{"id":4471,"date":"2023-02-08T08:00:11","date_gmt":"2023-02-08T08:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/FLD\/?p=4471"},"modified":"2023-02-09T19:16:44","modified_gmt":"2023-02-09T19:16:44","slug":"transcript-ata-ces-episode-21","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/FLD\/2023\/02\/08\/transcript-ata-ces-episode-21\/","title":{"rendered":"[Transcript] ATA Continuing Education Series Podcast \u2013 Episode 21 \u2013 Interview with Ruth Simpson"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A<\/a>
ATA FLD Podcast. Photo Credit: Unsplash<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\"The<\/a>To make our Continuing Education Series Podcast more accessible and searchable for FLD members and the general public, we are now offering transcriptions of our episodes right here on \u00c0 Propos<\/em>. Many thanks to our volunteer transcriptionists, who are credited at the bottom of each transcription. If you\u2019re interested in helping us transcribe podcast episodes, email divisionFLD\u00a0[at]\u00a0atanet\u00a0[dot]\u00a0org.<\/p>\n

HOW TO LISTEN TO THE ORIGINAL EPISODE<\/strong><\/h3>\n

SOUNDCLOUD<\/strong>: You can listen to or download\u00a0Episode\u00a021<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0and all previous episodes on Soundcloud\u00a0here<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

ITUNES<\/strong>: This episode and all previous episodes are available on iTunes\u00a0here<\/strong><\/a>. You can subscribe or listen online. Like what you hear? Rate us and review us! It really helps get the word out.<\/p>\n

Episode 20:\u00a0Interview with Ruth Simpson<\/u><\/strong><\/h2>\n

Andie Ho: <\/strong>This is Andie Ho, host of the continuing education series, a podcast produced for the members of the French Language Division of the American Translators Association, offering educational content about the craft of French-to-English and English-to-French translation and the division.<\/p>\n

A brief comment here, my dog, Huckleberry, makes a cameo in this episode with his signature howl, so if you hear some background noise, that\u2019s him saying \u201chi,\u201d to everyone.<\/p>\n

Today we\u2019re joined by Ruth Simpson, a freelance French-to-English translator since 2008. Ruth is based in France, currently, and she specializes in beauty and cosmetics and wine and spirits. She has a diploma in wine and spirits, which I\u2019m very excited to talk about, is a qualified member of ITI, with certified translator status, and, apparently, is a keen musician, as well. Very multitalented. Welcome today, Ruth.<\/p>\n

Ruth Simpson: <\/strong>Thank you so much! Multitalented, I don\u2019t know. I certainly like to try lots of new things. Um, so, yeah, that\u2019s… I love playing all different instruments. I\u2019ve got ukuleles, I\u2019ve got a violin, and I love singing, as well, so, yeah, my husband would probably say not so multitalented, just \u201cmulti-interested.\u201d<\/p>\n

AH: <\/strong>Well, isn\u2019t that the prototypical translator? Interested in a little bit of everything?<\/p>\n

RS: <\/strong>Yeah, yeah probably. That\u2019s true, yeah.<\/p>\n

AH: <\/strong>So, let\u2019s dive right in. The main thing I wanted personally, selfishly, to talk to you about today is your specialization in wine. Now, I translate for the food industry, but I specifically do not translate wine, because it is, as I\u2019m sure you\u2019re going to tell me, is its own deal.<\/p>\n

RS:<\/strong> Um, right.<\/p>\n

AH: <\/strong>I\u2019m sure it\u2019s a specialization, a dream specialization for many people. How did you<\/u> get into it?<\/p>\n

RS: <\/strong>Well, both of my specializations, cosmetics and wine, both could seem like dream specializations to a lot of people, but they really do all involve urgent translations, demanding clients, tricky words, just like everyone else\u2019s specialist fields. So, wine, and cosmetics also, come under the variate umbrella of what I like to call whipped cream or fluff translations, um, they\u2019re very much in the nonvital category when you compare them with, like, the important work done by medical translators or legal translators, and that has the benefit of taking the pressure off mentally, but you\u2019d be surprised, actually, how many cosmetic brands take lipstick as seriously as they do a drug trial, as the pharmaceutical industry would take a drug trial.<\/p>\n

Um, well, how did I first get into wine translation? I was working in Paris doing English teaching. I was actually working at L\u2019Or\u00e9al\u2019s luxury product division, which is how I got into cosmetics translation, and my boyfriend at the time, who is now my husband, he was also working in Paris in advertising, but he had a family wine estate in Chablis, and he knew that at some point in the future he was going to take on the wine domain, the wine estate that belonged to his family. But we were still living in Paris at that point, so the Burgundy countryside was pretty far away from our thoughts. One thing, he\u2019d decided he\u2019d had enough of the m\u00e9tro-boulot-dodo<\/em> lifestyle, and he decided to start a year-long training course in a specialist college near Chablis, and so, I went down to three days a week in Paris, and two days a week in Chablis, and I created my business and began contacting agencies, and, from that point, I was working just in cosmetics.<\/p>\n

I eventually took an interest in wine when I moved here more permanently in 2009, when I had my first child, and I was struggling to keep up with conversations at the dinner table. My husband\u2019s family and the friends we\u2019d made here got to talking about wine, and I couldn\u2019t follow along. I was a bit struggling with the vocabulary, and I didn\u2019t really understand what was going on. I\u2019d always enjoyed drinking it, like lots of people, but I didn\u2019t quite know how to get to grips with the technical and more descriptive vocabulary. That was in French, let alone in English, so in neither language. I researched some qualifications in the field and I wanted to do the qualification in English, so I found the WSET, which is the Wine and Spirit Education Trust. Um, so, that\u2019s how I first got into specializing in wine was through my family connection with my husband and my qualifications with the WSET.<\/p>\n

AH: <\/strong>Okay, well, so that kind of answers my next question about which came first, the chicken or the egg, the wine or the translation.<\/p>\n

RS: <\/strong>Right. The cosmetics definitely came first, because that was, for me, the most obvious choice, having spent… I spent four years working in the offices of L\u2019Or\u00e9al\u2019s luxury products division, so I was working with marketers and people… people… coming into daily contact with the English of the beauty industry. And so, that really gave me a big jumping off point for setting up as a freelance translator in that world.<\/p>\n

AH: <\/strong>So, tell me more about this wine and spirits diploma that you obtained. How did you find out about this diploma, what did it involve? What kind of people take this diploma, and what all did you learn?<\/p>\n

RS: <\/strong>Um, well, I learned so much. How I got into was, when I contacted… I contacted the WSET and I explained my situation. I\u2019m living in Chablis, starting to become a bit familiar with the world of wine, and they suggested that I start at their Level 2, which is what they call the intermediate level. The intermediate level is a short, three-day course in London, and that… it was very quick to do; it\u2019s quite accessible, then I was encouraged to move on to the Level 3, the advanced course, which is five days, in London again, and then, after that\u2014this is about a year-long time span between the two\u2014I was encouraged to do the Level 4 diploma, which is a very, very different beast. The diploma is two years long, well, the one I did was two years, and it involved four week-long classroom sessions split up over the two years, and a dissertation on a subject, and lots and lots of three-hour exams, and tastings, as well. So, it was very, very intense for those two years, and my son was only, I think, eighteen months when I started, so that was a very full-on time, as well as translating full-time by then. Um, the people doing the course with me were all wine enthusiasts, obviously. Lots of them were from Majestic, which is a UK-based wine merchant. Some of them were retirees, they just wanted to learn more. There was a journalist, there was an Italian winemaker there, too, and people working for other wine merchants. So, lots and lots of different backgrounds. But not one single translator except me.<\/p>\n

AH: <\/strong>So, actually, I was going to ask, um, did that help with any networking? I mean, did any of your classmates end up, you know, being sources of work for you?<\/p>\n

RS: <\/strong>Yeah, that\u2019s a good question. Uh, it could have been, couldn\u2019t it? But it actually wasn\u2019t, no. I didn\u2019t… I kept in touch with, I would think, three or four people from the course, one, especially, who came to visit me in Chablis, and we\u2019re good friends, but, uh, actually, no work came from that initial training period. But after that it was a different story because, um… Shall I go on to say what I developed after that?<\/p>\n

AH: <\/strong>Please.<\/p>\n

RS: <\/strong>So, I developed some training courses for different associations. It actually started out as a tasting session at the end of a Wordfast conference. I did an hour of a brief A to Z of the year in the vineyard, then some tasting exercises for the people, just as a fun end to one of the days of training with Wordfast, and that was picked up by another association, the MET\u2014Mediterranean Editors and Translators Association\u2014who asked me to develop it into a sort of half-day workshop, which I did, and then ITI, the… another association, picked up on that, and afterwards it developed into a full day, so all of that, um, just from a very short, hour-long, fun, tasting session, it developed into quite a serious few rounds of specialist wine translation training for other translators, and that did sort of establish me as a specialist wine translator, and then I started getting work, yes, references from other translators and people in the wine business who noticed that I was offering those training courses.<\/p>\n

AH: <\/strong>Okay, so indirectly then.<\/p>\n

RS: <\/strong>Um, yeah, indirectly. Nobody actually, at the course, said, oh, I want you to translate something that I\u2019ve been asked to do, but certainly, as a result, yeah.<\/p>\n

AH: <\/strong>All right. I just want to point out to our listeners that this is networking at its finest. It\u2019s not always about direct connections, but about one thing leading to another, so…<\/p>\n

RS: <\/strong>Absolutely. Yeah, and in those training courses that I gave, I was often asked, \u201cYes, but how do we<\/u> get into wine translation,\u201d and I\u2019ve probably done five or six sessions of training, including cosmetics, as well. I also do a cosmetics training course for other translators, and, at the end, or in feedback, people will often say, \u201cWell, how do I do it, though? How do I get into it?\u201d It\u2019s so different for everybody. All I can do is say what I did and how it worked for me, and that\u2019s the only advice I can give, because I can\u2019t give you a list of people to contact, obviously. Um, so, that\u2019s… It\u2019s sometimes quite frustrating because I really want to help people, but I don\u2019t quite know how to go about doing that, other than telling them to look for themselves.<\/p>\n

AH: <\/strong>Yeah, there\u2019s not a single pathway to success in freelancing, which is both wonderful and devastating, I find [laughter].<\/p>\n

RS: <\/strong>Yes! That\u2019s true! Yeah, and actually, the very best client that I\u2019ve ever had is a publishing house which led to six books, which is a whole other story, but I met at a party, I met someone at a party, who ended up being my very best client, so, it\u2019s a strange world. [laughter]<\/p>\n

AH: <\/strong>All right, I\u2019m just writing this down. If I want six book deals, I should go to parties and drink wine.<\/p>\n

RS: <\/strong>That\u2019s right! Yes! Six books [laughter] That\u2019s the exact advice I would give. Yes, six book deals. Go to a party. And talk! Talk to people. But that is a good piece of advice. Always talk to people about what you do because you never know when it\u2019s going to be really, really useful.<\/p>\n

AH: <\/strong>Absolutely. That\u2019s a really good point, yeah, always, I always try to drop in conversation what I do, just to plant seeds.<\/p>\n

RS: <\/strong>Yeah, absolutely!<\/p>\n

AH: <\/strong>So, back to your courses, um, everybody thinks about the wine tasting aspect of learning about wine, but did you learn about technical aspects? What else did you learn? It couldn\u2019t have all been fun and games, or we\u2019d all be doing it, right?<\/p>\n

RS: <\/strong>Oh, no. No, it really wasn\u2019t fun and games. And, especially, it was quite a convivial atmosphere, and we were there for a week, and we were all in London, and we did sort of have a few evenings out, so I can tell you that tasting vodka at 9:00 a.m. on a hangover is really not for the fainthearted. [laughter] But, uh, that wasn\u2019t a particularly technical session, but there were very, very technical sessions. Um, it covered viticulture, so, all about growing grapes, how grapes are grown, how to prune a vine. Or in different places they have different pruning techniques, so that can be quite a struggle to remember all the different places and all the different pruning techniques. So, here in Chablis we have a pruning technique called the Guyot<\/em>, which is just one cane or two canes with a double Guyot<\/em>, and in a place, for example, such as Beaujolais, they have another form of pruning, which is called gobelet<\/em>, which is more like, the vines are grown like a bush, rather than like a single cane, so all of that technical aspect has to be covered. And that\u2019s just in France, the differences there. And the course covered the whole world, so there were more than a few different pruning techniques to remember. Then you\u2019ve got the chemistry of vinification, of fermentation, all of that, so you have your history and your geography of viticulture; you\u2019ve got your chemistry in vinification, and then your creative writing in the tasting, tasting notes… how to write an objective tasting note, which is quite difficult at first because, as you can imagine, there is a big difference between, \u201cOh this wine tastes great,\u201d and \u201cThis wine is high in acid, low in alcohol,\u201d etc., etc. You really have to learn how to do an objective tasting note. And then, all the vocabulary to do with marketing and how to sell a wine, as well, and the food pairing, so there\u2019s a lot, a lot, a lot to learn.<\/p>\n

AH: <\/strong>Okay, I\u2019m starting to see the similarities between translating wine and translating cosmetics because it seems to me that both seem very light, and like a daily item we can all relate to, but can be surprisingly technical, as well. But then, there\u2019s still the transcreation\/creative aspect.<\/p>\n

RS: <\/strong>Absolutely. That\u2019s so right, and it actually has quite a lot of cross-over, especially in terms of, I mean, very specifically in terms of when you\u2019re writing a tasting note and describing aromas, and you\u2019re describing the perfume, it\u2019s so similar. There\u2019s a lot of cross-over there. But, absolutely, in cosmetics you\u2019ve got the chemistry part as well, and the medical, almost medical side to it, if you\u2019re dealing with the cosmeticovigilance, the people working on side effects of cosmetics, that can be very, very chemistry based, just like vinification, and yeah. So, there\u2019s lots of cross-over there.<\/p>\n

AH: <\/strong>So, what do you find to be some of the hidden challenges of translating wine, then? Is it the creative aspect, or the technical aspect, or something else?<\/p>\n

RS: <\/strong>I think that depends on the translator. For me, it\u2019s not so much the creative writing part, because I love a bit of whipped-cream, as I said, fluff translation. I love that. For me, it\u2019s really knowing your stuff. So, when you\u2019re translating wine, you really have to have a full grasp of the whole process. I\u2019ve got a great example for you. I had a text, I have texts, several, regularly, in French, that say things like \u201cLe vin est ensuite ferment\u00e9 dans les f\u00fbts ou dans les cuves,\u201d which can seem to be quite a straightforward sentence. But when you look at it, you think, they\u2019re saying that the wine is fermented. You don\u2019t ferment wine unless it\u2019s the second refermentation. You ferment juice, or must. So, you have to know that, at this point in the production process that you\u2019re writing about, this is when you\u2019re dealing with juice, and not proper wine, so you then… I always flag this up, and I always say, look, this is a problem, because we\u2019re not fermenting wine, we\u2019re fermenting juice, and they regularly come back to me and say, \u201cOh yeah, no, you\u2019re absolutely right. We\u2019re going to change the French\u201d because it\u2019s wrong. So this is when the original source text is not written by the producer, obviously, it\u2019s written by a communication agency, or a journalist or some other nonspecialist, not by a wine journalist, I\u2019d like to think that they never would write something like that, but definitely some kind of communication agency writing things like that that don\u2019t seem to be wrong when you read them, but then when you know the process, they are wrong, and you really have to flag it up, and that just creates immediate added value. As a translator you\u2019re very valuable because you can improve the source, as well.<\/p>\n

AH: <\/strong>All right, you are validating my decision not to translate wine, because, clearly, I don\u2019t even know what I don\u2019t know. [laughter]. I would never have picked up on juice versus wine. Wow.<\/p>\n

RS: <\/strong>Well, I mean, when you\u2019ve seen it once, and you\u2019ve realized it once, then after that it\u2019s very easy. And, you know, there aren\u2019t a hundred examples of that. I\u2019m not constantly finding errors in people\u2019s texts, but there\u2019s actually another challenge I could talk about, which is knowing when not<\/u> to translate. Um, there are some words in the world of wine which have to stay in the source language quite frequently, and that\u2019s often the case when you\u2019re dealing with French. You\u2019ve got words like terroir<\/em>, which is the whole environment around the vineyard, not just the land, the soil, but also the weather, the exposure, the slope, which direction the slope is facing, all of that can be called terroir<\/em>. And there\u2019s also a stage in the champagne making process which is called prise de mousse<\/em>, which is often left in French. Um, again, going back to the pruning techniques, Guyot<\/em> is left in French as well. But you can find that out yourself by looking at a bit of target language information if you go to winery websites based in California or Australia you can find those terms left in the French or even used in French on those websites.<\/p>\n

AH: <\/strong>Oh, that\u2019s interesting. Yeah, I know, obviously a lot of this stuff comes from the French, um, terroir<\/em>, I feel like a lot of people know, even if you\u2019re not a wine connoisseur, but some of those other terms you mentioned… does it take a bit of a wine connoisseur to know them, or is it really that widespread in English?<\/p>\n

RS: <\/strong>That\u2019s a good question, because you have to think about your audience, as well. It\u2019s really when you would be using a word like prise de mousse<\/em>, you would think, well, is the audience going to understand that. So that would be a case of, well, let\u2019s look exactly at who it\u2019s aimed at, and then we\u2019ll see if it\u2019s people that are supposed to understand those terms, then let\u2019s leave it. But maybe you could add a simple explanation to the sentence, like \u201cprise de mousse<\/em>-comma-the period in the production process in which the champagne forms its bubbles,\u201d something like that. But, yeah, I think know your audience.<\/p>\n

AH: <\/strong>Yeah, now that I think about it, you\u2019re, obviously you\u2019re right. That\u2019s very key. I\u2019m thinking about my mother, who doesn\u2019t know the difference between red and white. [laughter]<\/p>\n

RS: <\/strong>Oh, okay! That\u2019s more of a problem [laughter]<\/p>\n

AH: <\/strong>And then, you know, a true wine connoisseur, who I\u2019m, you know, they can get pretty pedantic and persnickety sometimes.<\/p>\n

RS: <\/strong>[groan] I know, I hate that though. In the beginning, when I do my translation in the wine industry workshops, one of my first slides is a snob, a wine snob, and I put a big red cross through it, and say there\u2019s no wine snobbery. It\u2019s a specialism just like anything else. And just because it has this reputation doesn\u2019t mean it has to be dripping with snobbery. And that\u2019s really\u2014getting back to the objective tasting notes\u2014that\u2019s really the… what you can use as your foundation. Its… You\u2019re not saying it\u2019s good or bad. You\u2019re not saying \u201cYou know this\u201d and \u201cI know that,\u201d it\u2019s \u201cIs it high in acid or low in acid?\u201d \u201cIs it… Can you smell cherry, or can you not smell cherry?\u201d And this is how you can eradicate that snobbery that is rife, yeah.<\/p>\n

AH: <\/strong>So, I want to go back to this 9:00 a.m. vodka tasting [laughter]. So, your diploma is in wine and<\/u> spirits. Do you actively translate for the spirits industry, as well?<\/p>\n

RS: <\/strong>Yes, yes, yes. It is… It could be said to be a separate field, but, at the end of the day, it\u2019s still fermentation, and then the distillation part. So, it\u2019s just a new… it\u2019s an added extra onto the process. With wine, yes, you\u2019re only dealing with grapes, and with spirits you\u2019re dealing with all manner of raw materials, but there is a lot of cross-over again. Talking about cross-over, there\u2019s a lot of cross-over with wine and spirits. Um, I think there\u2019s probably less focus on the production process when you\u2019re dealing with translating materials for the spirits industry. They tend to be big-brand clients rather than small producers. Like the wine industry… a lot of small producers doing their own websites, whereas spirits tend to be big brands doing their marketing campaigns, so the emphasis is more on their image. Um, spirits translations, I find them to be more creative, more journalistic in style, and they focus on experience around the spirit, rather than how it\u2019s made. When I first started out, I did a lot of translating for Cointreau, the spirits brand, the orange liqueur, and that was a really fascinating mix because they did talk about their production process, but it was always the same thing: sweet and bitter oranges and the distillation and everything. It was a lot of boilerplate text for that. But there were all these different experiences with, like, star mixologists coming in to Paris, and there was a campaign with Dita Von Teese, and there was a lot of really creative opportunities there, which is quite… very different from viticulture in rural Burgandy. [laughter]<\/p>\n

AH: <\/strong>Huge generalization here: would you maybe say that wine is for nerdy introverts and spirits is for extroverts?<\/p>\n

RS: <\/strong>Oh, no. Definitely not.<\/p>\n

AH: <\/strong>Okay<\/p>\n

RS:<\/strong> No, [laughter] no, you have to look at the… just think some of the big California brands like Screaming Eagle and some of the Australian… like Penfolds in Australia. These are no shy violets. I mean, they\u2019re big brands with a lot to say. So, yeah, no, definitely not. But there\u2019s probably a little more subtlety in wine, um, than there is in spirits because spirits generally taste the same every year.\u00a0 Um, probably I\u2019m generalizing there. I think Hennesy and… would disagree with me because that\u2019s the… cognac changes year to year and there\u2019s a lot of difference there, but generally, big brand spirits taste the same every time, every year, and wine is, obviously different each vintage, so that\u2019s a big difference there.<\/p>\n

AH: <\/strong>So, um, what are some misconceptions from fellow translators about what you do. I mean, clearly, I have stuck my foot in a couple of them, but, what do people assume about, um, about your job?<\/p>\n

RS: <\/strong>I think one of the misconceptions is that there is some of elite group of people that have been born into this wine specialism, and they can\u2019t possi… and other translators can\u2019t possibly permeate into that world, and that couldn\u2019t be further from the truth. Um, I know I do have the advantage of my husband being a winemaker, but I really did start out from scratch when I decided to contact WSET, and I was 35 at that point. I was… you know, I wasn\u2019t an enfant du pays<\/em> as they say around here. Um, I mean, it doesn\u2019t do me any harm, admittedly, that my company, my freelance company has its address in Chablis. I live in Chablis. But it\u2019s really not impossible to learn a specialization from scratch. I mean, doesn\u2019t everyone learn their specializations? Nobody is born specializing in medical, for example. So, I think that\u2019s one of the misconceptions, is that it\u2019s only for this restricted group of people who already know everything about it. That\u2019s really not the case.<\/p>\n

AH: <\/strong>That\u2019s comforting. Um, I have another friend who works in wine. She\u2019s a buyer for a major retailer here in the United States, and it seems like the more you get into wine the less snobby you are about it. It\u2019s the people like me who don\u2019t know anything about it who assume that it\u2019s a very highfalutin sort of career, but, um, she\u2019s very ecumenical about it, you know.<\/p>\n

RS: <\/strong>But I think when you really love something, then you want everyone to share in it, so you obviously break down all those snobbery barriers when you want to share your passion and your fascination with something. Um, definitely, I don\u2019t know why it\u2019s the case. I think it\u2019s to do with maybe wine waiters or sommeliers in the 1980s perhaps smirking at people when they don\u2019t order the correct wine. I don\u2019t know. I don\u2019t know. It\u2019s a mystery to me, but maybe it\u2019s because it\u2019s being paired with fine food in this sort of rich, elite atmosphere. Maybe that\u2019s why. But it\u2019s a shame.<\/p>\n

AH: <\/strong>All right, so my New Years\u2019 resolution is to drink more wine and just enjoy it.<\/p>\n

RS:<\/strong> Yeah, exactly! Just enjoy it, which is also a question you can ask yourself. Once… If you are translating or if you\u2019re working in the wine industry, you could do your objective tasting note, but then at the end of the day, is it… do you enjoy it? Is it nice? Is the taste pleasant? And that is where the pleasure comes from, so, I think you should definitely, yeah, try more wines. And, what I don\u2019t like is when people say \u201cOh, I don\u2019t like red wine,\u201d or \u201cI don\u2019t like white wine.\u201d It\u2019s like, have you tried a selection, because they are so different. You really try all different ones, and then decide. I mean, nobody likes… not everyone needs to like everything in the world, but definitely reds can be heavy and powerful and… heavy, whereas they can also be light and fruity and\u2014crunchy almost\u2014if you\u2019ve got this red cherry kind of strawberry flavors coming through with… it\u2019s perfect with some fruit salad even, which you\u2019d never… a snob would never say that, right?<\/p>\n

AH: <\/strong>All right, so, um, a couple final questions: we touched on your translation of cosmetics, but you also translate for personal development, which is very interesting. Are there, just very quickly, so, um, give me a brief overview of that, and then tell me about any overlaps between cosmetics and wine and spirits and personal development.<\/p>\n

RS:<\/strong> Um-hmm. Well, personal development got started because I had a contact who was working at Dannon, the yoghurt and dairy, lots and lots of different products, company, and Dannon organized this seminar, which is twice yearly, three times yearly, called Eve, and it\u2019s all about… it\u2019s for women, and they invite a majority of women with some men, so that the men feel like what it\u2019s like to be in the minority, and it\u2019s all to do with daring and taking the first steps and breaking through the glass ceiling, and ways of doing that, and that… they publish lots of different articles on their blog to do with resilience and, uh, well, all different feminist issues, and I\u2019ve been lucky enough to translate for them for several years now. The cross-over there is really… not a lot of overlap between cosmetics and personal development there, but also, the books that I\u2019ve been translating, that started out with a person development book, as well, called Nudge Management, all about how you can make small changes in a business environment to change people\u2019s behavior. So, some would say manipulation, but I like to say nudge. Um, so this is, for example, sticking a little fly on a urinal to keep men\u2019s aim clear and keep mess off the floor. So that\u2019s would be an example of a nudge, and that book was all about bringing those kinds of initiatives into business to improve efficiency and that. And employee satisfaction as well. So, I mean, that\u2019s just a brief overview of my personal development translation. But that varies a lot.<\/p>\n

AH: <\/strong>All right, [laughter]. Sorry, I\u2019m still getting over the fly in the urinal.<\/p>\n

RS: <\/strong>[laughter]<\/p>\n

AH: <\/strong>Maybe we\u2019ll call it incentivization and just working with people…<\/p>\n

RS: <\/strong>\u201cIncentivization,\u201d I like that. Yeah [laughter].<\/p>\n

AH: <\/strong>That\u2019s hysterical. All right, well, final question: Is there anything else you want people to know about you, about your work, about the world.<\/p>\n

RS: <\/strong>I would say, don\u2019t be scared to specialize because it\u2019s really rewarding when you get recommended for a job from someone who has heard about you but you don\u2019t know, that\u2019s a really lovely seal of approval. Um, if you manage to become the translator that springs to people\u2019s minds when they think of an area, then that\u2019s definitely a time that you\u2019re doing something right. Also, I\u2019ve found that sharing knowledge is a wonderful thing, giving workshops to other translators really did set me up as a reference, as I said earlier, in those areas. Um, and, yeah, they brought me more work and, you know, contrary to what you might think, it\u2019s really not about creating competitors because I know a lot of translators would hesitate to give training because they\u2019re like, well, if they know how to specialize in that industry, then I\u2019m going to get overtaken. But it really isn\u2019t the case. I haven\u2019t found that to be the case at all. Quite the opposite. People see you in a more authoritative light when you\u2019ve been a tutor for them. Um, so, yeah, what else would I like people to remember, is, uh, try wine. Try all different kinds of wine and don\u2019t be scared of the wine world.<\/p>\n

AH: <\/strong>All right. Words of wisdom from the Queen of Wine herself. Pay attention, guys.<\/p>\n

All right, well, thank you so much, Ruth, for your time today, uh, excuse my dog in the background. He\u2019s mad that he\u2019s penned up right now, and…<\/p>\n

RS: <\/strong>That\u2019s fine. It\u2019s real life.<\/p>\n

AH: <\/strong>Thank you so much for your words.<\/p>\n

RS: <\/strong>And thank you for listening to me. Thank you.<\/p>\n

AH: <\/strong>This concludes our episode for today. You can subscribe to the continuing education series podcast on Soundcloud or iTunes by searching for continuing education series. You can contact the FLD at divisionFLD [at] atanet.org, visit our website at www.ata-divisions.org\/FLD, or get in touch with us on social media. This is Andie Ho signing off. Thanks for listening, and \u00e0 bient\u00f4t.<\/p>\n

Ruth Simpson<\/strong> has been translating professionally since 2008 in the fields of wine & spirits, beauty and personal development and holds the MITI certification from the Institute of Translation and Interpreting. She lives on her family\u2019s wine estate in Chablis and is a graduate of the WSET Level 4 Diploma in wines and spirits. Before moving to Chablis, Ruth was an English trainer at L\u2019Or\u00e9al\u2019s Luxury Division in Paris, facilitating workshops and tutoring business and marketing professionals. She has a degree from the University of Warwick in the UK, and in addition to studying French, she spent her time there singing with the chamber choir and musical theatre society. Also a keen scuba diver and violinist, Ruth started playing the ukulele in 2019 and has begun to suffer from UAS, ukulele acquisition syndrome. You can follow her on Twitter at @ruthinchablis<\/a>.<\/p>\n

ATA Podcast host\u00a0Andie Ho<\/strong>\u00a0is a certified French to English translator specializing in the food industry. She earned her M.A. in translation from Kent State University and is now based in the Houston area. She currently serves as the ATA\u2019s French Language Division administrator. You can follow her on Twitter at\u00a0@JHawkTranslator<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0or email her at\u00a0andie\u00a0[at]\u00a0andiehotranslations\u00a0[dot]\u00a0com<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Transcribed by Joan Wallace<\/strong>. She has been a full-time freelance translator for nearly 30 years. She holds ATA certification from French to English and Spanish to English, and also translates from Thai to English. She works primarily in medical and pharmaceutical translation, although she occasionally wanders further afield, including an ongoing collaboration with a historian involving
\nFrench-English translation of 19th-century handwritten documents. She is based in Madison, Wisconsin. You can connect with her on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com\/in\/joanwallace<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To make our Continuing Education Series Podcast more accessible and searchable for FLD members and the general public, we are now offering transcriptions of our episodes right here on \u00c0 Propos. Many thanks to our volunteer transcriptionists, who are credited at the bottom of each transcription. If you\u2019re interested in helping us transcribe podcast episodes, … Continue reading [Transcript] ATA Continuing Education Series Podcast \u2013 Episode 21 \u2013 Interview with Ruth Simpson<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/FLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/FLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/FLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/FLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/FLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4471"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/FLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4484,"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/FLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4471\/revisions\/4484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/FLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/FLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/FLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}