Las Aventuras Alicantinas – Part 3: Castillos, Costas y Ciudades

Castillo de Santa Bárbara

For most northern Europeans, the first thing that comes to mind when thinking of Spain is its high-rise coastal resorts like Benidorm. Very few people think of its cities, steeped in history and stunning architecture. Alicante boasted two castles, both near the centre of town. One castle was nothing more than graffiti-covered ruins full of empty cans of lager and cigarette butts, but the other was a larger fortress that was very much intact and stood on a piercing hill that kept watch over the city.

The paved spiral ascent from the foot of Castillo de Santa Bárbara took about 30 minutes. In the searing heat of the Spanish summer, this is not for the faint-hearted but the 360° view with fantastic views over the city, the sea, the harbour and the hills proved rewarding, so much so that towards the end of my time in Alicante, I climbed up to the castle again to see the view of the city at night.

The intimidating Benidorm skyline

Back at sea level, I was taking time to explore beyond the city as well. Benidorm was about an hour away by tram and I was keen to discover whether this town deserves the stereotype held by northern Europeans of being an ugly collection of grey block towers or whether there was some hidden beauty to it. Fortunately, the latter proved to be true. The skyline of Benidorm, particularly at the beachfront, is indeed striking, but it has one of the most beautiful beaches and harbour areas on the Costa Blanca.

Just a short walk away was a beautiful part of the town that looked more Greek than Spanish. It was a high projection into the sea that overlooked the two beaches on each side and was dominated by white and blue tiles. There were no residences or shops; rather it seemed a place for relaxation, although it was an isolated place that no one else had seemingly discovered.

The more traditional village of Altea

Further along the tramline was a small village called Altea, and this was the real Spain I’d been searching for – narrow, steep cobbled streets with white buildings overlooking the calm turquoise waters. I was quite content to spend the rest of the afternoon here.

Back in Alicante, the city itself had plenty else to explore – the vast indoor market, the impressively high fountains, the overpriced boutiques and of course the city’s two beaches. The city’s main beach, Playa de Postiguet, was practically right in front of the school and just a couple of minutes from the city centre, so I naturally spent a lot of the six weeks there. The other beach, Playa de San Juan, was about 20 minutes away by tram. It was a longer strip of coastline in a quieter location, with more room to spread out and more intense waves. With much more closed on a Sunday in Spain than back home, this is where I’d spend peaceful Sunday afternoons, usually with the friends I had made, but after many of them had left I went back on my own and spent hours enjoying the tranquillity, often forgetting the real reason I was in Spain, but what can I say? The more relaxation and fun I had out there, the more motivated I was for classes...

Part 4 will be posted next Wednesday 10^th October. Find out what a night out in Alicante is all about.

Las Aventuras Alicantinas – Part 2: La Hora de Clase

Enforex Spanish school

My flatmates – Giorgio and Veronika – and I left bright and early to start our first day of Spanish school at 8:30. It was a casual fifteen-minute walk downhill to the school, which was on a busy palm-tree-lined avenue and pedestrian promenade on the edge of the marina. The walk took us through town, down La Rambla, a bustling shopping street by day and a lively strip of clubs and bars by night, which was crossed by narrow, winding alleys of the Old Town.

The school was small, yet modern, and as soon as we arrived, we sat a placement test to determine our level of Spanish. The first part was grammar exercises – my strong point, great! The second part was an oral test – my weak point, not so great! Despite slipping in the odd subjunctive in the speaking part, the two tests balanced out to place me at level B1 (the European language proficiency levels being A1, A2, B1, B2, C1 and C2 in ascending order).

Veronika, Giorgio and me on
the beach - for the record,
I no longer own that hat

Classes were to be a demanding five hours every weekday with the first three weeks being from 14:30 until 19:30 and the final three weeks from 09:30 until 14:30, and I found myself in a class taught by Laura, a softly-spoken lady from Argentina, and Pedro, an energetic Spaniard, (both in their late 20s/early 30s). I was put in the same class as my flatmates and eight other students from Germany, Japan, Italy, France, England, Belarus and Russia.

As school was in the afternoon, we had a few hours to explore the city, but after a five-minute stroll, we found the hectic city beach, where we set up camp for the rest of the morning.

Back at school in the afternoon, we started off with talking about Spanish customs and comparing them to our own. It wasn’t just grammar drills we did in class, it was more practical than university classes. We learnt Spanish recipes; Pedro even gave me his family’s paella recipe, which my flatmates and I tried out. Talk about deliciosa.


My class at Enforex - that was only
window in the room so we weren't
distracted by the beach

We learned about Spanish card games, Spanish hand gestures, Spanish idioms and Spanish dances, like the flamenco. It was very culturally oriented – the ideal way to learn a language – and at the end of each day, I’d come home with a sheet of A4’s worth of vocabulary.
 

At the end of the six weeks, I came away with a certificate with my “marks”. Although there weren’t any formal exams, the teachers had naturally been keeping an eye on our progress, and it was quite emotional when I finished at Enforex Alicante to read the certificate with Laura and Pedro’s comments saying how promising Spanish would be for me...

Part 3 will be posted next Wednesday 3^rd October when I discover the city, its castle and the coast.

Las Aventuras Alicantinas – Part 1: Un llegado alicantino

Alicante at night -
the view reminds me of hot coals

When I was a kid in the 90s, summers in Britain were genuinely boiling hot. It’s only in the last decade or so that they have turned into monsoon season. In August 2010, I had the opportunity to escape to southern Spain for some sun, sea, sand and sangria, but this wasn’t just a holiday – it was a linguistic holiday. I set off for six weeks in Alicante, spending five hours every weekday at Enforex – a Spanish language school – and spending the rest of the time enjoying the language and culture of my surroundings.

Just two months after I had left my life in Toulouse, I was back at Cardiff Airport ready for part two of my Year Abroad. It was a beautiful summer Sunday evening and the skies remained clear throughout the flight, which made for a beautiful sunset as we flew further into the darkness.


My home for six weeks -
the tree-lined Calle San Vicente

Once we touched down at Alicante Airport, I watched most people on my flight make their way to various coaches to take them in all directions to their holiday destinations, but as for me, I was on my own, no tour guide or rep. Ten o’clock at night and the heat was still incredible. I took a taxi into town – the first opportunity to practise my two years of Spanish with the taxi driver, but I elected to just enjoy the journey into the eerily quiet city.

Eventually, I did have to speak, but to the gentleman at a hotel who was retaining the keys to the flat I was staying at, and of course he spoke quickly with a thick accent as he gave me directions to my building – not great for my first encounter of Spanish in a native situation. Dragging 20 kg of suitcase behind me, I strolled the dark, humid and breezy streets in the direction that the man had pointed, arriving shortly afterwards at the four-storey building on what was a long deserted street of shop fronts with the shutters down under bright orange street lights.



Alicante the morning after -
the bull ring stands out rather prominently

After two flights of stairs, I entered the spacious but minimalist faux-marble flat to find no signs of life, but two bedrooms (with the doors closed) as well as my own. Like the rest of the flat, my room was simply furnished and naturally the bed was as hard as a rock, but it was only for six weeks. The sheer humidity at what was now around midnight meant I had one of the worst night’s sleep ever.

Waking up the next morning, I looked outside from the balcony to find Alicante transformed into a bright, bustling, palm tree-lined street and was surprised to see the city’s main bullring stadium just a few hundred metres down the street.

I was then greeted by my flatmates, a German girl and an Italian guy, both just a few years older than me and as eager to kick off our ventures in Spain as I was...

Part 2 will be posted next Wednesday 26^th September. Find out how I fared in class.

Mastering without a Master’s – Part 2

Tina Muller

In Part One, three freelance translators told me why they studied for a Master’s in translation and never looked back. We looked at whether the course was too heavily weighted in theoretical elements, if the content is truly relevant in practice and how the course helped get them to where they are today.

In this concluding part, three professional translators without a postgraduate qualification talk to me about why they feel a Master’s is not a prerequisite to get into translation.



Tina Muller (@TinaSMuller) studied Business Administration before proceeding to do a three-year translation and interpreting course at a language institute in Germany that focussed on translation between English and German. She is now a "state-certified translator and interpreter" for the English language.

Lizzie Whiteley (@ditto_languages) studied for a BA in Modern Foreign Languages (French and Italian) at Bristol University and attended the prestigious School of Modern Languages for Translations and Interpreters in Forli, Italy on her year abroad. She now co-runs Ditto Languages in Cardiff.


Lizzie Whiteley

Caroline Lakey has a BSc Hons in International Management and French from University of Bath, which included a 13-month placement in a company in Paris. She also did a short translation course with University of London Institute in Paris. She is now based in Mayenne, northwest France.

Let’s start with what we want to know above all...

What reasons are there for not wanting to pursue a Master’s in translation?

There were multiple reasons identified for going straight into practising translation, but as far as Caroline Lakey is concerned, the two that stand out the most are practicality and value. “I can’t convince myself that I really need one enough to justify the various sacrifices it would entail, both for me and for my family.


A discussion on ProZ (a prominent translators’ forum) convinced me that I wouldn’t be able to make the money/time back that the course would cost me.

 

Caroline Lakey

I was also put off by the fact that most Master’s courses require you to translate in both directions, which is something I would clearly never do on a professional level. Not to mention the fact that, if I’m honest, the theory of translation bores me stupid!”

 

Some, if not most, translators don’t always know that they want to go into translation, so unless they start their Master’s more or less straight after their undergraduate degree, it may be rather impractical in terms of finance, location, family circumstances, the time required and, indeed, interest. Moreover, we must remember the value of our Bachelor’s degree according to Caroline. “Without wishing to sound like a snob, my first degree is actually fairly prestigious, so if I was going to put a Master’s behind it, I would want it to be a top-level one, which means investing time and money, and unfortunately I don’t have enough of either.”

This is a good point. We should not forget that a language degree is very valuable, enhanced even further by the year abroad, which provides the opportunity to apply everything we have learnt since school. The year abroad give us the opportunity to experience foreign cultures and integrate into different societies. But this need not end once our Bachelor’s degree is over.

After Tina Muller had finished her course, she wanted to see how translation was handled in the real world, yet she still wished to experience the society of the language she had studied. “Some of my friends went on to do an MA, but I had had enough of theoretical studies. I was also very eager to move to Britain for a while to immerse myself in the culture and language (and I'm still here after almost 5 years!). So I moved to Britain and after a couple of weeks I already landed a job as an in-house translator.” 

Lizzie Whiteley felt the same. “After I graduated I knew I wanted to return to Italy and break translation, but finding a job from the UK proved difficult. I found out about the Leonardo Da Vinci scheme, which puts students on a short language course and then finds them a 3-month work placement. A translation agency in Florence took me on, where I quickly learnt how a translation agency worked, and after 3 months they offered me a permanent job.  

While I did take some short and distance-learning courses in translation and proofreading, for me this first-hand commercial experience was invaluable and something that could never be replaced with a Master’s. The route I took was also much less costly, plus I was able to live abroad and refine my language skills at the same time.” 

In such a prestigious industry, it is vital to have a means to enter this career for those who are not attracted to the idea of a postgraduate course. Naturally, it would be unacceptable to practise as a translator without any formal training, but fortunately this is largely recognised by those without a Master’s, who proceed to acquire experience in relevant fields, such as working in-house and studying on a short translation course.

How can translators break into the industry without a Master’s?

One issue is being recognised by clients as a professional translator without a postgraduate qualification, but Tina has never encountered any problems. “I have never been asked the question if I have an MA, nor has it ever hindered my success to get the job I wanted.

I worked in an agency as a project manager but only lasted 3 months there and then I went freelance. I stayed on good terms with my previous employer, so I started out as a freelancer with one client in the bag already. I marketed myself to selected translation agencies and built up a client network relatively swiftly. To this day I still work with most of those initial clients, so I do not look for more very often.”

Caroline took more time to build up experience before going freelance: “I had worked for 12 years in bilingual corporate environments, translating and interpreting (albeit informally) on a daily basis, before I went freelance. Also, having studied business and worked in large companies, I perhaps had more of an idea how to market myself than people with different experiences might.”

Our translators had clearly planned their transition to freelance meticulously, after having learnt how to market themselves. As freelancers know too well, work does not come flooding in automatically. Postgrad or not, freelance translators must market themselves as much as any local business you see in your town or city, certainly even more so without a physical presence that a bakery or florist will have.

Do translators without a Master’s learn more through experience rather than through additional qualification?

There is also the matter of the quality of translations – do postgraduate translators produce better translations? Tina is convinced that the route she took was the right one. “I don't think an MA would have done me any harm, but I feel that my education at the language institute was so comprehensive that there was no need to study further before starting out as a professional translator. As with every other job, a translator learns most things through experience and an MA cannot replace that.”

And Caroline completely agrees. “Without a doubt. I’m sure a Master’s gives you an excellent theoretical knowledge of translation, but I’m not convinced that it teaches you how to manage customer expectations and produce decent translations under pressure with limited access to relevant information! At the end of the day, I see myself running a translation business rather than “just” producing translations.”

This is the most convincing argument, as far as I’m concerned, about not studying for a Master’s in translation. The objective of producing good-quality translations is a given. What many unfamiliar with the translation industry don’t realise is that freelancers are running a business. They are their own accountant, secretary, IT support, PA, account manager, business development manager and project manager too, skills a Master’s can’t provide, such that postgraduates are not ready to set off as freelancers as soon as they graduate.

So, would our freelancers turn back the clock and take up a postgraduate course instead?

Tina certainly wouldn’t. “I don't think that an MA, especially straight after graduation, would have given me any more insight into the world of translation nor can it replace any experience I've gathered in the field so far. As a freelancer I also think very much in business terms: will it literally pay off to do an MA? My clear answer to that is no. You will not be able to achieve higher prices for your work than without an MA – I'd rather invest in a course on how to market yourself as a freelance translator.”

Lizzie sees commercial experience as what made her a better translator. “I don’t regret taking the route I did, I’ve never been refused for a job because I don’t have a Master’s.  Now, when I recruit translators, I look for many things, but would choose a translator with real business experience in a particular specialist field over a translator with a Master’s. In my experience this is what makes a well-rounded, more resourceful, more punctual linguist.”

In many fields, qualifications are reflected in a pay slip, but it seems that it doesn't work like that in translation, and those without a Master’s would do well to invest the money typically spent on an MA into technology and resources, and self-development and specialisation.

Conclusion

Is it better for a translator to have a Master’s or to have richer practical experience? Unfortunately, the answer to this will always remain subjective. We have seen compelling arguments from both sides, but it will depend on personality. What’s important is that all six of our translators are happy with the route they took.

Certainly, there is nothing to suggest that it is not worth following a Master’s course at all. For those looking to break into the industry but who perhaps lack direction, this is probably the best route. It provides a solid theoretical base, with the benefit of receiving feedback on translations from academic professionals, and empowers its holders with confidence in their career.

Equally, there is nothing to indicate that entering the industry directly is not appropriate. Our translators said they have never experienced any hindrances without the Master’s. Most agencies require a minimum 5 years’ experience in practising translation; this is something that both postgraduates and non-postgraduates will face. What a Master’s doesn’t give you is commercial experience, so crucially, it may be tricky to find ones feet for postgraduates who wish to go freelance as soon as they graduate.

Mastering without a Master’s – Part 1

One of my posts back in July 2012 briefly analysed my first year in translation and pointed out that I came very close to studying for a Master’s degree in translation, but I didn’t feel I could turn down the offer of a job as an in-house translator straight after graduation. While I am happy about the path I took, I still wonder how different my career would be if I had taken this alternative route into translation.


Sarah Dillon

Six experienced freelance translators told me about why they did or did not decide to study for a Master’s and how it shaped their career. Part One looks at whether those who did study for a Master’s feel they are better for having one, and Part Two examines if those without a postgraduate qualification feel complete without one.

Kim Sanderson (‏@sandersonkim) studied for an MSc in Translation and Conference Interpreting at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh on the advice of a school teacher that having a Master's was the norm for freelance translators and without seeing any other feasible way into the industry.


Verena Saura

Sarah Dillon (@sarahdillon) wanted to start up her own translation business and studied for an MA in Technical and Specialised Translation at the University of Westminster in London in order to gain guided, hands-on translation practice using real-life texts under the tutelage of practising translators, and to forge contacts and gain a good understanding of the industry.

Verena Saura (@unbabeling) entered the Translations Studies course after pursuing Arabic Studies, and is now studying Institutional Translation (economic and legal translation), all at the University of Alicante, with the opportunity to go on to a PhD. She is working as a freelance translator at the same time.

So let’s start with the fundamental question…

Why should one opt to follow a Master’s in translation?

I don’t have a Master’s. Instead, I work in-house under the guidance of experienced senior translators, who provide feedback on my work. But why do others not begin their career in this way? Sarah Dillon told me, “I would have had to compromise other aspects of my goals to achieve it, e.g. work for a couple of years for someone else for little more than minimum wage, possibly gaining a relatively one-sided view of the industry in the process.”

 

That is a crucial point. Industry professionals can provide an invaluable range of views on how to approach a translation. Whilst this could also be the case in working in-house with more experienced translators, the working methods and procedures are inevitably subjective and may well end up being dictated by an employer.

So besides perhaps providing a less biased and more direct route into freelance translation, Master’s courses could be an ideal way to start specialising. Verena Saura’s course offers the chance to dive into the fields of legal, institutional (UN, EU, etc.) and economics translation, so much so that this course at Alicante University entitles its graduates to apply for the title of Sworn Translator, which will be a major advantage in attracting more prestigious clients.

What’s more, Verena believes a Master’s can provide a sort of reassurance for practising translators. “I feel more confident when translating, as with these studies my background is wider and deeper. Since the very first day, I realised the knowledge I was receiving was useful for my everyday work.” This is something that an in-house job may not provide, in the early stages at least.

How relevant is the content of a Master’s degree in practice?

My impression of a postgraduate translation course was that it would be predominantly theoretical, so I questioned if it would sufficiently prepare you for practical work in the industry, but it depends on the area of translation, according to Kim Sanderson. “As I am moving towards more literary/non-business work, I feel the theory is becoming more relevant. I do think my studies in translation theory helped me think about the different ways you can treat an author's work, such as the audience and their expectations.”

Don’t get me wrong, translation theory is obviously an indispensable element of the course, but is there too much weight placed on the theoretics rather than the practicalities?

“I don't think any course can really teach you about the work environment,” Kim said, “and it takes time to learn your own translation speed and abilities, longer than the duration of an academic year.”

But it turns out that it could be more applied than I thought. Sarah told me that her course was “extremely practical and geared towards preparing students for a career as a practising translator and other related roles in the industry. We also had access to a very wide range of speakers and visiting professionals, so there was no excuse for not leaving with a thorough understanding of the range of options open to us as translation graduates.”

The degree of flexibility in the content studied may vary between universities, but a translation degree is what you make of it. You can choose modules that are more theoretical, or ones that are more practical if available. In any case, learning how to translate well only appears to be a fraction of the degree, as Sarah quite rightly pointed out.

Students entering a Master’s translation course will generally have an undergraduate qualification in one or more foreign languages and will have studied translation at least briefly. Contrary to the myth that anyone who speaks another language can translate, however, they would certainly not be ready to start working as a freelance translator, sending off their work without it having been proofread or edited by someone more experienced. “I do think having your work revised is vital, and this is increasingly rare outside a teaching environment,” Kim continued. Whilst my work is revised and commented upon by senior translators, I cannot comment upon the extent to which translators starting out in other companies receive feedback on their work, let alone those who practise without any qualifications or experience at all.

Does a Master’s help its students to enter the industry?

Kim said, “My course was useful because I got my first job in an in-house translation company through an advert posted on the noticeboard at Heriot-Watt. The boss was an experienced translator, and still expected to have to train people on the job. This, in turn, helped me get my subsequent job (at what was then the Ministry of Agriculture), which was advertised in the national press, so there was a lot of competition. Incidentally, when I went freelance 5 years on, my first work came through a contact I'd made during my Master's.”

That’s the thing – Master’s graduates are likely to end up working in an in-house role or go freelance without any contacts or leads. Is it worth the cost and duration of a Master’s to end up in the same boat as translators without a postgraduate qualification? Even with the Master’s, in-house experience is vital from my point of view.

Sarah, on the other hand, also built up contacts made during her course, but decided to take a different direction in her career and did not foster this connections. “I initially got cold feet and took the safe route of working with a management consultancy in a completely non-translation related role. My idea was to save "enough" and then leave to set up my own translation business. In any event, I didn't take to it, and left within a year to go freelance with a cold address book and no savings. I think the sense of urgency served me well though, because I had a full book of clients within 3 months and I've never looked back. I literally couldn't afford to fail.”

So even though Sarah had managed to acquire enough contacts during her course in order to go freelance immediately, she let the trail go cold by working in an unrelated role after graduation. Moreover, not all postgraduate students would necessarily show the initiative and proactivity that Sarah did in attending translation talks and events and using the opportunity to network.   

Verena’s degree offered an internship at an agency – helping to break the loop of needing experience to get a job, but needing a job to get experience. It also allowed her to work in the last year of the degree, with her first jobs coming from work that some of her teachers had procured. But what next? “Then, I started looking for jobs on the internet, via Proz, and other job search sites. I worked a little, but definitely not enough for me to have jobs on a regular basis.”

What’s interesting in Verena’s case is that, despite their best efforts, only three or four out of 15 of her classmates are actually working as translators, and she cannot rely on working as a freelance translator to earn a living, even with a Master’s. However, this can perhaps be put down to the economic crisis that is hitting Spain a lot harder than the UK, with unemployment at nearly 25%.

So, what do our postgraduates think about learning to translate in-house rather than in class?

Sarah and Verena said exactly the same thing – there are rubbish translators with a Master’s, and excellent ones without one. Verena doesn’t see having a Master’s as a must to be a good translator, rather a way to specialise, to improve oneself, to feel more confident in one’s work, to get to know other translators and teachers and to see things from different points of view.

Besides the neutrality in approaching translation, it is important to lay the theoretical groundwork of a career in translation, which acts as a safety net of confidence for freelancers.

But Verena also suggested that it is ideal to strike the right balance between an academic and professional background. It boils down to what Sarah said - all good translators learn through on-the-job experience regardless of how their translation career is formed.

In Part Two, we’ll see what some translators have to say about their decision not to study for a Master’s and draw conclusions on the validity of both paths into translation.

Do we respect our own languages?

It may seem like quiet season on the site at the moment, but this is due to me working on more in-depth posts that require more research.
 
One of these is entitled Do we respect our own languages?, which I wrote as a guest post for the Greek translation company, Lingua Greca. This series focuses on the views of speakers - linguists or not -regarding their native language. Can one be proud to speak a certain language?

You can find the article posts here as they are published:

• Part 1 - English - 28 June 2012
• Part 2 - German - 12 July 2012
• Part 3 - French - 26 July 2012
• Part 4 - Spanish - 11 August 2012

Thanks to Catherine Christaki at Lingua Greca for publishing this! The Lingua Greca blog has regular features relating to freelance translation and beyond.

Finally, research for a post investigating the value of a Master's in translation is still ongoing - something to look forward to for August.

The first year in translation

On 4 July 2012, I celebrated my first translataversiary, which I thought would provide a fantastic chance to reflect back on the previous year to see what (if anything) I have achieved and what I still have to achieve in the future.

Getting a foot in the ladder

I spent the Easter holidays of my final year of university sending out speculative applications to translation agencies across the country that employed in-house translators. What was surprising is how this country lacks such agencies.  

Surely, it is more profitable from the agencies’ point of view to employ fresh graduates and provide them with training than to outsource all work to freelancers, whilst providing an invaluable foothold in the ladder for youngsters such as myself, who opted to take the route into translation without a Master’s. Of course, there is then the problem of assuring quality from the translations of some wet-behind-the-ears newbie, but we’ll get to that later.

The final year for students is demanding enough, not just in terms of the pressure of exams, but the demands of finding a job too, particularly in the current economic climate, with many of my peers still looking for a job, let alone one that is relevant to their degree.

Nevertheless, I juggled exam revision with preparation for a job interview at a leading translation company in the North East. The call to say that I had got the job came on the day before my final exam and I started just three weeks later.

The job also entailed moving to somewhere new, a rather small town unlike the big cities that I am used to, meeting new friends, moving in with my girlfriend – indeed an entirely new life.

Learning on the job

Over the past year, I have been under the guidance of Senior Translators, who provide constructive feedback on all my work, such as how I can improve the terminology of a technical text, the syntax of a legal text or the style and flow of a marketing text.

At this early stage in my career, it is important to obtain experience in a wide range of subjects: financial, legal, technical, marketing, business and in niche areas depending on our clients, with the aim of finding areas of specialisation.

In line with company specialisms, I do many legal and technical translations: two very important, but very different areas. However, I have translated more words in texts that require a promotional or advertisement tone. 

Fortunately, it is marketing texts that I prefer. Technical texts require a more like-for-like or literal translation and legal texts employ a completely unique lexicon not used in other fields. Promotional texts, on the other hand, allow a greater degree of creativity and enable one to stray further from the source text. What’s more, I am able to work more quickly with marketing documents because the tone is less formal and reflects spoken language to a certain extent. As a result, possible ways to translate a certain sentence come to mind much more rapidly.

The problem with specialising in this area is that there appears to be no specific training for it. Universities offer short CPD courses in legal and financial translation, but not for marketing. It may be that it is easier to teach terminology than style (which distinguishes marketing texts from legal or technical for example). The solution? Perhaps a copywriting course, which teaches how to improve the style and flow of a text to make it more of an advertisement.

Use them or lose them

I’m fortunate in being able to use five out of my seven languages in my job – I don’t think a GCSE in Welsh (albeit an A*) and one year of Catalan are sufficient to translate with.

My company principally translates from German and Dutch, hence I translate roughly 2/3 from German. French is my second most popular language and Dutch third, although many of my colleagues take on more Dutch as they studied it as a major part of their degree whereas I took it as an optional module. Spanish is fourth, but a major flaw in these statistics is the exclusion of work I do fairly frequently for the nautical sector from Spanish to English. By including these jobs from now on, we shall hopefully have some more accurate statistics next time.

So, I hope to see a better balance of languages in future, but I am more or less content with the specialist areas of my translations. I am gaining more and more experience in the common areas of translation, but after just one year, I have come across highly specialised texts, from breast implants to bottle washing machines, so who knows what the future holds?

The latest news from Language Man

With Eurovision over for another year, the blog has suddenly gone quiet, but I assure you I have been occupied with other matters.

I have just spent a lovely, albeit wet, week in Edinburgh, having gone with my girlfriend and returned with my fiancée, who are one person by the way.

The Les aventures toulousaines series has unfortunately concluded after eight weeks, but in case you missed it, I have been working on a summary of the year which will shortly be published on ThirdYearAbroad.com.

I am also working on a lengthy guest post for Lingua Greca's blog which questions whether we have respect for our languages, examining English, French, German and Spanish.

Following that I will be examining the value and necessity of a Master's in translation, looking at case studies of experienced translators with and without the qualification.

With all this to look forward to, who needs a hot British summer?

Des aventures toulousaines - Part 8: Adieu, la France

By spring 2010, I realised that my time in France was drawing to a close, and despite everything that I had done and everywhere that I had been, I hadn’t seen as much as I wanted to. So I took action and hopped on a train to Montpellier. It wasn’t a place I knew much about, but as France’s 8th largest city, situated on the Mediterranean coast two hours SE of Toulouse, it was bound to be a nice day out.

Stepping out of Saint Roch station, I was greeted by the façades of typical 19th century French architecture, vast public promenades and squares, and wide areas of peaceful greenery. Very close to the station was a very small park, with a large peculiar boulder in a pool of water and a sprinkler on top. Perfect place to relax with a book amidst the gentle sound of the fountain. But I had no time for this - I was on one of Language Man’s 'power trips'. This is when I visit a large town or city, seeing as much as I can within as little time as possible. The result is a camera with a very full memory card, a thinner wallet and painful feet, but the memories and cultural enrichment are worth it.

Porte du Peyrou

One of my favourite points in Montpellier was Porte du Peyrou, a triumphal arch smaller than Paris’s Arc de Triomphe but more majestic due to its golden colour, proudly flying the French tricolore. Later I released the inner child with a trip to Montpellier Zoo, notably for its Serre Amazonienne, a tropical greenhouse with exotic animals from anacondas to piranhas. 

As I reached the end of my time in France, I didn’t want to leave the country without having ever visited Paris. So, two weeks after Montpellier, I went on another power trip to Paris. I took the one-hour flight from Toulouse to Charles de Gaulle at around 6am in the morning, returning at around 8pm the same evening. Everything that can be said about this city has already been put into poems or other literary and artistic works. Writers can try as hard as they like to convey the overwhelming sight of the buildings along the river Seine, set under a backdrop of blue sky, interrupted only by the Eiffel Tower rising high above.

So, with my unlimited metro card and my meticulously planned route in an anti-clockwise direction, I took in sights including the Louvre (the outside only), the Champs Elysées, the Palais de l’Elysée (where the President lives), the Arc de Triomphe, La Défense (Paris’s financial district with lots of modern skyscrapers), Notre Dame, the Centre Pompidou (modern art gallery) and Montmartre.

Of course, I did go to the Eiffel Tower, but after an hour wasted in a queue that wasn’t going anywhere, I decided to give it a miss and save it for when I come back to Paris to see it properly with my fiancée. As a happy compromise, I went up the equally high Tour Montparnasse for a spectacular view of this city. I fail to understand why more people don’t do this. This beats going up the Eiffel Tower for several reasons: it’s much cheaper and much quicker (barely a queue), and in particular, the view at the top includes the Eiffel Tower and isn’t spoilt by the ugly Tour Montparnasse! This day remains one of the best of my life.

Back in Toulouse, I had only a few weeks left with my students. Lesson plans were out the window and my classes for the last fortnight consisted of an hour-long quiz about the UK and putting on a DVD of Mr Bean’s Holiday. The year had definitely been a learning curve as far as preparing lessons was concerned. Prior to leaving for France, my university organised a language assistants course, but I was still thrown into the deep end when I arrived as I had no idea of the pupils’ level of English, what topics they were interested in or indeed what I should base my lessons on.


Au revoir

I worked with a number of English language teachers who all had their own way of teaching. Rosy preferred for me to concentrate on fluency by holding conversations with the students, whereas I would work with Letty on whatever her lessons focussed on. At one point, we had an intense debate on the morality of the death penalty in English. With other teachers, it was often whatever I could come up with, so I would spend evenings dissecting the BBC news site for the most interesting topics of the week. The year taught me how to use my initiative when the class came to an awkward silence, and how to motivate when the classroom was the last place the kids would want to be on a warm Friday afternoon. It was difficult, but the most rewarding parts of life are challenging.

The year had come to an end and my parents once again drove all the way from Cardiff to Toulouse – this time without me navigating – and we drove back overnight, leaving Toulouse at 10pm and arriving home at 3pm the following day. I had never done so much driving in my life, but the eerily quiet motorways gave me time to reflect on a diverse and vibrant year, and I wondered how it went so quickly.

< Part 7: Une Aventure Genevoise