| Pages in topic: < [1 2] | The life path of a translator (Castellano) Thread poster: Aurora Humarán (X)
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Aurora Humarán (X) 
Argentina
Local time: 10:10
English to Spanish
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TOPIC STARTER | So you are real, Lanna | Oct 4, 2005 |
Thank you so much for joining our party, Lanna, and thank your for enriching it even more with new ideas as provoking as the original paragraph.
Lanna Castellano wrote:
- a humble hacker at the coal face of legal translation quoted on the Literature and Poetry forum, inhabited by those people on the hilltops of our profession....
quoted by another legal translator who, some day (she knows!) will have a chance to have her dreams come true, that is, to become a literary translator.
It started with ‘guardian angels’, then went on to the less successful mentoring, and now we have a lively virtual ‘peer support scheme’.
For some reason our profession seems to need more mentoring than others, doesn't it?
Did any of you decide at the age of 14 that you wanted to be a translator?
I decided at 18 when I was trying to translate "Girl" (Beatles) into Spanish and I realized that "Is there anybody going to listen to my story?" was more than a future. But don't worry about me, I have always been quite 'weird'.
Bet your children look at you and say “never, never, will I do as dull a job as yours”. And they’re right, at least at their age.
My daughter (20) sometimes asks me if I don`t get bored. This is just because what she sees is a person sitting down, tied to a PC and surrounded by dictionaries and othe friends. She cannot see what is going on in my mind: the internal battles of words, pure magic.
You should be doing a dozen jobs, falling in love with a dozen people, most of them unsuitable except in giving you a new outlook on the world.
`*&`'%$?!-¿!! I should have come across your paragraph twenty five years ago!
The thirties or forties are a good time to start. Who wants to be like footballers, high earners at 25, finished at what you’re good at when you’re 30? (There are so many Georgie Bests with their sad stories in the football world, very few Pele’s.)
You are absolutely right, Lanna.
statistical research has shown that the percentage of sufferers among translators and crossword addicts is minimal.
Wow...
There’s something about wrestling with words that keeps our minds agile.
Lanna, let me tell you that this IS poetry.
As they say (do they?), old translators never die, they just meet their final deadline.
(Still to be determined who the Final Client is...)
Come back whenever you want to! I think you have tons of things to share with us.
Aurora
[Edited at 2005-10-04 21:38]
| | | | Parrot
Spain
Local time: 15:10
Spanish to English
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| I can sympathise | Oct 7, 2005 |
Lanna Castellano wrote:
The ones who have frightened me have been the people who do a language degree, then a post-graduate translation course, then struggle to start as a freelance and know nothing else in life. Did any of you decide at the age of 14 that you wanted to be a translator? Bet you didn’t.
The year I was graduating from college, I joined some friends from the foreign languages and linguistics department who were getting screened for an entry-level job in congress organisation. Unlike them, I didn't have the studies. All I had were the foreign grandparents, two years of living abroad as a child, and French courses to "finish off" (in the finishing school sense). The screening was to be done by the AIIC, who were going to give further training to the people selected.
I passed. The first briefing took place one morning, and suddenly I discovered I had taken the wrong course - this was what I wanted to do, what I wanted to work at. I had finally met myself - too late to change.
Most of those friends who had qualified academically went into teaching. I was the one who got lost in a foreign country (actually, three) and stayed there.
Bet your children look at you and say “never, never, will I do as dull a job as yours”.
I used to look at my mother, who was a writer, and think I wanted to do that as well.
falling in love with a dozen people, most of them unsuitable except in giving you a new outlook on the world.
We called this "doing an anthro". You didn't really fall for the person, but the Weltanschauung.
| | | | Susana Galilea
United States
Local time: 08:10
English to Spanish
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Parrot wrote: We called this "doing an anthro". You didn't really fall for the person, but the Weltanschauung.
You mean there is a word for this???
S.G.
| | | | Parrot
Spain
Local time: 15:10
Spanish to English
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| You'd be surprised | Oct 7, 2005 |
Susana Galilea wrote: Parrot wrote: We called this "doing an anthro". You didn't really fall for the person, but the Weltanschauung. You mean there is a word for this??? S.G.
... how far exoticism can go to passing for sex appeal. It doesn't even require an interest in languages, or anthro, for that matter
The anthropologists are handy in that they've spent many more years and lots more ink debating the issue on how far professional ethics will allow them to get personally involved in the subject of their observations. (Think: "pet rock").
Don't by any means let this stop you from getting and enjoying a life! It's the fascination of "otherness". How many people out there do you know are doing anthro without realising it?
(Later, as a side effect, they may translate...)
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Susana Galilea
United States
Local time: 08:10
English to Spanish
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| ay, lorito... | Oct 8, 2005 |
Parrot wrote: It's the fascination of "otherness". How many people out there do you know are doing anthro without realising it?
I beg of you, don't get me started on this topic
S.G.
| | | | Chris Rowson (X)
Local time: 15:10
German to English
It is an odd coincidence that I should happen to see this thread, since I normally never look at the forums here. But somehow the “coincidence” has occurred, and I have two comments to make.
The first is that as soon as I saw the quotation from Lanna, I thought “But isn´t that the lady who helped me with Se´al Labbro?” I was once struggling to understand an opera aria we were recording an arrangement of, and Lanna gave me a lovely translation, not just of the title, but o... See more It is an odd coincidence that I should happen to see this thread, since I normally never look at the forums here. But somehow the “coincidence” has occurred, and I have two comments to make.
The first is that as soon as I saw the quotation from Lanna, I thought “But isn´t that the lady who helped me with Se´al Labbro?” I was once struggling to understand an opera aria we were recording an arrangement of, and Lanna gave me a lovely translation, not just of the title, but of the whole. http://www.proz.com/kudoz/337366. Thanks again, Lanna.
And my second comment is on my own life path as a translator. Well, I´m a musician. But after spending two years dedicated to the muse just after I turned fifty, and finding my previous patron, the IT business, no longer quite the thing, I wound up answering a job ad for English native speakers. I´ve been translating for four years now, and it has contributed to some very satisfying musical development.
However, I certainly didn´t decide in my youth to become a translator, and have never studied for it. I don´t think it even occurred to me that there was such a profession. But now I have more problems turning work down than finding it.
I do sometimes think about what it takes to make a good translation, and a good translator, and my ideas are rather similar to Lanna´s. I think anyone who cares to look at my profile will see immediately what I mean. ▲ Collapse
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