The fact is that I have been living in England for so long, and have been involved in proofreading, editing and writing English copy for much longer even than I have been a translator, I just feel much more at home writing in English.

And, aside from having gained my DipTrans Diploma for translation from German into English only, I simply don’t feel comfortable translating into German. I’ve never even got used to the new “Rechtschreibregelung“, which was introduced a few years after I had moved to the UK.

I think my clients appreciate the fact that I have a more comprehensive grasp of the source text than some of my English-mother-tongue colleagues, especially the subtle nuances that are so important in marketing and advertising copy.

So, in a way, they see the fact that I’m mother-tongue German as a strength rather than a weakness, in spite of what the generally accepted industry rule-of-thumb says.

It has changed a lot, of course, since I left in the early 90s, shortly after the Wall came down. And yet, the sensual quality of Berlin in June is still exactly as I remember it.

I think the reason for this is the scent of lime blossom that dominates the entire city at this time of year.

There is something slightly intoxicating about this scent – especially when it surrounds and envelops you wherever you go. You walk through the town with your head in a bubble of sweet honey fragrance and, after a while, this gives you a permanent high, without any need for drugs.

The “Berlin daze”

A few years ago I came across a Times article entitled “Berlin daze”. I reckon the mellow mood it refers to is partly due to that lime tree blossom high.

There is also a famous song from the late 19th century called “Das ist die Berliner Luft” (“It’s the Berlin air”) – you can listen to it here… Who knows, maybe this, too, was written in June.

Green Berlin

Berlin is a very green city. Not just politically, but also in terms of real greenery. Almost every street in Berlin is lined with trees – mostly lime trees (over a third of Berlin’s street trees are lime trees). This is helped by Berlin’s generously designed streets and pavements, which allow enough space for tree planting.

There are also extensive forests and parks, notably the Tiergarten, right in the centre of the city, and the Grunewald, Berlin’s “green lung” and most important recreational space during the time of the Wall, when Berliners had no access to the surrounding countryside.

As a result of all this greenery, Berlin has a thriving population of nightingales. Enough, in fact, to extract some of them every year for research purposes. Scientists call Berlin the “capital of nightingales”.

And this is yet another one of those sensual qualities of the city that haven’t changed one bit: you always hear birdsong.

And not just that: as you walk around the streets of Berlin at night, head hazy with lime blossom scent, you can also hear the odd cricket in the grass that is allowed to grow in the corners of pavements and parking lots. Most local council gardening departments don’t believe in the use of herbicides. And good on them, I say!

“Wildwuchs”

This is what Berlin has always been about for me. And it still is. In a way, I think this is also what the author of the “Berlin daze” article is talking about: the freedom and space for unfettered creative expression. “Wildwuchs”: allowing weeds to grow by the kerbsides, leaving long-grass meadows to develop in parks, and tolerating graffiti alongside the railway lines.

When the Wall was still there, Berlin was heavily subsidised. Most of the cultural subsidies went towards “high culture”, of course, but the city’s subculture also benefited. There even was a representative for rock music in the Berlin senate, organising public-funded rock competitions – the annual “Senatsrockwettbewerb”. (The video report is from around the time when it came to an end in 1991.)

But even after the Wall came down and the subsidies subsided, subculture, art and creativity continued to thrive in the city. From techno clubs to the Love Parade, from the Tacheles art centre – forever threatened with eviction, and yet still surviving – to the “Karneval der Kulturen”, from completely off-the-wall and known only to those on the inside track to well-established and widely promoted: new events, venues, places to hang out are constantly emerging and changing.

That is why artists from all over the world flock to the place and stay for a few months or years to soak up the atmosphere, the freedom and spirit of laissez-faire that allows weeds to grow in the cracks so that crickets can sing at night. That allows them to try things out and develop – and get high on lime blossom scent in June.

The block

I tweak and edit and rewrite, add links and subheadings. Then I read through the post again – and realise that it’s nowhere near ready to publish yet. The argument is weak, the narrative is meandering and I’m not even sure myself what point I’m trying to make there. There’s no way I can publish this one yet.

So I move on to the next draft. And the same thing happens again…

Then I go back to my older drafts and outline ideas and pick a completely different topic. Maybe this one will be easier to knock into shape. And so the process starts all over again.

I now have four draft posts sitting here, none of them ready to publish. And yet I’m supposed to publish one post per week and I’m already behind schedule anyway. Panic is setting in, and I wonder – again – whether it was a good idea to start this blogging thing in the first place. Maybe I’m just not cut out for it…

The positive side

On the other hand, it’s not as if things haven’t been getting done. I’ve actually made fantastic progress on many fronts while I was tiptoeing around my blog posts:

• I’ve rewritten my German web copy – with instant results!
• I’ve been busy planning details of a “Netwalking” event I’m organising for September (more about this here – bookings will be taken in July).
• I’ve created a photo blog for my mum’s birthday.
• I went to London to network and eat cake
• I spring-cleaned the entire flat after decorating work – and sorted out builders’ quotes for our old flat in London.
• And plenty more – the list goes on.
• Plus, of course, I’ve also been doing some translation and copywriting work for my clients.

It just goes to show: while you’re stuck procrastinating on one thing, you can get an awful lot of other stuff done. Maybe even more than if you weren’t desperately snatching at things as an excuse for avoiding something else?

So, I should be extremely pleased with myself, for having achieved so much these last few weeks.

But this still leaves me trailing behind by about two or three blog posts…

Inviting serendipity

On Tuesday, I finally sat down and rewrote the German version of my website – something I’d been meaning to do for ages. The next day, an enquiry from a potential new client from Germany dropped into my inbox. Is it really possible that the revamped web copy made a difference that quickly? Or was it just a coincidence?

The thing is, coincidences like this seem to happen to me all the time.

The day I’ve finally followed up on a lead, or sent my CV off to a translation company I’d had my eye on for months, I suddenly get an email from someone completely different with an interesting project offer or enquiry. Quite often this happens within hours. And it seems to work every time – without fail.

Keep things flowing

Now, I don’t want to get all esoteric here, but there is definitely something about taking action – any action at all – that seems to create some sort of shift in the workings of the universe. It’s as though the act of putting energy into a particular direction unclogs blockages and opens doors, allowing things to come your way. Instantly. I wouldn’t believe it myself, if I hadn’t seen it work so many times.

So, what are you stuck on? And what action can you take today to direct the universal flow of good things towards you?

The article touched on a whole host of issues which people felt moved to comment on:

• There was some concern about the fact that Chris had actively “named and shamed” the translator and agency who delivered shoddy work (namely a translation that was taken straight from Google Translate).
• The results of Chris’s experiment in themselves shocked most of us – the fact that not one of the translations she had commissioned was usable.
• There was debate about the practicalities of signing our work, and a number of pros, cons and solutions were suggested.
• And there was the underlying issue of how we can differentiate ourselves from these kinds of “cowboy” practices and raise the image of the translation profession as a whole.

Focus on the bright spots

Recently I read a fascinating book by Chip and Dan Heath, called Switch. One of the key messages in there is that, to achieve any kind of change, you need to “focus on the bright spots”. You need to start by looking for examples of people doing it right and find out what exactly they are doing and how this practice can be multiplied. Accentuate the positive!

I relate to this philosophy. For example, a couple of years ago I got involved in a project for the Society for Editors & Proofreaders, which is all about focusing on the positive. It aims to move beyond moaning about Greengrocers’ apostrophes and exposing silly typos, and instead gives positive examples of the difference a good editor can make to a text.

And maybe that’s what we need to do in translation too. Rather than highlighting the numerous examples of poorly translated signs and restaurant menus – however hilarious they may be – we should keep an eye out for positive, heart-warming examples of good-quality translations.

I have started doing this with websites. Whenever I come across an English version of a German website that is unusually well-translated I make a point of bookmarking it. Admittedly, I haven’t got many in my collection yet – indeed, the reason I started this project was precisely because they are so rare. But still, you have to start somewhere!

How can we help quality-seeking translation buyers?

Another thing we could do is offer advice to translation buyers on what they can do to protect themselves against shoddy translations. Very similar to the advice you find all over the web on how home owners can avoid being ripped off by cowboy builders. I already mentioned this idea in one of my comments on the “Thorny issue of quality” post.

So, let’s make an effort to move away from fruitless debates about peanuts and monkeys, and let’s focus on the bright spots instead. Including the fact that there are still plenty of translation clients out there who do value good quality and are also prepared to pay for it. We just need to help them find us.

The Mystery Shopper experience was a report from a little experiment Chris had carried out in 2001, where she posed as a translation buyer and commissioned a number of short translations from different freelance translators and translation agencies.

Chris made a point of being “the perfect customer”: she gave a detailed brief (the key message being that the translation should be of a very high quality), the translators were given the opportunity to set their own deadline and rate, and she also stressed that she was available and happy to answer any questions.

The first thing that surprised her was how low the quoted prices were throughout. The next thing she found unsettling was that none of the translators in her mystery shopping sample came back with any queries at all. They simply delivered their translations – of which not one was usable!

Her conclusion, in her own words, was: “Boy, being a translation buyer is really rough!”

Second time lucky?

In 2010, Chris decided to repeat the experiment. The one main improvement was that this time a few of the translators came back to her with queries. Some of those queries were slightly less intelligent than others, but some were very valid questions.

Chris, who is clearly a “glass-half-full” sort of person, was encouraged by this and felt it was a sign that things are improving.

The quality of the translations themselves was also slightly better than in the first experiment – apart from the one that was taken straight from Google Translate! (And Chris was not shy about naming and shaming the perpetrators, both the agency and the individual translator behind this.)

Nevertheless, the issue of quality in translations – and the fact that the end client is often not in a position to judge the quality of the product he is buying – remains a serious concern for the industry. How can a client who really wants a good job be sure he gets a good job?

Translators have an image to build and protect

Chris’s crusade is for translators to take ownership of their work – by signing it with their name. She sees the anonymity predominant in the industry as a key cause of the problem. Translators should be encouraged to stand up for their work – which of course also means owning up to it.

As Chris put it: “I am confident in the quality of my work” is a good message to put out to the world. And what better way of saying that than by putting your name on it.

At the end of her talk, Chris threw down the gauntlet – quite literally – in the form of a gardening glove and challenged all translators to start signing their work, as of tomorrow! It is something we can all start doing immediately and it doesn’t cost anything either.

In practice, of course, there are a number of reasons why this may not work. We can all put our name at the end of the Word document we send back to our client. But whether that means our name will then appear on the finished product is another matter.

And, Chris herself admitted that putting your name on web copy, for example, is a tricky issue because the content changes and may well be messed about with by the end client at a later stage. So, if you do manage to get your name on it, you’d be well advised to keep checking back and, if necessary, ask for your name to be removed!

With printed material, again, it very much depends on the type of work you do plus, perhaps, how close you are to the end client. For books or, say, catalogues for art exhibitions it seems to be common practice to include the translator’s name in the prelim pages. Indeed, in my experience, publishers often do this as a matter of fact without needing to be prompted to do so. On a job I did recently, they even offered to include my website address (and I had only been doing the editing for this one).

But for brochures or adverts it is unlikely that the translator will be able to get their name on there anywhere. After all, copywriters don’t usually get a chance to put their name on the material they’ve written either. Who knows, there might be a similar campaign going on in the copywriting community! Perhaps we should join forces!?

When I launched this blog, the week before Easter, one of my blog posts inspired Nick to try out Ommwriter and write the following piece. I couldn’t agree more with what he says (but probably wouldn’t have been able to express it as well). Many thanks, Nick!

Who are you translating for?

I often collaborate with fellow translators: one of us translates and the other edits. As an editor I might make a suggestion for shortening a text, cutting out a cultural reference or, god forbid, expressing something in a different way than the original author.

Sometimes my colleagues will tell me that they don’t dare or have the right to make such changes, to omit bits or add anything, and would prefer to stick to what the author wrote. If you are one of those translators, you might like to stop reading at this point.

I have also worked with colleagues who say that the object of translation is merely, exclusively, to inform the reader of what the author wrote – using their exact words, images and style. If you are one of those, you probably won’t want to read on either.

If there’s anyone left and if you translate texts for public consumption (advertising, articles, speeches, tourism, Internet sites), however, you might be interested to read about a slight shift in priorities.

Putting the reader first

My contention – and I doubt there’s anything original about it – is that your “customer” as a translator is not only the author but, perhaps even more crucially, the reader.

Fundamentally, the point of any text is to communicate, to pass a message – clearly, without obfuscation. And if the message is longer than “No exit” or “Keep off the grass”, it has to retain the reader’s attention. This applies as a guiding principle not only for authors but also for translators as well.

Step 1: Put yourself in the reader’s shoes

You allocate an hour during your holidays for a visit to a museum. Interesting exhibition, you pay your money, stop at the first exhibit or painting. The inscription kicks off with an eleven-line sentence placing the object in its historical context, very erudite. You think?

Or, because you only have an hour and don’t have the time or inclination to stop at every exhibit and read the dense information – or listen to it on the audio guide for that matter – you decide to buy the catalogue. So you can read at even greater length an esoteric text written by some academic showing how many obscure Latin and Greek words and mythological references he or she knows. You think?

Or even, you pick up a brochure because you’re thinking of buying a new automatic lens grinder and are treated to a potted history of the company’s implantation in some obscure region, its innovative founder (now dead), and its devotion to quality, top materials and “solutions”. And then the technical jargon. You think?

Step 2: So what can you as a translator do?

You become empowered. You don’t let yourself be intimidated by the idea that art texts, sociology texts, medical texts “have to” sound incomprehensibly arty, sociological or medical. I’m not at all talking about dumbing down, but you should be guided by the desire to transform the text into something that sounds knowledgeable but won’t have the reader thinking after two sentences about what to cook tonight.

Have you ever embarked on a promising-looking article and then given up because it’s too complicated – or just boring? Then you’ll know what I’m talking about.

Step 3: You become even more empowered

You contact the author or the customer to point out that the copy isn’t working. The references to Bavarian dialect are all very well if you happen to know German, but they probably won’t add much to a Korean’s understanding of the text. Forget “Kaiserschmarrn” and “Palatschinken” plus explanatory translator’s note in brackets. Won’t “traditional Austrian desserts” work just as well?

Translators should not be an afterthought. We are part of the process. We are the experts in localisation. Tell your customer that the text is boring (well, perhaps not in so many words).

Many people who write texts are not skilled writers but professional something-elses. Point out the impact that you believe the text is likely to have. Ask them who they are writing for and what they hope to achieve. And make your pitch.

It’s called readability. If you have to read a sentence three times to understand it, maybe it’s not you but the sentence. Utopian? Sure: you can’t simply rewrite the text; it’s not yours. But you can tweak it, more or less. Risky? Very: you might lose the customer, have an argument on the phone and be branded as a troublemaker. But you’ll have to take my word for it that there are some people who get it and are grateful to collaborate. And doesn’t that make your job more satisfying, creative and worthwhile? Believe me, it does.

How can I write in a tongue that’s not my own?

Because I’m madly in love with it, that’s why. I fell in love with it so long ago – it’s been the most enduring love affair of my life. No one knows why, but that’s not the question. Who knows why we fall in love with someone – or something…

All I know is that I felt drawn to it. The English language has always been like music to my ears. Wanting to speak it fluently, master it, pronounce it right, hear its words coming out of my mouth: it’s been my long-held ambition since I was a young child in primary school.

And now, 40 years on, it does feel like my mother tongue. I think in English, I dream in English, I write in English, I make my living turning German words into English words. It makes me very happy.

I also earn my living making English texts better. English texts written by others whose native tongue is not English. But also by those whose is.

How can I improve the writing of native speakers of a tongue that’s not my own? I don’t know, but I know I can. Maybe my love for it has made it my own.

Only, it’s a bit more complicated than that. First of all, it’s not syllables, it’s “mora“. I still haven’t quite got my head round what exactly “mora” means. Apparently it’s more to do with the “weight” of the syllable.

So it’s not just a matter of counting the syllables using your fingers. I suppose it’s more about listening to the rhythm and deciding whether it “feels” right. Just as with any writing.

These amusing Windows error messages in haiku format made the rounds a few years ago:

Serious error.
All shortcuts have disappeared
Screen. Mind. Both are blank.

Having been erased,
The document you’re seeking
Must now be retyped.

The website you seek
Cannot be located but
Countless more exist.

Chaos reigns within.
Reflect, repent, and reboot.
Order shall return.

Yesterday it worked.
Today it is not working.
Windows is like that.

Kigo and kireji

But there is more: apparently, every haiku should have a seasonal reference or “kigo”. So, however funny and apt the Microsoft haiku may be, according to the traditional definition they’re not really proper haiku.

I can see how, if you want to write a beautiful piece of poetry, the seasonal reference can make the difference between the mundane and the profound… Or it can make it sound all cheesy and pompous!

This is where the “two-part juxtaposition” comes to the rescue. The third line of a haiku is meant to introduce a new thought or idea that contrasts with the first two lines. This is called “kireji” and it’s what creates the tension that makes the haiku format so interesting. (Or, sometimes, nonsensical – as in the example below…)

And on the subject of making sense…

I actually have a somewhat uneasy relationship with poetry. At least the kind of poetry you are made to read at school, or – even worse – made to interpret and pick apart. I have always hated that. Recently I came across a great poem about this. It’s by Billy Collins, US Poet Laureate.

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.
I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem’s room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author’s name on the shore.
But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

(found in ‘The Invisible Grail’ by John Simmons)

I have always found that the poetry that appealed to me most was about mundane and everyday things. At Bloodaxe Books I discovered a book of poems by Tony Hoagland, entitled Unincorporated Persons in the Late Honda Dynasty. Now, that is my kind of poetry – dark and funny, deep and profound and yet all about everyday things and experiences. Poetry you can relate to and understand, without the need to “torture a confession out of it”.

And that is also the essence of haiku poetry: haiku poets write about everyday things. Just like the Windows haiku above. So, whatever the purist definition of what is required to write a haiku, it’s as with most things: know the rules in principle, and then let go of them and apply your own rules.

Want to learn the rules?

Here are a few links if you want to learn more about haikus:

• The Haiku Society
• Haiku writing for beginners

In fact, judging from the number of blog articles about it, it almost seems to be every blogger’s favourite subject… I suppose, procrastination and creativity go hand in hand, like day and night. Two sides of a coin. You can’t have the one without the other.

And here comes my point. If procrastination is an integral part of doing anything that involves creativity or proactive thinking, why fight it? Why not just accept it as part of the process?

I have started doing this and it seems to work – to some extent.

Before I tackle a copywriting task, I allow time for a bit of conscious and deliberate procrastination. I know I will sit down in a moment and do what I need to do, but first I must sort out this file and label these boxes and faff around with the printer and look what’s happening on Twitter… and whatever other procrastinating activity I can think of.

But all the while I know that this is just part of getting ready to do the writing I need to do. And then, suddenly, at the end of all this procrastinating, I find myself raring to get started on the actual task at hand.

What about the bigger tasks though?

The only thing I’m still struggling with is the fact that the length of procrastination time seems to be directly related to the size of the job waiting to be done. So, for a short piece of copy, a press release or announcement for example, I only need about half an hour of procrastination before I can start writing. So that’s no big deal. The job still gets done in a reasonable timeframe.

For a bigger task, on the other hand, especially if it still needs figuring out what exactly is involved, I may need days and weeks of procrastination before I’m ready to tackle it. (The time it has taken me to get this blog off the ground is a case in point!)

So, when a the task is so big that I really need a week of procrastination and displacement activities, I’m not really prepared to indulge myself in this amount of procrastination. Yes, half an hour or an hour, that I can accept. But not days or weeks. Come on!

Still working on this one…

As a result, I get lots of little tasks done, but none of the real biggies. The ones that would require several days or even weeks of dedicated procrastination before I’m ready to get started. I wonder what amazing things I might be able to achieve if I allowed myself complete procrastination freedom…

Either way, I think it’s important to accept that this is what it takes: getting things done requires a process of intention, procrastination and displacement activity followed by action. That’s how it works.