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SlavFile Reprint – Translating Okudzhava: Turning «Песенка старого шарманщика» into “The Organ-Grinder Ditty”

December 23, 2022

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The article below is reprinted from the most recent SlavFile. The full issue is available here.

Translating Okudzhava: Turning «Песенка старого шарманщика» into “The Organ-Grinder Ditty”

By Vladimir Kovner

I suspect that I am a generation or two removed from the majority of SlavFile’s current readers. Nevertheless, I hope that they all know the name Bulat Okudzhava and are familiar with at least some of his works. In the late ʾ50s, Okudzhava began to perform his poems/songs—basically, poetry set to music accompanied by guitar—for his friends. Thus began the highly influential era of the Russian “bards,” of which Okudzhava is considered to be progenitor. I got my very first tape recordings of one of his performances in late 1959 and met him in person in 1962 at a home concert in Leningrad. Later I had the pleasure of recording his performances in Leningrad, Moscow, Detroit, and Oberlin, Ohio.

I’d like to start by saying a few words about the uniqueness of his poetry. In 2011, A.V. Sycheva (a professor at the University of Magadan and a protégé of the outstanding scholar Professor Roman Tchaikovsky) remarked in her dissertation “About Translations of Okudzhava’s Poetry into English” that the majority of the bard’s translators recreate only the basic sense of his poetry, their translations being interlinear or free, not even rhymed. In her opinion, only slightly more than 16 percent can be considered adequate. Later, explaining why even some decent renderings cannot be considered adequate, she explains: “In most cases, the completed translations of Okudzhava’s lyrics do not comply with all the criteria of that genre. Even if the original poetic texts of his songs are reflected quite successfully in the English language versions, some extremely important components of his poetry, such as its folkloristic character and musicality, are quite often completely absent in translation.” Later, we’ll come back to the discussion of that problem.

Before his first performance in the Leningrad House of Art in 1960, Okudzhava said to Alexander Volodin, a well-known playwright and poet who was tasked with introducing Bulat to the audience: “Don’t call my works songs. I am a poet. They are poems.” But later Volodin added to that story: “Long ago poets were called singers. They composed verses and melodies, and performed them with their own zither accompaniment… In our time, in our country, the first one to accomplish this was Okudzhava. Every word of his poetry is a word of a song that is supposed to soar over this vast country.”

The uniqueness of Bulat’s poetry is in his incredible musicality. We translators have to understand that more often than not his poetry is not simply verses. Even his poems that for some reason were not set to music beg to be sung. According to Vladimir Frumkin, a musicologist, one of the founders of the “bard” movement, and one of the best if not the best performer of Okudzhava’s songs, his verse-songs are unique because they have been created/composed as a cohesive whole that comprises not only lyrics and music but also the author’s own performance, his unique, somewhat restrained voice, a subtly ironic manner, a deeply individual cadence, and his guitar accompaniment. Together, these elements give us a unique genre known as “guitar poetry.” In his song «Главная песенка»/“The Paramount Song” (the version below is translated by Lydia Razran Stone and myself and was published in the journal Readings, no. 31, summer 2015). Bulat demonstrates how to create a song (music and lyrics) as a single whole:

“Okudzhava’s songs are more a phenomenon of oral than of written poetry, like folksongs” (Vladimir Frumkin). Let’s add that Okudzhava heard music emanating from everywhere (e.g., from Moscow streets, from architecture), then he constantly and naturally incorporated the most diverse musical instruments and genres into his poetry: guitars, horns, drums, flutes, clarinets, waltzes, marches, and so on. Furthermore, as he described it: “I write when I feel like it, under the influence of various moods and impulses that are sometimes not even clear to me…” And finally, he possessed a remarkable musical ear. This is why I believe it is essential for translators of Okudzhava’s songs to spend time listening to how he performs them to be sure that not only their translation adheres to the original meter and rhyme pattern (that is relatively simple), but that it is singable to the original melody, with the rhythm pattern of the translated song matching the pattern in the original.

Наверное, самую лучшую
На этой земной стороне
Хожу я и песенку слушаю –
Она шевельнулась во мне.
Она еще очень неспетая.
Она зелена как трава.
Но чудится музыка светлая,
И строго ложатся слова…

The best thing that life on Earth brings to me,
That causes most joy in my heart,
I walk, and from nowhere it sings to me,
A song that is longing to start.
Not yet a true song, but developing;
Unripe, like green fruit on the vine.
The melody’s splendid, enveloping,
And words fall precisely in line…

Returning to A.V. Sycheva’s analysis, obviously the majority of translators were either tone-deaf or failed to consider the melodical component important and based their renderings on his written poetry.

Let’s come back, at last, to the subject of our discussion: a very unusual poem-song, «Песенка старого шарманщика». Before I describe the very interesting and complex process of translating that song into English, I’d like to say that the following translation represents my efforts to match the brilliance of Okudzhava’s original lyrics and my very useful and important periodic discussions with Nora Favorov, who critiqued some of my early versions and suggested a few interesting alternatives that I gratefully accepted.

Песенка старого шарманщика. Булат Окуджава.
Е. Евтушенко

Шарманка-шарлатанка, как сладко ты поешь!
Шарманка-шарлатанка, куда меня зовешь?

Шагаю еле-еле – вершок за пять минут.
Ну как дойти до цели, когда ботинки жмут?..

Работа есть работа, работа есть всегда,
Хватилo б только пота на все мои года.

Расплата за ошибки – ведь это тоже труд.
Хватило бы улыбки, когда под ребра бьют.
Работа – есть работа…
Composed circa 1960–62

The melody follows a waltz rhythm (one-two-three, one-two-three), a naïve charming waltz for a street-organ. (The standard rhythms for street-organ music were older forms of dances such as the waltz, two-step, polka, etc.)

“The Organ-Grinder Ditty” by Bulat Okudzhava
dedicated to Yevgeny Yevtushenko

Oh, charlatan, street organ! Your singing is so sweet.
You devious street organ! Where do you summon me?

I trudge on, legs feel heavy, five minutes – just one inch.
How can I reach my haven in boots that cramp and pinch?

What’s work? Just work I get. Jobs – plenty, good and bad.
God, help me toil in blood-n-sweat through years that lay ahead.

A payback for my blunders – that’s also labor, but…
Can I still smile, I wonder, when punched straight in the gut?
What’s work? Just work I get…

There are eight lines in this short song; each one is six poetic feet long—hexameter, consisting naturally (remember, it’s a waltz) of two iambic trimeters. Every two consecutive lines (1-2, 3-4 and so on) are rhymed at the end and in the middle of lines. All the rhymes are perfect (exact). It’s a straightforward pattern for a translator.

Let’s begin with the title of that song: Песенка старого шарманщика. Why did Okudzhava call it “песенка” rather than “песня?” Actually, he used both titles many times. Possibly through this choice Okudzhava was trying to underline the idea that «песенка» (“ditty” in English or chansonette in the French manner) brings an element of intimacy between a performer and listeners. Also, it is possible that while he often repeated that his songs were foremost poems and he was basically performing guitar poetry, he underestimated his exceptional musical gift and incredible merits and the value of his songs’ melodical aspect, meaning for him his songs really were just ditties. It is interesting that in Vladimir Nabokov’s novel Ada the author refers to Okudzhava’s “Sentimental March” as a “…soldier dit[ty] of singular genius…” Based on all that, we will render the English title of this work as: “The Organ-Grinder Ditty.”

We have to repeat that this poem is very unusual: the whole poem, including its title, is written as a witty satire in the best traditions of Aesop. (Okudzhava wrote two more poem-songs of this type.)

Before singing this song for Western audiences, Vladimir Frumkin used to tell them that the old organ-grinder in this song by Bulat Okudzhava is not really an organ-grinder. Soviet listeners understood this perfectly well: the author was hinting at what the creative intelligentsia—poets, writers, composers, and artists—had to endure working under the pressures of total censorship. As Fyodor Raskolnikov wrote in an open letter to Stalin in 1938: “You have forced art into a straitjacket in which it suffocates, withers and dies.” By using an organ-grinder as camouflage, Okudzhava was trying to disguise the true meaning of the song from the censors, the literary gendarmes, Soviet cultural authorities, and, of course, the communist media. There is a curious story about this song connected with Professor Charles Gribble of Ohio State University, who in 1966 founded Slavica Publishers. In 1976, Frumkin suggested that he publish an encyclopedia of Russian bards and sang him several songs. After hearing “The Organ-Grinder Ditty,” Professor Gribble, who at the time was making frequent trips to the Soviet Union, replied: “No way. I cannot publish anti-Soviet poems. The Russians will never let me in again.” Obviously, Professor Gribble saw through the Aesopian language, and of course Okudzhava’s audience in the Soviet Union (both his fans and the authorities) were even less likely to miss the song’s true meaning.

The song was composed circa 1960–62, performed at home concerts and, like the rest of his songs, widely distributed by way of “magnitizdat” tape recordings. It was not officially published until 1983.

What pushed Bulat Okudzhava over the edge and made him compose a song in which a lilting melody and the quaint image of a street-grinder are paired with a series of much darker images: the singer is too hobbled by painful shoes to walk more than an inch in five minutes, has to pay for his blunders, and is punched in the gut: шагаю еле-еле, ботинки жмут; расплата за ошибки, под ребра бьют.

We have to recall what the situation was at the time this song was written.

It was composed around the same time as the 22nd Communist Party Congress. The brightest prospects for the country within the next twenty years were heralded from the podium, along with confident assurances that it would attain communism, that all socioeconomic differences between the city and the countryside and between toilers of the body and the mind would disappear, and so on and so forth. In short, universal rejoicing was in order.

What about Bulat at that time? According to Professor Anatoly Kulagin, Okudzhava’s name always sounded suspicious to the Soviet regime. They sensed covert, if not overt, opposition, an unwillingness to “play along” by performing ritual displays of loyalty and producing art with the required slant in exchange for the ability to publish, to be granted a government apartment, summer dacha, or sanatorium stay, etc. In spite of the fact that at that time Okudzhava was the head of the poetry division at the most prominent national literary weekly in the former Soviet Union, Literaturnaya Gazeta, authorization for release of his first recording was blocked, Kiev TV cut all of Okudzhava’s poetry from a TV program based on the contents of Literaturnaya Gazeta, and, in a May 1961 speech, the secretary of the Komsomol’s Central Committee characterized Okudzhava’s songs as fit only for a boudoir, a remark intended as a huge insult for a Soviet poet.

Here is Okudzhava’s reaction in his own words: “I started to sing my poems, not imagining what a scandal was to break out in a short time. Guitarists accused me of lack of talent…composers of lack of professionalism… singers of having no voice at all, and all of them together of impudence and banality…The officials accused me of pessimism, anti-patriotism, pacifism, and the press backed them up” (from the book ОКУДЖАВА 65 песен, by Vladimir Frumkin, English translation by Eve Shapiro). Already a member of the Union of Writers, after working at Literaturnaya Gazeta for less than four years, in early 1962 Okudzhava left the newspaper. Obviously Bulat was sick and tired of all the government’s “sweet promises”—actually endless lies, and the belittling criticism of so-called cultural workers and “brother-writers” organized “from the bureaucratic top.” Fed up, he composed and began performing “The Organ-Grinder Ditty.”

Translating “The Organ-Grinder Ditty”: A Couplet-by-Couplet Annotation

My goal in translating this poem-song was to accurately reflect the underlying Aesopian meaning while maintaining the formal metrical structure.

Шарманка-шарлатанка, как сладко ты поешь!
Шарманка-шарлатанка, куда меня зовешь?

Oh, charlatan, street organ! Your singing is so sweet.
You devious street organ! Where do you summon me?

The sweet (сладко) singing of the organ-grinder represents the temptations the Soviet government put before people aspiring to work in the arts. For the Russian word “звать” (to call), we chose a stronger word, “summon,” specifically implying the exercise of authority.

Шагаю еле-еле, – вершок за пять минут.
Ну как дойти до цели, когда ботинки жмут?..

I trudge on, legs feel heavy, five minutes, just one inch.
How can I reach my haven in boots that cramp and pinch?

The first line of this couplet alludes to the constraints placed on Okudzhava. In 1962, despite being a very popular bard, he had only been allowed to publish two tiny books of poetry—Lyrica, 63 pages, and Islands, 91 pages—and not a single record had been released. A вершок is an antiquated Russian unit of measurement just under 2 inches. Next, the image of painfully tight shoes is an obvious reference to the straitjacket of literary censorship (ботинки жмут). Цель (goal) is a polysemantic word. For a writer it could be to publish a novel, for a composer, to hear his new symphony in a concert hall, for Bulat, say, to see The Complete Poetry of Bulat Okudzhava in print. While “haven” and “goal” are not exact equivalents, given the constraints of meter, we felt this word fit with the underlying meaning: the ability to freely exercise his art was, for Okudzhava, a sort of haven, both a place of refuge and a desired goal.

Работа есть работа, работа есть всегда,
Хватилo б только пота на все мои года.

What’s work? Just work I get. Jobs – plenty, good and bad.
God, help me toil in blood-n-sweat through years that lay ahead.

As Nikolai Bogomolov, a professor at Moscow State University has observed: “Projecting the real situation in Russia onto this song, we see an obvious clash between the dulcet tones of the street-organ and social and political reality, and the only solution that crosses the minds of many people is that there is nothing left for them but work. Работа есть работа, работа есть всегда…” (In fact, work—as in paid work—was not always available, since when a writer was expelled from the Writers Union or other analogous professional organizations, he/she was deprived of any possibility of making a living in that field, as was the case with Boris Pasternak in 1958 and with Alexander Galich in 1971.)

Regarding the phrase “Хватилo б только пота…” in 1986, when asked how young writers and poets were able to establish themselves in the field of literature, Okudzhava replied: “One’s talent has to fight its way through sweat, blood and toil. And this is fair!” I assume that Okudzhava knew the Speech of Winston Churchill at the beginning of the war in May of 1940: “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.” We draw on this phrase in translating the second line of this couplet.

Расплата за ошибки – ведь это тоже труд.
Хватило бы улыбки, когда под ребра бьют.
Работа – есть работа…

A payback for my blunders – that’s also labor, but…
Can I still smile, I wonder, when punched straight in the gut
What’s work? Just work I get…

Of course, as for “ошибки/blunders,” we have to acknowledge the note of irony: Okudzhava’s uncompromising stances vis-à-vis the behavior expected from Soviet writers were blunders from their point of view, but not his own, of course. Being forced to openly admit “blunders” was worse than hard physical labor for many.

The last line, “Хватило бы улыбки, когда под ребра бьют”, reflects a slight exaggeration in regard to the Khrushchev era. Although Stalin’s torture and merciless executions of the most talented people of all persuasions and professions, including writers, were over, the persecution and harassment of dissenting writers under Nikita Khrushchev (and later Brezhnev) continued.

Alas, throughout Russian history, punches in the gut, whether literal or figurative, have been a fact of life for centuries.

Vladimir Kovner is an engineer, journalist, and English<>Russian translator and editor specializing in poetry, bard songs, ballet, and idioms. He participated in the edition «Песни Русских Бардов» (The Songs of Russian Bards, Paris, 1976), a collection comprising four volumes and 40 cassette tapes, and has published two books of poetic translation from English into Russian: «Приласкайте Льва» (Pet the Lion; 2010), and a bilingual edition titled Edward Lear: The Complete Limericks with Lear’s Own Drawings (2015). He also translated (in collaboration with Nora Seligman Favorov), Sergey Baimukhametov’s Magic Dreams: Confessions of Drug Addicts. His memoirs, «Золотой век Магнитиздата» (The Golden Age of “Magnitizdat,” were published in the United States, Russia and Germany. He enjoyed a long-term collaboration with Lydia Razran Stone. They made several joint presentations at ATA Annual Conferences and together wrote the “Idiom Savants” column in SlavFile. They jointly authored an article about translating Edward Lear in the Moscow journal «Мосты» (Bridges; 2012), a bilingual edition of the journal Чтения/Readings devoted to Okudzhava (2015), and Sports Idioms: English-Russian and Russian-English Dictionaries (2017). He can be reached at 19vovakova02@gmail.com.

Like what you read? There’s more where that came from. Check out the Summer-Fall 2022 issue here or the full SlavFile archive here.

Upcoming Webinar – Russian Legal Translation

September 8, 2022

September 22 / 12:00 pm – 2:00 pm EDT

Learn the fundamental differences between contract law in Russia and the U.S. and how they affect the content of contracts in Russian.

In this two-hour webinar, we’ll take a look at the Russian law of obligations to see how it differs from contract and tort law in the U.S. We’ll also talk about three fundamental differences and see how they affect the content of contracts in Russian. Then we’ll consider the anatomy of a contract in Russian and English and compare standard clauses.

The webinar will be conducted in English and is primarily aimed at translators from Russian-into-English, but should also be of interest to translators from English-into-Russian.

About the Presenter

Thomas West founded Intermark Language Services in 1995 after practicing law for five years with a large Atlanta law firm. Tom received his B.A. degree in French and English from the University of Mississippi summa cum laude and his M.A. in German from Vanderbilt University, where he was a Harold Stirling Vanderbilt fellow. He earned his J.D. at the University of Virginia School of Law and was admitted to the State Bar of Georgia in 1990.

Tom is ATA-certified for translation from French-, Spanish-, German- and Dutch-into-English. He also studied Russian as both an undergraduate and graduate student. He has presented seminars on legal translation throughout Europe, the Americas, and in South Africa. From 2001 to 2003, Tom served as ATA president.

Register Now!

Registration closes September 22, 10:00 am ET

ATA SLD podcast: Episode 28 with Dmitry Buzadzhi

August 11, 2022

Dear SLD members,

The new episode of Slovo, the ATA SLD podcast is live!

In this episode, our new host Halla Bearden talks to Dmitry Buzadzhi, visiting professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey and the Slavic Language Division Distinguished Speaker at the upcoming ATA Annual Conference in LA (ATA63). Dmitry looks back on his pathway into T&I and teaching, shares some of his favorite jobs and courses, and offers a sneak peek at his two sessions at ATA63.

YouTube channel “Перевод жив” (Translation Lives): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxBQnIzlqhtMTEkiyPMZFuA

Dmitry’s website: thinkaloud.ru

Listen here or anywhere you get your podcasts – Slovo is available on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, and Spotify.

Don’t forget to subscribe, so you never miss an episode!

ATA SLD podcast: Episode 27 with Marian Schwartz

May 20, 2022

Dear SLD members,

The new episode of Slovo, the ATA SLD podcast is live!

In this episode, our podcast host Eugenia Tietz-Sokolskaya chats with Russian-to-English literary translator Marian Schwartz, who has translated a wide range of Russian literature, from classics to modern authors. Marian discusses her journey into the world of translation and publishing, as well as her latest published translation, Brisbane by Eugene Vodolazkin, with its joys and challenges.

Marian’s website: www.marianschwartz.com/
Publisher’s website: www.plough.com/en

Listen here or anywhere you get your podcasts – Slovo is available on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, and Spotify.

Don’t forget to subscribe, so you never miss an episode!

Translation by Interpreters and Interpreting by Translators

September 3, 2021

There is an ongoing debate in the language industry whether translation and interpreting services can be rendered by the same person. Needless to say, while these two services are related, the primary responsibilities and skills that a person needs to provide translation or interpreting services differ.

Meanwhile, many people who are not too familiar with linguistic services think that translation and interpreting are the same trade. Linguistically, this is well illustrated in Russian-speaking countries, where “переводчик” means both translator and interpreter. From the customer perspective, “переводчик” deals with different languages, either working on the written text or providing an oral rendition. In this aspect, the two trades are the same.

The International Standard ISO 17100 “Translation services — Requirements for translation services” does not restrict whether a translator can also handle interpreting assignments. It only mentions that a professional translator shall have competencies, including linguistic and textual, in both the source and target languages.[i]

Someone who professionally translates from one language into another accepts an ethical and professional duty to represent their qualifications, capabilities and responsibilities honestly and always work within them. Being truthful in advertising applies to professional translators and interpreters: our resumes, websites, brochures, business cards, manner, and non-verbal emotional tone all must accurately reflect who we are and what we can actually do, both practically and professionally.[ii]

Following that logic, a translator must decline, say, a request to help their client with over-the-phone interpreting of a conversation with a draft contract’s other party. Likewise, an interpreter has to decline a proposal to translate pitch decks used at a conference where this interpreter is engaged, despite being immersed in the event’s context and thus knowing these particular pitch decks’ content well.

To a certain extent, I agree with that. As a freelance translator, I have to decline an assignment that I cannot properly perform when it is beyond my qualifications. And what about those assignments that are within the scope of my abilities, even though I was never professionally trained and qualified in that area? Is it still a good idea to miss out on a lucrative interpreting or translation assignment then?

At this point, I have to quote Corinne McKay, an ATA-certified French-to-English translator and former ATA president: “When you work full-time for an employer, you have one job title. When you work for yourself, you’re not only the translator but also the department head for sales and marketing, technical support, customer relations, accounting and facilities maintenance. Unless you’re willing and able to pay someone to do these tasks for you, you’ll be doing them yourself, in addition to your regular job.”[iii]

To run a successful business, freelancers therefore do not have to miss a business opportunity if they feel up to the task. And if we look at it that way, why not try out both translating and interpreting even if you are not yet qualified in the twin trades?

In this regard, I believe that besides developing a specialization in a particular field, it is essential to find a niche in which offering a specific service really makes a freelance translator or interpreter stand out.

In his recent article “Does the jack of all trades still get the short end of the stick?”, the current editor of The NAJIT Observer, Jules Lapprand, stated, “Translators and interpreters have a superficial knowledge of almost any topic, and unless they have extensive experience in another profession, deep knowledge of only one: language. This reality was difficult for me to accept initially.” This quote resonated with me as I think translators and interpreters need not be afraid of gaining the “jack of all trades (and master of none)” moniker if they are trying out a new area of specialization. As a matter of fact, we have to be interested in new topics, master new areas, and find niches to stand out in. Otherwise, our overall marketing and messaging will more likely speak to no one. Courtroom interpreting with its “structured legalese and its own language that does not change as quickly as the latest fads do in other areas”[iv] is an excellent example of interpreter’s specialization. In other words, offering legal translation and court interpreting services at any time can be a niche.

Since we have a profound knowledge of language, we should be using that to its full extent, not limiting ourselves to one of the twin trades of translation or interpretation.

Today, however, it is rare for a freelancer to be both a translator and an interpreter.

In a truly inspiring Troublesome Terps podcast episode #63,[v] high-profile conference interpreters Louise Jarvis, Monika Ott and Sybelle van Hal-Bok, three members of three very different networks admitted that they often do translations as well when the existing clients ask for it. It should be noted, however, that translation is only a small part of their businesses; they still focus primarily on conference interpreting.

In this context, I would suggest that not only are different skills required to render translation or interpreting services, but our psychological make-up is also important. The existing stereotype is that translators are usually introverts with a tendency toward being quiet and reserved. Interpreters, however, are more often extroverted in nature. In addition, we are all human. Like everyone else, translators and interpreters tend to fear failure in an area where they feel less confident. For this reason, when it comes to deciding between staying in your comfort zone or handling a twin trade assignment, language professionals would rather remain in their comfort zone (i.e., decline a twin trade assignment), no matter how lucrative it is.

When the language service is provided by a company, it is usually never asked whether translation and interpreting can both be offered, but when it comes to a freelancer working with end clients, it can oftentimes be that the end client likewise expects the contracted translator to interpret.

For example, I was recently interpreting for a client, a law firm partner, who had a phone conversation with the Legal 500 Rankings researcher to find out how to send a law firm submission. As soon as the client found out that he had to fill out the multi-page submission templates, he asked me to translate the templates into his language. Did I decline that offer? Of course not! This is just one scenario where an interpreter can and, I think, should also perform as a translator. Let’s take a closer look at other scenarios.

In my legal translation practice, I have often been asked to render interpreting services when the end client needs to expeditiously negotiate contract details or urgently talk to a counterparty who does not have access to the Internet and therefore is unable to quickly respond to an e-mail. Notably, the client rightly assumes that I am already immersed in the upcoming deal’s details as I have been drafting or translating the contract for some time now. In that scenario, I provide interpreting services.

Vice versa, clients may forward me audio messages asking me to let them know the messages’ content in writing in a meeting, which is why they can’t talk. With such requests, I translate, even though the source content is in audio form.

Another classic example of assignments at the juncture of the two twin trades is on-the-spot translation, which occurs when I am asked to orally render a written legal paper’s content. This is quite specific to business meetings and court sessions where the client has not had a chance to quickly find a translator and instead asks the interpreter for a sight translation. In that scenario, I translate. There is all the more reason for this as the Russian law does not yet provide for sworn interpreter status, so the Russian courts do not require a separate certification for court interpreting. In short, by primarily focusing on legal translation, I do not need to sub-contract court interpreting assignments. This strategy has proven beneficial by allowing me to retain existing clients and catch new business opportunities.

To summarize, provided that both the client and freelancer are happy, I think freelancers offering both translation and interpreting services, even those who were never professionally trained and qualified in the twin trades, are still legitimate.

Notes

[i] ISO 17100:2015(E), paragraph 3.3.

[ii] American Translators Association Code of Ethics and Professional Practice, 3^rd tenet: https://www.atanet.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/code_of_ethics_commentary.pdf

[iii] Introduction to the book “How to Succeed as a Freelance Translator” by Corinne McKay. First Edition. 2006

[iv] “Does the jack of all trades still get the short end of the stick?” by Jules Lapprand. July 30, 2021

https://najit.org/does-the-jack-of-all-trades-still-get-the-short-end-of-the-stick/?unapproved=106974&moderation-hash=310e754a47eb598a50c8c69fb18c6b8e#comment-106974

[v] Troublesome Terps, a roundtable-style podcast covering topics from the interpreting space and the wider world of languages; episode # 63 of July 21, 2021: https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/troublesome-terps/63-interpreters-assemble-8TwuQZeFCaR/

Author bio

Dmitry Beschetny is an English>Russian translator and interpreter specializing in legal translation and court interpreting, based in Moscow. He holds a master’s degree in law and a master’s degree in humanities and social sciences, also having an academic qualification in translation studies.

Dmitry has extensive experience in criminal investigation and public prosecution. He has also worked as an in-house lawyer, and a legal counsel with law firms before turning his previous career into his area of specialization in the T&I industry. He has been translating and interpreting for academia, law firms and private clients. Dmitry can be reached at db@legalxlator.com.

We would love to feature other guest authors who are translators and interpreters working with Slavic languages in future SLD Blog posts! If you have recommendations or would like to share expertise, please email the SLD Blog co-editors: Veronika Demichelis and Marisa Irwin.

Localizing digital products into Russian: what is it like?

June 22, 2021

Photo by Christopher Gower on Unsplash

What is localization?

There are a few definitions out there. The course on Internationalization and Localization offered by the University of Washington (UWashingtonX) defines localization as “adaptation of digital content for a specific foreign market.” According to Nataly Kelly, who leads localization at HubSpot and has a great blog on this topic, “localization means adapting a digital experience for users who speak other languages or live in other countries.”

Localization is required when software products, websites, e-commerce and e-learning platforms, or mobile apps are made available to new markets.

In very basic terms, the localized digital product needs to:

cater to market needs
target a specific group of users
connect with users emotionally
be culturally appropriate
be easy to navigate

What do localization projects involve?

Localizability work often comes before localization to ensure that the process is as smooth as can be. This involves, among other things, transferring strings that need translation into a standalone file, separating text from images, making provisions for text expansion, and using placeholders.

Then comes the time for localizing both the content and the user interface (UI), making it accessible to users in the new market. Translation is usually sufficient for the more straightforward content, whereas UI, taglines, headings, call-to-action (CTA) buttons, and images might require a more creative approach to ensure that the product resonates with users.

What to look out for when localizing into Russian?

1. Level of formality. When starting a localization project from scratch, it’s important to determine how to address users, formally or informally, using «вы» or «ты». This is often decided by the client or together with the client. In fact, the same product might have different levels of formality between different languages: it might address users as “vous” in French, “du” in German, and «вы» in Russian.

A word of caution: it is often easier to start off with «вы» and use it throughout the project. This would cover the app content and all the system messages, as well as the inevitable privacy or cookie policies. An informal tone of voice is definitely justified for some products, but there will come a time to localize messages like “Forgotten password?” or “Are you sure you want to delete your account?” and these look much better when phrased formally.

Another benefit of using a formal pronoun is that it eliminates the need for feminine/masculine endings. It also makes the product more inclusive. This was the case with a parenting app I helped localize: initially the client wanted to go with the informal «ты», but that would’ve meant addressing only the mothers and excluding dads, while the content was trying to achieve the exact opposite—making sure that the new moms received much-needed support and involved dads as early as possible, even before their child was born.

2. Character restrictions in the user interface. If the app is content-heavy and contains articles or blog posts, character restrictions aren’t usually an issue there. However, when it comes to the user interface, space is at a premium, especially as Russian tends to be 15% longer than English. Even though adaptive design allows for these changes, it’s a good idea to keep this limitation in mind and try to be as concise as possible to avoid the back-and-forth with developers later on, after the product is tested on different devices.

3. Variables and placeholders. Variables and placeholders replace numbers (%d), characters (%c), or strings (%s). One of the most problematic situations in Russian localization is when a variable replaces a number and is followed by a word, for example, %d results. This poses a problem in Russian, which has complex rules governing the endings of the words following numbers. Some localization platforms like Crowdin allow for this variation and have different tabs for entering word forms for “one,” “several,” and “many” with the groups of numbers already predefined, which makes the translator’s job so much easier. However, that’s not always the case.

When there isn’t a way to specify different word forms on the localization platform, the easiest way around this is to flip the phrase so that it displays «Результаты: 5» (Results: 5). This isn’t always the most elegant solution, but I have had to resort to it quite often, especially when working on localization projects via an agency, as you don’t usually have a direct line to the developers.

4. Strings reused in different locations. In both website and mobile app localization projects, strings are often reused on the assumption that the words can be moved around without it affecting their form or meaning. With Russian being an inflected language, this approach simply doesn’t work. It results in phrases like «Нашим отелям» (“To our hotels”) or «Райских направлений» (“Of paradise destinations”) in menus, which I recently spotted on a hotel’s website. This can easily ruin the first impression for the users, especially if a brand is targeting customers in the luxury segment.

It is also possible to have strings that are used in two locations and require different translations or even different approaches to translation. This was the case when I was localizing a website for a jewelry brand, which had a “Store finder” page. I had to translate city names for the drop-down menu, but when the same city name appeared in the store address, I wanted to keep it in English because a transliterated address in Cyrillic will not get you anywhere if you’re trying to locate a jewelry boutique in London or St. Tropez!

5. Ambiguous verb forms. This is not unique to Russian, but app interfaces can have buttons like “Enter” or “Submit.” These can be translated using an infinitive, «Ввести», or as an imperative, «Введите». This depends on the context, but what makes it even trickier is that this string can also be referenced in other strings, and it’s essential to be consistent.

6. Culturally relevant content. When localizing an app, it makes sense to minimize references to source-language culture that aren’t going to resonate with the target audience or might be distracting. An example I like to give is a blog article on pool safety for children in the same parenting app. Most Russians don’t have the luxury of owning a house with a backyard and a pool, so the original reference to the private pool wouldn’t have gone down very well. However, I rephrased the sentence to include inflatable pools that you can have on your dacha, this scenario being much more likely.

7. Context is important. Translation is unimaginable without context, and it is especially important for localizing app UI and creating a positive, intuitive and memorable user experience. When working on localization platforms, there usually is a string description, like “invalid_email_error,” which gives you an idea where and when the string appears. There’s also an option for developers to include a screenshot or for translators to request one if it’s not there.

This list of potential issues that can come up when working on localization projects into Russian is not exhaustive, of course, and there are other things to be aware of to ensure successful localization, some of which only surface at or after the testing stage.

What I’ve found is that localization is very much a team effort, and it’s essential to keep talking to everyone involved in the process—producers, developers, content managers, and translators working into other languages—as they often have excellent creative ideas and suggest great workarounds.

Yulia Tsybysheva is a Russian marketing translator based in the UK. She works with clients in the fashion, beauty, jewelry, and travel industries and specializes in web & app localization, as well as transcreation. Having worked on four large-scale app localization projects, she’s planning to transition into localization and has recently received a Professional Certificate in Internationalization and Localization from UWashingtonX.

Website – https://choiceofwords.co.uk/

LinkedIn – https://uk.linkedin.com/in/yuliatsybysheva

Twitter – @ruchoiceofwords

SLD Member Spotlight: An interview with Shelley Fairweather-Vega

May 12, 2021

In this column of the SLD Blog, we feature members of ATA’s Slavic Languages Division: translators and interpreters working in Slavic languages. Their stories, experience, and career highlights will inspire both beginners and experienced professionals. Today’s post is an interview with a long-time SLD member, ATA-certified Russian to English translator, Shelley Fairweather-Vega.

What is your story of getting started as a translator?

Like a lot of our colleagues, I became a translator accidentally. My first translation job was for School No. 26 for Blind and Weak-Sighted Children in Ryazan, Russia, where I worked as a Peace Corps volunteer, teaching English, from 2000 to 2002. The principal wanted a grant from an American organization. So every day for a week, I’d finish up teaching my adorable second- through seventh- graders and then spend an hour or two on the school’s computer, translating handwritten Russian bureaucratese into non-profit-sector English. We won the grant.

After Peace Corps, I had a series of jobs in government and libraries that required the use of Russian and sometimes translation. By the time I started my graduate school program, I was on ProZ and freelancing occasionally. In graduate school, I studied Uzbek as well as more Russian, and began translating from that language, too. A few years later, I quit my day job and became a full-time freelance translator.

What fields do you specialize in, and how did you build up your expertise in those areas?

I first specialized in legal Russian, especially concerning politics and current events. I had plenty of legal vocabulary at my fingertips from working with lawyers, but I enjoyed translating journalism more because, unlike court rulings and contracts, journalistic writing requires (and allows for!) a dash of creativity. As part of my job buying Russian-language books for the Multnomah County Library system in Portland, Oregon, I wanted to research new Russian fiction to identify the most interesting contemporary authors. I discovered Lizok’s Bookshelf, the blog by Lisa Hayden, a prolific translator of Russian fiction. I began wondering if I could do what Lisa does someday. Years later, when I had started translating books, I met Lisa at a translation conference, and I feel so lucky to consider her a colleague now. Reading Lisa’s translations and work by other literary translators has given me insight into how that sort of translation works (and sometimes doesn’t work), and networking through conferences and social media has taught me a lot about the field.

Literary translation projects aren’t constant, so I continue to take legal jobs and creative translation jobs that aren’t exactly high literature. I really enjoy working on computer games and scripts for Russian animated shows for kids, for instance. The task is not just to translate the plot and dialogue and camera directions well, but also to develop an end product that has a good chance of selling to English-speaking producers and entertaining English-language audiences. My training for that consisted solely of watching lots of cartoons on YouTube with my kids when they were little.

Can you share an example of the most rewarding project you have ever worked on and why it felt this way?

Probably the most rewarding translation I’ve published is a short essay by an Uzbek author, Mamadali Mahmudov, which he wrote while in prison on trumped-up political charges. It was a pro bono job through Translators Without Borders. Bringing attention to his plight felt like working for a good cause, and anyway, the translation married my two interests – literature and politics. As an extra bonus for me, my translation was noticed by another Uzbek writer, Hamid Ismailov. He contacted me, and since then, I’ve published translations of two novels, one essay, and three short stories of his.

In your opinion, what are the most important skills of a literary translator?

Literary translation is a specialization like any other, in some respects – you need to master the vocabulary and style of your source material and its equivalents in your target language. That means having a real eye and ear for dialogue in fiction and rhythm, rhyme, and meter in poetry, for example. None of those things works exactly the same in Russian, Uzbek, and English. Having a good background in different styles and genres in your languages helps a lot. And when you translate literature, you almost always work for direct clients, whether publishing houses or authors. That requires the business skills to constantly negotiate terms, seek out new work, answer your clients’ questions, and help them through the process of translation and publishing.

Literary translators also need to be fearless. In this field, your name will be on everything you translate, so you have to be ready for the scrutiny of editors, readers, and critics; and that means you need to be humble, because nothing you translate will ever be perfect, and everyone will know it.

At ATA’s 61^st Annual Conference, you presented a session called “Getting Edited and Getting Ahead in Literary Translation”. What have you learned from the experience of getting your work edited and editing other people’s work?

I think getting edited has helped to teach me that blend of fearlessness and humility that I mentioned above. I’ve learned so much from being edited, from the simplest things to the most complex psycho-literary tricks imaginable. On the simple side, it took an editor to finally tell me that в частности doesn’t mean “in part” – I hadn’t specifically learned the expression, my solution felt sort of obvious, and it always seemed to fit the context, so I’d never questioned it. I will never make that mistake again. But most editing doesn’t deal with simple translation errors – it’s about writing that could be improved. Most suggested edits I see simply tell me that something I’ve written isn’t clear or is triggering some unintended response in the reader. Then I get to do the hard mental work of figuring out where the fault lies and how to fix it, while still guided by what the original text is trying to say and do. The more often you go through this process, the more confidence you develop in your translation choices. You start to be able to predict what will trip up an editor and what their objections will be, so you self-edit as you translate. You build a store of arguments you can deploy when you need to convince the editor to see things your way. You also develop the insight and confidence you need to propose third solutions that solve the problem the editor identified and convey the meaning and style your translation needs to preserve.

When we have our work edited by others, it may be easy to perceive it negatively, get discouraged, or get defensive. Do you have any tips, especially for beginner translators, on how to see the positive sides of getting feedback and when to defend their translation choices?

Seeing that sea of red on the screen when you open up a document with tracked changes is always terribly alarming. I’m not sure that initial shock ever gets less painful. When you receive edits, try looking through them once without responding. Scan the whole text, read the comments, and try to just absorb an understanding of what is bothering the editor, what they like and don’t like. Then give yourself a break and do something else. After your heart rate returns to normal, go back to the text and start responding methodically. That will give you the time you need to let your natural defensiveness subside a little and to consider the suggested edits more objectively.

You will always find at least one edit that you’re thankful for. Respond to that one first and let that feeling of gratitude to the editor carry over as you continue. Even when you disagree with an edit, respond respectfully, either defending your choices or proposing new options politely and rationally. You’ll feel much healthier and more professional, more as if you’re in a productive conversation with the editor and less like you’re in a boxing ring, warding off blows.

Always pick your battles. Sometimes edits are purely preferential changes, doing nothing to improve the translation. But as long as the edit also does no harm, try to let the editor have their own way sometimes. The translation won’t suffer, and it will save you the grief of arguing over one more thing.

What is important to remember when we edit other people’s work?

Remember how the translator will feel when they see all those tracked changes and try not to traumatize them! Less is usually more; try only to suggest changes that objectively improve the translation in terms of accuracy or style or clearly improve the target-language writing. Often, it’s better to ask questions: rather than changing X to Y, ask, “Do you think Y would work here?” And be sure you know exactly what your role is, as editor, in this project. Does the final responsibility rest with you or with the translator? Are you expected to check the translation for accuracy or just polish the target-language text? If you find yourself making extensive edits, offer an explanation: “I’m changing most of the passive voice to active voice,” or “These terms are covered in the glossary,” for instance, so the translator knows what is guiding your editing decisions.

Finally, take the time to offer a compliment or two when the translator has come up with something especially good. Especially if you’re going to be editing this person’s work again, it’s smart – and kind – to establish some rapport.

What advice would you give to colleagues who are just getting started in translation?

The single most important thing you can do is read. Read the kinds of things you might translate in your source language and read all kinds of writing in your target language. Additionally, to thrive in this business, as solitary as it can be, you need to know people. Attend trainings and conferences, hang out on social media, join those listservs. Your colleagues will be your single best source of knowledge, referrals, advice, and inspiration.

Shelley Fairweather-Vega is an ATA-certified translator from Russian to English and an enthusiastic translator of Uzbek. Her translations of poetry and prose have been published by presses ranging from Routledge to Tilted Axis, and in Translation Review, Words Without Borders, story and poetry anthologies, and more. Shelley is currently President of the Northwest Translators and Interpreters Society (an ATA chapter) and serves on the advisory board of the Translation Studies Hub at the University of Washington.

Website: fairvega.com/translation

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fairvega/

Shelley’s Amazon author page

We would love to feature other translators and interpreters working with Slavic languages in future SLD Blog posts! If you have recommendations or would like to share your own story and expertise, please email the SLD Blog co-editors: Veronika Demichelis and Marisa Irwin.

ATA SLD podcast: Episode 25 with Andrei Falaleyev

May 3, 2021

Dear SLD members,

The new episode of Slovo, the ATA SLD podcast is live!

In this episode, our podcast host Maria Guzenko talks to Andrei Falaleyev, a conference interpreter with more than 30 years of experience and a seasoned interpreter trainer. Andrei shares tips on becoming a sought-after interpreter, specializing, and training interpreters.

Listen here, or anywhere you get your podcasts – Slovo is available on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, and Spotify.

Don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode!

SLD Member Spotlight: An interview with Nora Seligman Favorov

April 8, 2021

In this column of the SLD Blog, we feature members of ATA’s Slavic Languages Division: translators and interpreters working in Slavic languages. Their stories, experience, and career highlights will inspire both beginners and experienced professionals. Today’s post is an interview with a long-time SLD member and SlavFile Associate Editor, Nora Seligman Favorov.

How did you first become involved with the Russian language and how did this lead to a career in translation?

My fascination with all things Russian might have faded into one life-long interest among many had it not been for a bit of serendipity. I had studied French from childhood through my third year of college. As my senior year began, I didn’t manage to get into a very popular seminar on nineteenth-century European literature (you had to be interviewed by the professor, and when he asked me what I had liked about Dickens’ Our Mutual Friend, which I mentioned having read the previous summer, all I could come up with was how funny all the characters’ names were). When I went to look at the list of courses that still had openings, I noticed that only two other people had signed up for first-year Russian. Since I was already enrolled in a year-long Russian history course, I thought it might be interesting to study the language and history in parallel. That year did the trick: I was hooked. After graduating, I attended the intensive Norwich Russian School summer program two summers running. It was one of those programs where you sign a pledge to speak only Russian. Although my one year of Russian had been very intense, the first summer was frustrating—I could understand much of the conversation and joking surrounding me, but I didn’t have the fluency to participate in it. My second summer there (after a year of office work) was better—I finally had enough Russian to socialize. A few months later, I was off to Moscow to study at the Pushkin Institute for a semester. I wound up staying a year and a half and marrying my husband, Oleg. When we moved to the States, I put him through grad school doing office work, but I longed to find a way to work with Russian. I played around with literary translation (Pushkin and Bulgakov—my favorites) and accepted various translation assignments. I was diligent in my translation work, but not really qualified. To make sure I wasn’t handing in terrible translations, I recruited local emigres to work with me. Only after I got my master’s degree in 1997 did I start to feel like a legitimate translator. That was when I first translated the 1863 novel City Folk and Country Folk by Sofia Khvoshchinskaya, which was only published twenty years later (Columbia, 2017). I spent those twenty years doing a variety of assignments—literary, historical, legal, medical—often in collaboration with colleagues, especially Elana Pick, whom I met in 1999 at an ATA seminar in New York.

What fields do you specialize in and how did you build up your expertise in those areas?

My time now is primarily divided between literary translation, my work for Russian Life magazine, for which I translate and serve as Translation Editor, and my work on SlavFile. However, at different stages of my career, I have focused on translating in several areas, including civil society, public health, and scholarly articles. Although I went into translation aspiring to be a literary translator, I had (and have) an equal interest in Russian history, particularly the Stalin era. Another piece of serendipity led to a number of Stalin-era history translations for Yale University Press: the series editor and I both belonged to the same karate organization. I was already fairly knowledgeable about Soviet history, so I was pretty well equipped to translate the material. However, working with Oleg Khlevniuk (for whom I translated Master of the House: Stalin and His Inner Circle and Stalin: New Biography of a Dictator), an eminent historian of the era who spent years as a researcher in the State Archives (GARF), was a particularly excellent education. I loved our email discussions of how to decode the special language of the Stalin-era government and secret police so that Anglophone readers could have the fullest possible appreciation of the information that he was imparting. Working with living authors is sometimes problematic, but having Oleg there to explain anything in his texts that confused me was invaluable. Additionally, we all know that dictionaries and even the resources offered by the internet have their limitations, so native Russian speakers who have generously and patiently entertained my endless questions have been critical over the years to “building up” my expertise, such as it is. Barely a week goes by when I don’t flood Elana Pick’s inbox with questions, and my husband is lucky to pass by my study without my waylaying him with some puzzle in the text I’m working on. Rimma Garn, a former grad school colleague, has also been extremely helpful. Building relationships with colleagues working in the opposite direction is invaluable.

Can you share an example of the most rewarding project you have ever worked on and why it felt this way? What project was the most challenging and why?

No doubt the most rewarding project I have worked on was City Folk and Country Folk. I was driven by a strong desire to bring this little known (even in Russia) gem to light. As for my “most challenging” translation, hands down, the winner is Arthur Tsutsiev’s Atlas of the Ethno-Political History of the Caucasus (Yale, 2014). I know that there are many experts on the geography and ethnic composition of the Caucasus, but I doubt any of them share Tsutsiev’s grasp of such intricacies as the precise timing and contours of the shifting boundaries between Ottoman, Persian, and Russian influence in the eighteenth century, every little change of the Russian Empire’s and later Soviet Union’s administrative designations of territories (from okrugs to oblasts to gubernias, etc.), every fortified position along the many defensive lines Russia maintained during the nineteenth century, and the most minute details of the Karabakh conflict. The budget for the Atlas project was modest, and the work involved seemed to expand with every passing day, as long discussions were held for each map and accompanying text about what language (Russian, Arabic, Persian, Turkic, one of the dozens of indigenous languages?) should serve as the basis for a geographic entity’s transliteration into English at a particular point in time as they shifted in and out of the hands of Russia, the Ponte, Persia, and associated local khanates, shamkhalates, or naibates. As everyone knows, the Caucasus is home to a vast array of ethnic groups, many of whose names have no standard English spelling. There was often no authoritative English-language source to turn to, or one authoritative source used one spelling and another a different one. In any event, I’m very happy to have been a part of the creation of this valuable resource and to have worked with as impressive a scholar as Tsutsiev.

In your opinion, what are the most important skills for a literary translator?

Literary translators must have a good ear for voice—both the voices of their narrators and of the characters, including an ability to hear and reflect all the subtleties of class, temporal, geographic, and ethnic usage, and the attitudes and emotions involved in the original dialogue. Most of all, however, I think literary translators need to understand how much time is needed for literary translation. Over the years, I’ve mined many translations for examples for talks and articles, and even highly respected translators make a lot of mistakes. It takes many reads by the translator and others to weed out all the misunderstandings and infelicities. So yes, skills are important, but they are not enough. You need patience and a willingness (and the finances) to give literary texts the time they need.

At ATA’s 61st Annual Conference, you presented a session called “Balancing Act: Sneaking Historical Context into a Literary Translation from Russian.” What have you learned from the experience of translating a 19th-century Russian novel?

I have learned that it’s hard. Even contemporary Russian is a bottomless pit, and the more decades and centuries you put between yourself and the material you’re translating, the harder it gets to be confident you understand your text. Even erudite native speakers sometimes don’t understand certain wordings. I am in awe at Constance Garnett (1861-1946), who broke ground as the first English-language translator of so many of nineteenth-century Russian literature’s most important works—without the internet and without the paper dictionaries that exist today. She did have the advantage of being contemporary to some of the men (alas, they were all men) she translated and of having Russians around her who were willing to go over her translations, especially the early ones, line-by-line. Despite the obstacles she faced, her translations are still among the best available.

What advice would you give to colleagues who are considering literary translation?

Find a project you love, give it a lot of time, find yourself a number of readers—both those able to read the original and those who can’t—to comment on your translation. Those who don’t know Russian can tell you what doesn’t sound like natural English, and those who do will probably identify spots where you misinterpreted the original, so you know what traps to look out for. If the process doesn’t turn out to be enjoyable, then you’re in luck—you can find something you’ll make a better living at. If you find yourself hooked, then you’re in for some fun. For me, literary translation is one of life’s greatest pleasures.

As for getting published, the most important thing is to make connections of the sort you can make at an ATA conference and have more experienced colleagues advise you on the process. There is no single pathway to success.

Nora Seligman Favorov is a Russian-to-English translator specializing in Russian literature and history. Her translation of Sofia Khvoshchinskaya’s 1863 novel City Folk and Country Folk (Columbia, 2017) was recognized by the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and Eastern European Languages as “Best Literary Translation into English” for 2018. Her translation of Stalin: New Biography of a Dictator by Oleg Khlevniuk (Yale, 2015) was selected as Pushkin House UK’s “best Russian book in translation” for 2016. An ATA certification grader (for Russian-to-English) since 2004, she serves as managing editor for the SLD’s newsletter, SlavFile and translation editor for Russian Life magazine. A native of New York City, she currently lives in Chapel Hill, NC and can be reached at norafavorov@gmail.com.

SLD Member Spotlight: An interview with Natalie Shahova

March 5, 2021

In this new(ish) column of the SLD Blog, we feature members of ATA’s Slavic Languages Division: translators and interpreters working in Slavic languages. Their stories, experience, and career highlights will inspire both beginners and experienced professionals. Today’s post is an interview with a long-time SLD member, Natalie Shahova.

Can you please share your story of getting started as a translator?

I started learning English with a private tutor when I was five. However, as a student, I got a PhD in math at Moscow State University and for about fifteen years I wasn’t professionally involved with languages (except doing some random translation jobs as a student). I worked as a professor of computer science at a Moscow university. But after the collapse of the Soviet Union, I had to moonlight and gradually became a full-time translator.

What fields do you specialize in and how did you build up your expertise in those areas?

At first, I specialized in IT (based on my computer science background). Back in the 90s, IT translations were in great demand as at that time Russia was flooded with foreign equipment. New devices required user guides, operator manuals, and other documentation translated into Russian. Also, several foreign (mostly American) magazines such as PC Week and PC Magazine introduced their Russian versions. Translating articles for these magazines allowed me to keep abreast of the latest technologies. However, over time the demand for IT translations greatly decreased as IT companies started to translate their documentation centrally and Russian IT magazines moved to publication of original articles written by Russian authors. By then, I was already managing EnRus translation agency. After IT, we focused on medicine through our long-term cooperation with AIHA (American International Health Alliance). Currently, we mostly do legalese – certainly not my strong point. So my job is mostly that of a manager – attracting customers, receiving and assigning orders – and I translate nonfiction as a kind of hobby (this kind of work – in most cases – doesn’t bring real money).

Can you share an example of the most rewarding project you have ever worked on and why it felt that way? What project was the most challenging and why?

The most famous project of EnRus was translating Business@The Speed of Thought, by Bill Gates: as the author is well known in Russia, the Russian translation of his book was reprinted several times and widely discussed in the media. This brought me a lot of intense feedback: the readers of our translation wrote me and even called my phone.

My favorite project was the translation of Eats, Shoots & Leaves, by Lynne Truss. I was always interested in grammar and semantics (both in Russian and in English) and this book includes many interesting facts about punctuation in general and English punctuation in particular, as well as tons of funny and enlightening examples. I love humor, and trying to make my translation as amusing as the original was a very gratifying challenge. After finishing the translation, I wrote an article on the differences between English and Russian punctuation and on how punctuation marks should be changed while translating from English into Russian. The article was published in Мосты and in SlavFile (Fall 2008 Vol. 17, No. 4).

You translated the book “Found in Translation” by Nataly Kelly and Jost Zetzsche into Russian. What was that experience like? Can you share the story of how this project came to be? Did you have an opportunity to discuss your translation strategy with the authors? Were there any particular segments that were especially challenging or interesting to translate that you would like to share?

I bought the book at the ATA conference in San Diego (2012). The authors signed my copy, and I started dreaming of translating it sometime in the future. In 2019, all of a sudden, the publishing house Azbuka Atticus approached me with an offer because my translations of Is That a Fish in Your Ear? by David Bellos, A Language Spotter’s Guide to Europe and Babel by Gaston Dorren, and How to Speak Any Language Fluently by Alex Rawlings brought me the somewhat unjustified accolade of an expert in linguistics.

The translation was done in close cooperation with the authors who kindly and patiently answered my numerous questions.

For me, one of the interesting topics covered in the book was Deaf culture. Below are just two quotations from the book:

Jack Jason is known as a CODA, a child of deaf adults. As with most CODAs born in the United States, American Sign Language (ASL)—not English—is his native language. He grew up in California, so the only voice in his house was the voice on television. As he got older, Jason eventually became part of the hearing world, went to school, and learned to speak English (and Spanish).

Contrary to popular belief, sign language is not universal—there are hundreds of signed languages in use throughout the world. For example, there are more than eighteen different sign languages used in Spanish-speaking countries. Wherever there are large communities of people who are deaf, signed languages emerge naturally, and usually without any dependence on spoken languages.

What advice would you give to colleagues who are just getting started in translation?

I would like to tell them that translation and interpretation is a very diverse field and only an extremely talented person could be a “universal” translator. I suggest trying and seeing what is good for you and specializing in that particular field because there are only two ways to achieve high income (and I think it applies to other professions as well):

performing a high volume of simple jobs, at a low rate;
performing only selected jobs that require high quality, at a high rate.

Unfortunately, customers rarely seek high quality as most of them just don’t understand that translation could be of various quality and that the quality of translation could have an impact on their business (because not all of them have read Kelly and Zetzsche’s book). That’s why forming a base of clients ready to pay for quality can take years.

I found Becoming a Translator by Douglas Robinson (EnRus has translated it into Russian) very helpful because I did not have a background in linguistics. I believe that it could be also useful to other beginners even if they do have a linguistic diploma as the book connects theory to practice.

Natalie Shahova is the founder and head of EnRus translation agency. She has translated some 20 books and published dozens of articles in both Russian and English.

ATA directory listing

ProZ

Facebook

EnRus website

Article in Winter 2020 SlavFile, p. 11

SlavFile Reprint – Translating Okudzhava: Turning «Песенка старого шарманщика» into “The Organ-Grinder Ditty”

Translating Okudzhava: Turning «Песенка старого шарманщика» into “The Organ-Grinder Ditty”

Translating “The Organ-Grinder Ditty”: A Couplet-by-Couplet Annotation