#translatorslife — Public Fediverse posts

The Author's Guild's 2022 survey of Literary Translators' Working Conditions just released its results, which make interesting reading.

Unfortunately, as with the Guild's 2017 survey, the discussion of average per-word rates ("$0.13 per word") is kind of meaningless since it is not broken down by language pairs or direction, and does not say whether the price is per source or target word.

https://authorsguild.org/news/new-survey-examines-state-of-literary-translators-working-conditions/

#translation #TranslatorsLife #LiteraryTranslation #literature

FB reminds me that one year ago this week, I was translating three lyrical religious poems for a client. By contrast, this week I'm translating puns and poop jokes. Variety is the spice of translation. 😇

#translation #TranslatorsLife #LiteraryTranslation

After attending this week's summit about unleashing "the power of AI" in translations, I finally had a real-world use case: For a stage play I'm translating, I just instructed ChatGPT 4 to "Give me some potentially humorous-sounding synonyms for 'turd' in American English." I feel very high tech and oh so literary. 🧐

#translation #TranslatorsLife #AI #LiteraryTranslation

"Translators' Portraits."

Great videos of literary translators discussing the profession and their experiences in it. A total of 54 translators (in Greek, subtitled in English).

#translation #LiteraryTranslation #literature #TranslatorsLife

http://greektranslators.web.auth.gr/en/

I'm on my way home from the American Literary Translators Association conference, an amazingly friendly gathering: 400 people who, rather than treat their colleagues as competitors, are supportive of each other and share their knowledge and experience. I recommend the event to fellow LT professionals! 😀

#translation #translators #TranslatorsLife #LiteraryTranslation #conferences #ALTA46

I'm in Arizona for #ALTA46: the American Literary Translators Association conference. It's just the first day but I've already met wonderfully smart, creative, thought-provoking, kind people... including these members of our 2nd-place-winning team for Translation Trivia Night. (A so-so photo but a great team!) I can't wait for tomorrow's sessions. 😃

#translation #TranslatorsLife #LiteraryTranslation

Getting ready to head to the American Literary Translators Association conference in Tucson. 😍

#translation #TranslatorsLife #LiteraryTranslation #ALTA46

My latest on LinkedIn: These days, my fellow translators are posting about AI and little else. The posts tend towards one of two ideas: "AI is your friend—there’s nothing to worry about" or "Our profession is doomed! Dooooooomed!" Both are exaggerations.

We can survive as language professionals in the AI era, but must make adjustments.

Here's my approach...

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7120444388987527168/

#translation #TranslatorsLife #FutureOfWork #ProfessionalDevelopment #LanguageServices #HumanVsMachine

As the character in "Cabaret" sang, "What good is sitting alone in your room...?" 🎶 So now for the first time, I'm making a point to get out of my translation office and am going to all sorts of events where direct clients can be found: conferences, trade shows, and lots of in-person networking events.

And so, for the first time in ages, I've had physical business cards printed. It feels like an almost retro thing to do. 😃

#translation #TranslatorsLife #networking #LanguageServices