Research Tools

Regarding the researching I mentioned yesterday, here are some of the tools that I've found most useful so far, as a translator, a linguist, and a writer:

WordReference: Congratulations. You now have a basic bilingual dictionary, completely searchable, including both the Oxford bilingual dictionary (usually -- depends on the language combination) and entries on phrases, idioms, and a myriad of other expressions from users all around the world. Yes, the user-defined fields must be taken with a grain of salt, and the forums are sometimes more hindrance than anything else, but it's a good place to start. Of course, it doesn't include an exhaustive list of languages, but they've got most of the major ones.

Linguee: This service is just starting out, and so far, it's just between English and German, Spanish, French, and Portuguese. But what it IS, is a pretty good dictionary combined with a search engine that pulls already-bilingual documents from all around the Internet with your phrase in it, to see how it's been translated elsewhere. Right now, it's a lot of EU and UN documents, as well as some multinational companies, so it's not going to help for non-commerce requests. It's still hit or miss, but it promises so much more as it grows!

Oxford English Dictionary and Historical Thesaurus: Their online databases are a paid service, but I would bet you anything that your library offers a way to login for free (NYPL members, go here). And oh, the rich detail in the entries! The dictionary is the best in the English language. The thesaurus gives you every word that could possibly ever be linked with your chosen word, in a convenient tree form. (According to them, every word in the English language can be filed under three categories: the external world, the mind, and society.)

A monolingual source dictionary: Even as a translator, this is an invaluable resource. When you come across a word you don't know, or aren't quite sure how it works in that particular context, look it up in your source language first. See if you can figure out what it means for yourself, then try to find a good translation on your own, before relying on someone else's ideas.

Listservs/LinkedIn groups/other: These are your personal connections with colleagues when you work from home. Right now, I'm on...five lists? I think? Two French lists, one literature list, one business list, one local translators list. Yes. Five. Invaluable for keeping sanity intact and asking questions that you should know the answer to, but don't, for whatever reason. Also, general commiseration and congratulations, when the time warrants it.

There are more, of course, but more entries of resources will inevitably follow. For now, I'm off to use my own list!

Things I've Learned: Research Early, Research Often

Seriously. Just do it.

Oh, more information? Right.

I thought I was being very smart, researching all the vocabulary I needed as I went along, as well as most of the historical references. (Did you know, for example, that Nadar was a pioneer in both photography and hot air ballooning, making him the first aerial photographer?)

But as it turns out, I had always left a few terms in each chapter to look up later. To check with other sources, other people. And then there was the pesky little problem of primary source translations. Some of a famous French author's work would undoubtedly be translated into English, no? So those translations should probably be the ones cited in my work, instead of trying to reinvent the wheel and do them all myself.

All this work kept piling up, and suddenly, I was three weeks from deadline with only enough time budgeted to finish a few last translations and re-edit everything. This, folks, is what you call a time crunch. And I got it done, because that's what you do.

But there is much more to translation than just translating. There is searching, and researching, and re-searching, and re-researching. There is asking around, and begging, and digging, and hunting. There is editing, and proofing, and rereading, and storming around the house because you can't find that one perfect word. Then, when you find what you were looking for, you realize it doesn't actually work.

Oh, and translating also includes the mountain of daily emails, and marketing yourself, and doing samples, and looking for new clients, and keeping existing clients happy. Literary translators usually have other work to keep themselves afloat.

It's a delicate balancing act, keeping all of that up in the air. But it's doable. And kinda fun.

"And I know things now, many valuable things, that I hadn't known before..." - Little Red, Stephen Sondheim's "Into the Woods"

Rise and shine!

Wake up, blog, it's a new day! Birds are singing, bacon is sizzling in the pan, and...wow, we've been a long time dormant and asleep. My apologies.

Long story short, translating a book happened. And then a well-deserved vacation. Although it wasn't planned in that order, it just happened to work out that way.

Another long story short, the translation was probably the single hardest thing I've ever had to do, besides possibly move to France and teach children English for a year without knowing anything. I learned a lot. Quite a bit. Huge amounts. Volumes and mountains. And of course, I will be recounting these on this blog in the coming days and weeks (partially for the wider internet world, partially to make sure I don't make the same mistakes twice).

For now, a quick tidbit: connections matter. Sometimes, they're fun to make. So when I have seven hours in Paris between arriving by train and departing by plane, and the author of the book I just finished translating just so happens to live in the Paris area, and plans are made in advance, I get to meet said author for lunch. At Angelina. Where their chestnut-flavored, creme-de-marron-filled Mont Blanc reminds me of Ardèche, my former (once and future?) home, where chestnuts are the local specialty...

She's lovely, by the way. The author. Fascinating woman.

Exit Waking World, Enter Subconscious

I had a very vivid dream this morning just before my alarm clock went off.  It was an Indiana-Jones-meets-video-games puzzle, a carnival booth in a dank cave in which I had to open a chest in order to receive my prize, or move onto the next level, or not die (dreams are sometimes weirdly non-specific about motivations).  There were pressure plates, and supplies for small explosives, and pulleys and levers, and buckles and snaps, and lots of sand.  And an egg, but I don't think that's relevant. I had to use contextual clues to figure out how to open the chest, plus a healthy dose of trial-and-error.  What happens if I connect this buckle to this pulley, then to this pressure plate?  Nothing explodes?  Okay.  What if I connect all six pressure plates to the same weight?  The chest moves closer?  Great.

Of course I woke up before the dream ended, but I'm still intrigued.  Puzzles!  Logic!  Mental tests!  Tips from the context!  Trial and error!

Oh.  I must be translating literature again.

:-)

A croissant a day keeps procrastination away

And thus, the third week of working from home draws to a close.  It's a tricky transfer, from a 9-5 office job to working from home for yourself.  Habits to form and reform, trying to figure out what schedule (or lack thereof) will keep you on track the longest, trying to avoid the homemade Oreo vanilla ice cream in the freezer...

One of my biggest problems is a lack of variety.  Sometimes I can sit at my computer, windows open, music on in the background, working for anywhere between 20 minutes and four hours before I just...can't anymore.  Getting up and stretching doesn't work.  Sitting at the piano for ten minutes doesn't work.  A light snack doesn't work.  Calling my mother to chat doesn't work (and is usually more distracting).  A quick reading break devolves into hours on the couch.  So what is a poor freelancer to do?

To each his own, of course, but my strategy to refocus involves going to a local French cafe with Wifi.  It's something about being surrounded by just enough activity that my brain isn't allowed to wander.  I buckle down and work, consistently, for as long as I need to.

But -- monkey wrench! -- such a plan involves spending money.  A croissant, a cafe au lait, a limonade, a quiche...even one a day starts adding up.  Now, I am all for supporting local businesses with my wallet, but when my wallet is pretty trim to begin with, there's not a lot of support I can give.  Rationing must occur.

Then, oh the dilemma!  What if I was just at the cafe yesterday, but it's now 2pm and I've been staring at my computer without getting any work done for three hours because I can't focus?  Does the croissant money justify the productivity?

Well, yes.  As a matter of fact, it does.  Even if I'm not specifically working on a paying job whilst at the cafe, any work I do will lay the groundwork for a paying job.  It's replying to an email and keeping in touch with a PM.  It's updating my website.  It's working on a short story translation for a possible magazine publication.  It's updating my online Rolodex.  All useful things.

Definitely worth the croissant.

Universal business advice, expanded upon from a brief phone conversation with a fellow translating stranger

- Be wary of entering into agreements if you are already busy; or, alternatively, desperate.  Too busy, and you may renege on your end of the bargain.  Too desperate for work, and you can be taken advantage of. - Find a personal contact within a large company that you're working for.  Make sure they can rely on you for honest communication and prompt fulfillment of your promises.  Then, you can rely on them for flexibility, good projects, and dealings with Accounting (read: getting paid).

- Figure out how best you negotiate rates as a contractor.  If the other party is being difficult, you have two options to protect yourself: either be firm for the initial talks and give discounts as you see fit, or compromise at first and be firm on that compromise.

Huh.  I know more than I think I know.  Talk and practice are different animals, though.  It's tough work working for yourself!

Translators are writers, too.

One of the perks of working in a publishing house is the ability to ask anyone a question that should be common knowledge, but isn't, either to you or to the general public.  (These could also be called "stupid" questions, but let's be nice here.)  I asked a question to the senior editor recently that I thought was relatively benign: "How many of your translators have literary agents?"

Well, as it turns out...none.

Well, one does, but he's more of a foreign rights go-between from France.

Why does this matter?  Not all authors have agents.  But many do, including all the big bestsellers.  And look closer: the contract for a book-length translation is, more often than not, paid with a certain sum per 1000 words.  In most instances, literary translators are contractors, providing work-for-hire.  Which maybe makes some semblance of sense to some people, but not for me, and not for many others.

Literary translators are authors.  They are creative minds.  Literary translation is not a process of "what does this mean?", which is similar to summaries and reviews and college-level literature classes.  Instead, it is a process of "how can I best convey the words, the style, the meaning, the metaphors, the language, the feel of this work of art into my own language?".  It is a creative process, albeit a transformative one.

I'm not going to belabor this point, mostly because there are others out there (*cough cough Chad Post at Three Percent**) who expound this point much more lucidly and better informed than I can.  But why is it general consensus -- so much so that I shared this opinion before I seriously considered translation as a career -- that translators perform a service instead of creating a piece of their own?  It's not something commonly thought of.

Think of that today.  Think of a book you love that was only made possible by a translator: Don Quixote for Americans, Shakespeare for Germans, Proust for Russians, Tolstoy for Chinese.  Think of that, and you have my blessing and thanks.

From out of the blue

Sometimes, people call you from out of the blue.  Completely.    There's absolutely no connection to an existing client, or personal friend, or cousin's ex-husband's business partner's mother's sister-in-law's lawyer*, or anyone else.  

I just finalized a small job for a woman who I cannot for the life of me figure out how she knows I exist. But as I thought about it, there are actually many ways she could have found me.  Maybe she was directed to my website by someone.  Maybe she looked up the ATA database, or the NYCT database, and just started down the list.  Maybe she saw an article I wrote for one of the ATA division newsletters.  She could have even Googled "French translator Brooklyn", although I'm not entirely sure where I pop up on that list.  Maybe someone threw one of my business cards away and the trash can fell over and my card happened to catch her eye.  Who knows, really?

The point is, those are only a few ways that she could have found me.  All of them are valid, and all of them are useful (except for maybe that last one with the garbage).  I personally don't use every service available to me (I've almost given up on Twitter, I only spend limited time on LinkedIn, etc.), but apparently, all those avenues of promotion pay off.  It's a nice ego boost to know you're doing something right.

------

*I will bake you cookies if you figure out who this person is in your life.

Go little guys!

(Slightly OT)

In my spare time (haha), I work at a small, non-profit publishing house, The New Press.  They're really cool, see here: http://thenewpress.com/

It's not often that one of our books pops up on any bestseller list.  Let alone the New York Times' paperback non-fiction shortlist.  But after The New Jim Crow started with a modest print run of 3,000 back in 2010, here it is now at #5 on the bestseller list, for the second week running, in the company of Tina Fey and Malcolm Gladwell:

http://www.nytimes.com/best-sellers-books/paperback-nonfiction/list.html

Go Michelle Alexander, go The New Jim Crow, and go The New Press!  We may be small, but we're playing in the big leagues now.

I'm a published writer!

This is a huge deal for anyone, especially those just starting out.  And look at me!  I've gotten a review published in the newsletter of the ATA's Slavic Languages Division.  Woohoo!! See page 26: http://www.ata-divisions.org/SLD/slavfile/SlavFile_vol.21.no.1.Winter.pdf

But wait, you say.  Aren't you a French speaker?  Do you know anything about Russian?

Well, I've sung in Russian before, but I don't think that counts.  But...I'm a singer.  I'm interested in music, and the translation thereof.  Just read the fracking review, you'll understand.

Now, please excuse me while I jump around and squeal in sheer delight.