Jun 16
LaurentY'a pas que la trad
Reminder: this is only a recap of the French article. To read the full post, click on the French flag on the right.
First of all, I must apologize for my English readers: I haven't been able to offer an English version of this post because of software troubles with my website. I am using the "qtranslate" plugin to have a multilingual version of this blog, and had to wait for the latest version to be compatible with WordPress 3.0.
Anyway, in this post, I explore the fact that during my road trip through Quebec and Ontario, my car radio proved to be an excellent cultural indicator. On the map below, you can see my itinerary, in green (map from Muturzikin).
So what is this all about? Well, in the French version of this post, I am explaining how the proportion of English radio stations compared to French radios decreases as you go deeper into Quebec province. This may sound obvious, but the progression along the road is very interesting to listen to and reflects - most of the time - the population of this regions. What is even more interesting is that all along the road, whatever the language of the radio speaker is, subjects are globally the same: same politics issues, same sports team supported, same cultural interests, same music. Languages differs, culture remains one. This is bilingualism.
May 23
LaurentTout un métier
Reminder: this is only a recap of the French article. To read the full post, click on the French flag on the right.
As I was saying in a previous post, one of the main goals of these working vacations was to improve my professional network. So I managed to be in the right place at the right time: in Québec (city) on the 7th of May for a linguists afterwork organized by the ATAMESL and in Boston on the 22nd for the 14th Annual New England Translators Association Conference.
The ATAMESL is a French association from Quebec that intends to gather independent linguists to promote networking, training and information. This afterwork, in a micro-brewery in Quebec city, was organized by Valérie Bélanger (she writes a nice blog in French too) and represented a good opportunity to meet colleagues and discuss about our jobs across the world.
Other country, other atmosphere: NETA, the New England regional version of the ATA, allows its 150 members (and me) to be listed on their online directory and to have access to trainings and practical information. The NETA Annual Conference offered various sessions: Beginning as a translator, the literary translation of Joseph Perl, an introduction to localization (by a fellow French translator, Laurence Lollier), and the "Seven-figure translator" or how to translate 1,5 million words/year by Warren Smith. This Japanese to English semiconductor patent translator (no wonder he makes a good living) developed his own successful translation process:
- He first records his translation on a digital voice recorder
- He then has it automatically transcribed by a voice recognition software (Dragon NaturallySpeaking)
- Finally, he gets the cheap work (editing, reviewing) done by an intern... or his wife
Only drawback to all of this networking: only translators and interpreters attended these events, and very few potential clients (which is not the case at the ATA Annual Conference). I can just hope that the word of mouth will now spread!
May 17
LaurentTraductions H.I.É.
In Niagara, there are not only falls, but also fails. On the very last day of my Canadian trip, in a country definitely bilingual, I finally stumbled upon a some translations (oh right, there also was this waitress in Québec who gave me a "blanche" because she had no "white" beer).
