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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. 

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.

Filed Under: Interviews, SLD, Specializations Tagged With: interview, literary, member profile, Russian, specializations, translation

Upcoming ATA webinars in April: Branding Basics and Doing Business with Law Firms

April 1, 2021

Several ATA webinars are coming up in April, and we thought that these two would be of interest to SLD members!

“Personal Branding Basics”: a Back to Business Basics webinar with Ben Karl on April 6 at 12:00 pm Eastern time. This webinar is free to ATA members but registration is required. All registered participants will get a handout and a link to the recording.
Register at https://www.atanet.org/event/personal-branding-basics/

Developing a personal brand is a classic “work smarter, not harder” technique. When done well, it will showcase your specific expertise and skill set, bringing focus to your marketing and targeting your ideal clients. Far more than a logo or a slogan, your personal brand will tell your story, from who you are and what you do to why you are the right person for the job.

“Doing Business with Law Firms”: a webinar with Paula Arturo on April 14 at 12:00 pm Eastern time. Registration is $45 for ATA members and $60 for non-members (including 1 ATA CEP and a link to the recording)
Register at https://www.atanet.org/event/doing-business-with-law-firms/

Legal translators are expected to master both law and language in a market with its own unique, and often rigid, set of rules. This is not a field you jump into unprepared.

So how do you know if this field is right for you? How do you prepare to cater to this demanding market? Should you sub-specialize? If so, in what? How do you get your foot through the door with top law firms? And, once inside, how do you keep them happy and coming back?

Presenter Paula Arturo will draw on her 20+ years of experience and current role at a top law firm to help get you on track for doing business with law firms.

Filed Under: Professional Development, Webinars Tagged With: Administrative, ceu watch, marketing, professional development, translation, webinar

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

LinkedIn

ProZ

Facebook

EnRus website

Article in Winter 2020 SlavFile, p. 11

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.

Filed Under: Interviews, SLD, Specializations Tagged With: interview, literary, member profile, project management, Russian, specializations, translation

Human Rights Translation: An Interview with Lucy Gunderson

February 1, 2021

SLD member Lucy Gunderson has had an active role in ATA and SLD for many years. SLD members know her as a past Administrator of the Slavic Languages Division (2011-2015), an extraordinary colleague, and an expert in human rights translation. This important subject seems fascinating to many, but it is challenging to find information about what it takes to work in this field.

We asked Lucy to share her story and advice with SLD members. She also presented an ATA webinar on this topic in September 2020, which is now available on-demand.

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

I remember learning the instrumental case at the end of first-year Russian. We had to answer the question “Кем Вы будете?” (What are you going to be when you grow up?). My vocabulary was quite limited at the time, but I went carefully through the choices. Doctor – No. Lawyer – No. Engineer – No. Переводчик – Hmm. “Я буду переводчиком!” So I guess I’ve always felt an obligation to remain faithful to that solemn oath I took in first-year Russian.

I held “regular” jobs (English teacher in Russia, document manager/translator at a banking company doing business in Russia, editor at a newswire service) before going full-time freelance, but I always did some translation as part of my job or on the side. I understood fairly quickly that I wasn’t suited to a corporate environment (or, to put it better, that the corporate environment wasn’t suited to me!), so when an attractive translation opportunity presented itself, I started working part-time at the editorial job. That part-time job was eventually moved to another city, so I took the leap and started working towards full-time translation.

  • Why did you start specializing in human rights and how did you build up your expertise in this area?

I never consciously made the decision to specialize in human rights, but I can see how I ended up here when I look back.  I spent my junior year in Voronezh, Russia. I arrived two weeks after the August putsch in 1991 and stayed until June 1992, which means that I witnessed the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the formation of newly independent states. I returned to Russia in 1993 and experienced the October 1993 coup and, later, the currency fluctuations of the mid- to late 1990s. This experience living in Russia was what initially sparked my current interests in human rights, international relations, and law.

My first referral for a human rights translation came from an SLD colleague (Nora Favorov). The file she asked me to handle was about electoral fraud in Belarus. I was initially worried about my ability to translate this file, but then I realized that 1) I actually knew where Belarus was, 2) I actually knew who Lukashenka was, and 3) I had read an awful lot about electoral fraud when I lived in Russia, so I was probably better prepared than I thought to translate this. The client was apparently happy with my translation because they kept coming back to me for more and also referred me to other human rights groups.

I am constantly building up my expertise by pushing at my boundaries. It’s important for us to specialize and know our limits, but it’s also important to understand when we can stretch those limits just a bit.

  • What type of clients do you usually work with and why do they need their documents/content translated?

My main human rights clients are NGOs, although I have also worked with one agency that specializes in human rights. The kinds of documents they need translated are reports for UN Committees, government agencies, the human rights community, and the general public; columns and articles for online media; and sometimes even primary sources.

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

My most rewarding project has been ongoing for several years and is the #AllJobs4AllWomen campaign. The goal of this campaign is to get former Soviet countries to repeal the List of Arduous, Harmful, and Dangerous Jobs Prohibited for Women. My work on this project has involved translating reports for the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and columns for the general public about this list. Now, several former Soviet countries have repealed their lists and others have shortened theirs or agreed to review them specifically because of the pressure mounted by this campaign. So I feel very good about being the main English-language voice for this campaign.

Another project involved mining on indigenous lands. The affected indigenous group won a court battle against the mining company and had their lands returned to them. Even though the court proceedings took place in Russia, my client in this case had repeatedly raised this issue at the international level using my English translations. I believe this had some impact on the outcome, so that makes me proud.

  • What project was the most challenging and why?

The most challenging projects are the ones that touch my emotions the most.

One was the translation of a blacklist, published by the Luhansk People’s Republic, of Ukrainian police officers (along with their photographs) who were allegedly actively working against the Luhansk People’s Republic. This list called for the capture or murder of these officers. Even though I understood that the purpose of my translation was to reveal atrocities, it was still difficult to process.

Another difficult project was the translation of a letter from a political prisoner to his wife.

If you work in this area, it really helps to have someone to talk these jobs through with. I have found that my clients have struggled with the psychological effects of this kind of work and are more than ready to talk about them, so that has helped me get through these difficult jobs.

  • What are your favorite resources for research and continued professional development on human rights, translation, and related topics?

For human rights, my favorite resources are Human Rights Quarterly (published by Johns Hopkins University press), Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice, by Jack Donnelly, and Human Rights: A Very Short Introduction, by Andrew Clapman. The first keeps me updated on current human rights issues and helps me understand major trends in this area, and the last two are great for reference information when I have trouble understanding a certain concept. And of course, the Amnesty International (AI) and Human Rights Watch (HRW) websites are extremely useful resources for understanding contemporary challenges, learning new terminology, and improving my writing in this field.

For translation/writing resources, I also recommend the AI and HRW websites because their publications on Russia are almost always available in the original English and a Russian translation, which helps with terminology and writing. I would also recommend any book on plain language, since human rights documents can be heavy on the legal language. I love Dreyer’s English for grammar.

  • What advice would you give to colleagues who would like to start specializing in human rights translation?

Network, network, network! I’m lucky to be based in New York City, so I have been able to attend several talks at universities here where I made some contacts, and I’ve even represented ATA at the UN twice. The pandemic hasn’t been good for much, but it has presented the perfect opportunity for people who don’t live near universities to attend lectures online that they wouldn’t have been able to attend otherwise. I think it’s perfectly acceptable to email a speaker that you hear online and establish contact with them. Both Columbia University’s Harriman Institute and New York University’s Jordan Center have had great online offerings since the pandemic started. You can sign up for their mailing lists on their websites.

It’s also important to network with colleagues working in the same area or language pair. It can be tricky to approach a translator working in the same language pair, but it is always possible to offer editing services to them. It’s even better to approach linguists working in a different language pair because then that translator has no fear of competition or losing a client to the other translator. Finally, I’ve had some success attracting attention from my ideal clients on social media, but this is really a long-term effort the requires dedication, a lot of trial and error, and openness to failure!

Lucy Gunderson, CT is an ATA-certified Russian>English translator specializing in human rights, academic, legal, and literary translation. She has a master’s degree in Russian from the University at Albany and a certificate in translation studies from the University of Chicago, where she also served as a tutor in the Russian>English translation program.

Lucy has been translating for non-governmental organizations for the past ten years and follows the human rights situation in Eurasia closely. She has presented on human rights translation for ATA and the New York Circle of Translators.

She is a past chair of ATA’s Divisions Committee (2015-2019) and a former administrator of the Association’s Slavic Languages Division (2011-2015).

Website – https://russophiletranslations.com

LinkedIn – Lucy Gunderson, CT | LinkedIn

Webinar – Challenges in Human Rights Translation: How to Research Terminology and Make Your Writing Shine (atanet.org)

Twitter – @LucyGund

Filed Under: Human rights, Interviews, Legal, SLD, Translation Tagged With: ATA, blog, human rights, interview, legal, Russian, specializations, translation

ATA SLD podcast: Episode 24 with Altynay Linstrum

January 28, 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 Altynay Linstrum about her training, career in localization, and the opportunities for language professionals in the tech industry.

Altynay is a Localization Producer at Riot Games, a video game developer based in LA. She is a graduate from the Translation Studies program at Kent State University. Her professional interests include product management, game development, and agile methodologies.

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!

Filed Under: Podcast Episodes, SLD Tagged With: audiovisual, AVT, interview, localization, podcast, translation

New Webinar: Challenges in Human Rights Translation

August 10, 2020

Promotional image for human rights translation webinar

Have you ever wondered about the field of human rights translation? There is no shortage of human-rights issues in the post-Soviet space, but breaking into this specialization may feel too daunting. Fortunately, with research, you can become confident in your translations. But where should you look?

Join fellow SLD member Lucy Gunderson to learn research techniques to track down terminology in a wide range of documents available to human rights translators. Lucy will also demonstrate how to use human rights documents originally written in English to energize translations and inspire word choices.⁣ Let this webinar be your window or even stepping stone into human rights translation!
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This webinar will be presented in English with Russian examples.⁣
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Cost: ATA members $45, non-members $60⁣
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Unable to attend live? Register now to receive a link to the on-demand recording after the live event!⁣

Filed Under: Translation Tagged With: human rights, translation, webinar

SLD Podcast: Episode 22 with Paula Arturo

July 3, 2020

The latest episode of the SLD podcast, Slovo, is now available! In this episode, host Maria Guzenko speaks with Paula Arturo, a lawyer-linguist and Associate Professor of Law. Paula talks about the challenges of legal translation and shares tips for translators who would like to specialize in it. In the second half of the interview, Maria and Paula discuss how language professionals can negotiate a fair contract with their clients.

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!

Filed Under: Podcast Episodes, Translation Tagged With: legal, podcast, translation

CEU Watch: Clinical Trials and Medical Documentation: Resources and Translation Strategies for New Translators by Carmen Cross

June 8, 2020

Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash

Although the COVID-19 pandemic has brought upheaval and uncertainty to our profession, it has also been an opportunity to catch up on continuing education. However, I will not be reviewing any recent webinars on weathering the crisis or pivoting to remote interpreting. Today, I’d like to turn to an unexpectedly topical video from the ProZ.com video library—a repository that features webinars previously broadcast on the website. Disclaimer: Other than being a paying member, I have no business relationship with ProZ.com.

The video I watched was Clinical Trials and Medical Documentation: Resources and Translation Strategies for New Translators presented by German- and Arabic-to-English medical translator Carmen Cross. The live session took place back in 2016, but I found the presentation relevant to anyone getting started in the field of clinical trials.

Trial Background, Standards, and Terminology

In the first section of the webinar, the instructor gave an overview of the types of documentation produced in a clinical trial. Documents that may need translation include informed consent forms, patient information sheets, and serious adverse event reports. In addition, the speaker shared what areas clinical trials focus on. Even though our first thought may be drugs, Ms. Cross pointed out that other things may also be studied, such as medical devices or diagnostic procedures. She then went over some commonly studies drugs and drug targets (molecular entities the drug binds to). Next, the webinar focused on some common types of studies, including diagnostic, epidemiological, pharmacokinetic, and pharmacodynamic, among others. Finally, we looked at the phases of a trial, examining the objectives, number of participants, and length of each phase.

The following part concerned international standards that govern clinical trials, such as the International Conference on Harmonisation’s Good Clinical Practice (ICH GCP) addendum or the World Medical Association’s (WMA) Declaration of Helsinki. Ms. Cross named a few regulatory authorities overseeing clinical trials, such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the US, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency in the UK, or the Public Health Institute in Russia, and emphasized that study sponsors apply to these bodies for approval. The documents involved in the application process, for example an investigational new drug application (IND), may require translation. The presenter pointed out that the actual research gets outsourced to the contract research organizations (CROs), who are responsible for trial data, and they may be the entity that needs translation services.

Finally, the speaker drew our attention to some tricky terms in this field and shared several resources we might want to turn to in our research. To name a few, she discussed the difference between efficacy and effectiveness; clinical trial and clinical study; and subject and patient. Ms. Cross recommended PubMed, which allows you to search in a particular language, and ClinicalTrials.gov, which lets you search for the full official title of the study by its ID.

Takeaways

I appreciated that the speaker not only provided an overview of clinical trials but also pointed out what organizations may be looking for translations, what documents may require translation, and where to look for terminology. She also listed the top countries where clinical trials are conducted—Russia, Turkey, China, Brazil, India, South Korea, and Mexico. Her advice was actionable and tailored to translators.

An obvious drawback of this webinar is that it was recorded in 2016, so some of the standards and processes might have changed since. In fact, the speaker mentioned that a new clinical trial regulation (EU No 536/2014) had been adopted, supplanting an earlier European Union directive, but its implementation was going to be gradual. I would still recommend this webinar to anyone interested in clinical trials, with the caveat that the viewer will need to do their own research to find up-to-date information.

Author Bio

Maria Guzenko is an ATA-certified English<>Russian translator and a certified medical interpreter (CMI-Russian). She holds an MA in translation from Kent State University and specializes in healthcare translation. Maria is a co-founder of the SLD exam practice group and the host of the SLD podcast, now rebranded as Slovo. More information can be found on her website at https://intorussian.net.

Filed Under: CEU Watch, Translation Tagged With: ceu watch, medical, translation

Digging into the SlavFile Lite Archives (Part 1)

March 31, 2020

SlavFile Header

Lydia Razran Stone, who has been editing the SlavFile for over 25 years, has been digging into her archives. She figures we all could use some light reading in this time of lockdowns and shelter-in-place orders, and has picked out a few of her favorite columns (SlavFile Lite: Not by Word Count Alone) to share. We start off with a pair of columns from Spring and Summer 1999, and this will continue as a series of at least three posts (maybe more!).

Spring 1999

Over the Christmas holidays, we were visiting а neighborhood in Brooklyn that is рrоbаblу no more than 10-20% Russian. Nevertheless, when we left, we found а handbill stuck on the windshield of our саr from which I quote verbatim: «ЭКОНОМЬТЕ 50% НА СТОИМОСТИ ПОХОРОН! Новый закон дает Вам возможность экономить тысячи долларов в любом похоронном доме. Мы продаем гробы высшего качества прямо с завода-изготовителя.» Getting this particular handbill on our саr (not the one with the PEREVOD license plate, the other one) seemed an even more striking coincidence in light of the fact that I had just finished translating а роеm concerning the value, or lack thereof, of such а “bох mаdе of wood.” (See below.) It was all rather unnerving, since given that the coffin purveyors had the uncanny ability to know that we read Russian, perhaps they also had some supernatural advance knowledge that we would soon need such а bох. However, two months later I am happy to report, as we say in our family, quoting а joke concerning а man falling from а skyscraper, we are “All right, so far,” or in Russian, «Пока ничего!»

In Defense of Bloopers! Many of my colleagues, indeed some of mу best friends, decry the citation of amusing translation “bloopers” in professional language publications and the general media, fearing that such articles make us, as а profession, look incompetent and unprofessional. These colleagues assert that other more respected and self-respecting professions do not engage in this sort of self-deprecating behavior. Му outlook on this matter is diametrically opposed to theirs. То leave aside the issue of whether laughing at one’s self can ever bе unprofessional, to me the point made bу any catalogue of translation/interpretation bloopers is that translation is an extremely difficult, challenging, and ticklish enterprise fraught with pitfalls and that anyone needing translation/interpretation services had better make certain that they find someone experienced and competent. А recent article in the Washington Post took just such а tack, starting with а court interpreting blоореr: The article reported that when а lawyer asked а female witness if she had been embarrassed bу а certain incident, the interpreter instead asked her in Spanish if she had been impregnated bу it. Нег vehement denial caused some confusion in the courtroom until the mistranslation was sorted out. After this introduction, the article goes on to discuss the need for and establishment of an intensive court interpreter training program and ends with praise for the program from АТА President Muriel Jerome O’Keefe.

In this spirit I would like to cite а few of the funniest bloopers I encountered when I was editing Russian translations of articles written bу NASA personnel for а book published jointly bу U.S. and Soviet scientists. These mistakes, I learned, are more indicative of the inadequate reference materials provided to the Russian translators, than of any lack of competence or training on their part. In addition, every once in а while, NASA engineers express themselves in terms that are somewhat less than perfectly clear and straightforward. Take the word “commode.” This term, which I have always taken to bе а hyperdecorous middle American euphemism, is the word the engineers use to refer to the toilet on spacecraft. No wonder the perplexed Russian translators came up with the translation of шкаф, leading to the statement that contamination bу fecal bacteria was, of course, most likely in the area around the bookshelf. In another, somewhat less explainable instance, the meaning of the word “shift”, as а sleeveless undergarment, was selected over а seemingly much more salient meaning, so that the corridors of а space station were characterized as most congested, not during change of work shifts, but, instead, during periods when the astronauts changed their underwear. More understandably but no more accurately, one of the attendees at а conference devoted to toxicology was listed as а representative of the Министерство внутренних болезней США [(“US Ministry of Internal Diseases”)], when he was actually, а representative of the Department of the Interior. As for my own translations of Russian chapters for this book, it goes without saying that they were perfect and contained no bloopers amusing or otherwise. However, I did have some trouble explaining to the author of the chapter on cosmonaut nutrition why I persisted in translating вобла simply as dried fish when he had repeatedly sent me the exact Latin name of the fish species involved. I was finally аblе to make clear to him that what was lost in explicitness was more than compensated for bу forestalling the English speaker’s most likely understanding of what sort of а critter а Caspian roach was likely to bе.

In my last column I wrote about my translation of “The Cherry Orchard,” which was refined during rehearsals with an American director and а young American cast. In general, the director and I got along beautifully. Being а stickler for details and authenticity herself (Sharlotta even had а live dog), she rarely objected when I told her something needed to bе changed. There were, however, two points of production оn which she fought me tooth and nail, insisting that she had seen things dоnе her way in more than опе highly acclaimed professional U.S. production. Finally I had to bring in а visitor from Russia to support my point of view. What were the two aspects of the production that Rоbin, the director, objected so vehemently to changing? The first was that in Act I, I balked at having the characters obtain coffee from а samovar; the second, in Act IV, that I would nоt allow the mеn to return from the auction (repeatedly described as occurring on August 22) wearing fur hats, nо matter how cold Americans believe it is in Russia.

Звери уходят от нас перед смертью –

И правы.

Травы стоят до последнего ветра

И правы.

Мертвые чайки не ждут

Деревянной оправы.

Море колышет их перья

В разводах мазута.

Стертой монеткой мы купим

Забытое право:

Медленно выйти на берег

И ждать переправы –

С легкой душой,

Не печалясь о смене маршрута.

И. Ратушинская

 

Beasts will run off far from man when they sense they must go.

So they should!

Rushes stand upright until the last wind lays them low.

So they should!

Gulls do not fret when their deaths don’t include

А bох made of wood.

Waves еbb and flow through the feathers that float

ln an oil slick of crude!

With well polished coins we will purchase

А forgotten good—

Freedom to wait on the shore for the boat

ln an unhurried mood.

We will wait for the ferry unworried

Ву changes in route.

Translated by L. Stone

 

Summer 1999

Му mother has been visiting me. The other evening, after listening to my husband and me discussing the details of the mailbох made to look like Ваbа Yaga’s hut he is making me for my birthday, she said to me, “I keep waiting for you to outgrow your ‘Russian phase.”‘ I estimate she has been waiting somewhere between 35 and 40 years. I thought she sounded rather wistful.

I am visited bу recurrent metaphors for the activities and phenomena that are important to me. For example, doing а relatively straightforward general translation or а technical translation in а familiar area tends to remind me of cross-country skiing. There I am whizzing along, and suddenly I see some danger оr obstacle in the path, an exposed tree root for example; one second I am thinking to myself, “Gee, I wonder how I am going get myself past that onе.” And often, if I am lucky, the next second I suddenly realize that I am past it. On the other hand, when I encounter onе of those Russian sentences that саn only bе translated bу laborious disassembly and then reassembly in English I see myself as а do-it-yourselfer who has just taken apart and then put back together an alarm clock and is just about to congratulate herself for a job well-done when she notices а small but significant pile of leftover gears and the like sitting оn the work tаblе.

When I am translating from Russian to English, I see the English language as an enormous hardware store that carries аbsolutely anything anybody would ever want or need, (as well as some things not in this category) but is extremely disorganized. Тhе good translator, then, is а kind of old geezer salesclerk whо hаs been working in the store for decades and is the only person who can immediately put his hands on the exact gizmo that someone needs for а repair or project. On the other hand, when I hаvе to produce anything more than thе most banal sentence in Russian, I see that language as а kind of elegant foreign children’s tinker toy or thе like ( оnlу purchasable, no doubt, for а great deal of money at high-еnd toy stores). Even small children from thе country of this toy’s manufacture are аblе to assemble its brightly colored parts into graceful and elaborate structures. But whenever I, а foreigner who came to this game too late, make an attempt, the pieces just come apart in my hands or at best, with great effort I am аblе to put together а misshapen and unattractive construction.

Оn the subject of distortion, if the Brightonisms I cited in last month’s column can indeed bе considered linguistic distortions, I bent some of them even further out of shаре; юзданый should have been юзаный and фудстэмпчик should have been фудстэмпщик (in other words, not а dear little food stamp, but someone whо uses or relies on the same). SLD member Natalia Geilman of Richfield, Minnesota clearly finds such bilingual neologisms deplorable. She writes, “The article you wrote in the last issue of Slavfile literally ‘задела меня за живое’! lt’s so frustrating to hear that terrible mixture, Ruslish, which so many immigrants speak nowadays. I am strongly convinced that the proportion of “Russified” English words increases with the decrease of knowledge of either language. People who do speak English do not try to impress others with that terrible lingo. Неrе are some gems, frequently used in Minnesota Russian speaking community: апплаивать (на субсидированную квapтиру, бенефиты, вэлфер и т.д.), юзаные (не “юзданые”) машины, либо кары, драйвер, нюрс (nurse) – и, конечно, аппойнтмент.” See also the article in this issue written bу Ewa Godlewska for а somewhat less negative discussion of the analogous phenomenon in the speech of the Polish community of Chicago.

As for me, I tend to see а large dollop of creativity in this phenomenon. Just as the child who says “I goed” is demonstrating а more profound and rule-governed attempt to master English than onе who simply repeats “I went,” the immigrants (ignorant of syntactic niceties as they may bе) who coin some Ruslish phrase seem to те to bе embodying а creative principle in human thought: the attempt at all costs to endow the environment with meaning. (Yes, I tend to find some grafitti creative too, although I realize I might well feel differently if it were my property serving as the canvas.) I see this phenomenon in action in the family of my friend Liana where I visit frequently. Her oldest daughter Irada is the main practitioner. In full command of bоth languages, shе mixes and adapts them either as а form of punning, to import а nuance from one language to another, or to imply when speaking Russian that she is referring to аn intrinsically American phenomenon. In one of ту favorite uses, she declines the English verb “to miss” in Russian, saying, when her mother is away, “мис(с)ую.” Тhе beauty of it is that the grammatically regular though semantically barbarous Russian phrase is homonymous with the English phrase with the same meaning, “I miss you.” Another of my favorite words used in this family is “бебичный,” meaning, of course, childish.

Filed Under: SlavFile, Translation Tagged With: SlavFile, translation

CEU Watch: Medical Translation Course (English–Russian) by Alliance Pro

June 10, 2019

By Maria Guzenko

Image by rawpixel from Pixabay

Introducing the CEU Watch Column

Having up-to-date subject-matter, technology, and business expertise is one of the things that sets the professional translator apart from the amateur. In addition, if you are certified by the American Translators Association (ATA) or another translation/interpreting organization, you need to accrue continuing education credits to maintain your credential. The requirements will vary depending on the organization, and those for the ATA can be found here.

With that in mind, I would like to start a column where we review continuing education opportunities, whether specific to the languages of the SLD, focused on a certain subject area or text type, or promoting any other skill useful for translators. If you have taken a course, watched a webinar, or attended an event in the last year or so and would like to review it for the SLD blog, please get in touch with Maria Guzenko at maria.guzenko@intorussian.net.

Course Information

My American Master’s degree, while incredibly helpful in many ways, did not offer practical English-to-Russian classes. Since I mostly translate into Russian, I wanted to fill that gap and started looking for language-specific classes where I could get some tips, guided practice, and feedback. My search brought me to the website of Alliance Pro («Альянс Про»), a company that offers Russian translation and interpreting classes, either as live webinars or as recordings of past events. I have no financial or business relationship with this course provider, other than paying for their class.

The class I took was called Medical Translation («Медицинский перевод») and “met” via teleconference twice a week for two hours. Four weeks of webinars were followed by a final test, which determined whether the participant would get a certificate of completion. Because the live sessions were held in the evening, Moscow time, I was able to join in the early afternoon on the East Coast. Webinar recordings and PowerPoints were available for later viewing if you had to miss the live session, which was also convenient for the times I had to be away from my desk.

Content and Instructor

The course was taught by Olga Gilyarevskaya (Ольга Гиляревская), the chief editor of a Moscow-based translation agency and a former pharmaceutical representative. It appeared that the curriculum largely reflected the types of documents and subjects Ms. Gilyarevskaya regularly saw in her work, such as clinical study protocols and disease descriptions. Each week covered a different area; by the end of the course, we had looked at clinical trials, evidence-based medicine, oncology, cardiology, pharmaceutical companies, and ophthalmology.

Each webinar started with the instructor going over the homework from the previous class, and she would either comment on our cohort’s proposed solutions or discuss typical errors for the homework passage. Next, the instructor would present new material. Beware, a typical PowerPoint had more than 100 slides, which can definitely be a lot of information, especially if you are trying to take notes! Fortunately, the PowerPoints were available to the course participants online so you could always go over them later.

On the positive side, Ms. Gilyarevskaya did not only lecture and share information; she made sure to keep the group engaged by asking us for possible translations and giving us feedback. Clinical studies can be intimidating for a newcomer, and the teacher put the group at ease with her down-to-earth attitude and not being hard on those giving incorrect answers.

Workload and Homework

At the end of each class, the instructor would assign homework for the following class. There were two differently priced “access tiers” for this course, so some participants turned in homework and had it corrected, while others simply audited the class. We would normally get a choice of two texts, one more advanced than the other. A typical passage would be some 3-4 paragraphs long, and we would usually get about 2 days to upload our translation. Between going over the new material and doing your homework, you would probably need a minimum of two hours after each session, so I do not recommend taking this class if you are overloaded with work or family responsibilities!

A lot of homework passages came from clinical trial documentation, and I appreciated that we worked on real-life texts. On the other hand, the homework would regularly include concepts we had not discussed in the previous lecture. It could be a bit discouraging when some things in the passage were not clear even after you went over your class notes. I suppose that reflects real-world working conditions, where we often have to research things as we go along.

Takeaways

Any review is bound to be subjective, so what I say here reflects my professional goals and preferences. If you come to this class expecting a comprehensive overview of medicine and different text types in various specialties, you are likely to be disappointed. For instance, the text types I translate most often—patient education materials and descriptions of health benefits—were not represented. Neither were such areas as mental health or diagnostic imaging. That makes perfect sense, though—no single month-long class can cover all possible text types you come across in the medical field.

Personally, I am happy I took this class. I now have a better understanding of clinical trials, statistics, immune therapy, and the cellular mechanisms underlying cancer, even though I still have a lot more to learn. I also enjoyed the easygoing teacher and the “can-do” attitude she encouraged in her students. I would recommend this class to English-Russian translators who are interested in clinical studies and are willing to put in several hours of study and homework every week.

Author Bio

Maria Guzenko is an ATA-certified English<>Russian translator and a certified medical interpreter (CMI-Russian). She holds an MA in translation from Kent State University and specializes in healthcare and marketing content. Maria has also worked as a project manager and has taught college Russian and writing classes. More information can be found on Maria’s website at https://intorussian.net.

Filed Under: CEU Watch, Translation Tagged With: ceu watch, medical, professional development, translation

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