I’m working on a more substantive post on “what makes a translation sound like a translation;” if you have any suggestions, feel free to submit them here or on Twitter. In the meantime, here are some interesting links from the rest of the web. Have a great weekend! The Thoughts on Translation world headquarters will be closed on Monday for U.S. Presidents’ Day.
- First, here’s a random thought that I keep forgetting to mention: what ever happened to The Masked Translator? MT’s blog has been dormant since August of 2009, although I still think of her/him often! MT, if you’re out there, come back! We need our regular dose of your acerbic, “if you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen” wit!
- Michelle Rafter, one of my favorite non-translation bloggers, has a couple of excellent new posts that apply to translators too: What should I pay a proofreader? and Update your office technology to minimize clutter.
- Completely OT but just interesting: Get Rich Slowly on Redbox vs. iTunes vs. Netflix; a nice comparison of at-home movie viewing options. I’d add that if you don’t care about Netflix Instant Watch, you can purchase the very basic Netflix subscription (one movie at a time, two movies per month), for $4.99.
- On-topic: Jill Sommer has a great post entitled What is your gut telling you?. Lots of food for thought there: remember the last time you knew you should turn down a project, but for some reason (money, guilt, inertia) you took it?
- For those who read French, Sara Freitas-Maltaverne’s blog is running a really interesting series of posts on website critiques and makeovers. Sara has a web design expert give his assessment and suggestions about various (courageous!) freelance translators’ websites.
- Two of my favorite translation resources are now in one place: Sarah Dillon joined eCPD webinars and will now be organizing webinars for linguists from her base in Australia!
- Finally, speaking of webinars: recordings of Speaking of Translation’s two most recent webinars are available for purchase online. They’re both a little over an hour long and the recording includes all the slides and audio. Topics are “Beyond the Basics of Freelancing” (presented by me) and “Introduction to Social Media for Translators” (presented by Eve Bodeux and me).
Thanks and happy Friday!
Corinne,
Thanks for the link love 🙂 There is more to come! The same three (yes, courageous!) translators will have their sites critiqued by a web marketing and social media consultant, a marketing strategy consultant, and the coordinator of the local Chamber’s business start-up club! There will be nine more posts in all, so stay tuned!
Sara
I’ve been wondering where the Masked Translator went too. I miss him/her and am worried something might have happened…
Hi Corinne,
On “what makes a translation sound like a translation” I have a lot of material. We can chat about it if you’re interested – maybe pool ideas. The reason I have lots prepared is that I’m giving a talk on technical writing at the ITI conference in April where I’ll touch on this idea briefly. For technical material, it often happens because translators aren’t familiar enough with the subject matter. They stay too literal instead of writing as they would (if they were a good writer) who knew the subject matter.
The answers as to what it ‘sounds like’ vary from pair to pair, of course, rather widely.
I miss the Masked Translator, too. Some time last year, the most recent article on the blog was something about proofreading at the New York Times. A couple of days later the article disappeared again… So I wonder if that has something to do with it.