find myself in front of this never-ending list of emails all related to different projects, coming from translators, clients and colleagues. I have experimented several techniques, like sorting out one email at a time, so that I did not have to make a list. Then, I tried to go through them all at the same time and then check them again putting together a list; however, I found that some of these, let’s call them, techniques made me feel every more anxious and less organised.

So, after experimenting and failing and experimenting again, I finally discovered what works for me in order to organise my email inbox and set my tasks for the day! My strategy now consists in having my trusted diary next to me and going through my emails, writing down a task only when needed. Therefore, if it’s a quick email that I need to reply to, I will just do it, but if I need to check 3000 words, I will add a task to the list. Please don’t think that my lists look all beautifully written (see Instagram *coughs* fake *coughs* diaries); they actually look like a mess, but the important thing is that they make sense to me!

This all may seem very silly to you, but understanding that LISTS ARE GOOD has been crucial to me. To do this you do not need anything fancy, so no fancy and expensive glittery diaries (maybe with some unicorns :)), no super rose gold pens or anything like that. You will only need a pen (that works, possibly) and a piece of paper to put down what needs to be done for the day.
Another important part that I wanted to focus on is that I had to learn how to prioritise tasks throughout the day, i.e. understanding what needs to be done first and what can be done later or even tomorrow. This is one of the most important sides of project management, as well as, time management. You need to understand what’s more urgent otherwise you will have clients chasing deliveries, translators waiting to start and a general sense of anxiety (at least for me).

HOW TO ‘REFRESH’ A LANGUAGE

10/5/2017

We all know that learning new languages is always exciting, but we also know that keeping them alive is not always easy if we don’t get to practice them every day. That’s why, even though I had previously studied Spanish for five years and got a DELE certificate in Spanish, last year I decided to start ‘refreshing’ my Spanish.

This opportunity came around when I started working as a PM and the company where I work now offered to pay for my course. Being Italian, this is a very interesting option, as it is quite rare that companies offer to pay for your education or personal development in Italy. Therefore, I welcomed this new chance to know more about the Spanish language and culture without thinking too much about it.

I re-started learning Spanish last year in September and I felt quite nervous about getting down to practice it again, but week after week, I felt more comfortable and confident about it. This has a lot to do with the fact that Spanish and Italian are very similar and they share part of the vocabulary, while for English native speakers, learning Spanish could be a bit more of a challenge.

In any case, the Spanish course has been like a breath of fresh air for me compared to the Masters course that I finished not long ago. I really enjoyed it and it had a positive impact both on my mind and on my work. I now feel more free and confident both checking and translating from Spanish as well as sure that my knowledge of that language is up to a high standard. Also, re-learning this language has allowed me to have more flexibility in terms of thinking and considering different perspectives.

I would recommend to anyone to attend a language course, if their daily schedule allows them to.
It opens your mind and provides much more flexibility and happiness (at least to me).

The 'magical mystery' world of the Subtitling projects workflow

23/4/2017

When looking around on the internet to find inspiration and suggestions regarding how a subtitling project can be structured, I only managed to find very confused instructions and even more confused workflows. At uni, we talked about ‘templates’, ‘corporate videos’, etc., but none of these very clear terms were mentioned in blogs online.

For this reason, I thought of writing down a way to provide subtitles, which is very simple and linear, at least from my point of view. First of all, to implement this workflow, you will need to know how to work with subtitling programmes, as well as, having a decent understanding of subtitling theory and practice.

1 - THE SCRIPT
The first step can be skipped if you already have a script at your disposal. However, if you don’t, which is what happens in most cases, you will need to write it down, or extract it through a programme such as Dragon Naturally Speaking, which is in fact very useful for many other things as it has a variety of functions.

2 - THE PROJECT
In any case, going back to the workflow, once you have obtained the script in a way or another, you will need to prepare a time-coded file in English (or in the source language depending on where you are based or on the language of the video that you are subtitling). You can create this file through programmes like Swift, WinCaps or Spot, in which you normally create a project (just like in a CAT tool, if this reassures you… maybe it doesn’t :) ) and then you ‘link’ the video to it. This allows you to ‘work’ on the video creating your captions, even though you are actually not working on the video as you are working on the subtitling project, which if you have WinCaps, has an extension that is called ‘. w32’. At this point, you will need to import the script (in most programmes, there will be an ‘import’ button – easy), but before that, make sure that the project settings are correct, e.g. there can be maximum two lines per caption, the reading speed is adequate for the video you are subtitling, etc.

3- TIME-CODING + BURN-IN
After the script added to the project, you can start timing it in; you can do this manually, or you can time it in automatically and tweak it, depending on the functions available on your subtitling programme. At this point, you will have a perfectly working subtitling file, however its format will be a bit useless as it is. In fact, in most cases, you will need to export it to more useful formats such as ‘.vtt’ or ‘.srt’; otherwise, if you are required to, you will need to ‘hardcode’ the subtitles on the video. This process is also called ‘burn-in’ and it includes ‘attaching’ the captions on the actual video in order to be able to open a single file in any media player and directly see the subtitles on the screen. This technique is not very much used anymore and makes exchanging subtitled videos very heavy and time-consuming. Also, in order to implement this additional step, you will need to use another programme, such as Adobe Premiere Pro.

I would suggest this workflow to people that are starting out with subtitles, or that have multilingual projects to manage. However, I will be happy to know if anybody has any good suggestions to implement in this workflow to make it faster or more efficient. Also, I would like to add that personally, if I had to subtitle and translate a video only into a language, I’d rather do it manually, doing the translation myself, as I do enjoy it very much! :)

Bye now!

Marina

An insight into the Translation Project Manager role

22/1/2017

The role of the translation project manager is mainly overseen when thinking about the translation industry, probably because it is not fully understood. In fact, when first approaching translation studies, I didn’t even know that this position existed. For this reason, I thought of writing about what I actually do at work, giving an insight into this role. A blog post like this would have helped me a lot when I was starting out as PM, so I thought that it may help any other translation students to understand if that’s something that they may see themselves doing at the end of their studies.

During a normal day at work, I start checking my emails to see if there are any requests or if any freelance translators have delivered pending translations that were due over the weekend or on Monday morning. After that I usually prepare quote requests – in most of the cases this involves setting up a project in a CAT tool (mostly Trados) and checking if there are any Translation Memories available to attach to the project in order to obtain a word count to quote on, however this step is not always needed as subtitles or transcreation may be requested. For regular clients, for which the quote is likely to ahead, it is also useful to start contacting the regular or suitable translators for the project. This will save time for the turnaround of the project, when the quote goes ahead.

Writing emails takes a big part of the day, given that they are used to communicate both with clients, translators and revisers. They are in fact essential to be able to make a project workflow fast and effective. They are the main, if not only, mean of communication in translation projects and they allow PMs to be able to multitask in the most efficient way. How to word difficult emails is a sort of skill that most of the people develop with practice; they have the power to change an entire relationship with a specific client. As a PM, I need to make sure that I am polite enough (being Italian, I need to make sure I add a decent number of please :/) and that I phrase sentences in a neat and clear way, trying to get to the point.

During the day, it may also be the case that I need to check translations, depending on the ISO standard that the translation project needs to comply with, this may involve using Quality Assurance tools. Chances are that some files will need to be finalised and possibly be put back together to be able to deliver them to the client in the original format or maybe in the format that the client requested. Therefore, it is interesting to experiment with file formats such as XMLs, HTMLs, CVSs, InDesign files (blog post to come regarding this important file format that is a big number of translation project that I manage :)), etc.

Finally, team work among PMs and also between PMs and translators is key. It is very important to understand how to work as a team, as this will allow the best possible result, however when working in a foreign country, knowing how to approach people and what is okay and what’s not can make your life easier. In England, for example, saying “No, this is wrong” can be perceived as rude, however in Italy it could be perfectly acceptable, given that you are just expressing your opinion and that this may be in contrast with something else. Nonetheless, I believe that in different situations that same “No” could have saved time and money. Having said that, being flexible, communicative and understanding is key – in many situations customer care skills will prove to be extremely important not only when facing a client, but also when debating with a colleague.

I hope this will be useful for anyone interested in translation project management! :)

#xl8 #t9n #translation

TRANSLATION QUALITY (?)

23/11/2016

After few months of experience in the “real” translation industry, I feel that I can discuss some hot topics that are usually subject of discussion in this market.

Lately, translation quality and efficiency have kind of attracted my attention, however quality has been a big issue for me, as I have been asked to judge translated texts few times by now. What somebody can consider a good quality piece, can sometimes be judged as simply acceptable or average by someone else. As commonly believed, translation is not a precise science and judging it is not always easy. Many LSPs perform suppliers’ quality assessments to ensure that their quality is constantly up to their standards, however at times that is not good enough either.

This topic is usually discussed in translation courses like the one that I attended in Leeds. However, I do think that what is said during the classes does not always reflect the method that professors used to mark our translations. In fact, during the marking stage, the concepts of “right” and “wrong” usually intervene, obscuring all the theories behind translation studies. I am not sure if what’s required is a higher quality translation or if markers would like students to use a different style from what is actually their own way of writing.

It is possible that “translation style” is valued more in the “real” translation market, rather than at university. It is actually respected more and a translation is only considered unacceptable when mistranslations and grammar errors are included in a text. Unfortunately, this side of the coin allows people that do not have any knowledge of translation studies to become translators after having another previous career. I am not saying that there is anything wrong with this, however when they do make mistakes, they simply justify them as “styles choices”. Their lack of knowledge regarding how to perform a translation or how to localise a product is therefore clear.

Overall, I believe that yes, universities should require a high level of translation as they are actually teaching techniques and important theories behind translating, nonetheless I also think that they should accept that students can have their own style and they are still shaping it. Therefore, it will take them years to define how they write as well as to become professional translators. Also, a basic knowledge of translation methods should be part of the background required to be a translator – even if you are an engineer and you speak two languages, you are not a translator.

What’s your opinion on quality in translation? Is there a way to ensure quality?

#TranslatingEurope Forum

6/11/2016

It took me a while to write this blog, but I finally I managed to find the time to sit down and resume my feelings and ideas about the Translating Europe Forum that was held on 27th and 28th of October 2016.

Everything simply started this summer, when my amazing professor Dragos Ciobanu kindly asked me if I was available for attending the forum... of course I WAS AVAILABLE! It had been incredible to know that I had been good enough to have the honour to represent the University of Leeds at such an amazing occasion.

To be honest I didn't know what to expect and most of all I didn't know what my role was in such an event.
Everything suddenly became clear when the whole thing started; as the email that I read endless times stated, it was an occasion for young professionals, professors and translation stakeholders to get together and know more about where the translation market is going, about which are the news and what could be done to improve the current situation both from a freelancer and a LSP's points of view. The most surprising bit was that students have been put on the same level of professors and professionals. I think that this approach helped us speak out loud a bit more and to actively participate at the discussions that have taken place.

This very positive and forward looking environment has been the perfect background to discuss the main points that everybody is talking about now:

MACHINE TRANSLATION, considering mainly statistical MT based on a corpus of texts. However, there are constant developments on neural MT and maybe a grammar-based MT.
MACHINE TRANSLATION + TRANSLATION MEMORIES, such as CASMACAT and MATECAT and how the two have been developed for different uses and with different goals in mind.
THE IMPORTANCE OF TERMINOLOGY, as monolingual and bilingual terminology extraction and how the two processes can be refined to obtain very high quality resources. Some sessions in particular offered reports that may allow LSPs to understand which tool could be more useful than others. Also, the speech about how IATE will be "transferred" to IATE 2 and how to effectively manage terminology has been one of the most interesting subject of discussion.
THE IMPACT OF TECHNOLOGY ON TRANSLATORS and the question "Will technology replace human translators???". This issue has been discussed in several instances throughout the forum, however there is no meeting point. Some translators think the impact that technology is having now is considerable and in the future there will not be the need for human translators. Other (me included) think that we create technology for us and according to our needs, therefore we only need to make the most of it in order to make it work for ourselves.

Overall, this has been an amazing experience that has given me an insight of what being a young professional in a multicultural environment means, i.e. cool! I had to chance to know many new facets and aspects of the industry as well as meeting so many important and interesting people.

If you want to know more about the event, please click on this link:
https://ec.europa.eu/info/events/translatingeurope_en

If you would like to have a look at what's been tweeted just look for the ash tag #TranslatingEurope

Life update & nuovo lavoro

20/9/2016

È passato un po' di tempo dall'ultima volta che ho scritto un post, devo ammetterlo, ma sono successe molte cose positive nel frattempo.

Il Master è finito e io non sono neanche riuscita a parlare di metà degli argomenti che erano sulla mia lista. Tutto ciò perché ho trovato un lavoro. Ebbene sì, il volontariato e il duro lavoro hanno dato i loro frutti.

Ma arriviamo al punto, il mio nuovo lavoro è una posizione di Translator Project Manager presso l'agenzia di traduzione Andiamo! Language Services, qui a Leeds, in West Yorkshire. Naturalmente questa notizia arriva un po' in ritardo dato che ho cominciato il 13 di giugno, ma questo è un dettaglio. Il lavoro è molto interessante ed effettivamente copre tutti i vari step del workflow della traduzione; oltre a questo, mi permette di esplorare diversi tipi di progetti, tra i quali voice-over, sottotitolaggio, trascrizioni, localizzazione, ecc... In sostanza mi da un'idea generale di come gestire tipi diversi di progetti e di come riuscire ad approcciarmi in maniera più professionale ai clienti e non solo. Sembra essere un'opportunità fantastica sia per l'azienda per avere conoscenze nuove, ma anche per me, per sviluppare le mie capacità in questo ambito e chissà imparare qualcosa di nuovo che potrà essermi utile una volta per conto mio.

Tutta questa fantastica descrizione del mio attuale lavoro è per dire che, dopo aver fatto il Master in Applied Translation Studies all'Università di Leeds, mi sento molto preparata per affrontare le diverse sfide che sto incontrando. Infatti dall'inizio ho potuto dimostrare che le mie conoscenze tecniche, ma anche nel servizio clienti, erano all'altezza della posizione. Un esempio ne è il corso opzionale di sottotitolaggio che ho seguito nel secondo semestre; è stato estremamente utile non solo perché sono riuscita a come dire "salvare" un progetto, ma anche perché mi sono veramente divertita a giocare con i time-code e a usare il software per la creazione di sottotitoli.

Un altro punto a favore del ruolo che sto ricoprendo, e dell'azienda in cui lavoro, è la possibilità di essere supportati economicamente per imparare una nuova lingua straniera o addirittura migliorare una lingua che si conosce già. Nel mio caso, il corso di spagnolo avanzato comincia fra un paio di settimane, quindi vedremo come sarà riprendere questa lingua dopo vari anni di silenzio assoluto.

Insomma, il ruolo di Project Manager sembra fare al caso mio per il momento, l'unica pecca è che non ho mai l'opportunità di parlare o scrivere in italiano. È anche vero che bisogna aver la voglia di crearsi le opportunità, quindi probabilmente riuscirò ad avere anche questa opzione più avanti.

Per concludere penso senza aver frequentato il corso all'Università di Leeds, questo lavoro non sarebbe neanche potuto essere un'opzione da considerare, perciò parlerò dei diversi pro e contro in un altro post. Per ora, aggiungo qui sotto il link dell'ultimo video che è stato girato nel corso dello scorso anno accademico; da un assaggio di come studiare a Leeds sia e di quanto i corsi offerti siano interessanti e moderni.

Ciao for now!

Marina