The Greener Word

2011 in review

2011-12-31T12:30:00.002-06:00

Happy New Year to those of you already celebrating 2012! We still have a few hours left before the clock strikes twelve in Missouri so I'm performing my traditional year-end review and setting goals for the upcoming year with a cup of tea and mince pie. Looking back at 2011, some features stand out:

• My business has altered a little over the past year: Instead of working almost exclusively for direct clients in Germany I am now translating quite a bit for agencies in the US. I'm really pleased to have diversified my customer and currency base a little given recent developments in the Eurozone.

• Preliminary figures show that gross revenue from translation and editing projects invoiced in euros increased by about seven per cent in 2011. I haven't looked at the official figures yet, but my sense is that I worked a lot more than in 2010, as well. The exchange rate was not quite as favourable as it was in 2010, which led me to take action at the end of 2011.

• With the exception of government clients with whom I have long-term contracts, all of my clients are now paying higher prices or will be from 1 January 2012. Right now it looks like everybody has agreed to the price increase (it had been a few years since the last round) so I'm breathing a sigh of relief and looking forward to maintaining these relationships for another year.

• I had the privilege of working on some truly fascinating and inspiring projects this year. I translated reports about waste collection projects in sub-Saharan Africa, mitigating greenhouse gas emissions in small island nations, recycling plastic bottles in China, a sustainability report, International Toilet Day and press releases for a solar technology firm in the US, to name just a few.

• I lost two direct clients this year. One filed for insolvency and the other was bought by a competitor who chose to stick with their existing translation service provider. It could have been worse. Luckily, it had been a few months since I had worked for them, and all invoices had been paid.

• I was acknowledged in print as the translator of two reports that I handled in the second half of the year. I have to confess that I didn't actively seek to be credited and in both cases the customer requested my permission. This is something that I'm going to try to pursue more actively next year and beyond.

• I wrote and sent out my first newsletter (available here). I also paid a trusted colleague to translate the newsletter into German, which incidentally offered real insight into the experience of a translation buyer. I'm already working on the next edition and hope to make this a regular occurrence.

• One of my main goals entering 2011 was to mix up my approach to professional development. I attended a waste management conference in January, a networking event for business communicators in March and the ITI Conference in the UK in May. I'm looking into going to a trade fair in Germany next year.

• MICATA duties have kept me fairly busy, as well. Our headline event, the MICATA Symposium, will be held in Kansas City in late March, and feature two days of continuing education for translators and interpreters.

• Returning to paid duties, the last quarter of the year has ended up being my busiest quarter since I started freelancing in 2005. I was fully booked after returning from the ATA Conference in late October (which is why I haven't had the time to blog about what turned out to be my favourite ATA Conference) until December 23rd. Thankfully most of my clients in Germany have been out of the office since then so I've had a few days to recharge the batteries.

Looking ahead to 2012, my only goal is to try to achieve a better work-life balance. My love of translation is just as strong as it has always been, but I have spent far too many nights of late burning the proverbial midnight oil. So heeding my own advice, it's time to get this post up and spend the rest of the day relaxing with my family. The translations can wait until Monday.

A decade in translation

2011-09-29T12:59:00.003-05:00

This month marks ten years since my career as a full-time translator began. I finished my degree in translation and interpreting in the summer of 2001 and immediately sought an in-house position as a translator in southern Germany where my now-husband lived. By luck and good fortune, I managed to find a job as an in-house translator and journalist at a specialised publishing house in the beautiful Black Forest region of Germany.

I walked in on my first day naively believing that my degree in translation had prepared me adequately for this position. How wrong I was! The next four years proved transformative for my career: The colleague with whom I shared an office took me under her wing and helped me to become the translator I am today. As many of you know from previous posts, this company also produces Germany's leading journal for the waste management and recycling industry, allowing me to gain deep knowledge of the area that is now my primary speciality. One of the benefits of my job was that I could travel to trade fairs and conferences in France, Switzerland, Germany, Belgium, Finland and the Netherlands. I also visited different types of waste treatment plants, from landfills to hazardous waste incinerators and e-scrap recycling facilities. I cannot understate how grateful I am for all of these experiences.

Six years ago a new chapter of my life began with a move to Kansas City. Going from working in a busy office to becoming a freelancer was an adjustment, to say the least. The quiet was deafening so I learned to work with BBC World Service playing in the background. I embraced social media, joined my local translators association, MICATA, and became a devoted attendee of ATA conferences. Over the past six years my customer base has also undergone a significant shift from being reliant on just one or two clients to becoming more diverse. As the next ten years of my career in translation dawn it is perhaps fitting that I am beginning a new role: I will become president of MICATA on 1st October. I am excited for the challenges and opportunities that it will bring, and look forward to repaying some of the kindness shown to me during the first phase of my career. Here's to many more decades to come!

A ♥ for Language Blogs

2011-06-30T23:01:00.002-05:00

Welcome to any readers visiting by way of Translation Tribulations! Judy and Dagmar Jenner from Translation Times, who I have had the good fortune to meet at ATA conferences, suggested last week that translation bloggers write a post listing their favourite language-related blogs. I noticed this evening that traffic to my blog had picked up today and soon realised that most hits had come from Kevin Lossner's blog, Translation Tribulations. In order to raise the profile of some of my favourite blogs that have not yet been mentioned, I will endeavour to follow Kevin's example. To avoid reinventing the wheel, I will not list any blogs that I have found in similarly titled posts. Here are the Exceptional Eight (in no particular order).

1. As a German-English translator one of my absolute hands-down favourite blogs is False Friends, Good and Bad Translation, Denglisch, Tipps für Übersetzer. Don't let the lengthy title put you off. Written mainly in German by Martin Crellin and his team at Martin Crellin Copywriting and Translation, this delightful blog looks at mistranslations and offers some great ideas about how to tackle false friends and tricky terms that would trip up inexperienced translators. Impressum and Prokurist, anyone?

2. Not a language blog per se, but Craig Morris does occasionally foray into translation-related issues in his blog, Always Greener. The blog takes an in-depth look at developments in green energy policy. It also includes posts about German-American relations and reflects Craig's experiences as an American living in Germany. Craig specialises in translating texts relating to renewable energies and is director of Petite Planète Translations.

3. Next up are a couple of UK-based translators. Philippa Hammond's blog, Blogging Translator, was one of the first blogs by British translators that I came across before I started writing The Greener Word. I really enjoy the clean graphics of her blog that allow the reader to focus on the content of her posts with no distractions. She writes a lot about freelancing and provides reviews of translation events that she attends, something that I appreciate as an expat who can make it to translation conferences in the UK only on a sporadic basis. Philippa is an MITI and translates from French, Spanish and Portuguese into English.

4. Betti Moser, a fellow German translator, recently launched her new blog . Betti is also a copywriter and editor, and her first few posts show of promising things to come.

5. Another new blog comes from Ana Iaria, an English-Brazilian Portuguese translator specialising in legal translation. I first met Ana at the ATA Conference's bloggers lunch, grew to appreciate her points of view more in her postings on the ATA Business Practice's Division mailing list and bumped into her again at the ITI Conference this year. Hopefully our paths will cross again this autumn in Boston. She pulls no punches in her posts on trends and quality in translation.

7. Another legal translator with a more established blog is Margaret Marks. Transblawg is a must-read for any German translator. Her insightful posts are often interspersed with photos of her surroundings. She also has an extensive selection of links that you could lose an entire afternoon following. (I speak from experience).

8. Last, but by no means least, is the ATA Science and Technology division's blog. You will find the whole gamut here from software localisation to phototonics and patent terminology. A new post is published every month or so, and the blog's editors are always seeking submissions from translators involved in the technical and scientific fields.

So there's my eight. Feel free to comment with a link to any blogs that I didn't mention here.

Disposal: A loaded word

2011-06-28T12:45:00.002-05:00

This post was prompted by an e-mail exchange I had last week with a project manager at a translation agency. The PM had previously assigned me a job to edit the translation of a brochure that a waste management company intended to use at trade fairs and industry events. The text was fairly straightforward, but raised an issue that I have had to deal with on a number of occasions, namely how to translate the German verb 'entsorgen' when the target audience is industry insiders. For those of you whose working languages do not include German, 'entsorgen' means nothing more than to manage waste. The noun, 'die Entsorgung', is typically rendered much more easily as waste management.

In this instance, the translator chose to use the verb 'dispose of'. For instance, company ABC disposes of more than XYZ tonnes of waste each year. My contention was and is that this linguistic choice falls short, especially given the target audience and purpose of the translation. To find out why, we need to delve a little deeper into the definition of disposal in a waste management context.

Waste management processes fall into two categories: recovery operations and disposal operations. A joint questionnaire on waste conducted by the OECD and Eurostat defined recovery as "any waste management operation that diverts a waste material from the waste stream and which results in a certain product with a potential economic or ecological benefit." The primary methods of recovery are recycling, energy recovery, composting and re-use.

Conversely, waste management operations are considered as disposal operations only when the material and energy resources contained in the wastes are not used. The main disposal operations are landfilling and other methods of permanent storage as well as incineration without energy generation.

From these definitions it should be clear that any waste management company that, like the business in question specialises in recycling and composting services, will not want their name and brand associated with landfilling and incineration without energy generation. I suggested that the agency might want to consider 'handle', 'process', 'manage' or even 'take care of' instead.

Notwithstanding these comments, it is important to note that 'dispose of' might be a sound translation for 'entsorgen' in some settings. This is especially true when translating texts destined for the general public when the meaning of 'entsorgen' is to 'get rid of' waste.

Another anecdote: In my former life as a journalist for a recycling and waste management journal I visited a number of trade fairs and received a large number of brochures like the one that I was editing. One that sticks in my mind over seven years later was a glossy, colourful brochure from an organisation that provides collection and recycling services for scrap electrical and electronic goods. Its slogan was "Wir entsorgen Ihre Abfälle" in German. The translation into English? "We dispose your waists" (sic). Ouch.

$80 and a t-shirt

2011-04-11T20:25:00.003-05:00

Futurallia, an international business-to-business networking event for professionals, will be held in the United States for the first time ever next month. The location just happens to be the city where I live, Kansas City. I found out that this event was coming to town several months ago when searching for events geared towards the international business community. It is truly a great win for Kansas City to serve as the host for this event. Just last month, the International Trade Council of Greater Kansas City was among four groups that created the OneKC World Trade Center as part of efforts to position the city as a centre for exports. Having Futurallia in Kansas City is certainly a good step in that direction.

With business professionals from 30 countries said to be attending, interpreters will certainly be a must and, indeed, the event's promotional video states that "fully qualified interpreters" will be in attendance. So you will understand how disappointed local professional interpreters were to be offered the following for one day's work at Futurallia:

· a unique and beneficial networking opportunity;
· a stipend of $80 for each day (8am to 5pm) of participation;
· a lanyard with your name;
· a t-shirt to wear while interpreting and yours to keep;
· lunch, snacks and parking provided while interpreting:
· 10 business cards with your information to use for networking opportunities;
· your name and contact information in the Futurallia catalog;
· a certificate recognizing your contribution as an official interpreter/moderator for Futurallia;

I'm not sure which is most insulting: the stipend or the t-shirt that's yours to keep? Behind the scenes, local interpreters describe this offer as a joke, and I can only agree. The rate offered is not only barely above minimum wage in our state, it is also well below the hourly rate charged by any serious professional interpreter. And as for the ten free business cards, what serious interpreter doesn't have his or her own cards?

Acting as a bridge between people of different cultures, professional interpreters have invested in the training needed to deal with the many complex language issues that can arise when people of two completely different backgrounds meet. They know their culture's business etiquette, aren't fazed by tough situations and perform painstaking terminology research in advance so that they can handle any tricky terms that might arise during meetings. Using foreign language students or any random bilingual speakers that the organisers can track down will certainly not provide the high-class experience that the organisers promote in their videos. With registration starting at over $1,000, it does not seem to be a budgetary issue, but rather an unfortunate case of trying to cut corners where it matters most.

As one local interpreter wrote: "Attendees are going with the expectation of being provided with professional services (interpretation is mentioned as one of the items included in the packages that people buy). They will go in assuming that they will have an opportunity to expand their international business, as that is the whole idea of this event and the reason for going there, but what they don’t know is that most likely they won’t be able to properly communicate or, even worse, they will miscommunicate while being under the impression that they have been understood. There could be long-term financial and business repercussions for them. Not to mention the attendees who are paying for travel from overseas and will have the same expectations."

Our local ATA Chapter, MICATA, is writing to the organisers of Futurallia, asking them to reconsider their approach to hiring interpreters. I can only hope that they choose to invest in professional service providers and don't squander this unique opportunity to let Kansas City shine in the international spotlight.

Where I'm going...and where I've been

2011-03-16T15:23:00.003-05:00

2011 has so far proven to be an incredibly hectic year on many fronts. January and February marked the busiest start to a year since I launched my freelancing business in 2005, with revenues beating the previous best by 20 per cent. Some favourite projects from those two months included a corporate social responsibility report, a couple of contracts that involved in-depth terminology research and working with a regular client on a website re-launch.

On the volunteering front, I have been devoting quite a bit of time to my role as Secretary of the Mid-America Chapter of the American Translators Association (MICATA). The Board meets monthly now as we prepare for our annual symposium towards the end of March (full information available by visiting www.ata-micata.org). As well as working to publicise the event, I have also been putting together a series of networking events for Kansas City-area translators and interpreters. The first two meetings took place at local cafes and in the next few months we will be touring the Nelson-Atkins Art Museum and Boulevard Brewery (again, for more information visit MICATA's website).

One of my main objectives for this year is to mix things up when it comes to professional development and my marketing approach. In early January, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the local chapter of the Air and Waste Management Association was holding a one-day technical conference on the southern outskirts of Kansas City. My primary objective in attending was to learn more about Kansas City's waste management infrastructure and improve my knowledge of US waste terminology. It was really eye-opening to compare and contrast where my local region is in handling its waste compared with Germany. The good news that I took away for my business was that German companies might well have room to sell their products and services in this market and thus need translation services. Indeed, an Austrian company delivered the technology for our Kansas City's first glass recycling plant just a couple of years ago.

Terminology and local insight were not the only gains from attending, though: I also landed two potential customers. Both leads came by talking to local employees of international corporations who were kind enough to pass my details on to their German offices. I have already completed one small job so attending the event has paid for itself, and I also made contacts with other companies that might allow me tour their facilities over the coming months.

I have quite a few other projects in the pipeline for this spring. In the final week of March I will be heading to northern Missouri to talk to students at a local university about careers in translation and interpreting. My website is also in the process of undergoing a fundamental overhaul. I'm excited to be finally adding a German-language version geared towards end customers in the waste management industry. I also just signed up to attend the ECPD webinar on building a website and am closely eyeing a few forthcoming webinars on using MS Word and editing.

The month of May will see me cross the Atlantic again and attend the Institute of Translation and Interpreting's Conference in Birmingham. I am also really excited to find out more about Translate in the Catskills in the summer. Later in the autumn I will hopefully be rounding off the year by heading for the ATA Conference in Boston.

The unfortunate consequence for this blog is that it has been rather neglected over the past 18 months or so. I did consider shutting down this blog altogether, but I've decided to keep it open for now in the hopes that I will have more time to devote to it in the future. For now, thanks for reading and I hope to be back soon.

Trade Journals: A Valuable Resource for Niche Translators

2010-11-30T14:32:00.002-06:00

I began my career working as an in-house translator and journalist at a German company that publishes trade journals for a variety of industries. Nearly ten years later, this publisher is still my best client. This relationship has given me a great deal of insight into the many benefits of subscribing to journals so I thought I would share some tips today for harnessing their full potential.

Before we get to these suggestions, I should add that seeking recommendations is the way to go when deciding on which journal to spend your hard-earned money. A simple Google search simply will not typically yield the best results, but rather the company that has spent the most advertising money. Consider starting a discussion on a LinkedIn Group in your area of speciality or asking your clients which journals they prefer to read and why.

I currently subscribe to four trade journals; I have pared down this figure over the past few years given the limited amount of time I have left to read at the end of the day. Three journals arrive at my office in e-mail format and one comes via snail mail. After a full day looking at the screen my eyes are normally weary so I will occasionally print out an electronic version and read it on the sofa with a cup of tea and a highlighter. I assuage my conscience by remembering that this approach is still better for the environment than having a copy shipped to me every week.

1) Keep up to date with developments
The main reason why I started subscribing to trade journals was to keep abreast of developments in the recycling and waste management industry. One of the more magazine-like publications I receive is filled with advertising, but also has a large number of articles about new technologies. Another offers in-depth reporting on major topics that might not be found in mainstream media articles. Yet another often has scoops on behind-the-scenes happenings.

Knowing what is going on in my industry is indispensable for me as a niche translator. When company X calls me about a translation project it solidifies my image as a reputable service provider if I can let them know that I recently heard about their acquisition of company Y just a few days prior. For instance, last month I was on the phone with a potential client just minutes after I opened a journal to find front-page speculation that DSD, Germany's largest scheme for collection and recycling packaging waste, was soon to be sold. When I mentioned this to the other person on the line he expressed surprise that I had already read about these rumours even though Kansas City is thousands of miles away from Germany.

2) Find potential clients
Another great way to use trade journals is as a source of potential clients. One of the weekly publications I subscribe to even has a page listing each company that has featured in its pages, together with that firm's physical and virtual address. I tend to read through each journal with two highlighters – I use a yellow pen to mark any company that might benefit from translation services and a green pen to highlight any terminology (more on that in section four). I have an Excel file into which I enter these leads, and periodically I will select a few to contact as well as undertaking more concerted marketing campaigns close to major trade fairs.

3) Advertise
Following on from this point, I think that it is worthwhile to remember that trade journal readers are a sitting audience when it comes to marketing your services. It is definitely advisable to find out how much the publisher charges for a decent-sized advert and see if you can fit it into your marketing budget. Splash out on a colour advertisement if you can afford it. Remember: just one medium-sized translation project can recoup the cost of advertising all year long. Make sure that you also invest the money to have a professional advert designed to reflect well on your image as a niche translator.

4) Harvest terminology
I wrote a separate blog post about harvesting terminology a couple of years ago. Without wishing to cover the same ground twice, I would merely note that their function as a source of terminology is one of the main reasons that I continue to subscribe to a couple of these resources. Reading articles written by specialists has helped me to solve a terminology conundrum more than once. I have also found journalists working for these publications to be more than willing to brainstorm possible translations of new terms that do not exist yet in English.

5) Work for them
Do not forget that trade journals might well need translators or proofreaders, as well. Two of the journals I subscribe to are published in both German and English. It is definitely worth dropping the editors a line to find out if they have a need for translation or editing services. You might be able to negotiate preferential advertising rates as a service provider. The trade journal that I work for is even nice enough to provide me with a free subscription to their German-language version as a side-benefit!

These are just a few ways to maximise your trade journal subscriptions. Feel free to add a comment with other ideas and I will update this post accordingly.

Save the Words

2010-11-11T13:46:00.005-06:00

I was driving around town a couple of days ago listening to All Things Considered on National Public Radio (NPR) when my ears pricked up at an interview about a new website called Save the Words. Its purported goal is to save esoteric and obscure words that are gradually falling out of favour and being replaced by words like "bromance", which is towards the top of my personal list of words to hate. The project is a clever marketing ploy devised by an advertising agency hired to promote the print version of the Oxford English Dictionary, but don't necessarily let that dissuade you.

The Save the Words website claims that over 90% of everything we write is communicated by only 7,000 words. The source of this estimate is not named, but the claim does not seem to be too outlandish if you look at an example of the 100 most commonly used words. That being said, I suspect that translators do tend to use more lexical variety than the common writer, as we are undeniably word artists. We play with words, find synonyms and change their form until we have the right combination. On a somewhat related note, I still believe that the best £50 I spent starting out as a translation student was to buy Roget's Thesaurus and the BBI Dictionary of English Combinations. I have those two books on my desk today and their tattered state and coffee marks bear witness to their use.

Anyway back to saving the words again. I decided to support the project for fun and registered with the website. I admit that I did not "adopt" the first word offered to me via the random selector. I wanted to find a word that I would have an opportunity to use on an intermittent basis. The words run the gamut from squiferous (characteristics of a gentleman) to mingent (discharging urine); I even ran across a word that I had used recently - recinerate - although this is hardly surprising given the field in which I specialise. In the end, I settled on ecstasiate, a verb meaning to go into ecstasy or to cause to become ecstatic. Feel free to go and visit and "adopt" your own word. You might be ecstasiated that you did.

Note: The image at the top of this post is a Wordle generated from this blog.

Mile-High Musings

2010-11-08T12:59:00.005-06:00

It is hard to believe that over a week has passed since the ATA Conference. As usual, the Conference proved to be a wonderful four days of networking, education and sightseeing.

For me, the Conference began with the Science and Technology division's tour to the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder. Local Coloradoan and Speaking of Translation co-host Eve Bodeux was kind enough to drive me to Boulder, and she and fellow passenger David Russi served as my personal tour guides to the mountains that we passed on our journey. At NIST our tour included 30-minute presentations on superconductors, the atomic clock, materials reliability and explosives detections. In some cases, our guide had to drag us away as the scientists were so passionate about their topics that they did not want to stop talking and answering questions. Admittedly, some of the information about superconductors went a little over my head. For the most part, though, the tour was a great opportunity to see the behind-the-scenes work at research agencies. It was, as one tour participant put it, geek heaven.

The rest of the Conference flew by. None of the sessions were linked directly to environmental topics this year, but there were many useful presentations, particularly on financial translation (An Introduction to German Financial Statements and German GAAP and BilMoG principles 2010, to name a couple). While there was a great deal of buzz about the implications of machine translation, due in large part to the AMTA Conference that immediately followed the ATA Conference in Denver, the vast majority of the seasoned professionals I talked with saw no great threat to our business.

Outside the educational sessions, most of my time was spent enjoying the mountain views and catching up with fellow translators and interpreters. The German Language Division's unofficial get-together on the 27th floor of the hotel was a real highlight; watching the sun set over the Rockies was a sight that I will not forget any time soon. Fellow bloggers Jill, Fabio, Michael, Tess, Tom and Eve (visit their blogs as well as Translation Times and Thoughts on Translation for more conference coverage and industry news) and I also sat down with readers over lunch. I was glad to learn that at least one person is still reading this blog despite its dormancy, and I now have a list of posts that are in the works, some of which were inspired by fellow conference attendees. My local ATA chapter, MICATA, met for lunch the next day. Needless to say, I ate very well in Denver!

Denver really offered an ideal location for the Conference. The hotel was within walking distance of the downtown area and had an array of shops and tourist attractions to visit. One of these, The Tattered Cover, lived up to its reputation as a reader's paradise with an abundance of reduced books and lots of comfy chairs to sit and read in. I could have easily spent in a day there. As it was, I left with a $7 copy of Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash, a $4 technical writing guide as well as some fiction books for the flight home.

On the final day I used the two-hour lunch break to visit the Colorado State Capitol and buy some chocolate from the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory that I am munching on as I write this post. All in all, the Conference was well worth attending and I'm already counting down the days to Boston in 2011.

Terminology Tuesday: General Environmental Resources

2010-10-12T10:03:00.002-05:00

Another season has passed without a blog post. So what has happened since June? In early summer, work was finally completed on the new office. Like many freelance translators, I work from a home office rather than renting business space. The new office is located in an area separate from our living quarters and also offers a great deal more sunlight, something that I missed in the old north-facing room. While it will never come close to having the view out of the window that I had when I worked in the Black Forest (see above), I am certainly enjoying the view of the garden and seeing nature bloom as I hammer away on the keyboard.

The summer has also been spent putting together a monolingual German website and marketing materials geared towards direct clients in the recycling and waste management industry. A colleague helped me to brainstorm and translate the text and now work shifts to the design phase. Early September also brought with it the annual board elections for our local ATA chapter, MICATA, and with it my election to the position of secretary.

Looking forward, I am counting down the days to this year's ATA conference in Denver. The Science and Technology Division's Wednesday afternoon excursion to the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder promises to be a highlight. Flicking through the preliminary conference programme I found many sessions that could have a direct or indirect positive impact on my business, making the cost of attending the conference a sound investment from an educational perspective alone. This time around I intend to put my dormant French skills to good use (French was my second foreign language going through university) and sneak into some FLD sessions that might be of benefit to some upcoming projects with a financial slant. At each ATA conference I also try to attend a session that sounds intriguing, but has nothing to do with my day-to-day work. Candidates this time include "A Hot-Blooded Young Miss from Kamchatka: Issues in Translating Limericks" and "The Sound of One Fist Clenching: The Business of Translating Japanese Pop Culture".

All of this means that, once again, blogging has fallen by the wayside. As a reward for anyone left reading this poor neglected blog, I thought I would do another Terminology Tuesday post. This edition focuses on general environmental resources. I seem to have gathered quite a few different links to glossaries, dictionaries and thesauri over the past few weeks and months and hope that someone finds something useful among them. The usual disclaimer about checking the veracity of terminology yielded from these sources applies.

Environmental Terminology and Discovery Service (ETDS)
Source: European Environment Agency

Dictionary of Environmental Protection (D-E, E-D)
Source: Federal Environment Agency of Germany

German Environmental Information Portal

Semantic Network Service
Source: Federal Environment Agency of Germany

EIONET GEMET Thesaurus
Source: European Environment and Observation Network

Umwelt-Thesaurussammlung (Lots of great links)
Source: Federal Environment Agency of Germany

Umweltlexicon: Fachbegriffe aus den Bereichen Technik – Wirtschaft – Wissenschaft
Source: EnviComCenter AG

Environmental terms (monolingual English)
Source: EPA

Glossar der umweltschutzrelevanten Begriffe
Source: www.stadtklima.de

Trade fair strategy

2010-06-29T11:32:00.005-05:00

It is only just over two months until the IFAT Entsorga (http://www.ifat.de/en) trade fair. Aren't you all excited? For those of you not in the know, the IFAT Entsorga is arguably one of the world's largest trade fairs for the waste management industry. This year's event is even more exciting than usual because the IFAT has merged with the Entsorga to create one big super-duper trade fair devoted to environmental issues. It will take place from this September in Munich and I hope to be among thousands of people in attendance.

When specialising in such a narrow field, it is really crucial to be visible at such high-profile events. This trade fair happens only every other year so I am doing my best to maximise yields. I am sharing my trade fair strategy in the hope of helping other niche translators attending similar events in their fields.

Six months in advance
- Book plane tickets and hotel
- Sign up for sideline events

Four months in advance
- Look into advertising options. Does the catalogue publisher allow advertisements from non-exhibitors? Draw up a cost-benefit analysis based on the advertising options.

Two months in advance
- Search the online exhibitor database for firms that might need translation services.
- Put together an e-mail to contact these potential clients.
- Ask existing clients if they need additional documents translated in the run-up to the trade fair.

One month in advance
- Contact clients and set up face-to-face meetings
- Print extra business cards and brochures to hand out.

One week in advance
- Dust off the suit and shoes and get ready to network.
- Target the companies that you really want to visit.

Trade fair week
- First day: Walk the halls looking at new products and services. No overt marketing to new customers.
- Second and third days: Meet existing customers, collect bilingual materials from busy stands and talk to potential clients at quieter stands about their possible need for translation services. Gather business cards.

One to two weeks after trade fair
- Send e-mail to existing clients to follow up on your meeting.
- Put those business cards to work! Send an e-mail or call the people you met who showed a possible interest in translation services at some point in the future.

I will try and update later this year with a review of how this strategy worked out.

An expensive lesson learned

2010-06-29T10:59:00.002-05:00

I relate this story as a cautionary tale in the hope that others do not make the same mistake. One of my favourite clients to work with is a German government agency. They always send me interesting projects to translate and are a pleasure to work with. As a government agency, they issue a call for tenders every two years for translation and revision services. Upon acceptance of their bid, translators are then added to their pool of external language service providers. The tender for the next two years was announced on 2nd June with a deadline two weeks later. Being cognisant of the fact that my bid had to cross the Atlantic, I gathered my paperwork and headed off to ship my envelope a couple of days later. Can you already see where this story is going?

Locally we have four providers of shipping services: FedEx, UPS, the Post Office and a local firm that outsources shipping to the first three companies and is much closer to my home office. I have shipped overseas packages with the local firm before on multiple occasions and chose to use them again on this occasion, partly out of convenience. I handed over my package, paid the extra for expedited international shipping and went on my merry way, patting myself on the back for having been so speedy in compiling my bid.

Fast-forward to yesterday morning when I return home from running errands to find an all-too-familiar parcel unopened at my doorstep, ten full days after the deadline for bids had expired. The local shipping firm now claims that it has no information about what happened to the parcel after I left their office. The tracking number is listed as "not found", and the buck is seemingly being passed from one employee to another. It is also unclear how the parcel got back to my house. At this point, I doubt if it actually ever left their office.

To say that I am upset is an understatement. The client in question has provided me with thousands of euros of work over the past three years. I fully understand their position that the deadline for bids has passed and have already made myself a note to look for the next tender two years from now. So the moral of the story is that when it really matters go to the big shipping guys and watch them scan the tracking number of your parcel. I certainly won't be making the same mistake again.

MICATA Symposium

2010-04-27T13:47:00.004-05:00

Registration is now open for this year's MICATA Symposium entitled Looking to the Future: What's Next for Translators and Interpreters? The symposium is scheduled to take place on Saturday 22nd May in Overland Park a suburb on the southern edge of Kansas City. Attendees will also have the opportunity to part ways with some of their business cards at a welcome reception held on the eve of the symposium.

The symposium itself will have three tracks this year: one for translators, one for interpreters and one covering translation technology. I will be holding a presentation on working with direct clients and a joint session with Frieda Ruppaner-Lind on social media for translators. I hope to upload the PPT files to LinkedIn at a later date. An optional dinner at nearby Tatsu's French restaurant (don't visit their website on an empty stomach!) will round off the day. The preliminary schedule and registration information can be found on MICATA's website.

Terminology Tuesday: Waste Incineration

2010-04-20T14:28:00.002-05:00

Winter has turned into spring here in Kansas City without a single blog post from me so far this year. Apologies! As I had mentioned last year, our newest family member, while offering wonderful tax credits, exemptions and deductions, has left me with little time for volunteer activities including this blog. To atone for my blogging sins, I have decided to start an irregular feature sharing some of the links that I have gathered over the years. As I recently translated a quick project about waste incineration, I thought that this subject would be a good place to start. Just a quick disclaimer: I assume no liability for the accuracy or completeness of these websites and/or any translations they may provide.

First, here's a very quick introduction to the world of waste incineration. In industrialised countries, the vast majority of waste incineration plants are designed to generate energy in the form of heat or electricity. From a public relations standpoint, the industry prefers to refer to these facilities as 'waste-to-energy' and sometimes 'energy-from-waste' plants. Personally, I prefer to avoid using the term 'energy from waste' wherever possible as it can cause confusion with the process of capturing and utilising methane gas that escapes from landfill sites. In the US, waste-to-energy plants are also sometimes referred to as resource recovery facilities.

Side note: Other methods of generating energy from waste include using waste as a fuel in cement production (refuse-derived fuel), pyrolysis, anaerobic digestion, mechanical-biological treatment and a newer technology, HTCW. I hope to share more links on these topics in a future edition of Terminology Tuesday.

A simple overview of the waste incineration process can be found here in German and here in English. The latter link also provides a good overview of the waste-to-energy market. I also bought a second-hand copy of Introduction to Hazardous Waste Incineration from Amazon and found it to be a helpful and impartial resource.

Many of the texts that I translate contain excerpts from or make reference to the key piece of EU legislation governing waste incineration, the Waste Incineration Directive. Here it is in English and German. A wealth of information can also be found in the British Department of Environment Food and Rural Affairs' (DEFRA) report on municipal solid waste incineration as well as on the websites of ITAD in Germany and the European body, CEWEP, which represents operators of waste-to-energy plants. Also consider downloading 1,000 Terms in Solid Waste Management. Caution, though, this publication dates back to 1992!

The Best Available Technique REFerence documents (BREFs) for waste incineration, here in English and German also contain a vast amount of terminology that might crop up in translations in this field.

The Waste-to-Energy Research and Technology Council and its European arm also contain publications, news and discussions on topics related to waste incineration.

Have any other good waste incineration links to share? Feel free to add a comment and I'll update this post accordingly.

In the news

2009-12-12T13:11:00.002-06:00

As many readers will be aware, I recently had the honour of being featured in an article on working as a specialist translator that ran on the front page of the Los Angeles Times. You can read the article in full here .

The story of how this article came about starts a little over two years ago when I attended my second ATA Conference in San Francisco. Whenever other translators ask me what I specialise in, I explain that I work in the environmental field with a strong emphasis on recycling and waste management. The next question is typically whether there is enough work to making a living with this speciality (yes!). After networking for a few days in San Francisco I was attending one of the evening functions when I was approached by a translator who had obviously heard of my unusual speciality: "I've heard of you before," he said, "you're trash girl." I was a little taken aback, but realised that my speciality was gaining attention and that the memorable "trash girl" moniker might prove to be a good marketing tool.

Fast forward to a little over a year later when I drove six hours to Oklahoma City to attend our annual regional translation and interpreting symposium. The invited guest speaker was ATA's current president, then president-elect, Nick Hartmann. Nick and I ended up talking about my unusual speciality and apparently the "trash girl" story stuck in his mind, too.

A few days after this year's ATA Conference I received an e-mail from Tina Susman, a journalist with the Los Angeles Times. Ms. Susman told me that she had attended the ATA conference and was planning on writing an article focusing on the varied and often unusual specialities of translators, and my name had been given to her by Nick Hartmann. We had a 30-minute phone conversation later that morning and covered areas including how I got started as a translator, how I fell into my area of speciality and how the recession was affecting my business. She also asked me about the potential annual salary, any tough situations that I have been in as a translator or jobs that I now regret having accepted. Of course, a lot of the subjects that we discussed did not make it into the final interview. Ms. Susman also requested that I send her the details of any other translators who I knew with unusual specialities (I recommended that she contact Katrin Rippel who mainly translates for the food and hospitality industries.)

We kept in touch by e-mail over the next few days, and Ms. Susman asked me to provide her with a list of words that I often find myself translating. I did so, emphasising the complex nature of German grammar. A photographer was also supposed to take my photograph for the article, but ultimately the freelancer that the newspaper uses for the Kansas City area was not available in time for the deadline.

The article ran towards the bottom of the front page on 16th November and continued inside. I was happy with the way that it turned out, with the exception of a few inaccuracies. Most regrettably, there was a misunderstanding about my Alma mater: I went to university in Edinburgh, but attended Heriot-Watt University rather than the University of Edinburgh. I was also disheartened to see that the list of words and phrases that I commonly translate did not have the nouns capitalised. Most glaringly, "die Abwrackprämie" was not only missing its umlaut, but also translated merely as "cash for clunkers" rather than the fuller description I gave explaining that these were the equivalent of payments under the German "cash for clunkers" scheme. (Side note: The New York Times has an excellent article on one of the shortcomings of the German scheme compared with the US approach.

The article was subsequently picked up by other media outlets including the LA Times' sister newspaper, the Chicago Tribune. It was also the subject of several blog posts. I have since received more than 20 e-mails and several phone calls as a result of this article, mainly from other translators interested in specialising in the environmental field. A couple of US-based companies have also contacted me asking for more information about my services after reading the report in the Chicago Tribune.

In the past few days, Judy Jenner from Twin Translations has made it two high-profile newspaper stories on translation and interpreting in a month with this article published by the Wall Street Journal's online edition. It is great to see our profession garnering this kind of attention for all the right reasons.

Keeping an eye on your vision

2009-11-10T09:41:00.001-06:00

I had a rare day off yesterday and decided to get a long-overdue eye exam out of the way. It had been several years since my last exam, but since our current insurance plan covers vision exams and we are switching to a high-deductible health plan with an HSA next year I decided to bite the bullet and made a last-minute appointment.

To my dismay, I left with a prescription for computer glasses in my hand and a diagnosis of Computer Vision Syndrome (CVS) having had 20/20 vision just three years ago. I had had an inkling that my vision was gradually getting worse as my eyes had occasionally felt strained, especially late at night after working several hours in a row. I had also been forgetting to follow the 20/20/20 rule: Every 20 minutes, look away from your screen for 20 seconds to an object 20 feet away. (Lots of tips and a great deal of other information on CVS can be found at this website)

I certainly wish now that I had been more proactive in taking care of my eyesight in the past, and I am now looking for technology that will remind me to take regular breaks. Feel free to comment if you have any recommendations.

Back in the saddle

2009-09-14T13:07:00.002-05:00

What better way to mark my return to work on an overcast Monday morning than with a chuckle? A former colleague sent me this link to an article in The Daily Telegraph about a humourous mistranslation that was sent out on the Reuters news wire. Enjoy!

Maternity Leave

2009-08-27T12:11:00.002-05:00

As you may know, I have been on a blogging hiatus and not accepting new translation assignments for the past couple of months for personal reasons: I gave birth to our second child on 23rd July. I thought it might be useful for fellow translators to learn more about how I handled maternity leave.

After my 20-week ultrasound I contacted my largest clients who I work with on a regular, sometimes weekly or even daily, basis. I let them know that I would not be available from 1 July with a provisional return date of 1 October. I decided to stop working at 38 weeks to avoid letting any clients down if I went into labour early. This two-week buffer also gave me time to complete any tasks around the office (preparing my quarterly tax filing, finalizing invoices etc.). A provisional return date also gives me the flexibility to start working again earlier if necessary.

I also felt that it was important to provide each of these key clients with the name of a fellow translator who I felt comfortable recommending. Alternatively I offered to assist them if they wished to find their own short-term replacement. I have a longstanding personal relationship with these clients and feel confident that they will be using my services again upon my return.

A couple of months later I got in touch with my other clients to inform them that I would not be available over the summer months. These tended to be customers who I do not work with on a frequent basis and who might not have needed a translation over the summer in any case.

While on maternity leave I have also been keeping up with the latest developments in the environmental, and specifically waste management, field. I have caught up on reading journals that had piled up in the office and have also been scanning newspapers and translation websites to stay in the loop.

I plan to get in touch with my clients a few days before I return to work officially to remind them that I am now available again. I do not anticipate that they will be able to tell any difference in the service that they receive: As after the birth of my daughter, I have childcare arrangements in place to allow me to focus on work and work alone. I will be more scrupulous about which assignments I accept for the remainder of this year. In the same vein, I have stepped down from the interaktiv editorial team and have decided not to run for re-election as a member of the MICATA Board. I hope to be in a position to stand for election again in 2010/2011. I might also be blogging less frequently over the coming months.

Unfortunately I will be unable to attend the ATA conference this year, but I am already looking forward to Denver in 2010.

New issue of interaktiv

2009-08-27T11:08:00.002-05:00

The summer issue of interaktiv is now online. Unfortunately, I have recently had to scale back my volunteer translation activities for reasons that I will go into in my next blog post. This issue includes some truly wonderful articles that are well worth reading.

While you are there, check out the German Language Division website, which has undergone a major revamp thanks to the efforts of GLD webmaster and fellow blogger Michael Wahlster. Great job, Michael!

Read all about it!

2009-05-26T10:18:00.003-05:00

One of the many pleasurable aspects of working on the interaktiv editorial team was that it forced me to set aside time to read translation-related publications in an effort to find articles worth reprinting. Here is a list of just a few of the links that I bookmarked during my quest for suitable articles. Leave me a comment if you know of any translation publications that I have missed and I will update the list accordingly. Happy reading!

ATA Chapter Newsletters

CATI Quarterly

MATI InforMATIon

MICATA Monitor

MiTiN Newsletter

NCATA The Capital Translator

NCTA Translorial (registration required)

NOTA NOTA Bene

NOTIS The Northwest Linguist

NYCT The Gotham Translator

ATA Division Newsletters

Other English-language journals

CTA Newsletter

FIT Translatio

Institute of Translation and Interpreting Bulletin (subscription required; selected articles available under ITI Bulletin)

Irish Translators and Interpreters Association Bulletin

Journal of Specialised Translation

NAJIT Proteus (selected articles available to non-members under Publications)

Society for Technical Communication Intercom (selected articles available to non-members)

Translation Journal

German-language publications

ADÜ Nord Infoblatt (under Publikationen)

ATICOM Forum

BDÜ Landesverband NRW BDÜ info NRW

BDÜ Landesverband Bremen und Niedersachsen e.V. Transrelations

BDÜ Landesverband Berlin-Brandenburg Berliner Rundbrief

Hieronymus

Tekom tcworld (requires free subscription)

Two new environmental translation blogs

2009-04-28T11:01:00.002-05:00

Eagle-eyed blog readers will notice a couple of new additions to my blog reader that focus on environmental translation:

Translating for the Environment is a relatively new blog written by Kelly Wester, a Spanish-English environmental translator.

Over the past week I have also been enjoying reading Always Greener: Notes from an American on the other side, Craig Morris' very informative blog with an emphasis on renewable energy.

Happy reading!

FAQ: Finding Paid Work

2009-04-23T14:53:00.002-05:00

Q: How can I find paid work as an environmental translator?

A: As I have mentioned in the past, only a very small number of environmental protection organisations have a translation budget so the specialist environmental translator has to cast his or her net wider in the search to build up a customer base. As in the last article, none of these ideas are particularly earth-shattering, but are worth considering for someone thinking of entering the environmental translation market.

Shortly before I made the transition from being an in-house to freelance translator, I spent some time brainstorming about who might need environmental translations (more specifically translations pertaining to waste management in my case) that were not highly technical and also be able to afford my rates. Incidentally, I also held a presentation about the opportunities for environmental translators at our local ATA chapter's 2008 symposium and will be happy to share my PowerPoint presentation with anyone who sends me an e-mail. I also highly recommend reading Patrick Oblander's article in the March 2009 ATA Chronicle entitled "Environmental Translation: Market Overview".

My brainstorming session produced the following groups of customers:

1) Big players outside the environmental field

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports are, at least in my experience, one of the hottest trends within the environmental translation field right now. Towards the late 1990s, businesses started putting out environmental reports, basically boasting how many gallons of water, tonnes of waste and greenhouse gas emissions they had saved over the past year. Some would say that not much has changed since then. These documents have now largely been replaced with CSR reports which are traditionally published yearly together with annual financial reports. The scope of these reports has also gradually been widened to cover what is referred to as the triple bottom line (also known as people, planet, profit), meaning that businesses are judged not only on their financial results, but also on their social and environmental performance. CSR reports are not restricted to companies providing environmental services, either. Just a glimpse at Corporate Register.com shows that BAE Systems, the Inter-American Bank and HP are among the companies that have published CSRs in the past month or so. It is generally hard to land these kinds of projects as an independent contractor. In my experience, many large businesses subcontract these projects to translation agencies or groups of translators given the number of languages and size of files involved.

2) Environmental services providers

In addition to the CSR reports, large multinational companies that provide environmental services also have a whole host of documents that need to be translated. It is also worth remembering that a lot of small and medium-sized companies are now looking to expand across their borders and generally have a lot of company brochures, annual reports and similar materials that they want translated beforehand. As well as press releases and other corporate communications documents, these businesses often have internal documents that they want to share with employees at their various branches, providing a steady flow of work once you have your foot in the door.

3) Consulting firms, trade journals and research institutes

Consulting firms and research institutes also invest a great deal of money on projects and then want to share their results as broadly as possible. These documents can range from run-of-the-mill press releases and websites to highly technical academic research papers. It is also worthwhile researching what the large trade journals are in your specific field of the environmental market and seeing if they have foreign-language editions (if only for terminology research purposes).

4) Government institutions

National and local governments also constitute a large source of government work. The spectrum ranges from multinational environmental agreements to city government flyers for minority populations. The approaches to finding government customers vary as substantially as the rates they pay: For instance, some high-level government institutions, especially in Europe, issue calls for bids for translation services on an annual or biannual basis, while others subcontract work to translation agencies. It is worth contacting the public relations office and simply asking how they go about finding translators.

5) Translation agencies

Of course, translation agencies should not be forgotten. In reality, translation agencies only make up a very small percentage of my income as I have found that I much prefer working with direct clients for a number of reasons. I only take on non-environmental agency projects in very rare cases and have let most agencies that I have worked with in the past know that I specialise in environmental translation and don't dabble in other fields at all any more.

Now that I had outlined my target markets it was time to get specific. As well as noting when governmental institutions were having their next calls for proposals, I also contacted the larger translation agencies to let them know my speciality. When looking for end clients, I realised that a lot of the larger firms already had their own translators or agencies of choice so one of my best weapons was targeting companies on the verge of expansion. I found that the following steps gave me an edge:

Subscribe to and read specialist industry publications: Know which companies are looking to expand and/or have recently set up foreign subsidiaries and get in touch. Mention where you had read about their plans, thus consolidating the client's impression of you as a serious professional who takes the time to keep your finger on the industry's pulse.

Attend trade fairs: This goes to the above point. Once a potential client can put a face to your name, you are much more likely to get (and, more importantly, keep) his or her business. Don't harass companies on the first day of the fair, but wait until quiet times when no one is at their stand and don't hard-sell. Talk about the hot topic in the industry (a big merger, new legislation etc.) or ask them about a terminology question you've had in the back of your mind for a while. When you get back home, send a quick follow-up e-mail thanking the person for his or her time, mentioning your availability for translation projects should the need arise.

Get your name out: One of the best ways, and the way that I ultimately found most of my current clients, is word of mouth. Make sure that your fellow translators also know your speciality and refer work that you do not feel confident in handling to other freelancers: they tend to repay the favour. Write articles for industry publications, give presentations, start a blog, become active in your local translation association and hand out your business card to anyone and everyone who might possibly need an environmental translator at some point down the road. Of course, make sure that you have a website and develop marketing materials in both your source and target language to make it easier for customers to contact you and find out more about your background.

These are just a few of the tools that I used to build my current customer base. Please feel free to post a comment with any suggestions that I may have missed.

FAQ: Finding volunteer opportunities

2009-04-15T19:32:00.003-05:00

Q: I'm a recent graduate/new translator interested in specialising in environmental translation. Where can I find volunteer translation opportunities to build up my resume?

A: First of all, it goes without saying that you should have a good background knowledge of environmental issues before embarking on any translation project, paid or unpaid. Just because you are providing a free service is no excuse for turning in poorly researched translations. If you play your cards right, you should be able to convince the organisation to list your name as translator on any printed documents (e.g. translation services provided courtesy of...) and/or website. Moreover the terminology research will stand you in good stead for later on. In an ideal scenario, someone will end up reading a document with your name on, be impressed by your mastery of specialist terminology or simply need a translator for their (hopefully paying) project and get in touch.

The other basic rules of business apply: Be pleasant and professional. You should let your contact know in advance that they will need to be flexible about deadlines and that any paid translations will have to take priority over volunteer work. They should be satisfied - after all they are getting your services for free.

Beyond the excellent suggestions and links given here, here and here, another approach is to think about the specific environmental issues that interest you. For instance, if you feel strongly about the need to protect the rain forests contact organisations active in this area to see if they need volunteer translators for your language pair.

Just a quick google search for "volunteer environmental translator" also turned up opportunities with the Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide , the Canada Parks and Wilderness Society (Ottawa Chapter), Earthrights, the World Wide Fund for Nature (Australia) and Greenpeace (*Please note, the Greener Word does not endorse any of these organisations). Spend a little time using targeted search terms in your source and target language and I'm sure dozens more will appear.

There really is a vast number of organisations that want to spread their message to people in other countries and share their knowledge with their counterparts on other continents so have fun searching and happy volunteering!

My next couple of posts will examine finding paid work as an environmental translator and list resources for deepening your knowledge of environmental issues. Look for those towards the start of next week. In the meantime feel free to post comments with any other questions that you would like to see covered.

A (mistimed) trip across the pond

2009-04-14T12:08:00.003-05:00

Apologies for the amount of time that has passed since my last post. After hammering out a few issues related to the latest issue of interaktiv and attending the MICATA symposium at Johnson County Community College, I jetted off to England for three weeks to visit family and friends. For once this was simply a personal trip with no hops across to Germany to visit clients and plenty of time to relax and enjoy reading a decent Sunday newspaper. I was also able to enjoy one of the great benefits of freelancing: the flexibility to decide where and how much I wanted to work. I managed to switch off the computer for several days and found myself suitably refreshed when I returned.

It had been 18 months since my last visit to the UK and I was surprised by how much has changed in its stance towards recycling and waste management. Once the laughing stock of the EU for its recycling record, the UK has made substantial progress in instituting separate collections if my parents' local authority is a true barometer for the country as a whole. When I moved to the US in 2005, it was still a case of throwing everything into a single black bin bag. My parents now have separate collection boxes for paper, plastic bottles, glass and aluminium and two wheelie bins – one for garden waste and one for other waste.

Judging by my visits to a local supermarket, British businesses have also embraced environmental credentials as a strong selling point for their products. It seemed to me that more products on the shelves are now boasting their eco-friendliness and use of recycled materials in packaging, especially in the cleaning products and personal hygiene aisles. As I said, it has been a while since I had been in the UK so these trends may not be universally true.

While in the UK, I learned that my visit had been spectacularly mistimed as the Institute of Translation and Interpreting is set to hold its annual conference with the theme of "sustainability in translation" on 16 and 17 May 2009 in London. Unfortunately family commitments mean that I will be unable to attend and I am really jealous of those who will be able to do so. The conference really looks to be a high-quality event with sessions involving speakers from Friends of the Earth, agencies specialising in environmental translation and interpreters who have worked at international environmental conferences. A group from the European Commission's DG Translation will also ask, "Where have the translators gone?" and another two sessions will look at finding a work-life balance. I also glimpsed fellow blogger Sarah Dillon's name on the list of presenters. There seems to be ample opportunity to network with fellow translators and I am particularly sad to miss hearing the conference dinner speaker: famed British weather forecaster Bill Giles. More information can be found at the conference website here.

* I have recently received a number of e-mails asking questions about getting started in environmental translation and will have a FAQ series on the blog later this week to answer as many of them as possible.

Wanted: English-language translators

2009-02-19T10:32:00.002-06:00

One of my former in-house colleagues sent me a link this morning to a press release issued by the European Commission bemoaning the shortage of translators in its English language department, suggesting that I should keep Brussels in mind if we ever decide to return to Europe. On a side note, I cannot imagine anywhere I would less like to live given my experiences during a miserable six months at the Institut Superieur des Traducteurs et Interpretes (ISTI). But I digress. With many of the institution's translators having been recruited after Ireland and the UK joined the EU in the early 1970s, the Commission is now facing the prospect of losing at least 20% of its English language department staff by 2015 and is launching a campaign to create awareness of the job opportunities it offers.

In my opinion, the real problem lies in the massive decline in the number of young people studying foreign languages (coupled with poor English writing skills, but that is another topic altogether). When I was in secondary school, we had to learn one foreign language (French) until the age of 16 and a second (German, Italian or Spanish) was optional. To enter a university translation programme, you had to have two foreign language with decent A-level grades. The Sixth Form where I studied French and German has since shut down all of its A-level foreign language courses and I have heard anecdotal evidence to suggest that several university foreign language and translation departments are heading in the same direction.

Having completed one of these translation and interpreting programmes, I also realise how ill-prepared it left me for a career in this field. We had no instruction on translation technologies, no specialist courses in financial, technical or other types of translation and no information about how to do business, set rates etc. I learnt a vast amount more about the actual business of translation during my five years as an in-house translator and by meeting fellow translators than I did during my four years at university.

Again, anecdotally, I have heard that companies who want to hire English native speakers as their in-house translators or project managers are having a tough time finding qualified or even entry-level candidates. A brief glance at the job section of the BDÜ website (just one of many options for those looking for in-house positions) shows how many such jobs are available. A few of the translation e-mail lists that I subscribe to have now published the same advertisements on several occasions, as well.

I'm not really sure if or how any of these problems can be solved. I wonder if the UK has any programmes similar to the ATA's School Outreach initiative to pique children's interest in learning foreign languages or if it's simply too late. At any rate, the good news for established English-language translators is that we will likely have even more work on our hands in the medium term, with hopefully the associated benefits for our rates and ability to cherry pick the best clients.

MICATA Symposium - Translating and Interpreting: A Global Profession

2009-02-19T10:29:00.000-06:00

If you live in the Midwest and/or have always wanted to visit Kansas City, consider attending the Mid-America Chapter of the American Translators Association's annual symposium, which will take place from 13th to 15th March.

The weekend will begin with a welcome reception on Friday afternoon, continue with a full day of educational sessions on Saturday and conclude with a chance to sit the ATA accreditation examination on Sunday. The actual symposium will have three tracks: one for translators, one for interpreters and one focusing on translation memory technologies. These sessions will be filled with information for beginners and seasoned professionals alike and the day will be rounded off with a practical workshop. Personally, I am especially looking forward to a session on ergonomics for the translator.

There will also be plenty of opportunity to network with fellow professionals during the day and we will also round off the symposium with a post-conference dinner on Saturday evening with the chance to sample some famous Kansas City barbecue.

For more information and registration details, visit the symposium website. Early-bird conference registration runs until 27 February and is priced at $75 for MICATA members, $90 for non-members (this price includes one year of MICATA membership) and $35 for students with ID.

Drawing up quotes for new customers

2009-02-17T10:27:00.000-06:00

Apologies for the lengthy delay between posts. In addition to being busier than ever, I have also been working on a couple of volunteer projects, including our local ATA chapter's annual symposium. More on that soon.

For the first time in over three weeks, it looks like I actually have a day with a fairly light workload and can finally follow up on the non-essential e-mails that I have received over the past few days.

One of the e-mails that arrived yesterday came from a British agency and was an enquiry about a long-term translation project. It turns out that they were looking for someone highly specialised in agricultural translation and I was happy to refer a colleague. However, this enquiry gave me a reason to review my UK rates and increase them again. With the pound extremely weak against the US dollar, I cannot imagine that any agency in the UK paying in pounds will be able to afford to work with translators in the US any time soon. Indeed, when I gave this agency a call they asked me to quote my rates in "anything but pounds". I am certain that the weak pound is the reason why my UK clients have completely fallen off the radar since about the middle of last year.

When calculating and amending my rates, I use a nifty website from Amtrad that allows you to convert to and from rates per word or per line. The site also includes a handy currency converter. As over 90 per cent of my work is invoiced in euros for German customers, I normally take this rate(based on a line of 55 characters including spaces) and use it as the yardstick for my British prices(where quotes are generally based on each 1,000 words) and US prices(per word).

It is worth mentionning that while I do set my rates for new clients based on the exchange rates at the time when we first do business, my prices for regular customers are only altered annually to avoid any confusion about what my current rate might be.

Looking forward

2009-01-22T10:40:00.003-06:00

Following on from this post on reviewing my 2008 performance, I thought I would answer Judy's questions about how I set and track my goals. When answering the questionnaire, I print out a copy and add my answers by hand so I have lots of room for brainstorming and creative thinking about what I want to achieve in the next twelve months. Once I am satisfied that every question is answered adequately, I enter this information into the MS Word document and then open a second document focusing on areas that will require additional work.

My next step is to go through this information and divide it into another three categories: short-term (less than two weeks), medium-term (one to two months) and long-term tasks (anything longer or recurring). I list the more pressing tasks on the right of my whiteboard so that I see them every day and am reminded of the need to tick them off. Examples might include forthcoming licence renewals, making a chiropractor appointment or simply to schedule one or two days outside the office. I handle less urgent tasks (looking into professional development courses, drawing up lists of potential new customers and events that I might want to attend later in the year) on a monthly basis and normally spend an hour or so when I am sending out invoices to review and work on these tasks.

I have a slightly different approach to long-term goals and tasks. At the start of the year, I divide them into recurring and non-recurring items. A recurring item might be adjusting my rates based on the fluctuations in the euro/pound/dollar exchange rates or updating my website and CV, while an example of a non-recurring item would be to launch a more aggressive marketing campaign. For instance, I had a graphic designer come up with a small advert to appear in a recycling trade journal towards the end of last year, but I have yet not had the time to get in touch with the advertising department and hammer out the details of placing the advert. It is now officially on my to-do list. I print out a one-page document containing all of these long-term tasks and put it in my tax folder.

At the end of each tax quarter, I spend a good amount of time crossing a couple of non-recurring tasks off the list. I also review the recurring items and make sure that any necessary changes are made. I truly find that making myself unavailable for translation work, even for a few hours, is critical when reviewing these goals to ensure that my focus is truly on the tasks at hand and not worrying about the next deadline. The document is then placed back in the file for the next quarter. All of this work culminates with the year-end review and then the process starts all over again.

Trash(y) Translations

2009-01-14T13:33:00.002-06:00

(Apologies to those of you who have me in your Google Reader list for earlier posts that were mistakenly published in my eager rush to share this link)

I typically spend the end of my lunch break catching up on translation blogs and other more light-hearted reading. Today I had a rare treat, a very humorous German-language post by False Friends, Bad Translation, Denglisch about the Stuttgart Airport's efforts to have the labels on its waste bins translated into English. It's well worth a read during your afternoon coffee/tea break.

Thanks (again) to Jill Sommer at Musings of an Overworked Translator for sending me the link.

Looking back at 2008

2009-01-07T10:55:00.002-06:00

The Greener Word is back after an extended break from translation and blogging over the Christmas and New Year holidays. December and January are typically my slowest months of the year, but that did not turn out to be the case in the final month of 2008. In addition to translating for my regular clients, a new direct client in the waste management industry contacted me with a medium-sized project that required quite a bit of terminology research and that I thoroughly enjoyed. It was a fun way to end the year.

Once work slowed down, I was able to take some time off to relax and enjoy the season and was all the more refreshed and efficient when I finally turned the computer back on. One of my goals for 2009 definitely is to integrate more breaks and relaxation into my schedule.

Continuing the pattern of years past, January has started off on a somewhat slower note so I am taking the chance to catch up on cleaning the office and have already sorted out a large pile of trade journals to consign to the recycling bin. I also spent yesterday looking back at 2008 and examining my successes and areas for improvement. Over the past few years I have drawn up and added to the following list of questions that I use to review my performance. It is by no means exhaustive.

Financials
How much did I earn? How did it compare with the previous year? What was my monthly average? What was my best month and worst month? How did the euro exchange rate develop over the year? Am I setting enough aside for taxes, emergency savings and retirement? Should I consider moving any of my bank accounts? Am I satisfied with the process I use to wire money from Europe?

Customers
How many customers did I have? How many of them were new? How many were returning customers? Which customers sent me the highest/lowest volumes? Which customers had the highest/lowest rate? What was the most unusual/my favourite job? Who would I like to work more with? What could I do to make my existing customers happier?

Advertising
Did I actively advertise at all? Did it work? How could it be improved? How did my new customers find me? Did I update my website? How could I improve my website and blog? Who do I want to target as new customers? Who do I want work less for? What out-of-the-box strategies should I consider?

Specialties
Do I want to become more or less specialised or stick with my current areas? What are the benefits/drawbacks of specialising in even greater detail? Which areas might I focus on? How could I go about doing this?

Professional development
What are my professional development goals for this year? What could I have done differently last year? What are my medium-term and long-term professional development goals? Do I want to stand for another term with my local translators' association? Are there any new online or local courses that I should consider taking?

Technology
Did I use the technologies that I have efficiently last year? Were they worth the investment? Which licences should I renew? What new technologies do I intend to invest in this year? How can I ensure that I get the maximum out of them? When will I set time aside to familiarise myself with them?

Other areas
How can I make the office run more smoothly? Are there any other jobs that I am willing to outsource? How can I reschedule the day to ensure that I work more efficiently? How often/when should I schedule "downtime" away from the computer? How can I make the office more ergonomic?

In addition to these points, I also examined the buzzwords that cropped up time and again in translations for a number of different clients. Before I became a freelancer, I worked as an in-house translator and journalist for one of Germany's leading trade journals for the recycling and waste management industry. A colleague and I would often find ourselves bemoaning some of the hard-to-translate terms that came across our desks and I got into the habit of starting a list.

In the early years, many of the buzzwords that we loved to hate came from the field of packaging waste management and included duales System (current preferred translation for UK usage: collective compliance scheme) and Pflichtpfand (mandatory deposit).

I am still pondering which term to choose for 2008. One strong contender is Branchenlösungen, a phrase introduced with the 5th amendment to Germany's Packaging Ordinance that the EU semi-official translation refers to as "specific industry solutions" for packaging waste. I currently translate this as "industry-specific or sector-specific solutions" with a more detailed explanation of what they involve and how they differ from collective and individual compliance schemes where permitted.

I hope to write more on the peculiarities of Germany's packaging waste legislation and set-up at a later date. For now, I wish everyone a very happy and prosperous 2009.

Environmental translator in profile

2008-12-01T08:51:00.002-06:00

Over the weekend, I stumbled across an article on the Japan Times' website profiling Japanese environmental translator and activist Junko Edahiro. Ms. Edahiro is perhaps best known as the Japanese translator of Al Gore's book An Inconvenient Truth, but has also made a name for herself as an environmental speaker and writer. The article really is a fascinating read so I highly recommend checking it out if you have a little time to spare over the next few days.

Drum roll, please

2008-11-26T09:25:00.003-06:00

Thanks for all of the suggestions in the blog renaming contest. I ended up choosing The Greener Word as suggested by the Masked Translator. If MT could leave me a comment designating his/her charity of choice, I would be happy to make a donation.

"Interesting" assignments

2008-11-21T20:42:00.002-06:00

Another workweek has come to an end and I am not exactly sure where it went. We have relatives visiting from England so I have been rather selective about which assignments to take on and have been enjoying the flexibility that I have as a freelancer. Several agencies have contacted me about US-UK English jobs after having picked up my resume at the ATA conference. It is funny how US-UK English jobs tend to ebb and flow: Sometimes I can go for months at a time without any enquiries, but other weeks receive one or two requests in the span of just a few days.

Speaking of enquiries, I also had an agency call about an interpreting job in downtown Kansas City this week. As you might imagine, there is not a huge demand for German interpreters in Kansas City, but it seems that the calls that I do get generally involve rather bizarre assignments. Here are some of my favourites from the past two years or so:

- Interpreting for a patient undergoing brain surgery who would be conscious throughout the procedure. I would have to be suited up in sterile clothing and sit next to the patient as their head was sliced open.

- Interpreting for a large church group from Germany traveling through the Midwest on a ten-city tour. As well as interpreting at dinners and other informal events, I would also have had to provide consecutive interpreting for sermons and bible study groups.

- Interpreting during a deposition that would form part of a multi-million dollar lawsuit. The suit involved a helicopter crash caused by the malfunction of a small component and an expert witness was being flown in from Germany to testify about the properties of the materials used in this component's manufacture.

- "Interpreting" for a businessman at a city around one hour north of Kansas City. It later turned out that the client wanted a glorified German teacher and was only willing to pay US$20 per hour with no travel expenses. Erm, no thanks.

Although I trained as a conference and liaison interpreter (in some respects this training was better preparation for life as a professional than the translation courses, but that is a completely different post), I have only accepted a handful of assignments since becoming a freelancer because of the payment and/or travel involved. I am lucky to have a couple of local colleagues that I can refer this work to. On this topic, check out Judy's post about referring fellow translators and interpreters, a practice that I wholeheartedly embrace.

Thanks again for the blog name suggestions, everyone. I hope to have more news on that front towards the start of next week.

America Recycles Day

2008-11-15T08:30:00.001-06:00

Events are being held around the US today to celebrate America Recycles Day. November 15th is the only nationally recognized day dedicated to encouraging Americans to recycle and buy recycled products. During my preparations for the ATA conference I took a quick trip to our local Office Depot and was pleasantly surprised to find three displays filled with different recycled products. I purchased recycled staples, recycled paperclips, paper made solely from 100% post-consumer recovered paper, amongst other items. I was also pleasantly surprised by the quality of the paper that I bought; it is now pretty hard to distinguish between 30% and 100% post-consumer paper.

To mark the occassion, the National Recycling Coalition has put together a website containing a wealth of information about recycling. While you are there, be sure to try out the "Conversionator" to calculate the impact of your recycling efforts and learn some fun facts about the products that can be made by recycling waste.

The NRC also published the Dos and Don'ts of Recycling that might be of interest for anyone wanting to start recycling. I've included an excerpt below.

Every community has its own guidelines for what should and should not be recycled, and how the process should take place. Take a few moments to find out these details. Call your local public works department or recycling organization. That way you can be sure you're doing your part, and doing it right. In general, here are a few things to keep in mind:

Cleanliness counts
Rinsing cans and keeping boxes out of the weather makes them easier to process. That keeps costs down.

If supplied with a bin, pay attention to what goes in
Take it upon yourself to be an accurate recycler. A cereal box is probably great, but a greasy pizza box may not be. Maybe milk jugs are good, but not the caps. Check the lid of your recycling bin for guidelines, or make a call or visit your municipal Web site to find out the rules. Then, follow them.

Good bets
Steel cans, aluminum cans, newspapers, magazines, catalogs, junk mail, plastic beverage bottles, milk jugs, glass bottles and jars, cereal boxes, other clean and dry cardboard boxes.

Probably not
Plastic grocery bags, Styrofoam, light bulbs, food-soiled paper, wax paper, ceramics.
DO Recycle Electronics
Recycle your old computers and cell phones. Check out Dell, Staples, and Waste Management/Recycle America websites for information on how you can recycle these items.

Hazardous wastes have their place
Household hazardous wastes like paint cans, motor oil, antifreeze, car batteries, pesticides, pool chemicals, etc., usually need to be disposed of separately. Again, check your community resources and guidelines.

Blog Renaming Contest

2008-11-12T20:29:00.003-06:00

In a comment made on my last post, Jill Sommer of Musings of an Overworked Translator suggested doing a rename the blog contest. I am now officially taking suggestions. Please leave a comment with your ideas and I will come up with a little something as a reward for the name I choose, possibly a charitable donation.

Three links and an update

2008-11-12T15:40:00.005-06:00

1) I made some changes to the blog and my website yesterday as part of my post-ATA conference activities. I have given the blog a new name (Environmental Translation) because I realised that Dispatches from an Environmental Translator's Desk was probably a little too wordy on reflection.

2) As anticipated, Judy has updated with a post and picture of the translation bloggers' lunch in Orlando.

3) Separated by a Common Language has launched its annual contest for words of the year. There are two categories: Best AmE to BrE import and best BrE to AmE import. So get your thinking cap on and submit your suggestions.

4) While on the topic of words of the year, the New Oxford American Dictionary selected hypermiling as its 2008 word of the year earlier this week, beating out hockey mom and toxic debt among others. The OAD defines hypermiling or to hypermile as "to attempt to maximize gas mileage by making fuel-conserving adjustments to one’s car and one’s driving techniques". These range from common-sense efforts, such as driving the speed limit and maintaining proper tyre pressure, to the weird and wonderful (driving without shoes and avoiding hills). With gas prices now falling ($1.79/gallon in Kansas City this morning), I wonder if these efforts will continue or if people will fall back into their old habits.

ATA Conference Review

2008-11-11T10:23:00.003-06:00

I returned home from the ATA conference in Orlando on Saturday night and have been exceptionally busy ever since. I had suspected that I would have a hectic few days upon my return so I decided to keep today free to catch up with e-mail correspondence, go over my notes from the various sessions and draw up an action plan for any areas that might require further attention.

This was my third ATA conference since moving to the United States in 2005 and once again I found it enjoyable and informative. As a Midwesterner, I spent every second that I could attempting to soak in Orlando's 81ºF (27ºC) weather. If I try hard enough I can just about feel the Florida sunshine on my back rather than the freezing drizzle outside my window right now. The beautiful weather also meant that we were able to enjoy a number of events outdoors, including most receptions and breakfast, something that was just not possible in other locations. The trade-off was that the resort was located outside of the city centre and attendees were reliant on renting a car, knowing somebody who did or walking to Downtown Disney if they wanted to go "off-campus".

Now to the sessions themselves:

Favourite session: Chris Durban's Building a Clientele of Direct Clients. Funny and informative, I learned many little tricks for landing direct clients and it was easily my favourite presentation in three years of coming to ATA conferences.

A close second was Dr. Thea Döhler's session on time management. As a result of Thea's presentation, I am going to be altering my working day: there will be fewer blog posts from me in the morning and I will also be checking my e-mail less frequently once all of my projects for the day have arrived. Mornings are going to be dedicated solely to translation and translation as far as possible.

I also learned a great deal about Societas Europaea in Barbara Müller-Grant's presentation and enjoyed Patrick Oblander and Ken Le's session on environmental translation. More on that at a later date.

Favourite exhibition hall booth: InTrans Book Service where I purchased a new German-English environmental dictionary (Wörterbuch der Umweltrisikoprüfung und Altlastenerkündung by George Lindemann). Time and again, I am pleasantly surprised with my finds at Freek Lankhof's booth. As always, however, the book stand was rivalled by the massage station where I gained some much-needed relief for my feet and shoulders. I was also reminded that it is almost time to schedule my monthly chiropractor visit given the amount of tension that the massage therapist found in my neck.

I did not really spend as much time as usual in the exhibition hall this year because was too busy enjoying the sunny weather during the breaks and I am not really on the lookout for new agency clients or technologies. A couple of the brochures that I picked up from booths had some absolutely awful spelling mistakes, so much so that I began to wonder if proofreading was part of their assessment programme. Unfortunately not. This is a conference for language professionals, people. You really should have your advertising documents proofread – a message that apparently has not even reached some companies within our own industry.

Favourite official networking event: Despite being astoundingly bad value for money from a food and beverage perspective, the GLD Wine and Cheese Reception again proved to be a great opportunity to mingle and network with fellow German translators.

Favourite non-official networking event: Apart from having dinner and drinks with fellow German translators each night, one of the highlights for me was the blog lunch. Jill, Corinne, Judy, Michael, Susanne and I were joined by a couple of blog readers for lunch at a Mexican restaurant. I am fairly certain that either Jill or Judy took photos at lunch and I will add links once they have them posted on their blogs. Hopefully we will be able to make the blog lunch a permanent feature of the ATA conference.

I heard the same three messages in many of the presentations I attended: Specialise, be professional and raise rates whenever possible. As someone who beats the specialisation drum, it warmed my heart to hear how many presenters felt the same way. I also intend to come back to the issue of specialisation and tell the tale of Trash Girl later on this week. Stay tuned for that. For now, though, I will go back to pretending that I am sipping my coffee next to a pool in glorious sunshine.

Is it all bad news?

2008-10-30T12:29:00.003-05:00

Working as an environmental translator can be thoroughly depressing at times. Yesterday I finished a short report about how few people have access to clean drinking water in Africa. Today I am working on an article about the ten most dangerous pollution problems based on the following report from the Blacksmith Institute.

Blacksmith Institute and Green Cross Switzerland have issued a Top Ten list of the world’s most dangerous pollution problems. The report names pollution as one of the leading contributing factors to death and disability in the world and highlights the disproportionate effects on the health of children.

The Top Ten list includes commonly discussed pollution problems like urban air pollution as well as more overlooked threats like car battery recycling. The problems included in the report have a significant impact on human health worldwide and result in death, persistent illness, and neurological impairment for millions of people, particularly children. According to the report, many of these deaths and related illnesses could be avoided with affordable and effective interventions.

If you want even more depressing stuff to cheer you up on this chilly Thursday, check out last year's report on the "Dirty Thirty", the world's thirty most polluted places.

On a more positive note, I am currently about halfway through reading The Skeptical Environmentalist by Bjorn Lomborg, a highly controversial and groundbreaking book in which he argues that the state of the environment has actually been getting better and not worse. I am finding it refreshing to hear the other side of the story (although I am taking it all with a pinch of salt and a healthy dose of scepticism). I will share more of my thoughts once I have finished reading. Maybe things aren't quite so bad after all.

Thrown for a loop

2008-10-27T11:59:00.003-05:00

I really should have known better. I have sat here for most of the morning waiting for a project with a fast turnaround that was due to arrive at the end of the German working day. Normally this client sends me projects promptly at 9.30am CET, which works out wonderfully as I have the rest of the day to translate. At about 11.00am CET I started to worry and fired off a quick e-mail checking that the project was still on schedule. The client responded that they were running a little late, but would have it ready in the next 30 minutes or so. It was only then that I realised that the clocks moved back an hour in much of the world on Saturday night.

In my defence, this is only the second year that clocks in much of the US have gone back a week later than those in the European Union. Between 1986 and 2006, daylight saving time (DST) ran from the first Sunday in April to the last Sunday in October. However, the Energy Policy Act of 2005 lengthened DST by about a month starting in 2007 and it is now observed from the second Sunday in March to the first Sunday in November. While we are on the topic, here's my Wikipedia find of the day: a section on the terminology used when referring to daylight saving time.

Although lengthening DST reputedly brings about energy savings, it also means that I will have to tack an extra hour on to the end of my working day today. My project has now arrived so it is back to (paid) work for me. Have a good start to the week!

Looking Forward to the Sunshine State

2008-10-15T19:01:00.002-05:00

I had a free day today so I decided to do some computer and office cleaning that was well overdue, including the first thorough clean of my keyboard. My normal routine is to turn the keyboard upside down and give it a good shake, thereby dislodging most of the dust and other crumbs that inevitably end up in there when you tend to eat your lunch at your desk. This cleaning practice works well enough most of the time, but yesterday a large piece of pumpkin muffin got trapped between two keys causing a sticky situation. A quick google search yielded this helpful site and with the necessary tools in hand, I set to work. Suffice it to say, I was disgusted enough to vow never to eat at my desk again.

On a more pleasant note, eagle-eyed blog readers may have noticed that I've added a couple of holiday notices on the right side of this page. Towards the end of next week, we are taking a short holiday to Tampa, Florida (hopefully) to attend the Major League Baseball World Series. The Tampa Bay Rays just need to win one of their next three games to get to the World Series and a good friend of ours works for the team and has promised us tickets. Even if they don't make it, it will be nice to get away from all of the rain we have been having in Kansas City in the past few days.

Then less than two weeks later, I will be heading back to Florida to attend the ATA Annual Conference in Orlando. I had initially decided to sit out this year's event for the first time since I moved to the States, but changed my mind once the preliminary programme arrived.

As well as the usual networking and social opportunities, quite a few presentations caught my eye. I'll be attending a pre-conference seminar entitled Making the Most of Your Freelance Translation and Interpreting Business on Wednesday afternoon and have already highlighted numerous sessions for each of the following three days. In particular, I'm looking forward to Attracting Clients from Germany: Approaches for Independent U.S.-based Translators and Taking Control of Your Time: If Not Now, When? by the German Language Division's invited speaker Thea Dohler.

One session of particular note for environmental translators will be Environmental Translation: An Overview of the Market (a Japanese-related presentation) that the abstract promises will "take a look at material that is being translated in this field and discuss the skills that translators need to have. The presentation will include an introduction to modern environmental technologies and concepts. It will also explore the differences between Japan and the U.S. in terms of environmental values."

Going to an ATA conference is worthwhile on many levels: I manage to learn a huge amount in the education sessions, network with fellow translators and meet new potential clients. I have looked into attending environmental trade fairs and conferences next year that have attendance fees running well in excess of $500 so the $295 conference registration fee will definitely be money well spent. See you in Orlando!

Different terms for different clients

2008-10-12T20:45:00.001-05:00

Well over 90 per cent of the translations I do end up in high-register publications, be they trade journals, background documents for government agencies or corporate press releases. For the most part, the author of the source text assumes that the final reader will have a certain level of knowledge about environmental issues. One thing that I always try to be aware of is customer preferences about the use of specific terminology and register. For instance, the paper industry prefers to refer to waste paper as recovered paper because of efforts to have this material classified as a product rather than a waste. Moreover, one customer in the waste incineration industry specifically asks that their plants solely be called waste-to-energy facilities rather than waste incinerators. This preference is motivated by a desire to improve public perception of these plants and their role in waste management overall. Activists and NIMBYs generally call these toxic incinerators or burners.

As always, a great deal depends on who your customer is and what they intend to do with your translation. This statement is never truer than when working on PR materials for environmental activists and lobby groups, texts that are traditionally full of emotive language. Just take your average Greenpeace press release: hazardous waste becomes toxic trash and landfilling becomes dumping. Not to pick on Greenpeace at all: I still fondly remember when some Greenpeace activists "returned" some of the waste from the Bhopal disaster to Dow's Dutch headquarters. Finding target-language texts from other lobbyists on the same issue is always my top priority when handling this text type. Another good route to go is to find tabloid newspaper articles in this area.

Translations of lobbyists' PR materials make up a very small percentage of my work. Environmental and other advocacy groups often rely on inexperienced translators and have little to no budget for professional translations, which is a real shame given the importance of adequately conveying their message. I have recently been toying with the idea of doing some volunteer translation work and am thinking of getting in touch with a smaller German environmental organisation and offering my services. While the financial reward would be negligible to non-existent, volunteering would not only look good on my resume, but also enhance my knowledge of these kinds of emotive texts, something that I am always interested in doing.

Have a great start to the new work week everyone!

A few bits and bobs

2008-10-09T14:24:00.002-05:00

I have a few completely unrelated musings to share today.

1) Here are the answers to the trivia quiz:

1D, 2B, 3C, 4D, 5B, 6C, 7D, 8C, 9A, 10B, 11C, 12C, 13C, 14C, 15B, 16D, 17A, 18B, 19C, 20A, 21D, 22C, 23B, 24A, 25D.

2) I'm currently reading one of the best books I've read in a while and, as an unexpected treat, one of the main characters is a translator. The book is Loving Frank by Nancy Horan, a novel that blends fact with fiction as it tells the story of Frank Lloyd Wright's affair with Mamah Borthwick Cheney. A good portion of the book is set in Berlin and follows Mamah's efforts to translate the literature of Ellen Key, a Swedish feminist. If anyone has recommendations of other novels with translators as characters, I would love to hear them.

3) Looking for the perfect Christmas gift for German relatives? Think about a fashionable trashcan cover. TonnenStrumpf has patented this idea and offers a number of different options starting at EUR28.50. Just when you think you have seen everything...

4) I ran across a fun little quiz at Spiegel International today while I was spending a little time doing some research. Are you smart enough to be a German?

5) And last, but not least, here is an entertaining story about a couple who funded their honeymoon by collecting cans and bottles and returning them to their local supermarket.

Translation trivia

2008-10-04T09:44:00.003-05:00

One of the highlights of last weekend's MICATA luncheon was a fun translation trivia quiz created by MICATA President Bradley Shaw who kindly agreed to let me include the quiz on this blog. I'll post the answers in a few days once I've stopped chuckling about question 13. Enjoy!

01. St. Jerome is regarded as the “father of translation” because while translating the Bible ...

A. He was the father of several outstanding translators.
B. He translated into Latin.
C. He wrote the first history of translation in the Western World.
D. He took copious notes and made a running commentary on his translations.

02. The first international gathering in which simultaneous interpretation was used was ....

A. The 1919 Treaty of Versailles
B. The first Nuremberg Trial (1945)
C. The 1936 Berlin Olympics
D. The 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair

03. “Most states prohibit the practice of consecutive interpreting in the courtroom.”

A. No. There are formal procedures for interpreters.
B. Of course. Simultaneous is the way to go, baby!
C. This is outrageous and shows ignorance of court procedures
D. Yes, but only in states where interpreters are not certified in any way.

04. The most prestigious translator/interpreter training program in the United States is located in ...

A. Would you believe it? Kansas !
B. Washington, D.C.
C. New York
D. California

05. Spanish and French are examples of ...

A. Analytic languages
B. Fusional languages
C. Agglutinating languages
D. Polysynthetic languages

06. Eugene Nida is prominent among translators of ...
A. Slavic languages
B. Sports terminology
C. The Bible
D. Charles Dickens

07. NAJIT is ...

A. An organization of translators in the space program.
B. The early name of the group that became MICATA.
C. Code for, “it is too hard to translate, and besides, you wouldn’t understand.”
D. Often finds its members in the courtroom, or even in jail!

08. Affixation has to do with ...

A. Not being able to “let go” of a personal problem.
B. Not being able to breathe.
C. Prefixes, suffixes, even infixes.
D. Any translator knows that this is a word that Shaw just invented for this quiz.

09. The ATA makes a strong statement in support of ...

A. Translating into one’s native language.
B. Following strict ATA fee guidelines.
C. Accepting jobs on any subject area into your native language.
D. Promoting non-violence by not talking about “target" languages

10. The ATA currently has more than ....... members in the United States and around the world.

A. 5000
B. 10,000
C. 15,000
D. 20,000

11. Over the last 10 years, MICATA has had a membership of about ...... members.

A. 35
B. 70
C. 100
D. 125

12. When interpreting for an attorney at the courthouse, it is considered good practice to ....

A. Show family pictures to the client.
B. Translate legal form while the lawyer is away.
C. Refrain from having social contact with the client or family.
D. Carrying verb conjugation flash cards to inspire

13. A “fuzzy match” refers to ...

A. The ATA tennis tournament held each year.
B. Some really weird couples at ATA conventions
C. Sentences or phrases identified by Trados or similar programs.
D. What seems to be an acceptable translation at the end of a LONG day!

14. SIL International, the publishers of Ethnologue: Languages of the World, estimate that there are slightly less than _______ languages in the world today.

A. 3000
B. 5000
C. 7000
D. 9000

15. SIL International also notes that the number of languages is increasing with the demographic explosion of the world’s population.

A. True
B. False

16. Termium Plus, is a .....

A. French-English database of >3,500,000 terms.
B. Huge database only for Canadian government agencies.
C. Medieval dictionary used by the “Toledo School” of translators.
D. An English, French and Spanish terminological database.

17. Translatio is to F.I.T. what . . . . . . . . is to the ATA.

A. The Chronicle
B. Getting it Right
C. A Day in the Life
D. Directory of Translator and Interpreter Services

18. When Cortez arrived in the heart of the land of the Aztecs, he communicated with Aztec king Moctezuma II with the aid of ....

A. A universal translation device, given to him by ancient astronauts who built the pyramids.
B. Two interpreters (Spanish-Mayan and Mayan-Náhuatl).
C. A specially trained interpreter named Malinztín, and known as La Malinche. D. A simplified form of sign language, for no known interpreters existed at the time.

19. Called by some to be “the greatest undertaking in interlingual communication in the history of the world, at least one book of Scriptures from the Christian Bible has been translated into about ....... languages, spoken by approximately 97 per cent of the world’s population.

A. 500
B. 1000
C. 2000
D. 3000

20. In its language training program, the Defense Language Institute categorizes languages by the relative difficulty for an English speaker to reach a specific proficiency level. Spanish and French are considered Category 1 languages. On a scale of 1 to 4, how are German and Russian ranked?

A. 2 and 3
B. 1 and 3
C. 2 and 4
D. 3 and 4

21. American Sign Language ...

A. Has elements in common with French sign language. .
B. Is a language just as much as spoken languages are.
C. Is not easily understood by deaf communities in Great Britain & Australia
D. All of the above

22. Chuchotage is ...

A. A dying language related to Cherokee.
B. Outlawed in most countries as scandalous and immoral.
C. Used in contexts in which the interpreter whispers to his or her client(s).
D. A slang that was used by the Chinese to communicate with Olympic athletes.
23. Which kind of text would most likely be “domesticated” by the translator?

A. A novel or short story
B. Scientific research
C. A movie script
D. Fifi, the French poodle (oops, Fifi is not a text!)

24. Policeman, Officer, Fuzz and Cop are examples of ......

A. Social register
B. Tone
C. Confusion
D. The police state

25. MICATA ...

A. Is an ATA Division
B. Does not publish a newsletter
C. Is only for active ATA members
D. None of the above

Happy (Early) International Translation Day

2008-09-29T15:27:00.005-05:00

I'm finally coming up for air after another busy spell. I was booked up until last Thursday, but thankfully work slowed down towards the end of the week - just in time for a nasty (but mercifully brief) cold that left me literally speechless on Friday. Hopefully a little more Vitamin C will have me back to full voice in the next couple of days.

I am glad that I was feeling well enough to attend the annual MICATA New Officer Installation Meeting and Luncheon on Saturday. We had a very enjoyable lunch at Bo Lings just off the Country Club Plaza in Kansas City and around 30 translators and interpreters were in attendance. There was a good mix between beginners, interpreters, in-house and freelance translators and at least seven languages were represented. As well as installing the new board (on which I will be a director in 2008/09), the event was also an early celebration of International Translation Day on 30 September.

Life as a freelance translator can certainly be lonesome at times so it is always nice to get out of the office and talk to fellow translators about issues ranging from advertising to specialisations. Joining MICATA was one of the first things I did after moving to the U.S. in February 2005 and, in my opinion, is worth every penny of the membership fee.

Recycling is sexy

2008-09-18T20:46:00.002-05:00

Apparently. The Environmental Media Association and Lionsgate have teamed up with two Hollywood starlets (I use the term loosely) to promote the collection of unwanted cell phones for recycling. I was actually surprised to find how common mobile phone collection points are here in Kansas City. Most large electronics retailers have collection containers for cell phones and rechargeable batteries as you enter their stores. Unfortunately, it is much harder to dispose of non-rechargeable batteries and I have a huge bag awaiting the city's next hazardous waste collection event in November. A far cry from life in Germany when every Aldi and Plus had a GRS container for spent batteries.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that cell phones have an average life of around 18 months and some 130 million cell phones go out of service each year, generating an estimated 65,000 tonnes of waste. For more information on the initiative or to get rid of an unwanted phone, visit Answer the Call or Electronics Recyclers International.

Tax Time

2008-09-15T13:48:00.002-05:00

I'm just getting ready to pop my latest estimated quarterly payments in the post to the IRS and the Missouri Department of Revenue. Unlike many translators, I do my own taxes and accounting. I've got it down to a fine art now and it takes me very little time – I spend a few minutes when I need a break entering receipts and less than 30 minutes at the end of each month drawing up and sending invoices. Admittedly, it takes a little longer at year's end, but a few hours one afternoon and an evening with my father-in-law (an accountant who double checks my calculations and deductions) and I am normally ready to file. I have yet to get a federal tax refund and by and large end up paying an extra hundred dollars or so to the IRS on 15th April (no penalties, of course!). In actual fact, I usually pay the highest sum to the Kansas City Department of Revenue (which charges a 1% tax for those working or living in Kansas City limits).

One helpful resource for translators starting out who are interested in filing their own taxes is Tax Tips for Translators. John Matthews, a Kansas City-based Japanese-English translator who also works as a tax preparer for H&R Block, drew up these documents a few years ago, but they still offer a good foundation. Of course, going to a CPA or tax advisor will definitely be worthwhile if you have no interest in doing your own taxes.

On a completely separate note, I have to say that it does annoy me somewhat that I have to pay taxes in the US, but as a "resident alien" am not allowed to vote to decide what is done with them. Whatever happened to no taxation without representation? Anyway, it's time for me to get off my soapbox and out to the postbox before I miss the postman.

Full moon?

2008-09-07T21:01:00.001-05:00

I am very lucky to have wonderful clients. I have been working for most of them for a good amount of time now and none of them have tried to get me to lower my prices. In fact, one recently suggested that I start charging them more. The vast majority of projects run extremely smoothly. However, by the end of Friday I was wondering whether there was a full moon.

The following e-mail arrived from one of my customers on Thursday morning:

Herr X ist seit 2 Tagen im Urlaub und hat mich gebeten, mich bei Ihnen nach den Übersetzungen für X zu erkundigen. Es ging, glaube ich, um den Text Y und den Text Z. Können Sie bereits sagen, bis wann wir mit den Texten rechnen können?

(My translation: Mr X went on holiday two days ago and asked me to get in touch with you about the translations for project X. I think he was referring to text Y and text Z. Do you know when you will be able to deliver?)

The catch? I hadn't received any texts from this client since returning from holiday a few weeks ago. Although I replied first thing in the morning (I normally check my e-mail by 7.30am CET so that I have time to contact clients in Germany if there are any problems or questions), his colleague had already left the office. She responded on Friday morning with an e-mail containing the two texts in question – one in English and one in German. When I e-mailed and called to find out what she wanted me to do with the English text – proofread it, edit it or have it translated into another language – there was no answer. I guess that I will have to wait and see what Monday morning brings.

Another client uploaded a zip file to their FTP server for me to translate within a very short timeframe. Unfortunately, the file was not saved in the correct format so I had to place a last-minute call to the office in Germany to ensure that the files were reloaded before everyone left for the day. Add to that three calls about weekend projects after 3pm on Friday (I was already fully booked) and working most of the weekend and I am ready to spend tomorrow afternoon away from the computer. My plan is to meet a friend for a leisurely lunch at Panera Bread and then head to Barnes and Noble to pick up a Pumpkin Spice Latte and the next few months' picks for my book club. Sounds like bliss!

The Enjoyment Factor

2008-09-03T08:59:00.003-05:00

One of my favourite sites to read in the morning with my first cup of tea is Freelance Switch. Today the site has a very interesting article about ways to enjoy freelancing more.

The nine tips are:

1. Work with Clients that You Like
2. Specialize in an Aspect that You’re Passionate About
3. Be Organized with Your Time
4. Schedule Vacations
5. Live Within Your Means Financially
6. Have a Plan for Your Downtime
7. Work on Your Own Projects on the Side
8. Outsource What You Don’t Enjoy
9. Explore Diversification

Recycled art

2008-09-02T10:19:00.008-05:00

As promised, I have a few recycling-related images to share from our holiday. We visited the Ferme aux Crocodiles in southern France which was showcasing an exhibition of sculptures made out of junk. Most of these pieces of art were on sale for prices starting at around 200 euro.

A huge crocodile made out of a bus, car and other vehicles

A smaller crocodile made out of old agricultural machinery

This crocodile was made out of bicycle and motorbike parts and a catalytic converter.

There were many other non-reptile pieces on show including a drummer, archer, several robots, rodents and a horse. An artist from Burkino Faso, Sahab Koanda, is responsible for these pieces of art.

Another famous creator of recycled art is HA Schult . His 1,000-strong army of Trash People has surely clocked up more frequent flier miles than many a business traveller, having been installed on China’s Great Wall, near the Egyptian pyramids, on Moscow’s Red Square, at the Grand Place in Brussels and La Grande Arche in Paris, among many locations.

HA Schult reportedly paid a Cologne landfill site around 41,000 euro for rubbish to make the Trash People. Half of the figures have since been sold and replaced with new ones. The recycled art connoisseur can buy his or her own Trash Person for roughly 6,000 euro.

Back at the desk

2008-08-27T19:54:00.000-05:00

After a relaxing fortnight off in the south of France, I'm feeling refreshed and ready to start work again. We spent a lot of time visiting picturesque villages in Provence and enjoying the fine wines that the region has to offer. One highlight was a starry night at a local festival where we paid €3 for a wine glass and then could wander around the medieval streets and sample a glass of wine from each of the twelve local producers.

The holiday was not without its language-related "highlights" either. Upon arriving at Lyon Saint Exupéry airport, we were greeted by a large sign reading Welcome the to heart of Rhone Alpe's. Don't you love the apostrophe? A case for the Onionskin if ever I've seen one. Perhaps it's no wonder that the English version of the airport's website is being revised and is thus currently unavailable.

While visiting the beautiful town of Gordes we saw another fantastic blooper in the car park, warning that tourists should Look out for Rob. Poor Rob. I hope he's all right.

On Holiday

2008-08-07T10:44:00.004-05:00

Early tomorrow morning, we're leaving for a relaxing holiday in Provence with my family (once the 18 hours of transatlantic flying are over with, that is). It will be my first real holiday since I started freelancing in 2005. Of course, I've taken off a few days here and there and travelled to England and Germany quite a bit, but I've never shut off the computer altogether and turned down work for this amount of time. I realised in the past few days that I need to become better about building downtime into my schedule in the future and I can't wait to wake up in the morning and not have to rush to check my e-mail. I'll be back towards the end of August and might try and include a few photos of my travels. Until then, happy summer.

Absolutely Fabulous

2008-07-31T20:20:00.003-05:00

I just stumbled across what is easily one of the best blogs that I have read in a while. Written by M Lynne Murphy, Senior Lecturer in Linguistics and English Language at the University of Sussex, it covers some of the differences between British and American English and is a wonderful way to spend an hour with a cup of tea and a Hob Nob: Separated by a Common Language

Clone wanted: Must be able to start immediately

2008-07-31T19:46:00.002-05:00

I understand that I'm probably preaching to the choir here, but I've been surprised again in the last few days how little the general population knows about the intricacies of being a translator. First of all, there's the general lack of understanding about the difference between a translator and an interpreter: I tend to find that the first question that I am asked is whether there is a great demand for German translators (sic) in Kansas City courts and hospitals (another topic in itself).

Secondly, people tend not to understand that professional translators should only translate in one language and one direction (in my humble opinion, that is). Even though I studied translation and interpreting with two language pairs (French-English and German-English) and have taken courses in eight languages, I only offer professional services from German into English. Frankly speaking, I have more than enough work in my chosen language pair and too little time as it is.

Thirdly, and this is where some people really get confused, I don't accept every single project that I am offered. Right now, I'm turning down projects on a daily basis. I don't touch medical translations with a bargepole. I don't translate any technical texts that are not related to my area of specialisation. The same goes for legal translations. I certainly have no desire to translate your sister's friend's cousin's birth certificate for free.

When I explained to a family member last week that I had more work than I could handle right now, she suggested that I find an employee and set up my own translation agency: I tried to explain to explain that the chances of finding another German-English translator with the same degree of specialisation in environmental issues in the Kansas City metro area were next to none. In fact, I only know of less than ten other people specialising in the same language pair and the same field in the world and, big surprise, none of them are in Kansas City. Even if they were, I highly doubt that they would want to come and work as a full-time employee. I'm sure that they're making hay while the sun shines, as well. Beyond that, I have absolutely no desire to start my own translation agency. None.

She jokingly said that what I needed was a clone. I could have really used that clone yesterday when I got an enquiry about a decent-sized translation job for a large group that is close to the top of my list of companies to approach as potential future customers. Once again, I'm fully booked until my vacation on 8th August so regretfully I had to turn the job down, refer them to a colleague and hope that I am able to help them next time.

Occupational hazard

2008-07-28T15:51:00.001-05:00

I've spent the last week or so working on a large project about sewage. One of the few downsides about specializing in waste management and recycling is that you really need a cast-iron stomach at times. Most of my customers give me a heads-up if a project is going to be particularly grizzly: I think the worst to date involved a report related to the euphemistically-titled EU Animal By-Products Regulation. Visit the link at your own peril! After a week translating a report about defecation, flying toilets (again, fair warning has been given) and the various nutrients that can be recovered from urine, I'm ready for a break. A couple of weeks ago, I translated a nice little project about cocoa farming. That sounds like just the ticket right now.

Not just for kids

2008-07-16T14:02:00.002-05:00

It has been another exceptionally busy week with lots of interesting texts to translate. If I have time later on today or tomorrow, I will write a little about the type of texts I handle and the challenges that they pose.

For now, here are a few recycling games to test your knowledge about sorting waste:

National Geographic game

Durham County Council game

City of San Diego game

Two countries divided by a common language

2008-07-09T15:51:00.002-05:00

I spent a little time yesterday afternoon looking at the differences between the various style guides that I use (more on that at the bottom of this post) and came across a section of the 2003 BBC News Style Guide which includes a section on Americanisms. I found it particularly interesting that the BBC has since revised some of its thoughts, notably regarding the use of "euthanise" as a verb. I have to admit that the American English usage of verbs such as "target" and, worst of all, "impact" sends shudders down my spine. Don't even get me started on "leverage" and other such beauties. Here's the section of the guide I was referring to:

One of the things which most exercises our listeners and viewers is our use of words and constructions which we are accused of slavishly copying from the United States. American English is virtually everywhere. It is the language of international agencies such as the United Nations and the World Bank; American films, music and television programmes bring it into our homes; magazines and wire services are dominated by it, as is the internet. Is it any surprise, then, that journalists adopt new usages, vocabulary and pronunciation?

It is not, but we are not broadcasting for ourselves. Very many people dislike what they see as the Americanisation of Britain, and they look to the BBC to defend ‘Britishness’ in its broadest sense. In particular, they demand standard English from us, and we should acknowledge their concerns. At the very least, we should be conscious of what we are doing when we write our scripts.

We should thank North America for adding greatly to our vocabulary. Some Americanisms are so embedded in our language that their origin has long been forgotten, for example editorial, peanut, commuter, nervous, teenager, gatecrasher and babysitter. But new words are constantly queuing at language immigration control, hoping to be allowed in.

• Lambs can be euthanised, he says, but who would care for damaged human children?

This sentence was written by a news correspondent in Washington, and illustrates the American enthusiasm for turning nouns into verbs. English is not averse to the practice, but we should not risk alienating our audience by rushing to adopt new words before their general acceptance at large. Euthanise is not a verb you will find in any dictionary and it has no place in our output. (But who can say what will happen in the future?)

Think about the words you use.Are you happy with authored as in Tony Benn has authored a book? Or guested as in Sir Michael Caine guested on the Michael Parkinson Show? Would you welcome diarise (enter into a diary), civilianise (replace military or police staff), or casualise (replace permanent staff)? Standard English has accepted verbs such as finalise, editorialise, publicise and miniaturise, but will it be so receptive to others?

Our listeners and viewers must not be offended or have their attention diverted by the words we use. American speech patterns on the BBC drive some people to distraction. Adding unnecessary prepositions to verbs is guaranteed to cause apoplexy in some households. Problems which were once faced are now faced up to. In North America, people meet with other people. Everywhere else they meet them. British people keep a promise rather than deliver on it. Expressions such as deliver on, head up, check out, free up, consult with, win out, check up on, divide up and outside of are not yet standard English, and they all take more time to say. Even so, these extended forms seem to have great vitality and are rapidly becoming the norm.We have to make a judgement about their acceptability to our listeners and viewers.

There are thousands of differences between British English and American English, in spelling, grammar and vocabulary. British people use car parks not parking lots, having bought petrol rather than gasoline, and worry about transport issues rather than transportation. We throw stones, not rocks, because in standard English a rock is too large to pick up. Our lawyers appear in court; their attorneys appear in courtrooms.We take bodies to a mortuary;American dead are taken to a morgue. Our workers get pay rises not hikes.

Many American words and expressions have impact and vigour, but use them with discrimination or your audience may become a tad irritated.

Unless a customer prefers otherwise, I tend to use the Economist Style Guide or theEuropean Union's Interinstitutional Style Guide. I also have a copy of the Chicago Manual of Style on my shelf to check American English conventions.

Harvest time

2008-07-08T10:55:00.002-05:00

For the first time in close to three months, I have a day off to spend in the office. Touch wood. I have decided to catch up on paperwork and other much-needed computer tasks before heading to the chiropractor this afternoon to relieve some of my neck tension. I've just finished sending out a batch of invoices and am now ready to pile into some much needed terminology harvesting. I thought I would write a little bit today about how I go about gathering and using terminology.

I subscribe to several environmental journals (both electronic and print) in German and English. My German-language subscriptions include EUWID Recycling und Entsorgung and Recycling-Magazin, as well as a number of online newsletters published by environmental organisations and industry associations. I also regularly read Let's Recycle for UK waste management news, Waste News and Scrap Magazine for US developments and the Environmental News Network for more general news about environmental affairs, to name but a few. Google News is also a great tool and whenever I have a few minutes, I enter a few search terms (waste, recycling, trash) and see what pops up. I am also constantly on the lookout for special editions on environmental topics. For instance, National Geographic recently published a special report on climate change that I picked up at Borders last week.

With the German-language journals, I grab my handy green marker and spend about some time going through as many articles as possible and looking for environmental terms that I've not come across before. I start entering them into a simple Excel file with three columns: German, English and Source/Additional Information. I started this process a few years ago after hearing this suggestion at an ATA conference. It's really simple but works very well for me. When I have a few minutes or want a break from translating, I go back to the file and start researching the term and its possible translations into English. I also keep this file open while I'm translating and add other terms that I come across while translating that I would like to research further at a later date. I follow a similar process for English terms, albeit with less urgency.

I recently started another English-only file that contains separate sheets for different areas including climate change, waste recovery versus disposal operations, WEEE (waste electrical and electronic equipment), waste exports and other waste streams. Each sheet contains details of relevant international legislation and initiatives and links to legal texts (which crop up in a lot of the work I do) and other details about the industry. For instance, the WEEE sheet contains information about the different categories of appliances and problematic materials, the EU's WEEE Directive, the UK and Germany's legislation to implement this directive, industry associations, Europe-wide take-back schemes and the US approach (or lack thereof) to handling this waste stream. I find that this information-gathering process truly keeps me up to date with new developments in this field and helps to reduce the time I spend researching terminology while translating.

Going Green: Five Tips for Translators

2008-06-30T12:15:00.003-05:00

I had a pleasant surprise in my mailbox today: a copy of the June issue of the ATA Chronicle including an article that I wrote on environmental translation. Over the next few weeks I'll be sharing a few excerpts from the article, starting with five common-sense tips for translators and other freelancers to reduce their environmental impact.

1) Minimize power consumption. Turn off the lights when you leave a room for more than a few minutes. Plug your office equipment into a power strip with a switch and turn it off when you are going to be away for a longer period of time.

2) Change your light bulbs. Use compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs where possible. CFLs use only one-third of the electricity consumed by traditional light bulbs and can last up to ten times longer.

3) Print on both sides of the paper wherever possible. I find that I work best when I edit my translations on a hard copy rather than on the computer screen. Printing on both sides or using scratch paper significantly reduces my paper consumption.

4) Always collect your waste paper separately for recycling (enquire about your city kerbside collection programmes) and buy chlorine-free, recycled paper where possible.

5) Repair your computer for as long as possible. After removing all data from defunct computers, consider donating them to schools, community centers or NGOs.

A quick desk tour

2008-06-29T12:59:00.004-05:00

I thought that I would share a few photos of my desk while awaiting the start of the Euro 2008 final. I didn't tidy up for the photos: I am one of those strange people who cannot work with a messy desk. The top shelf holds the paper dictionaries that I use most often - the others are shelved on the other side of the room. I prefer to use e-dictionaries wherever possible for convenience's sake so at this point I only consult maybe five or six paper dictionaries on a regular basis. I think that I have a really streamlined set-up that fits my working style best.

The latest addition to my desk is a magnetic dry-erase board. My old job tracking system involved writing the file number in an A4 book and then entering the full details (word count, rate etc.) into an Excel file once the job had been sent. I find that I work best when I've got a list of jobs and deadlines right in front of my nose so Jill Sommer's blog post about job tracking systems was right up my street and neatly coincided with my last book running out of pages.

I also wanted to point out my favourite desk item: a miniature Gelbe Tonne that a colleague brought me back from an event held for European Green Dot systems in 2004.

As you can see, I use it as a pen and marker holder. I hold out hopes of having the whole set with blue and brown bins some day so if any blog readers should happen to see them, please let me know.

Food, glorious food

2008-06-25T13:11:00.005-05:00

I had to share this wonderful cartoon from Spiegel Online that a former colleague pointed out to me. Each year the report of the first Lebkuchen sighting was greeted with groans in our office and it seems that Christmas treats are hitting the shelves earlier each year.

Our office was located in a high-rise building above a Plus and across the street from an Edeka, looking out over the Black Forest. The lunch options were limited given the size of the town: make your own lunch at home (which I never seemed to manage), buy a few items from the supermarket and cobble together your own lunch or go to the Metzgerei, which offered such delicacies as Schweinegeschnetzeltes mit Spätzle, Rouladen or occasionally Weisswurstl. Of course, you had to get something from the Bäckerei for desert. It is surprising that I weighed the least in my adult life at that time, although maybe that is because we walked the three miles from our village to the nearest town for Flammkuchen and beer at the local brewery at least once a week.

On a different note, an interesting article that is definitely food for thought is this Washington Post story about the demise of the copyeditor in the journalism process. Make sure you read carefully!

Disaster planning

2008-06-18T13:15:00.003-05:00

Kansas City is located right in the middle of tornado alley.

Coming from the UK where the weather ranges from rain to overcast with occasional bursts of sunshine, it has been quite an adjustment. Since the end of April, we have been under at least one tornado watch each week. The National Weather Service issues a tornado watch when conditions are favorable for the development of tornadoes in and close to the area.

I hadn't really thought much about the need for any catastrophic planning until the first Thursday in May when a tornado tore through our neighbourhood at 2am, coming within 100 yards of our home. We barely had time to grab our daughter and run into the basement before the storm arrived. Luckily, we had very little damage.

Ever since then, I've been thinking about what I can do to safeguard my business in the future. Of course, all of my data is regularly backed up on my external hard drive, which sits under my desk, but that would have been little help to me if our house had sustained serious damage that prevented us from returning to our home.

One option might be to use an online back-up site, although other translators have noted security concerns especially with highly-sensitive information. One esteemed colleague recommended Carbonite, an automated online back-up system that costs $49.95 per year. This programme runs in the background and would enable all files to be downloaded to another computer in case of a total data loss. This might be one option for me as I do very few projects that are highly confidential. Hopefully, my concerns will also be alleviated a little next year when I'm planning to relocate my office downstairs into the concrete-clad basement.

The power of saying no

2008-06-12T09:01:00.005-05:00

Like most professional German-English translators I know, I have been completely swamped with work offers since the start of the year. At the start of my freelance career, I accepted any project that I was offered, often working late into the night to meet deadlines and hitting the coffee hard. A few years down the line, I've learned to say no. I've developed a core group of customers who I know will send me work on a regular basis.

Once I realised that I was going to have to start turning down work, I came up with a system to decide which projects to accept and which to refer to other colleagues.

Platinum Customer - My single large-volume platinum customer is the German firm that I worked for as an in-house translator and editor for several years. I only turn down work from this company as an absolute last resort as it was instrumental in sustaining my freelance career at the outset.

Gold Customers - Long-term customers offering environmental translations.

Silver Customers - Long-term customers offering work not directly-related to environmental issues but who I've worked for over several years.

Bronze Customers - New customers offering environmental translations, new customers offering other translations, interpreting work and editing jobs in that order.

I should also add that about 95% of my work is for end customers. I prefer working with end clients whenever possible because they have in-house expertise that I can access without a middleman.

Der Blaue Engel (The Blue Angel)

2008-06-09T11:21:00.000-05:00

Der Blaue Engel, Germany's landmark eco-label and the world's first environmental label, is celebrating its 30th birthday. The label was created in 1978 by Germany's Ministry of the Interior with the help of federal and state Environment Ministers. The Blue Angel signifies environmentally-friendly products and services and rewards companies for their environmental protection efforts with a high-calibre advertising tool. Today, some 10,000 products and services in 80 product categories bear the Blue Angel symbol.

The label consists of three elements:

1. The United Nations' logo featuring a blue ring surrounded by a laurel wreath and a blue figure with outstretched arms in the centre.

2. The outer circle includes details of the product's key environmental property, for instance its energy savings or, in the above case, that it was made out of 100 per cent recovered paper.

3. Outside the circle, the phrase 'Jury Umweltzeichen' refers to the fact that an independent jury makes decisions about the product groups that are covered and criteria to be met.

To obtain the label, products must have very low quantities of hazardous substances and contain a high percentage of recycled materials. Moreover, products bearing the symbol must have been produced with economical consumption of raw materials and energy. At the end of their long service life, such a product must also be able to be handled in an environmentally-sound manner.

The Blue Angel symbol is administered by the Federal Environment Agency, which chiefly governs technical aspects, and is awarded by the quality-assurance organisation RAL Deutsche Institut für Gütesicherung und Kennzeichnung. More information about the Blue Angel can be found on its website: The Blue Angel