Tag Archives: translation

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Over the past few months, Yourtranslator was honored to have collaborated with Amal Alliance for the translation of their award-winning program “Colors of Kindness” into the Greek language. “Colors of Kindness” is an innovative EdTech solution that helps children develop their social and emotional competencies that was inspired by Amal Alliance’s preexisting Rainbow of Education curriculum. Designed to help cope with the effects of the pandemic, this holistic hybrid approach eases the transition back into the classroom while enhancing well-being.

Yourtranslator adapted the material in Greek and, following its pilot implementation last year, the program was successfully introduced in all Greek primary schools in September 2022 through the Skills Labs program.

Amal Alliance is an international non-profit, non-governmental organization (NGO) that aims to empower displaced and disenfranchised children through 4 pillars of support: 1) social-emotional learning (SEL), 2) psychosocial support, 3) early childhood development, and 4) peace education. In June 2022, UNHCR teamed up with the EdTech Hub, mEducation Alliance, Global Innovation Exchange (GIE) and ECW to respond to the learning emergency caused by COVID-19 school closures. Amal Alliance was honored to be selected to design an education in emergency prototype – giving life to Colors of Kindness!

Yourtranslator is really happy and excited to be part of this journey and we look forward to making learning a playful experience for Greek students!

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Being translators ourselves, we love watching movies with translators as the main characters, as they’re not very easy to come across. We also feel that they help lend visibility to translation and translators in general, which is something that our industry desperately needs.

If you haven’t watched the trailer yet, the movie is about the translation of a bestseller and it’s actually inspired by the process of translation of Dan Brown’s novel. The aim is to have a best-selling book appear simultaneously in various countries and so the translators are gathered into a luxurious bunker of sorts where they have to finish their translations with no contact with the outside world in order to avoid leaks. Nevertheless, soon enough, the 10 first pages are leaked and a ransom is requested, pushing the publisher to the extremes in his effort to find the culprit.

As you may have guessed already, the plot is much more about bestsellers, the commercial aspects of writing and publishing, and greed, than it is about translation. This article is not meant to be an actual review of the movie, but will rather focus on the translation-related aspects of the plot. If you’re looking for a more traditional review, we found this one on Hollywood reporter quite accurate.

So here are our main outtakes from the movie:

It’s not really about translation

Sure, the movie is called The translators and almost all the main characters are indeed translators, but translation itself is actually quite secondary to the plot. The main focus of the action is a bestselling book and the lengths its publisher will go to for commercial gain rather than translation itself. That is probably to be expected from a thriller, but it was a tiny bit disappointing. On top of that, the translators often seem like caricatures, largely based on stereotypes of their respective countries –the leftist Greek, the depressed Dane, the cocky Italian– rather than fully developed characters.

It does touch lightly on the significance of multilingualism

This is not a very profound movie; all its main themes are dealt with quite superficially around the thriller plot. However, one of the most tense scenes of the movie (tiny spoiler alert) involves the translators speaking to each other in various, less spoken, languages to avoid being understood. They switch and translate between languages to make sure everyone understands, as they don’t all share a common third language other than English and French. That scene is rather powerful for a language geek, because it does bring into focus the beauty of multilingualism, as well as the unique advantages it offers. It also underlines the significance of translation in international communication, which we are all for!

It does portray translation as a holistic process (especially of literary translation)

One of the things we rather liked about how the actual process of translation is portrayed in the movie is that, apart from a laptop, the manuscript and a dictionary (only one dictionary? Come on!), the translators are given access to a library supposedly containing books on all subjects of human knowledge. This is a nice touch, given that many people actually think that translation is simply about looking for words in a dictionary and writing them down. Translation is so much more than words; and it’s indeed very often that you have to delve into lengthy books and articles on a specific subject to be able to translate just one small word. However, ask any translator and we bet they will agree that today it’s close to impossible to translate without the Internet, like the characters are asked to! We’re so used to having this easy access to a trove of information that it would be quite challenging to translate without it.

To sum it up, if you’re looking for something light and entertaining to watch while in lockdown (or even out of it), go ahead and watch The translators. It ticks most of the boxes if a quick-paced thriller is what you’re after. Just don’t expect to find too many insights or original thinking about translation in there. Still, we’ll admit that having a film called the translators shown across the world makes us smile–translators for the win!

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Quality assurance is absolutely essential when working as a professional translator. Naturally, the best method is to have your translation reviewed by another professional. However, even in this case or even when you’re working with agencies that take care of the review themselves, you should make sure that the quality of the work you deliver is as high as possible. Here are some simple ways to avoid mistakes that can hurt your reputation and even cost you clients or collaborators.

  1. Re-read your translation

Although this is generally performed at the end of the translation process, we put it first because of its enormous importance. For seasoned professionals, it’s probably unnecessary to even mention this step, but new translators often underestimate its importance or just skip it because they’re overwhelmed with work. We cannot stress enough how important it is to re-read your work (by the way, you should apply this principle to anything you write, be it an essay, an article or even a two-line email). Re-reading our translations has saved us from embarrassing mistakes and omissions throughout the years, so please please please take the time to do this before you deliver your final translation.

  1. Doubt yourself and research all terms or phrases that you’re not certain about

Research is an integral part of translation. Nobody knows everything, and even if you’re fairly specialized in the subject-matter, you’re bound to find new terms or phrases in the texts you translate. Although it goes without saying that you should research every new term you come across, it’s also important you look into phrases or terms that you think you know but are not 100% certain of. Over-confidence is the culprit here; false friends or expressions that do not mean the first thing that comes to mind when reading them are well-known traps for translators. So, even if you think you know what the original says, when you’re even in a little bit of doubt, just google it or open a dictionary. It can’t hurt.

  1. Use monolingual dictionaries in your source and target language

Not that many years ago, translators used to rely on dictionaries, specialized books and libraries for their work. Today we have the Internet. There are many traps you can fall into when using the internet to translate: websites with low credentials, unreliable web dictionaries or glossaries and machine-translated published material come to mind. It goes without saying that specialized bilingual dictionaries are a valuable tool for professional translators. However, you shouldn’t overlook the importance of using general dictionaries as well. Words have multiple meanings, and you may not know all of them. And even if you’re a native speaker, your first instinct about the correct use of a word or phrase in your target language could be wrong. An added bonus is that dictionaries often include synonyms which can help you come up with the word that’s just right for your sentence.

  1. Ensure terminology consistency

After you have finished your translation, you should always ensure you have used consistent terminology throughout your text. Translating the same term in two or more ways in the target language can create confusion, affect the flow and readability of the text and even lead to accidents or legal uncertainty, depending on the sector. Most CAT tools have features that can help you make sure you used the same translation for the same term; however, even if you’re translating without a CAT tool, make a point of checking for terminology consistency. It goes a long way in ensuring the high quality of your deliverables.

  1. Run a spell-check and verify numbers

This is another aspect of translation that should be self-evident. However, we often come across translations with spelling mistakes or where numbers have been transferred incorrectly from the original. Again, if you’re using a CAT tool —and you should if you’re taking this work seriously— there should be a verification feature that helps you make sure that the numbers coincide. If you’re not using CAT tools, always run a spell-check in the target file and check the numbers one by one. You will be surprised by how many things can escape your attention.

How about you? Are there any other steps you consider vital in quality assurance and what are they? Feel free to share with us in the comments below.