Learn. Grow. Thrive
With a focus on thriving as a freelance translator and on literary translation, the line-up of this edition was quite exceptional. Lots of interesting information, enjoyable conversations during coffee and lunch breaks and plenty of good time at our fringe events. This was TranslateCluj 2023 in a nutshell.
Speakers & Topics
Erik Hansson
Erik is a native Swede living in Germany since the beginning of the 1990s. He is a professional translator for German into Swedish and specialized in technical areas such as general engineering, automation, renewable energy, and medical technology.
His main objectives are to improve the entrepreneurial awareness among freelance colleagues and to raise the level of professionalism within the translation business.
Next to these activities, Erik is also active on Twitter and the founder of the well-known Facebook group Things Translators Never Say, TTNS in short, with currently more than 15,000 members from all over the world.
This key-note speech is from a freelance translator's point of view and will focus on ways how freelancers can develop their mindset. It goes without saying that this is a crucial task for our self-perception of our craft, in order to lead a healthier and less stressful life.
We will have a closer look at freelancing as a business and entrepreneurial activity, and how to grow on a personal and on a professional level. As part of this development, we will also explore various ways to evolve from a survival mode to a thriving mode and deal with some central questions:
- What are the characteristics of a freelancer?
- Is freelancing only a matter of survival?
- How can we take the leap and enter the thriving mode?
To summarize, the future of freelancing is bright if we are ready to move on, learn new strategies and take the right priorities.
Lavinia Braniște
Lavinia Braniște was born in 1983, in Brăila. She studied foreign languages in Cluj-Napoca (BA in English and French) and Bucharest (MA in Translation of the Literary Text and MA in Conference Interpreting). Lavinia worked as a language teacher and translator and has translated over forty books from English, French and Spanish, most of them children’s literature.
She published three novels: Interior Zero (Polirom, 2016) translated into German, Polish and Spanish, adapted for the stage in Romania and Germany; Sonia ridică mâna/Sonia Raises her Hand (Polirom, 2019), translated into German; Mă găsești când vrei/ Find me whenever you Want (Polirom, 2021).
Lavinia also writes children’s literature: she published four chapter books in the Rostogol series and several picture books. Rostogol merge acasă/Rostogol goes home (Arthur, 2016) and Melcușorul/The Little Snail (Cartier, 2018) were included in the White Ravens catalog in 2017 and 2019, respectively.
Lavinia currently lives in Bucharest and works as a freelance writer and translator.
Photo Credit: Adi Bulboacă
When I write a book, I can only start if I have a character in mind that I feel I’m familiar with. When I translate a book, it is the character who motivates me to keep going. And once I’ve finished the books, the character bearing my name speaks about them with readers and publishers alike. My life as a professional writer and translator revolves around a perpetual construction and reconstruction process involving various types of characters. How much control do I have over them, how do I shape them and what do they represent in a solitary work like my own? This presentation will discuss the concept of character — inside and outside books.
British author Roald Dahl’s books, famous worldwide and successfully adapted for the big screen (Matilda, The Big Friendly Giant and Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, among others) have been translated three times into Romanian since 1989: for Patricia in the 1990s, for Rao in the early 2000s and, more recently, for Arthur. Each time by different translators.
Starting from several translation exercises applied to the novel The Witches, we will discuss about the challenges of translating children’s literature, especially in the case of a lexically innovative author such as Roald Dahl, but also about wider topics, such as the book translation market, translators’ rates and the reasons behind the three translation ‘waves’ within the past three decades.
Iulia Buciuman
If you believe it’s possible, or it’s not possible, you are right!
What do I mean when I say that? The human mind works based on perceptions that are translated in real stories, stories that keep us safe. We are wired for life, for protecting ourselves from discomfort. Humans, as me and you, tend to underestimate how unidimensional perceptions are, so we might make decisions based not so much on facts or opportunities, but rather on perceptions, while searching for comfort. This phenomenon has a name: cognitive biases, with major studies and applicability in Behavioral Economics and in the science of Life-Long Learning.
Join me in an interactive 60 minutes session to talk about your cognitive biases while trying to develop your thinking patterns, your critical thinking skills, but also while learning how to manage your fears and understanding the real power of “write it down”. Together we will explore the silver lining behind each setback.
We will work in a concrete manner based on 2 tools that I will show you, on how to coach your mind better in front of adversity.
From my experience as coach, trainer, and consultant in multinational companies, but also in the dynamic entrepreneurial environment, all people who were complaining about their situation, were right. And all the people that in the same situation were succeeding, were also right.
In the end of the day it’s not about who was right, but it about your thinking.
Ready to explore it together?
Come prepared with at least 2 ways o ending this phrase…
I want very much to….. but I believe that…..
Jerzy Czopik
Born in Cracow, Jerzy studied mechanical engineering until moving to Germany in 1986. Living in Dortmund from then he finished his engineering studies in Germany. In 1990 he started to translate, and in 1991 began his specialization in technical translation. In 1992 he became a sworn translator and interpreter for German and Polish.
Jerzy is a self-taught user of CAT tools, and after many years of experience is now a trainer for SDL software. He also runs a webinar series called “Ask Dr. Studio” for the BDÜ (the German federal association of translators and interpreters). In April 2018 he
became the vice president of the BDÜ.
Jerzy is also auditor for LICS (Language Industry Certification System, awarding ISO 17100 certificates). Since 2010 together with his wife he owns an EN 15038 / ISO 17100 certificate.
To translate a document we need to receive it from the vendor, then save on our computer, edit and deliver back. This sounds very simple and is indeed not that complicated. The file can be stored literally anywhere… But then we need to know where anywhere is. And knowing where anywhere is, can be quite complicated. Who does not know that—an e-mail attachment quickly opened and translated directly. Then saved and vanished… I would suppose something similar happened to us in the past at least once. But this talk is not about being forgetful. This is more about how to avoid problems when storing data. PCs have a hard disk, where the data is stored. We could stop here if we would leave the complete control on storage to the PC. This may work in some cases for people not having to deal with different customers and many files. But we have too, so we need a system of storing data. In this talk I will show some possible ways to organize a data, including partitioning of a HDD. The next step here will be placing files on a network using a NAS (network attached storage, a mini server). Here I’d like to point out the advantages of using such devices, as they are not only a very good storage media, but also can make backups very easy. Backup will be then another topic to be spoken about. This shall also include some security aspects like encryp-tion or using BitLocker in Windows. Finally, we’ll take a short look on placing files in an exem-plary, secure cloud solution. Please be aware, that the talk is based only on Windows.
Jerzy will organize a Trados Studio Masterclass on Saturday, 25 March, for those of you who want to learn how to really master this powerful CAT Tool.
Marek Pawelec
Literary translation is a very conservative profession and a lot of literary translators do not feel the need for any technological innovations: just the printed source, some text editor and maybe access to the Internet for research. And in many cases that’s really enough to get the job done. However, the translation software used in technical translations – Computer Assisted Translation (CAT) tools – can boost productivity and simplify the life of literary translators in various ways. And I’m NOT talking about machine translation here. This presentation will provide an overview of the use of CAT tools in literary translation with multiple benefits they provide and some of their downsides, providing a food for thought and maybe an incentive to try introducing some extra technology into one of the oldest professions.
Marek will organize an optional memoQ Masterclass on Saturday, 25 March.
Raluca Chereji
Raluca Chereji is a doctoral student and graduate research assistant within the Human and Artificial Intelligence in Translation (HAITrans) research group at the University of Vienna Centre for Translation Studies. She holds an MSc in Specialised Translation (Scientific, Technical and Medical) from University College London. Her research interests include expert-to-lay medical communication, the use of translation technologies in medical translation workflows, and narrative medicine.
Raluca also works part-time as a freelance medical translator and prior to her current role, she spent several years working as a Project Manager for a London-based language service provider specialising in life science translation.
According to recent industry reports[1], healthcare is among the fastest growing sectors within the translation industry, with medical translators facing increasing pressures to deliver work faster, while maintaining stringent quality standards. At the same time, the translation profession itself is changing and becoming increasingly technologised. Practices such as Machine Translation Post-Editing and, more recently, dictated translation using Automatic Speech Recognition tools, are becoming more common among independent professional translators and language service providers alike. However, there is currently little empirical research on the impact of said practices and technologies on medical translators’ output quality, productivity, and workflows, particularly for low-resource languages such as Romanian. This presentation is based on an ongoing doctoral project which aims to bridge this gap. The session will outline the research methods used to identify the main challenges faced by medical translators working on patient-facing texts, alongside initial findings and potential technology workflow integrations which may help mitigate these challenges and support quality and productivity gains.
[1] European Language Industry Association (ELIA) et al. (2022) 2022 European Language Industry Survey. Trends, expectations and concerns of the European language industry. Available at: https://fit-europe-rc.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/ELIS-2022_survey_results_final_report.pdf?x77803 (Accessed: 16 January 2023).
Renata Georgescu
Renata Georgescu, PhD, is the director of the Modern Applied Languages Department since November 2017, as well as a senior lecturer at the Faculty of Letters. A member of the MAL Department since the very beginning, she teaches fundamental subjects to the undergraduate and master students: translations (verbal and specialised translations, back-translation, translation paradigms), an introductory course in consecutive interpreting at undergraduate level, as well as simultaneous interpretation, consecutive interpretation with and without note-taking for the European Masters in Conference Interpreting and specialised translation for the Translation-Terminology European Masters. Her research and published works focus on translation and conference interpreting, and the Romanian literature of the exiles. She is a European institutions accredited interpreter since 2002, working with Romanian and French. Renata Georgescu was an expert speaker for various top-up training courses organised by the European institutions and an accreditation expert for Romanian interpreters. She has also coordinated various European Parliament grants for teaching and research activities within the EMCI programme.
Iulia Bobăilă
Iulia Bobăilă is a Lecturer with the Department of Applied Modern Languages at the Faculty of Letters, Babeş-Bolyai University, where she teaches practical translation classes from English and Spanish into Romanian. Her main research interests are translation studies and applied linguistics, with a focus on translation pedagogy and on the issues deriving from the hybrid nature of popular science texts. Some of her publications in these areas are: “Rigoare și creativitate în traducerea textelor de popularizare a științei” (2017), “El observador informado: La prevención de errores a través de la atención a la forma” (2018), “La metáfora científica y la anulación de la incongruencia. Implicaciones traductológicas” (2022), “Ciencia a la plancha: La traducción de las metáforas en el texto científico” (2022, in print).
As a fluid concept, often approached from conflicting angles, adaptation has been profusely used in translation studies. At the ‘benevolent’ end of the spectrum, it is seen as a necessary, even unavoidable translation technique. At the other end, those who equate adaptation with a series of dangerous textual interventions tend to reduce it to a distorted version of the source text. The aim of this presentation is to reflect on the relationship between adaptation and relevance in the translation of popular science texts, focusing on the following three questions: 1) When do omissions - as extreme cases of adaptation - become irrelevant? 2) What is the effect of adapting rhetorical features on the reception of the target text? 3) How can teachers exploit the conceptual flexibility of adaptation in the translation classes?
Carlos la Orden Tovar
Over the last 22 years and counting, Carlos has forged a professional career linked to Information Technology, Languages and Education across Europe and America. In the last two decades Carlos has lived and developed his skills in 10 different countries, proudly working as a Technology Trainer, Localization Project Manager, School Teacher & University Jack-of-all-trades. And Freelance Translator, of course. Over the years, he has worked with dozens of international clients such as Microsoft, 3M, RWS, Cisco, Oracle, AENA, United Technologies, Movistar and Nokia, to name a few.
His natural inclination towards sharing knowledge and gathering new experiences has driven his career through unbeaten paths, mixing academic and business life in an ever-changing global scenario.
He lives in beautiful Tuscany and splits his time as a Technology Trainer, Lecturer, Speaker, and freelance Language Consultant and Localizer.
Quality is (nearly) everything in the eyes of your clients.
Yet our processes are prone to error.
Over time, we design an increasingly efficient strategy to prevent the most common errors and mistakes: typos, missing files, overwritten versions, inconsistencies… The list goes on.
However, severe mistakes that may compromise our work and our professional image are always lurking around the corner.
Join Carlos’s very actionable, 100% practical workshop, to expand your quality assurance Swiss knife and acquire a solid toolset & strategy towards Q,A built over decades working on translation projects to make sure that your deliveries are consistently flawless.
Rodica Baconsky
Rodica Baconsky is a literary translator, writer and former Professor and founder of the Department of Applied Modern Languages of Babeș Bolyai University. She is regarded as one of the leading Francophile intellectuals, and Francophonie promoters in Romania. With a prolific academic and translation career spanning over six decades, Ms. Baconsky is as active as ever translating contemporary French literature in collaboration with Alina Pelea.
Alina Pelea holds a PhD in Translation Studies. She currently works at the Department of Applied Modern Languages (UBB). Her research concerns mainly the cultural and sociological aspects of translation and interpreting. She also works as a translator and interpreter and is currently involved in an Erasmus+ project aiming at improving training in medical interpreters.
This workshop hosted in Romanian will tackle the update of literary translations to the contemporary trends of societies and cultures. Whispering in English will be offered to our international audience.
Alina Pelea
Ana Lioara Firea
Ana Firea, graduate of the EMCI in Cluj-Napoca, is an in-house interpreter and translator based in Brussels (RO-A, EN-B, FR-C). She is specialised in agriculture, European policy and environmental issues and is attuned to the latest conversations that take place in the world of professional interpreters.
She also focuses on the ways in which one can cope with some fundamental questions: How do I become a better interpreter? How do I stay relevant on an ever changing market? How can I use tools to make me more productive?
Ana is happiest when she feels like a part of the interpreter community, that is why she seeks to share the best practices she learns and why she tries to anticipate and hedge against advancements which are perceived as a threat to the profession.
As AI tools proliferate and gain traction within the world of interpreting, it is easy to fall into one of two pitfalls: a generous oracle, preaching the advent of the machine, here to save us all, or the Nostradamus anticipating the end of it all.
If you are an interpreter or another interested party, you will benefit from this presentation regardless of your degree of knowledge on the topic. Attend this session to learn the following:
- An overview of the CAI tools available today
- Perspectives on CAI tools spanning industry and academia
- How interpreters should leverage CAI tools: Use-cases, risks, and future potential
Volina Șerban
After 7+ years of working as a multilingual content writer and localization specialist, Volina Șerban founded Transkreate, a Vienna-based boutique agency focused on transcreation, UX/UI localization, international SEO, and original content writing for German-speaking brands. She is on a mission to fight against poorly localized content on the web and is always looking for creative partners in crime who speak online marketing as a second language.
Multilingual and international SEO have become more and more popular language-related services offered by many LSPs. In the age of e-commerce and remote work, what is even more important than how people speak about a product or service is how they look it up on the web. This talk is going to explore different SEO tasks, from keyword research to keyword injection and how to go about them as a beginner in the world of online marketing. Moreover, we are going to delve in the fascinating world of consumer psychology and see how user behavior is heavily determined by culture and geography. Last but not least, I am going to illustrate how we, as wordsmiths and culture experts can tweak our set of skills and confidently offer SEO services.
Teodora Călin
Teodora Călin is the Chief Technology Officer at All About Parenting - the world’s most active organization in educating parents about children’s behavior, based on the latest research in psychology.
She has been in charge of developing the organization's custom platforms for the past 3 years and scaled their IT team from 4 to 20+ members.
Teo has been dealing with localization challenges for the 'Parents' mobile app and for other web apps used in the organization, which are currently supported in 6 languages.
She's a graduate of Applied Modern Languages at the Faculty of Letters, Babeş-Bolyai University, and has worked briefly in subtitling and localization for Netflix.
Creating an app from zero can be a challenging experience.
It implies design, coding, copywriting, hundreds of hours of testing, implementing changes, localization, User Experience enhancement, developing procedures for the internal team, offering support for the end users and so on.
You will find out more about what’s going on backstage, how the Parents App was created, and how the Parents team collaborates with the development team and the internal localization team from All About Parenting.
Our bold vision for the next 10 years is to have 20 million users in Parents App.
To reach that incredible milestone we still have a lot of work ahead of us, but we’re confident our efforts will improve the lives of millions of parents and their children, so it is all well worth it!
Andreea dos Santos Monteiro
Andreea is the positive, you-can-do-it, full health, fitness, nutrition and wellness package. She is a trainer with years of experience in functional training and weight loss programmes and the founder of HealthyLab and Shapes by HealthyLab, a health and weight loss programme focused on healthy nutrition and exercise. A foodie and a former Master Chef Romania contestant, she authored a number of cooking e-books. Recently, she founded EMPWRD, a jumping rope fitness programme for those who want to stay fit and connect with the happy childhood games.
My highest professional achievement so far is Shapes by HealthyLab. I believe that losing and maintaining weight are the result of understanding your body, taking better care of yourself and developing a healthier relationship with food.
Health = balance and functionality. Balance is hard to reach when we are constantly under pressure. For this reason, my constant preoccupation was to find solutions for health and weight loss that do not put additional pressure on my clients.
Therefore, HealthyLab uses a 360 approach, i.e. time management, focus on what we can control via Smart Cooking (30-minute dishes, meal prepping, portion control and storing prepped meals), Home Workouts (focused on my female clients needs: posture, décolletage, waist, lengthening their muscles), Unconditional Support (when the environment works against them for any reason) and, last, but not least, Functionality (helping you achieve any type of physical challenge with ease and pleasure).
Venue
Get to the venue
BUS (FROM AIRPORT)
Lines M41, M41L > 24, 30, 24 B
BOLT / TAXI
Bolt is the leading mobility app operating in Cluj. Alternatively, you can grab a taxi.
The DoubleTree by Hilton
This five-star hotel is an iconic landmark of Cluj, and was the host of TranslateCluj 2020, the previous edition of our conference.