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My experience interpreting for a workshop on greenhouse gas inventories for the United Nations Development Programme

As I’ve mentioned in a few recent LinkedIn posts (see here and here), last month I was working at the Hilton in Windhoek for the United Nations Development Programme providing interpreting services at a workshop related to the greenhouse gas inventories that must be submitted by the countries that are signatories to the Paris Agreement.

Interpreting in the booth

Interpreting in the booth for the workshop

It was fascinating to learn about how the calculations and estimates are done in various sectors and to learn the difference between tier-1, tier-2 and tier-3 data used for calculations.

A highly technical meeting

The full name of the workshop gave me an indication of how complex it was going to be. It was officially a “Workshop on the Building of Sustainable National Greenhouse Gas Inventory Management Systems and the Use of the IPCC Inventory Software to Support the Implementation of the Enhanced Transparency Framework under the Paris Agreement for the African Region”. If I was going to deliver a professional service that would allow the meeting to run smoothly, I would have to do my homework. Thankfully, my client was very cooperative and provided plenty of material for me to study in advance, which allowed me to understand what was being discussed in the meeting and to find the appropriate terms in French.

Workshop on national greenhouse gas inventories

Opening speech of the Workshop on the Building of Sustainable National Greenhouse Gas Inventory Management Systems and the Use of the IPCC Inventory Software to Support the Implementation of the Enhanced Transparency Framework under the Paris Agreement for the African Region

Take “Sustainable National Greenhouse Gas Inventory Management Systems”. In French, the noun “Systèmes” comes before all the other words in the phrase. This means that, to translate this phrase correctly, in theory you have to hear the whole phrase and then remember all the terms before you can say “Systèmes durables de gestion des inventaires nationaux des gaz à effet de serre”. But by the time you say that, the speaker will be half way through the next sentence.

Solutions

The speakers often resorted to shorter forms such as “national inventories”. I found it very useful to use these short forms even when speakers used a long form. For example, if I said “national inventories”, delegates would know I was referring to national greenhourse gas inventories.

Acronyms were another big challenge.

A picture of the conference agenda

Agenda for Session 4 on compiling GHG inventories using IPCC software and UNFCCC ETF reporting tool

I could see that acronyms were going to be used in abundance. So much so that I printed off a list in advance and stuck them to the inside walls of the interpreting booths. During the first few hours, I was looking at the wall frequently, but by the first afternoon, I was already familiar with most of the acronyms.

 

Using the software, and giving instructions for a tool only available in English

My advanced Excel skills came in handy, because they helped me to understand the IPCC Inventory Software, which in many ways resembled Excel. I installed the IPCC Inventory Software on my own computer before the session so that I could carry out the exercise as the delegates were doing it. Since the software was available only in English, when explaining which options to click on, I would say the option in English, pronouncing it in as clear a way as possible so that people who didn’t speak English could tell what I was saying, then I would explain what the option meant. For example, if the speaker said “Click on ‘New year'”, I would say “Cliquez sur ‘New Year’, qui signifie ‘Nouvelle année'”.

By carrying out the exercise at the same time as the delegates, I was able to understand what was going on, which made the interpreting task so much simpler. For example, the final session was all about how to move data from the IPPC Inventory Software to the reporting tool of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Sometimes the speakers would refer to both systems in the same sentence. Given the lengthy names, a useful interpreting strategy was to use phrases such as “les deux outils” (the two tools), “d’un outil à l’autre” (from one tool to the other), “entre les deux outils” (between the two tools), “aucun des deux outils” (neither tool) and “de l’outil du GIEC à celui de l’ONU” (from  the IPPC tool to the UN tool) instead of more literal translations that mentioned the full names. The fact that the participants themselves often used these shorter phrases meant that I felt justified in using them when participants used the longer names. I was only able to do this because I prepared thoroughly and understood what was going on.

The key to success

Glossary in Google Sheets

Glossaries are vital for interpreting assignments. In the image is one of the glossaries I prepared in Google Sheets for the workshop

It’s hard to emphasize enough just how important preparation was for this assignment. The meeting could have been a disaster, but it was thanks to my meticulous preparation that, as I had a final hot drink in the coffee area after the final session, a group of half a dozen French-speaking delegates from across Africa told me what a wonderful job I’d done.

The Moroccan delegate told me that as she listened to me she could tell I loved what I was doing. She wasn’t wrong.

If you have a highly technical meeting for which you need an interpreter who will prepare properly and won’t let you down, get in contact and let’s talk about your project. More information at www.anglopremier.com/interpreting.

Listen in

Here’s a sample of French-English interpreting from the meeting. It’s best to use a device with two speakers (or earphones), so you can hear the delegate through the left speaker and my interpretation through the right speaker.

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Don’t send me your pdf files for translation! See how I translated five booklets for a UN agency

Need a book or booklet translating? If you’re tempted to send your translator the pdf files, think again.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) asked me to translate five handbooks related to African countries from French to English: one on pastoral land tenure in the Niger, and four on free, prior and informed consent in Mali, Mauritania, Senegal and Tunisia. (Click on the country names to see my work. A good translator should be willing to share some of their work, unless they only ever translate confidential documents.)

Old version of the Niger document

Old version of the Niger document

Don’t send me pdfs!

The first text I worked on was the one about pastoral land in the Niger. For this document, I only had access to the pdf file, so I used a pdf editing tool to insert my translations. Not ideal, since there are many design issues when you work directly on a pdf, but the client hadn’t managed to get the original file, so I had to make do.

Among the many issues I faced, I had to use a substitute font, and some of the texts didn’t fit the boxes that had been designed specifically for the French text and the original font.

Published version of the Niger document

Published version of the Niger document

In the end, the client inserted my translations manually into the original document, much to my relief, because my version looked like the first of the two snippets on the right, whereas the final version was like the second snippet, with much more elegant fonts and boxes that matched the length of the text (compare the two versions of “MANAGEMENT OF PASTORAL RESOURCES”).

Because I had I alerted the client to the problems likely to arise, by the time I started work on the four other documents they had found the originals, which had been made using InDesign. You might assume translators won’t want to work with InDesign files, but that’s exactly what a good translator wants, as it makes our life much easier if we can work on the original document.

Armed with the originals, I extracted the text using my professional software, translated it, then generated new files with the same layout. Using the InDesign file, the client generated proofs, which I then checked through.

At this stage, there is always some work that still needs to be done, mainly because many portions of text will be longer or shorter in the target text than in the source text. But the work needed to fix such issues is minimal, and the client would have needed to do them anyway, even if my translations had been copy-pasted in by the graphic designer.

By working with the InDesign files, I saved my client time and money.

Find a translator who will work with your InDesign files

Like many of my previous clients, the project manager at FAO was delighted at how much I reduced their workload.

Many clients are reluctant to share InDesign files. Perhaps graphic designers warn them that the translator might mess up the format. But when clients do allow me to work with the originals, they never regret it.

Here’s the feedback I received from another client who was initially reluctant to allow me to work on the InDesign files:

InDesign feedback

Feedback from a previous client

The graphic designer’s fear is understandable but misguided. My software leaves the formatting exactly how it is. I work on a file containing the text extracted from the InDesign file, and my translation is then inserted back into the original, without any formatting adjustments being made.

Send me your InDesign files for translation
If you need to translate some InDesign files, don’t hesitate to contact me. You’ll find my contact details on my website.

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Spot the foreign-language influence

Amazon.com: For If The Flies - t-shirt: Clothing

¡Por si las moscas!

Anyone translator living in his or her source-language country needs to watch out for source-language interference. Similarly, an author who writes in one language but lives in a country that speaks a different language needs to be wary of interference from the host country’s language.

Today, Google recommended an article to me in which I noticed foreign-language interference almost from the beginning. See if you can spot it too in this article about the level of English in Spain, then click on “Continue reading” to reveal the answers.

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Day 3 of WFS Live: How football clubs secure partnerships outside their local geographies

This week I’ve been attending World Football Summit‘s second WFS Live event. Day 3 included a panel discussion on “How football clubs secure partnerships outside their local geographies”.

As a translator, this session was of particular interest to me, since translators play such a vital role in helping football clubs and leagues to reach new markets.

Matthieu Fenaert of Real Valladolid explained that, in the current economic climate, it was important to consolidate existing partnerships, rather than building new ones. Asked how international sponsors could be retained in these difficult times, he said that clubs needed partners, not sponsors, a view echoed by the other panellists.

On the topic of foreign investors, he said that they had to respect the history of their new club, noting the uproar among Cardiff City fans when Vincent Tan changed the club’s colours from blue to red – a decision eventually reversed due to fan pressure.

Marc Armstrong of Paris Saint-German said that clubs had had to adapt their sales methods due to travel restrictions. He said that, while on the one hand there was no replacement for face-to-face travel, perhaps it would not be necessary to travel so much in future.

He also spoke about the club’s shift from national sponsors to global partners. When I lived in Paris and attended games at the Parc des Princes, nearly all PSG’s sponsors were French brands, many of which operated solely in France. Fast forward 20 years, and the club’s partners are much more global, a deliberate strategy by the club.

Marc added that the club had created a lifestyle brand to stand out from other clubs. Other strategies had included establishing innovative partnerships, such as with Finnish mobile game development company Supercell, and putting key players in contact with the leading influencers in key markets. Creativity, flexibility and intelligence, said Marc, were necessary to find opportunities.

Casper Stylsvig talked about some of the innovations that AC Milan had introduced, reaching out to fans through music and entertainment. He noted that many big brands sponsored both music and sport. Since people today consume sports differently, clubs needed to change their narrative. By way of example, Casper Stylsvig referred to the virtual concert the club had organized the previous Friday, in collaboration with Roc Nation. Such events should be connected to the club’s image: last week’s concert featured many upcoming stars from the world of music, in keeping with a club that had one of the youngest teams in Europe.

I was particularly interested in hearing the thoughts of Andrew Hampel, since, like me, he provides clubs with skills and expertise that they do not have in house. For instance, moving to a new stadium is a once-in-a-lifetime event for most football clubs, but Legends International has already worked with several football clubs that have built a new ground. Like the other speakers, Andrew Hampel stressed the importance of partnership, rather than sponsorship, and said that, to engage in a sophisticated way, clubs needed to understand their partners’ businesses – which is where companies like Legends International come in to provide the necessary expertise.

Despite the current economic climate, football clubs – especially the heavyweight clubs – are looking to go ever more global. Although there is currently a major focus on new markets in the Asia Pacific region, which will require language consultants who work with major Asian languages like Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Thai, the English language is still going to be a vital part of club’s communication strategies, perhaps even more so than the local language in some cases.

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I’m going to Cannes!

As I was doing the washing up last night, I decided to tune in to France Info. And it was perfect timing: a few minutes later the presenter interviewed Aurel about his film, Josep, which had been selected for the Cannes Film Festival 2020.

The animated film, produced by Les Films d’Ici Méditerranée, tells the story of Josep Bartoli, a Catalan artist who was among the many Republicans who fled north into France to escape the Spanish Civil War. The French government placed the refugees in concentration camps, in awful conditions, in the middle of winter. You can read a full review in English here.

So why was I so excited when this interview came on the radio?

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The true identity of Athletic Bilbao’s last Englishman is finally unearthed

Earlier this month, Spanish football historian Lartaun de Azumendi published a 43-Tweet-long thread to explain a remarkable discovery he had made about Martyn Veitch, the man usually cited as the last foreigner to play for Athletic Bilbao before they introduced their famous Basque-only policy.

His discovery quite literally changed the history books, as several days later, Athletic Bilbao updated its website to reflect Lartaun’s discovery. The thread was in Spanish, but as a professional translator specialising in sport, I’m always on the look out for interesting stories that would interest English readers, so I asked Lartaun if I could translate it.

Although I have published a version on Twitter, I recommend reading it on here, where I’m free from the shackles of the 280-character limit. Enjoy!
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Izaskun Orkwis’s article on institutional translation

I first met Izaskun Orkwis at the 1st International Conference of Economic, Business, Financial and Institutional Translation, when my only institutional client was the OECD. Since then, she’s given me some great advice on how to get my feet in the door of international institutions.

In an article for the latest edition of the ATA Chronicle, Izaskun draws on her experience with international institutions to explain some of the quirks of working for them and how to ensure your translation is fit for purpose. The article is packed with pearls of wisdom. Here, I highlight just a few, with some additional remarks based on my own experience:

“the different language versions must match exactly, including all nuances and formal structure…replacing parentheses with commas may be fine in other contexts, but not in institutional translation”

 

“There will be humongous databases and parallel corpora that will be both a blessing…and a curse (sometimes you must reuse previous language, unchanged).”

Sometimes I’ve translated 3,000 word documents in 15 minutes, as nearly the entire document is a recycled version of an old one in the translation memory. But as Izaskun says, sometimes the databases are a curse. This is especially true when you find inconsistencies in the memory and you spend far more time deciding which previous version to use than you would have spent just translating it from scratch.

“the institutional translator must…lose their individual voice…the translated document, just like the original, belongs to the institution, which is its sole author”

 

“the institutional translator must…adopt the institution’s working methods”

The latter is particularly challenging for those of us who do short-term contracts for various institutions, as the working methods vary from one institution to another. To give just one example, the World Trade Organization uses Trados Studio (with two different workflows, depending on the type of document), whereas the United Nations Office at Geneva has its own computer-assisted translation tool that runs in the browser. Some institutions require you to upload your translation to a portal; others ask you to save it to a shared network drive.

“the institutional translator must…adhere to vetted terminology”

Izaskun goes on to say that you should consult a terminologist if you feel the need to depart from the vetted terminology. In the work I’ve done, I tend only to have to consult one of the revisers, not a terminologist.

Sometimes the solution in the terminology database is not what the more senior translation staff actually use. In such cases, if I were working at home, with my own setup, I would quickly edit the entry in my termbase, but in an institutional setting, terminology vetting is a complex process and it can take a long time for the entry to be corrected. It gets even more complicated if you suggest a change to the editorial manual. Since it is used by all the UN offices, someone in Geneva can’t just change something without consulting colleagues in New York, Nairobi and elsewhere, which is perhaps why we’re still not allowed to make country names possessive, despite the fact that every UN translator I’ve ever spoken to hates the rule!

“whenever there’s a quote from or a reference to a previous document, no matter how long or short, you must assume there exists a previous translation that needs to be found and reused”

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Yacht Racing Forum 2018, in Lorient

At the end of October, I attended the 2018 Yacht Racing Forum. Organised by Geneva-based MaxComm Communication, this year’s edition visited Lorient, in a part of Brittany that is marketed as the Bretagne Sailing Valley because of the huge impact that sailing has on the local economy (see the tweet below).

The Sailing Valley

Taking the forum to Lorient was an excellent decision, but taking it there just a fortnight before the start of the Route du Rhum was a master stroke. Thanks to the location and the timing, the organisers attracted dozens of the key players involved in the race, including a good number of the actual sailors. Continue reading

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“Pain of the field” es lo de menos

Varios medios españoles y internacionales nos han ofrecido la noticia esta semana de que la web del Ministerio de Industria, Comercio y Turismo tiene una noticia en inglés sobre el nombramiento de un tal “pain of field” como miembro del Oficina Internacional de Pesas y Medidas. Este nombre raro es el resultado de la traducción automática del nombre de Dolores del Campo.

Una de las noticias más compartidas sobre el tema es bastante sorprendente: la de Euronews tiene un inglés muy deficiente, probablemente como resultado de una traducción automática.

Otra cosa que me ha sorprendido Continue reading

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When a translation has no mistakes, but is still poor

This video by the Spanish Ministry of Affairs is an example of a translation that has no mistakes per se, but is still not a good translation.

In the following table, the first column lists some of the expressions that don’t sound natural in English; the second column shows some proposed solutions.

Unnatural phrases used in the videoAlternatives that sound more natural
"more than four and a half million foreigners habitually reside in Spain""more than four and a half million foreign nationals have made Spain their home"
"75 million inbound tourists will visit our country""75 million tourists will visit our country"
"1 in every 10 inhabitants of Spain is a foreigner""Foreign nationals make up 10% of the population"
"from all five continents""from across the world" (English speakers don't use the five-continents model!)
"Did you know that there are more than 100,000 different surnames from all imaginable origins in Spain""More than 100,000 different surnames reflect the diverse backgrounds of the people living in Spain" ("origins in Spain" in the published translation is misleading)
"this melting pot not only derives from people from other countries, but also from different regions of Spain""This melting pot is a result of migration from abroad, but also migration among the different regions of Spain"
"No xenophobic political party has ever held a parliamentary representation""No xenophobic political party has ever won a parliamentary seat" or "has ever been represented in parliament"
"Spain is a multilingual, non-denominational and open state""Spain is a secular country with a multilingual, tolerant society"
"We actively foster the integration of different peoples""We help people from a range of different countries and cultures to integrate in Spanish society"
"Our diversity is a source of social and cultural wealth, as well as an important economic asset""Spain's social and cultural diversity is a major* economic asset"

*I believe the word “important” is a translation error here, though some colleagues may disagree. The Spanish word importante often means big/large/major, rather than important. I believe that is the author’s intended meaning here.

As mentioned above, the expressions in the left-hand column are not wrong. It’s just that the turns of phrase are not commonly used in English, whereas the original version in Spanish used common, everyday phrases. The result is a text that sounds strange to an English speaker’s ear and doesn’t achieve the same result as the Spanish text.

Make sure you use a good translator if you want a text that sounds natural in the target language!

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