Blogging on translation, law, language and culture

How to be Productive as a Freelancer: The Baby Edition

Okay, here goes…

Hello blogosphere! It’s been a while, how are you doing?

Yes it’s true, I committed one of blogging’s deadly sins by not posting any content for, ack! nearly one whole year!! But I’m back now and hopefully I won’t be punished too hard for my transgression. 🙂

I’ve written about some of the pros and cons of freelancing before, and I thought now would be an apt time to continue on that theme, by way of explaining my absence. Today’s pro/con is the ability to spend more time with your kids, in my case, brand new baby Zoë (now 6 months old!).

I often hear that people started freelancing so they could spend more time with their kids. That made perfect sense to me, before Zoë came along. But now I can’t figure out how these people achieve this while still being productive enough to earn a reasonable income!

I didn’t fully comprehend how time-consuming having a baby is until I was pregnant. Even before the Big Event, baby-related thoughts, feelings and ailments of one kind or another (not to mention appointments!) took over my life. Since Zoë arrived, I have regained some ability to focus, and the physical discomfort went away, but I no longer have that treasured commodity – time!

Like fellow translator and new mom Sarah Dillon, who revealed her own new arrival on her blog a couple of months back, having a baby around has made me re-examine my priorities, and try to figure out how I can make time for blogging.

Now that I’ve started working (and blogging) again, I’ve realized two things, the first being that I still have next to no time to myself and need to figure out how to work from home and look after a baby at the same time. The so-called advantage of working from home seems to be more of a disadvantage at the moment. Maybe it’s too soon? Or maybe other people’s babies sleep more during the day, I don’t know!

The second thing I’ve realized is that I need to blog in a way that works for my family, my business and me as well as my colleagues and clients. What this means is I will be posting less frequently than previously (hopefully more than once a year though!), and the topics I write about will probably change somewhat too.

So that’s where I am right now, facing another challenge of freelancing, and attempting to revive this blog. I hope whoever was reading last year joins me again and I hope new readers will come along for the ride too. Even though the frequency of posts will be less (I’m aiming for monthly), my goal is still for this blog to be awesome, both for me and for you! 🙂

And, if you feel so inclined, you can help me achieve this; one of the most enjoyable parts of blogging for me is reading your comments, so please leave some below! I’d especially love to hear if you have re-jigged your work-at-home routine to accommodate a new family member. 🙂

Stay tuned!

New posts arriving in January…

Is working faster better?

Wow, I managed to go the whole month of January without a blog post. Oops. Well, I’m back now (hello again everyone!), and ironically during my extended blogging vacation I’ve been thinking about… working hard. Specifically, getting more work done in the same amount of time (while maintaining the same high quality, of course!)

My typical working method has always been to translate word by word, sentence by sentence, looking up words as I go and using the appropriate fonts etc. from the start. I might leave a few tough bits that require research until the end, but by the time I get to the last word, the translation is almost ready to go. I think this became my routine initially due to a fear of putting down something quick and unchecked that was wrong, or lacking the correct format, and missing it at the review stage. But the downside is it feels slow and laborious.

Then last week I had a translation that was a type I’d done many times before and this one was reasonably straightforward, so I figured I’d use the opportunity to try a different translation method. Namely, to translate from beginning to end without stopping, without looking anything up (unless I really had no clue what the word meant), and without worrying about formatting (aka the first draft method). Then to go back through it to check any terms I was unsure of, decide on any options, and put in all the correct fonts and so on. I’ve tried this method several times in the past, but always succumbed after a few lines to my desire to have a nice, pretty looking translation shaping up as I go, instead of what looks kind of a mess. But this time I made it all the way through to the end without stopping to check anything, yay! 🙂 And I’ll definitely be trying this method again, because I doubled my usual speed by using it!

Because I still go through the translation with a fine-tooth comb after the initial draft, I ensure the same level of quality; in fact, it could be argued that the quality is improved when you get the whole text down in one go before analyzing it, rather than approaching it piecemeal from the start.

I need to practice this a few more times with different document types, but I’m hopeful this method could lead to a higher level of productivity (and improved quality?) for me.

Do you use either of these methods and prefer one to the other? Do you have a different way of working? I always look forward to your comments, so please leave one below! 🙂

Spanish and German Christmas Traditions

So, Christmas is less than a week away 😀 , and I’ll be taking a break from posting over the next few weeks. To wrap up my posts in 2011, here’s a quick one about some unique features of the Christmas period in Spain and Germany*. It would be awesome if you added your own country’s Christmas and New Year traditions in the comments (and/or those of your second language). Oh, and let me know if you’ve experienced any of the Christmas traditions/treats I mention, and what you thought of them.
Merry Christmas everyone, and a Happy New Year! See you back here in 2012.

Spain

Polvorones – polvorones are delicious, crumbly, fat, round shortbread cookies, covered with powdered sugar and usually sold individually wrapped in wax paper. They have a light cinnamon or anise flavour.

Turrón – this is a bar of a nougat-type sweet mixed with nuts. Nowadays it’s common to find chocolate bars called turrón, but the real thing requires only nuts – usually almonds – and sugar or honey.

Chestnuts – as soon as the weather cools off and the days get shorter, the smell of roasting chestnuts can be found on almost any Spanish street corner. Chestnuts are roasted on a bed of sweet-smelling ashes and scooped into paper cones for hungry (or cold) passers-by.

Grapes – it’s a tradition in Spain to eat 12 grapes on New Year’s Eve, one for each chime of the clock at midnight. If you eat all 12 in time, it is supposed to bring you good luck in the coming year.

The Three Wise Men – in Spain, January 5^th and 6^th are a main focus of the Christmas season, and the Three Wise Men are the ones who bring gifts for children, rather than Santa Claus.

Belenes – a “belén”, or nativity scene, is a traditional feature of a Spanish Christmas. People display scenes in their homes, and there’s usually a public one (or several) on display in town centres.

Germany

Stollen – this is a cakey bread (bready cake??) filled with dried fruits and dusted with powdered sugar that is traditionally served at Christmastime.

Zimtsterne – small star-shaped, cinnamon-spiced cookies glazed with royal icing.

Lebkuchen – gingerbread, but quite different from North American or British gingerbread. These cookies are darker and contain more aromatic spices along with the ginger. They come in various shapes and sizes, often covered with a thin white sugar glaze, or sometimes with dark chocolate.

Little Red Riding Hood tree ornaments – I haven’t found out why, but it’s common in Germany to find little dolls with red hoods (who I take to be Little Red Riding Hood) as Christmas tree ornaments.

Christmas markets and Glühwein – outdoor Christmas markets abound in Germany (and Austria) in the weeks leading up to Christmas, with stalls selling handmade Christmas decorations and gifts, and food and drink. The main attraction is probably Glühwein, a hot mulled wine.

Christkind – as in Spain, Santa Claus plays a lesser role in Germany than in the English-speaking world (though ever-increasing in importance), and gifts are traditionally said to be brought by the Christkind, an angel-like figure representing Christ.

*Disclaimer: these are aspects of Christmas celebrations in Spain and Germany as I have experienced them; I may not have all the facts correct, and I may have missed out some major elements, or assumed a local tradition was more widespread. If so, I apologize, and please don’t hesitate to fill me in/correct me in the comments!

Should legal translations be written in plain English?

This blog post is inadvertently timely, as I discovered that in the UK, last Friday was National Plain English Day! Campaigners for plain English argue that information meant for the public should be clear and concise, and they want governments and companies to write their documents using simpler language. Legal language has unsurprisingly gotten caught up in the debate, as it’s notorious for its opacity. To give you an example of the changes campaigners would like to see, this is taken from the campaign website:

Before

High-quality learning environments are a necessary precondition for facilitation and enhancement of the ongoing learning process.

After

Children need good schools if they are to learn properly.

I’m a big believer in cutting to the chase. Whenever I read something akin to the “before” version, I always summarize it along the lines of the “after” version and complain to anyone who will listen about the unnecessary use of pointless and vague words. I’m a linguist, what can I say? 🙂

Before I began studying law, I had no idea just how convoluted and complicated legal writing was. During my degree course, it would take me ages to read anything (if I was planning on understanding what it said!). I would have to go through the sentence to the end, then back to the beginning, work out that part then sort of add in the middle parts until I could figure out what they were talking about! And occasionally I had to look up words – it was really like reading a foreign language sometimes.

Since that time, between reading academic journals and corporate policies, I feel I’ve been fairly bombarded with jargon, and I really don’t like it! So I should be a big fan of the Plain English Campaign, right?

Well, not so fast. I think plain English is great for governments, corporations and academia, but my law studies showed me that it’s not that simple when it comes to legal language. I’ve read a lot of opinions from people in the translation profession recommending that legal documents be translated into plain English. I’ve even heard the justification that Spanish/French/Italian/German legal documents use such long-winded and archaic language, that it is just nonsensical to transfer that into English, which prefers much simpler language. I have to wonder how many English legal documents that person has read! The thing is, legal writers take great pains to be precise, and that requires a) the use of slightly long-winded explanations, and b) verbatim transfer of terms used in previous case law and statutes (even if that judgment or statute was written in 1859), so that everyone interpreting the law is clear as to what is meant. Okay, maybe clear isn’t the best word, but the use of consistent terminology makes it much easier to know exactly what is meant and what decision should be made.

So, I do agree that documents meant to be read by the public regarding their legal rights and obligations should be written in plain English to the extent possible. This is becoming more and more the case with original English documents thanks to the Plain English Campaign, and recently Obama’s Plain Writing Act. And this may be where the translator’s comments mentioned above come in, as other countries’ official documents are generally more opaque than English ones. But documents for lawyers and judges need to be extremely precise, and consistent with previous documents on the matter at hand. Because different legal systems are involved, it’s even more important that translations provide the closest equivalents to the original terms, so that the most accurate meaning is conveyed to the reader.

So I believe that where an English translation is being produced for use by a judge or a lawyer, it should be translated using traditional legal language, even if the resulting document is difficult for the layperson to understand.

What do you think? Should legal documents be written in plain English? Legal translators, what type of language do you use in your translations? Let us know in the comments.