Affiliation with ABRATES, SINTRA and other translators' associations in Brazil Thread poster: Ligia Costa
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Ligia Costa
Brazil
Local time: 16:00
English to Portuguese
Dear translators/interpreters based in Brazil,
I'd like to know your opinion on becoming affiliated with translators' associations, such as ABRATES or SINTRA. To what extent can/do you benefit from being a member? Is there an optimal point in your career that makes the affiliation worthwhile (i.e. a certain number of years of experience or works published)? That is, can someone new in the field get ahead of him or herself and become affiliated too soon to benefit from this? If so, w... See more Dear translators/interpreters based in Brazil,
I'd like to know your opinion on becoming affiliated with translators' associations, such as ABRATES or SINTRA. To what extent can/do you benefit from being a member? Is there an optimal point in your career that makes the affiliation worthwhile (i.e. a certain number of years of experience or works published)? That is, can someone new in the field get ahead of him or herself and become affiliated too soon to benefit from this? If so, what would you consider enough experience to start thinking about becoming affiliated?
I appreciate you taking the time to contribute to this discussion! ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Built on expectations | Apr 26, 2014 |
For the record, I have been a translator since 1973, a full-time freelancer since 1987, however I've never been a member of either Abrates or Sintra. I was a member of Atpiesp (an association restricted to sworn translators licensed in the State of Sao Paulo) for a few years, however dropped out of it.
Of course, all such associations came to be one day, stemming from the ideal of one or more people who thought they might eventually grow to become powerful representatives of their p... See more For the record, I have been a translator since 1973, a full-time freelancer since 1987, however I've never been a member of either Abrates or Sintra. I was a member of Atpiesp (an association restricted to sworn translators licensed in the State of Sao Paulo) for a few years, however dropped out of it.
Of course, all such associations came to be one day, stemming from the ideal of one or more people who thought they might eventually grow to become powerful representatives of their professional practitioners.
Until they make it, it will be a matter of collecting membership fees, that will enable them to muster more members in order to collect more fees, and then to provide some benefits that make such membership more attractive to more members. It's the so called snowball effect.
If the snowball gets large, the association will become a known and respected entity for the impact it may have on anything that stands on its - and its constituents' - way.
IMHO neither of these two associations have made it. No idea on their membership figures, however the intended snowball seems to be just a lump.
No translation prospect so far - apart from agencies' online enrollment forms - has ever asked me whether I am a member of either one. The fact that Brazil has a law on sworn translations, and a formal government program to license them, may have had some effect in downgrading the value of Abrates' certification program.
Making it clear, Brazilian law demands absolutely that documents issued in a foreign language be attached to their sworn translations, done by gov't-licensed sworn translators, for any official purpose. In contrast, there is no such law in the USA. There, each organization or agency may stipulate its requirements, and some of them may only accept certified translations by an ATA-certified professional.
This situation preempts any clout Abrates could ever have. No entity will ever have a reason to require translation by an Abrates-certified translator.
Sintra is - as it name implies - a syndicate or trade union. However apart from sworn translations, this is a completely deregulated profession in Brazil, as well as most elsewhere. So what would or could such an entity advocate or 'fight' for? Would they attempt to shut down Google Translate and alikes? That would be preposterous.
Contrasting with these two associations, take a look at Proz, a commercial enterprise. I recall having seen a video where Henry Dotterer said that, at the outset, he never expected it to grow so much. Nevertheless, no prospect will screen applicants by a Prozian-or-not criterion. PRO-tag requirements come up now and then, however you'll see Trados ownership demands much more often.
So these two associations tried, and so far their membership and/or accreditation per se have not reached a meaningful level. Though this could change in the future, no crystal ball seems to point in that direction for the time being. ▲ Collapse
| | | | Ligia Costa
Brazil
Local time: 16:00
English to Portuguese
TOPIC STARTER
José,
Thank you so much for your input. It was enlightening!
How do you feel about regulating this profession?
And from what I gathered, your opinion is that one should prioritize investing in translation technology rather than paying affiliation fees or getting accreditation/certificates from these overall powerless, as you say, Brazilian associations. Did I understand right?
Finally, is it relevant to an English to Portuguese translator to b... See more José,
Thank you so much for your input. It was enlightening!
How do you feel about regulating this profession?
And from what I gathered, your opinion is that one should prioritize investing in translation technology rather than paying affiliation fees or getting accreditation/certificates from these overall powerless, as you say, Brazilian associations. Did I understand right?
Finally, is it relevant to an English to Portuguese translator to become certified by ATA? Are there any other certificates/accreditation you find beneficial to a translator that work in this language pair, be it in Brazil or abroad?
Once again, thank you! ▲ Collapse
| | | | | As usual, your mileage may vary | Apr 27, 2014 |
Ligia & Andrew wrote:
How do you feel about regulating this profession?
I see no point in doing it, anywhere.
Why are medicine, engineering, and law regulated professions?
Regulating entities, on behalf of society, determine who has been deemed able to practice regulated professions. This is done to ensure that practitioners meet some minimum standards, so that, for instance:
when an ambulance takes you from an accident scene to any ER, the doctors who will attempt to restore you to good shape supposedly know what they have to do, and how;
you can enter any building without fear that it will collapse on you, because the engineers who designed and built it supposedly knew what they were doing; and
after you've been "Mirandized", the lawyer they get you, if you can't afford one, knows the law and the ropes in the legal system.
These are three rather lame examples on why these professions are regulated.
Okay, you can argue that, for instance, a PEMTed industrial safety manual I saw is a hazard on its own. However the liability here will be on the owners of that facility, who failed to provide adequate engineering controls to make it safe, including that translation.
Next, if any law imposed that the translation MUST be done within the target country, how would you challenge anything that already came translated from its origin?
For instance, Brazilian law determines that any imported product must enter the country with proper documentantion and instructions in Portuguese. Quite fair! I had a French-made Citroën that landed in Brazil with the owner's manual translated into European Portuguese. By law, Portuguese is one and the same language, so it was okay. It was up to me to figure out that "travões" means "freios" and so on.
Now what if a Buick landed in Brazil with its manual translated into Portuguese, say, in Florida? If the profession were regulated to forbid that, there would be no way to prevent a truly Brazilian translation agency, for compliance, to outsource that translation to someone in India or China, nor from using free machine translation.
So regulating the translation profession is pointless. Sworn translation is regulated in Brazil, but only for official purposes.
Ligia & Andrew wrote:
And from what I gathered, your opinion is that one should prioritize investing in translation technology rather than paying affiliation fees or getting accreditation/certificates from these overall powerless, as you say, Brazilian associations. Did I understand right?
Here is where your mileage may vary a lot.
The abusively frequent must-have-Trados demand is a result of SDL's effective marketing, nothing else. The number of smokers worldwide is the result of effective marketing by tobacco companies.
A translator should invest in technology according to the demand they have. I've always had a strong demand for DTP, so I became a PageMaker power user in the days when originals were received in printed form. Now I'm investing on Infix, because most of translation + DTP requests provide me with originals in PDF.
I have one permanently standing offer for a large and endless demand if I buy MemoQ, not Trados, because it's cloud-based translation. Since this entails some hefty investments in high-end hardware and software, it is merely a possibility for me.
I have made my investments in video translation and subtitling. In this case more in time and effort to master the technique than money, since this area is well served by many free or cheap programs that are often better than their commercial equivalents.
On the other hand, I am one of the 3,000+ sworn translators licensed by the Brazilian government. While it sounds like a great credential, it doesn't necessarily make me a 'better' translator than any other. I may be great in some areas, like management training courseware, but I am terrible in translating medical stuff. When I have to do sworn medical translation, I have to rely on the help from some friends/colleagues who specialize in that area.
One Brazilian writer I know wanted to have her two very successful books - in a genre I'd define as "esoteric romances" - translated into a few foreign languages. She had a flock of translators go through a test: translate one page (always the same) of each book. Results were horrible. Later I found out that she had limited her search to sworn translators, accredited professionals for a quite different kind of material.
So I don't think any kind of accreditation in translation is worth anything, considering the variety of ideas that might exist in each human mind. No translator, regardless of their credentials, may be good to translate everything.
Ligia & Andrew wrote:
Finally, is it relevant to an English to Portuguese translator to become certified by ATA? Are there any other certificates/accreditation you find beneficial to a translator that work in this language pair, be it in Brazil or abroad?
I wouldn't know, because I never was.
Some colleagues say it's worth it, however they specialize in different areas.
Therefore your mileage may vary.
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Ligia Costa
Brazil
Local time: 16:00
English to Portuguese
TOPIC STARTER | Thanks again | Apr 28, 2014 |
Thanks for the transparency, José! It's great when someone is willing to (and does) share their honest opinion. Hats off!
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