A Computer Journal For Translation Professionals |
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This edition of the Tool Box Journal provided to you by
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Issue 22-3-335
(the three hundred thirty fifth edition)
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Yes, I understand. You might be right in asserting that it's too personal -- you might even say "unprofessional" -- to share this photo in the Tool Box Journal. But let me approach it a little differently. I can't imagine physically meeting you and not showing you this picture while telling you how happy, proud, and blessed I feel to have just become a grandpa. Is that not reason enough to share? Well, whether it is or not, let me introduce sweet little Simon Jerome Zetzsche (yes, I know, I know: "Jerome"). |
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Contents
Ukraine
How to keep working when the ground is shifting (Column by Dorothee Racette)
Tech-savvy tools to tame your email monster (Column by Josh Goldsmith)
Virtual Private Networks
The mind-altering reality of translation
New password for the Tool Box archive
The last word on the Tool Box Journal
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Even in the midst of my joy, however, I -- like you -- feel the heaviness of the times we're living in. But I can think of no better argument against disease and hate and war than a newborn baby (especially this one! 😉). |
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Almost 10 years ago, I wrote an article in the now defunct Translation Journal titled " The Ukrainian Cornucopia of Tools." It started like this: "If you've ever heard me talk about translation technology, you'll have heard me mention Ukraine. It inevitably comes up. Why? Because Ukraine is like the promised land for translation technology developers -- or, perhaps more correctly, because a handful of software developers have decided to make Ukraine into a veritable hotbed for translation tools. The sheer number of companies that specifically produce software for translators -- or translators who have created clever solutions for themselves and had a heart for sharing -- is mind-boggling. And though none of these organizations is really big, each makes formidable tools geared mostly toward the freelance translator."
Obviously, Ukraine is on our minds for a different reason these days. There are a number of industry-specific initiatives (such as the Ukraine Emergency Appeal, the Ukrainian Language Pledge, or the EC's Language data in Ukrainian project) designed to respond to the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. Any of these are welcome efforts to make a difference, but they are particularly meaningful because they are related to services we offer and data we might have access to.
To come at the crisis from a different angle, I asked two CEOs of companies highlighted in the Cornucopia article how they are doing and what actions they would recommend for us. I will leave their remarks uncommented (and unfiltered).
Volodymyr Pedchenko (AIT):
Thank you for your kind letter and the offer to help. All of our team is okay, if one can call this normal, but at least everyone is alive and healthy.
Some have already evacuated abroad (Poland, Netherlands, Slovakia), several people decided it is safer to stay in the almost besieged Kyiv, one person is in a village but with a limited gas and food supply because the bridges have been blown up. Some villagers risk their lives trying to throw products over the bridge or find ways through the fields. One of our teammates is attempting to evacuate from a village close to Kyiv to another one because the range of choices is quickly closing in this time of war. Another teammate has written that she is already in an occupied small city where the military is stationed. In order to protect her, we have erased all the 'risky' messages from public company chats which could endanger her if the occupants find her phone. Some of our teammates can communicate only over the Internet, as mobile connections are actively suppressed. War has scattered our team across Ukraine and Europe, but we stay strong.
As we also have a translation department, we have a lot of feedback on how MLVs are handling this. Some are totally unprepared and are still trying to send us Ukrainian translations through their St. Petersburg office. Some, like thebigword, are more understanding and have even started to cut ties with Russia. To tell the truth, even after 2014 (the annexation of Crimea) we saw that many large translation companies tried to keep Moscow/St. Petersburg/Russia as a center of distributing jobs for all languages in this region, just as a habit left from the Soviet Union. It's easier for a PM to send 10 languages to St. Petersburg and forget about them. Why care about deadlines and prices cut in half and other countries having poor communication both with the MLV and the end client? I think this has happened not only within the translation industry but within many industries. (Gas supplies to Europe is another example: connect to one pipe and stop caring.) This negligence in choices has led to what we have now....
Now the primary wish of every Ukrainian is for NATO or other countries to protect the blue sky above Ukraine and help save the Ukrainian people and cities. It's kind of crazy that it is impossible to do this quickly in the 21st century. Why do we need a Mars colony or mega smartphones if basic security is impossible? And this is being blocked by many politicians. Even if NATO cannot intervene, the transfer of planes or the Iron Dome, which are actively blocked by politicians, could save many lives during every coming hour. Or whatever other solutions the politicians can suggest, anything except doing nothing. Translators and interpreters may have direct contacts with someone in power who could help to restore peace in Ukraine. If you have ever wondered what you would do to stop WWIII and the Nazi regime, the right time is now. It is necessary to be creative before it is too late.
As for help for our team, it is of secondary importance now, but if someone still wants to help, they can use our last post before the war started to purchase our product with special pricing, or they can become a patron of our team (benefits will follow shortly). People can also support us directly via PayPal at orders@translation3000.com -- just as advance payment for innovative software we will publish in the future. In any circumstances, we are strong enough to deliver great value for what we receive.
I also would like to share my sincere advice from the experience of evacuation, which is kind of a very soft rehearsal of what happens when each of us leaves this world at a time nobody can know:
Material things are of secondary importance. You cannot take much with you. Skills matter. Relationships matter. Your health and strength do matter. Your loved ones and how you fit together as a team matter, how you behave in critical circumstances. Fancy clothes do not matter. Warm clothes do. Fancy boots do not matter. Comfortable ones do. Being warm, well fed, having a place to stay does matter. Having clear sky above does matter. People are stronger in groups of like-minded people, be it your professional translation association or a local club of butterfly collectors. Know your neighbors, talk to your neighbors. Exchange; do not just give or take. Do something together. This way you will test people BEFORE your life and health may depend on joint coordination. Trust people around you more than your government or some abstract formation (which, in turn, consists of people with their interests). Trust your eyes and multiple sources of evidence more than TV/Internet or whatever has been 'prepared' by someone for you (everybody in our country was told by the government to calm down and prepare for spring barbecues one month before the invasion). Become as self-sufficient as you can, both individually and as a family. If you have a choice, prefer rural areas far from military and civil airports, atomic stations, and other strategic places, and far from borders with countries that risk becoming aggressive. Become self-sufficient as much as you can and always have Plan B (backup power generator, food and water supply). A cellar with good ventilation, electricity, warmth, and preferably two exits can be much more important than a jacuzzi or a new car. And a car that can fit all your family and is economic on long trips even with limited supply from gas stations may be much more important and precious than a voracious sports car. Make sure all people in the family have proper non-expired documents, can drive a car, and can take care of themselves in critical circumstances. Don't give all the power to the government; keep as much as you can through civic society organizations you know and trust. Regard every material thing as a liability except something which helps you make money (PC) or gives more freedom (car). Be as mobile as you can. Try to have fewer unfinished ideas and projects. Enjoy every minute of your peaceful life!
I really hope this nightmare will end soon, Ukraine will win, and we will start looking for answers to how the world came to this point, when a lot of countries try to help but are still performing a balancing act to avoid making the Russian government angry / press the nuclear button and ruin what civilization has built over thousands of years. Can this state of affairs be called civilization at all?
Volodymyr Kokarenko (Technolex):
Thank you for your support.
I am personally okay and safe and have all I need, but Ukraine does need support from every person in the world. Because it is not about Ukraine: we are keeping the gates of Europe from a Kremlin maniac. Here are just some ways that everyone can help:
- Do not support the Russian economy in any way. Do not buy their goods and services as that money will be paying the war.
- Spread the word about Russian aggression to everyone you know. And make it clear to anyone who doubts: it is not politics or a "crisis" anymore; it is a war waged by Russia against the free and independent country of Ukraine. Push your governments to press the heaviest sanctions on them, as every dollar done in business with them is now soaked in blood.
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You may support the Ukrainian army with a donation: https://bank.gov.ua/en/about/support-the-armed-forces
- You may give shelter to refugees.
- Send food, medicines, and protective armor to Ukraine.
I know I might be asking too much. But I think I am entitled to do so after spending two nights in the basement with my two small children before moving to a safer place, after the windows in the flat of my parents-in-law were blown away from a rocket explosion that hit the next building, killing their friends there. And after my mother-in-law called to say goodbye to my wife and to say that she loves her in case it was their last talk (happily she is okay now, it was "just" the stress). Not being able to defeat our army, the Russians bomb residential buildings and even maternity hospitals so women have to give birth in shelters. So I am asking for your help in stopping this madness. Every input is important, even if it seems minor to you. And it is your safety too, as Putin won't stop here.
I'd like to finish this message on a positive note: the Ukrainian army is winning the war. Russians were planning to take Kyiv in two days, but they could not take any big regional cities. We see that the Russian army is not as mighty as they try to seem. It is not big, it is just long, and our army will swallow it gradually. As I write this message [on March 9], they have lost more than 12,000 soldiers, 48 planes, 80 helicopters, 303 tanks, 1036 armored vehicles, 474 cars, and lots of other equipment. Already 30% of the Russian invasion troops have been killed and wounded. It is the heaviest Russian per-day casualties since the end of WWII. And at this cost they have managed to take only one regional center in the south while terrorizing smaller cities. So we are no longer afraid of them, and you do not need to be either. They will lose. But the sooner it ends, the more people will stay alive and see their families -- on both sides, but first of all I am talking about Russians. You can help to end this war, too.
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How to keep working when the ground is shifting (Column by Dorothee Racette)
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Maintaining a normal work pace can be difficult in challenging times. If you are like me, you've spent way too much time following the news on the horrible war in Ukraine over the past weeks. For the T&I community with its roots in multiple countries and dedication to bridging cultural and communication gaps, the experience of watching the escalating violence is especially jarring. As someone who grew up in post-WWII Europe, I also find it painful to see my parents' generation reliving memories as they watch yet another refugee crisis unfold. If you are in a state of advanced fatigue from following the events, you are not alone. And yet, for many of us, projects keep rolling in and we must somehow concentrate on our work and keep going. This column offers a few tips to help you focus, at least briefly, on your projects and tasks in times of major distractions.
A sense of sanity is the key to holding daily life together, for yourself and others. I am not talking about false cheer or adopting a breezy 'don't worry -- be happy' approach. Staying balanced means keeping up your strength. Here are a few points to keep in mind:
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Things you can control: People with active minds and a lively imagination are especially good at coming up with the worst possible scenarios and worrying about them. When you find yourself obsessing over disastrous outcomes, remind yourself to return to your current situation and the things you can control. Divide your work into reasonable chunks (e.g. 30 minutes of concentrated work at a time) and break work activities down into clear steps to keep yourself going. Writing the details of such work steps on paper can create a useful visual aid. If you find that your daily worrying affects your work output, both in terms of quality and quantity, be clear with yourself how much work you can reasonably accept and process in the quality your clients expect. Turn off all continuous news coverage while you work and make it a point to only open the browser tabs you need for your business. If you can, set up a separate device (e.g. a tablet) in a different room to check the news in reasonable intervals.
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Maintain a few routines: Daily activities can seem pointless in times of high stress, but they offer a helpful framework. Neglecting the daily maintenance of your small business, e.g. by not returning calls or letting your email inbox fill up, will make it much harder to reengage later. If your household is like mine, you may also need to anticipate more communication time to check in with friends and family (and the associated transition time). Pick at least one or two daily activities, such as a walk or regular mealtimes to stay with a routine. That is especially important to help children and pets cope with stress. Your project work may appear trivial compared to the horrors of wartime, but it needs your full attention and guarantees stability.
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Take care of yourself: It can seem almost selfish to enjoy exercise or healthy food when others are desperately fleeing their homes to find shelter in other countries. At the same time, coping with stress and grief is hard. You need to keep up your own strength to help others. Getting enough sleep and breathing fresh air is a big piece of staying grounded. Keeping a simplified daily structure creates the necessary framework to keep up with your work responsibilities.
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"Doing something" has many aspects: Many of my clients seem to be jumping from one thing to another in their effort to find structure in the chaos. I completely understand the urge to "do something," but check with yourself and others in your household before you jump into further projects that consume energy and money. There is no solidarity race, no need for huge, dramatic action. Anything you can do, from donating money to raising awareness, is a meaningful contribution.
Finally, don't forget to extend kindness to counterbalance the dreadful violence we are witnessing. As linguists, we are deeply invested in human communication as the core of living and working together peacefully on a global scale. Translate that commitment into caring for others. Give encouraging advice to newer colleagues. Use your knowledge of international affairs to raise the bar in online discussions. Address unhelpful stereotypes. Show others what it means to be at home in multiple cultures.
"Be kind whenever possible," the Dalai Lama has said. "It is always possible."
Dorothee Racette, CT has been a full-time freelance GER < > EN translator for over 25 years. She served as ATA President from 2011 to 2013. In 2014, she established her own coaching business, Take Back My Day, to help individuals and organizations solve problems related to workflow and time management. As a certified productivity coach (CPC), she now divides her time between translating and coaching. Her book Complete What You Started (2020) provides a blueprint for carrying big projects across the finish line. You can read her blog at takebackmyday.com/blog.
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Step out of urgent mode and design the next chapter of your business!
Dorothee will again offer her popular 4-week course " Complete What You Started" in April 2022. Past participants have called the program "one of the best decisions I ever made." |
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The Tech-Savvy Interpreter 2.0 - Tech-savvy tools to tame your email monster (Column by Josh Goldsmith)
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Email can be the bane of our existence.
For freelance language professionals, it’s almost impossible to run a business without it. Sending quotations and projects. Accepting assignments. Managing receipts.
Sometimes, it can all feel overwhelming. Like there’s a monster in your inbox that keeps you from getting actual work done!
I designed the Tame your email monster challenge for the techforword insiders community to help fellow professionals like you tackle the overwhelm and develop strategies and habits for efficient email management.
This column covers one of the nine steps that make up the challenge. Read on to discover my favorite tech tips to write faster and begin taming your email monster.
Learn keyboard shortcuts
Email is all about writing.
Teach yourself the essential keyboard shortcuts to write efficiently. There’s a bit of a learning curve, but I promise you: the time they save really adds up!
Here’s a list of my favorites for dealing with text on Mac and Windows:
- Select a word: Double click (Mac and Windows)
- Select a sentence/paragraph: Triple click (Mac and Windows)
- Select all: Command + A (Mac); Ctrl + A (Windows)
- Move cursor one word left/right: Option + Left/Right Arrow (Mac); Ctrl + Left/Right Arrow (Windows)
- Move cursor to start/end of line: Command + Left/Right Arrow (Mac); Home/End (Windows)
- Select one word left/right: Option + Shift + Left/Right Arrow (Mac); Ctrl + Shift + Left/Right Arrow (Windows)
- Select one letter at a time: Shift + Left/Right Arrow (Mac and Windows)
Next, get acquainted with shortcuts for managing email. You shouldn’t need to take your hands off the keyboard to compose or send a message, mark an email as read or unread, or archive or delete it! ⌨️
Email shortcuts vary based on your operating system and email app. Check out these recommendations for Outlook, Gmail, Yahoo, and Apple Mail.
(Pro tip: Need to memorize a new shortcut? Write it on a sticky note and place it next to your monitor. 😉)
Set up text replacement
You probably type out your email address, phone number, and mailing address all the time - whether you’re buying something online or sharing your address with a friend who’s coming to visit.
Text replacement - also known as text snippets or text expansion - lets you create custom shortcuts for anything you type more than once or twice.
And emails are packed with this kind of boilerplate language:
- “Thank you for your email, and apologies for not responding sooner.”
- “Attached please find my translation. I look forward to continuing to collaborate in the future.”
- “Unfortunately, I am not available to accept this assignment. However, should you need interpreting services from Spanish, French, Italian, Catalan or Portuguese to English, please feel free to contact me.”
Sure, you could type these out all the time. But why would you? Instead, download the free Phrase Express text expansion program (for Mac, Windows or iOS) and add in the boilerplate sentences you regularly write in emails.
Pair them with abbreviations that work well for you. For example, I use “tx” for “Thank you for contacting me” and “brb” for my two-sentence message about not being available to take on projects at the moment.
Create templates and canned responses
Here’s an email I write regularly:
Dear CLIENT,
Attached please find my translation of this project.
I look forward to receiving your feedback on it, and would be happy to answer any questions you have.
Thanks again for entrusting me with this project. I look forward to continuing to work together in the future.
Best wishes,
Josh
Although I could set up each of these phrases as a text expansion, I’ll save even more time if I create an email template or canned response.
Good news: Phrase Express works great for templates and canned responses. (And many email apps like Outlook, Apple Mail and Gmail offer templates, too. 💪)
Use a spelling and grammar checker
As language professionals, we’re judged on our writing - including emails in foreign languages.
And while Grammarly is popular, it only “knows” English.
What we need is a tool that works in all of your languages and runs right in your email app.
I strongly recommend LanguageTool, which supports 30+ languages.
In addition to catching embarrassing typos, it offers helpful writing and grammar tips. My writing has improved by leaps and bounds since I started using LanguageTool. 🤩
Smart Compose: Awesome or creepy?
If you're a Gmail user, you may have heard of Smart Compose, which uses machine learning to complete your sentences as you type.
Start writing, and Gmail autocompletes the rest of the sentence. Like what you see? Hit tab to accept the suggestion. (Or swipe to accept a suggestion on a smartphone or tablet.)
I have mixed feelings about Smart Compose. It can save tons of time, but I'm hesitant about Google’s computers gobbling up my email for machine learning. Critics also note that Smart Compose messages may seem less personal.
Smart Compose does offer the possibility to turn on custom suggestions based on your writing style - so if you change Google’s boilerplate language, Smart Compose will start to propose your style in the future.
Start right now
Do you have thousands of unread emails in your inbox?
I hate to break it to you, but it’ll take more than this column to tame that email monster.
The secret to mastering email - and pretty much everything we teach at techforword - is to tackle one thing at a time.
And that’s what this column tries to help you do. So what are you waiting for? Roll up your sleeves and start today!
Josh Goldsmith is a UN and EU accredited translator and interpreter working from Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese and Catalan into English. A passionate educator, Josh splits his time between interpreting, researching and teaching through www.techforword.com, which empowers language professionals to make the most of technology.
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Grab the workbook, watch the videos at your own pace, ask questions in the insiders community, and develop the strategies and habits to whip your email into shape.
This challenge is free with your insiders membership. Join now for just 20€/month! |
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When I first started working in the world of translation in the 1990s, I worked crazy long hours for a start-up tech company in Bellingham, Washington. Those long hours were made even more painful by the possibility of using VPN (virtual private networks) to dial in (!) to the company's network on nights and weekends. There were some good things about working there, but this was not one. It was incredibly (INCREDIBLY) slow and overall very, very unproductive.
Today things are different. Not only as far as speed goes, but also as far as purpose -- at least in the context I'm talking about here. VPNs are used when a) you want to hide your identity for privacy reasons or b) you live in a country like, say, Russia where access is blocked to sites you would like to access and/or where you can find information you can't find elsewhere.
I did a bunch of research about what kind of tools are good to use for a VPN service, but then I realized that I shouldn't just rehash what other more knowledgeable people had already written about quite well themselves. This article, for instance, provides a really good overview of what VPN services do and which tools are particularly helpful when you want to use something out of the box.
The situation in Russia (just as a random example, mind you) is particularly interesting. Awhile back the state demanded that all VPN tools register with the state so they could be shut down if necessary. Only one of the many tools complied -- not surprisingly, the Russian-owned Kaspersky. All the other tool vendors ignored the demand and are therefore -- to my knowledge -- still available within Russia.
One tool that was not mentioned by the article linked to above but does appear in a favorable light in many others is Express VPN (but please don't take that as a particular endorsement). |
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The mind-altering reality of translation |
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Almost exactly two years ago, I described the very innovative translation approach taken by the largest Christian publication in the US (and the world?), Christianity Today. At the beginning of the pandemic, its editorial staff decided that all rules were out of the window, so why not let readers and translators pick which of their articles should be translated into 12 different languages. You can read my little article right here.
Just this past week I published another article about translation in Christianity Today that I would like to share with you. You have likely read here or on Twitter or elsewhere that I have been curating this large Translation Insights & Perspectives (TIPs) project over the last few years. It's at this point really large, far beyond what I thought it would ever achieve, and it's still only at its very beginning. Even if you have heard me say it before: it's a large, publicly accessible database that documents the power of translation by showing how much a text -- in this case, the text of the Christian Bible -- benefits and grows with each translation. It grows because each language adds another point of reference and illumination to the original text, a concept that goes into overdrive when you're talking about a text (or a collection of texts) that has been translated into 3000 languages.
The article I just published shows how this works. While it's styled after the very click-friendly "10 best things" kind of "listicle," it's a serious list (with the exception of the "turtle" story) of examples where concepts that seem familiar to us become deeper and more meaningful after considering how other languages look at the very same concepts. I invite you to read it right here.
(And you will also be very pleased that I ever so gently tackle the presumed "untranslatability" conundrum.)
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New password for the Tool Box archive |
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As a subscriber to the Premium version of this journal you have access to an archive of Premium journals going back to 2007.
You can access the archive right here. This month the user name is toolbox and the password is mensakakuro.
New user names and passwords will be announced in future journals.
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The last word on the Tool Box Journal |
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