I am not really into crowdsourced translation, but it appears that the Open University in the UK is about to run a MOOC, a Massive Open Online Course on Open Translation tools and practices.

There’s more information here, including a video. The pilot runs from 15th October to 7 December 2012 (8 weeks), with the accompanying course website opening on Oct 10th 2012.

The project is aimed at speakers of English or Spanish who are also proficient in Spanish or English (level B2 or above of the CEFR). You might be a language learner, a translation student, or simply looking to develop your translation skills. The project will provide the following opportunities:

Introduce learners to open translation tools and generic translation skills, developing useful employability skills in a global context;
Promote plurilingualism and intercultural communication;
Promote the internationalisation of the student experience;
Introduce learners to real-world translation tasks for volunteer translators in well-established community translation projects (e.g. Wikipedia, TED talks, Global Voices);
Develop translation skills in subject specific domains (maths, education) through translating OpenLearn content (http://www.open.edu/openlearn/).

I am gearing up to start blogging properly again, but meanwhile some reading from a website on running a small business from home. Someone tweeted it this morning, I hope as a joke but perhaps not. The site gives advice on how you can earn money as a ‘verbal translator’ (this seems to mean an interpreter) or a ‘text-based translator’ (apparently a translator). This opportunity is open to you even if you do not have the ideal qualification of having grown up bilingual:

Most organizations who are looking to hire a verbal translator will prefer to find translators that grew up speaking both languages. Fully bilingual, these translators have been speaking both languages since their childhood and this can help bring a fluid mastery that many other translators will not have. These translators will often understand the rhythm and cadence of a particular region which many students of language cannot master.

I have always had the impression that ‘true bilinguals’ are not typically ideal translators, but apparently I was wrong. Looking at my day’s work today, I must admit that fluid mastery is not the first description that occurs to me.

Another important point made, if I interpret it correctly, is that whereas interpreters can just babble away, we translators need to know grammar. That’s good, because I’ve spent quite a few years teaching grammar. The students didn’t seem keen, but I always knew it would be useful some day.

While a verbal translator needs to be able to efficiently handle the ever changing dynamics of a language, text based translators often need to have a better hold on grammatical structure of a language. Both types of translators should certainly be able to both speak and write the language, although text translators should know the specifics behind important grammatical rules of the language. Most written documents will need to have an educated proficiency behind them.

Looking behind me, I haven’t spotted the educated proficiency yet, but I feel sure it must be there.

This is why a number of different tools can all come in handy when you are learning how to become a translator.

Here I am disappointed. I was hoping they would tell me what tools they meant. Do they mean software, or is it hammers and screwdrivers? Still, I am presumably past that point and there seems hope here:

Once you are able to hold a conversation or read a book in two different ways, though, you will know that you are ready to find work as a translator.

(I wonder whether these texts are bought in from Asia?)

eCPD is a company formed this year to provide webinars for translators.

That means an internet seminar for continuous professional development (which the ITI is propagating) that you can follow on your own computer. If you miss the date but have registered, you can hear it online later.

They have a webinar on specializing in legal translation on October 28. The ‘speaker’ (?) is Ricardo Martinez, of the City University of London, who will be giving examples on English and into French and Spanish.

Register here.

This webinar will provide the audience with an overview of the field of legal translation, focusing on the following aspects:
• Why legal translation as a specialisation?
• How to get into the legal translation field
• Disparity between Anglo-American Law / Continental Law
• Types of documents usually translated and some basic vocabulary (examples translated into French and Spanish)
• Main features of legal English
• Some practical problems in legal translation
Practical advice for the budding legal translator.

Speaker: Ricardo Martinez of City University, London
Ricardo has been translating, interpreting and lecturing since 1990, both in the UK and Spain. As an Intérprete Jurado he specialises in the legal and financial fields. He has expanded his areas of expertise throughout the years to other fields such as journalism, TV, tourism, engineering, software localisation and IT. As a lecturer he has taught at the Escuela de Traductores e Intérpretes in Madrid in the 1990s and is currently responsible for the English-Spanish language pair of the Legal Translation MA at City University.
Cost: £15

(This has long since been blogged by Philippa Hammond, but I missed it).

(St. Jerome by Rubens, via Wikimedia Commons)

Today is St. Jerome’s Day, which has now apparently become International Translator’s Day, and I am celebrating by translating.

Here are a couple of links, though.

1. Ghaddafi About the story of Ghaddafi’s interpreter collapsing: Richard Schneider has a full account, in German, which suggests that the New York Post was inaccurate when it said the interpreter collapsed after 75 minutes and shouted ‘I can’t take it any more’ – it seems he managed 90 minutes, and the UN interpreter only had to take over the last 5 minutes. The speech was intended to be about 15 minutes long. But simultaneous interpreters usually do about 20 minutes, as far as I know. Ghaddafi said he had brought his own interpreter, because he was going to speak an obscure dialect, but in fact he did not speak dialect. The chairmanship/presidency is currently held by Libya, by rotation, and that is why there was no complaint about the procedural irregularity. (How did Ghaddafi’s French interpreter manage?)

Richard Schneider gibes YouTube links to all sections of the speech. Here is the last one, including the takeover of the interpreting by the UN. These videos may not be accessible online for very long.

2. Becoming a medical translator On her blog, Sarah Dillon has an interview with Andrew Bell, who does medical and pharmaceutical translations and also runs the site Watercooler.

3. White House calls for machine translation Thus Global Watchtower reports.

Last week, the Executive Office of the President and National Economic Council issued its “Strategy for American Innovation.” Among the recommendations was a call for “automatic, highly accurate and real-time translation between the major languages of the world — greatly lowering the barriers to international commerce and collaboration.” In other words, machine translation (MT) has captured somebody’s attention in the President’s inner circle.

This tactic would certainly save all the problems associated with human translators – a potential such was recently held for hours, apparently for having Arabic flashcards in his backpack. (TSA defends itself).

Abigail Dahlberg at The Greener Word has a very full list of links to online publications on translation – for German and English.