Banyak alumni Sasing, khususnya UNS, yang menjadi copywriter. Berikut ini Frequently Asked Questions tentang Copywriter oleh Enda Nasution
FAQ dibawah ini hadir karena rupanya masih sedikit informasi yang ada tentang profesi Copywriter dan apa kerjanya. Dan supaya tidak usah berulang-ulang mencoba menerangkan, lahirlah FAQ ini yang mudah-mudahan bisa menjawab sedikit pertanyaan2x dan keingintahuan ttg Copywriter. Enjoy.
Q: Copywriter tuh yang harus bikin kopi atau tukang fotocopy ya?
A: Hehe.. funny but NOT, try again. Itu mungkin Coffee Maker bukan Copywriter.
Q: Copyrighter tuh yang bekerja ngebuat Copyright ya? Hak Cipta?
A: Parahh, kedengerannya mungkin sama tapi nulisnya beda, dan perasaan ga ada tuh yang namanya Copyrighter.
Q: Copywriter itu apa sih kak?
A: Copywriter adalah seseorang yang menulis Copy.
Q: Apakah Copy itu?
A: Berbeda dari arti yang biasa kita tahu, Copy itu ga selalu berarti menduplikasi sesuatu. Copy dalam bahasa inggris juga berarti juga hal-hal yg ditulis oleh jurnalis, novelis dan para penulis lainnya. Copy juga berati kata-kata yang kita temukan dalam iklan. Secara umum Copy berarti tulisan-tulisan kali yee. Macemnya bisa banyak bisa ada di iklan cetak, dialog di iklan TV, di brosur, leaflet, website, buku, spanduk. Pokoknya banyak. Tapi Copy rasanya lebih deket ke dunia promosi daripada tulisan di koran atau di buku kayaknya.
Q: Copywriter bekerja dimana?
A: Copywriter bisa kerja dimana aja di bidang kerja yang butuh copy. Graphic House misalnya yang nerima bikin Company Profile, atau Brochure atau apa gitu yang butuh copy pasti butuh Copywriter.
Web Design company juga butuh buat ngisi content dari websitenya.
Advertising Agency terutama adalah tempat paling common dimana seorang Copywriter bermukim sih sebenernya. Dalam sebuah Advertising Agency seorang Copywriter adalah bagian dari Divisi Kreatif agency itu dimana biasanya terbagi dari tim-tim lagi, yang mana tim tersebut biasanya terdiri dari seorang Copywriter dan seorang Art Director.
Q: Apa yang dikerjakan Copywriter?
A: Pada intinya tentu menulis Copy yang dibutuhkan materi yang bakal diproduksi. Tapi agak lain untuk Copywriter yang bekerja di Advertising Agency. Copywriter yang bekerja di Advertising Agency bukan saja sekedar harus bisa menulis Copy, tapi juga perlu bisa melakukan hal-hal yang lain.
Pertama sebagai bagian dari tim kreatif, dia bersama partnernya sang Art Director harus sama-sama bisa MENTERJEMAHKAN brief dari bagian Account / Client Service yang isinya biasanya informasi tentang produk atau jasa yang hendak diiklankan, strategi dan jalan yang hendak ditempuh dan pesan yang hendak disampaikan pada publik. Tentu aja brief yg lengkap mencantumkan segala INFORMASI ttg produk/jasa tersebut, seperti PUBLIK SEPERTI APA yang hendak dicapai, KARAKTER seperti apa yang ingin terlihat dari produk/jasa itu, apa yang dilakukan oleh KOMPETITOR dalam bidang yang sama dan apa yang telah dilakukan juga oleh si produk/jasa itu selama ini dll lagi.
Jadi bersama partnernya, sang Art Director, Copywriter perlu duduk bareng, melakukan brainstorming mengenai apa yang bisa mereka lakukan untuk produk/jasa tadi. Menentukan secara strategis pesan seperti apa yang efektif untuk meraih target publik yang diinginkan, dampak apa yang diinginkan terjadi, menemukan IDE BESAR apa yang hendak dikemukakan dalam iklan tersebut, gimana gayanya, tone and manner-nya sampai akhirnya biasanya terbuatlah beberapa alternatif yang bisa ditunjukkan pada klien.
Klien kemudian memilih dari alternatif tersebut untuk diproduksi lalu sang Copywriter dan Art Director memastikan dengan segala cara agar alternatif yang sudah dipilih itu bisa sampai ke targetnya, apakah itu media cetak, televis, radio hingga media2x below the line seperti billboard, spanduk, poster, dll.
Tentu aja dalam seluruh proses itu ga cuma berdua Copywriter dan Art Director, tapi juga biasanya di supervise oleh tim leadernya yang mungkin seorang Creative Group Head, Associate Creative Director atau Creative Director. Dan jangan lupain juga temen-temen dari Divisi Account Service, biasanya ada Account Executive, Account Manager dan Account Director. Intinya hasil akhir iklan yang muncul adalah hasil kerja tim account itu biasanya.
Q: Apa yang menjadi tanggung jawab seorang Copywriter?
A: Bersama partnernya, Art Director, tentu aja nemuin ide iklannya, mau ngomong apa, pesannya ttg apa. Untuk Iklan Cetak biasanya sama2x diskusi nentuin gambarnya seperti apa dan tulisannya apa. Tulisan di iklan cetak ini yang umum ada tulisan besarnya atau Headline dan tulisan lainnya yang biasanya disebut Body Copy. Copywriter lah yang tanggung jawab nulis ini. Untuk iklan TV biasanya diskusi nentuin ceritanya gimana, lalu Copywriter bisa nulis beberapa Storyline dari hasil diskusi itu yang kemudian dijadikan Storyboard untuk dipresentasiin ke klien. Dialog dalam iklan TV ini tanggung jawab si Copywriter juga. Trus untuk hal-hal lain seperti tagline atau semboyan dari produk/jasa itu juga Copywriter yang harusnya lebih banyak berperan walau tidak menutup kemungkinan siapa saja bisa menyumbang ide. Kalau agency-nya dilibatkan dari awal, seringkali Copywriter juga dituntut memberikan nama buat produk/jasanya yang pas dengan target yang dituju dan karakter yang diinginkan. Untuk Iklan Radio udah jelas skripnya Copywriter juga yang buat dan biasanya sekalian supervise juga produksinya yang berarti juga memilih pengisi suara (voice talent) yang cocok dengan skripnya.
Untuk iklan TV bersama Art Director dan seluruh team biasanya terlibat pada setiap proses, dari pemilihan rumah produksi, sutradara, model/talent iklannya, wardrobe, sampe shootingnya biasanya ikut supervise juga, dan proses pasca produksinya juga. Editing, offline dan online. Untuk Copywriter entah kenapa seringkali ditanggungjawabi juga untuk masalah musik dari iklan TV itu kalo pake. Atau untuk buat jingle juga masih dalam lingkup tanggungjawabnya. Untuk beberapa kasus bahkan buat syair lagunya juga sekalian.
Q: Kalo tanggung jawab Art Director apa?
A: Lho ini kan FAQ ttg Copywriter, kok ada pertanyaan tentang Art Director sih? :) hehehek, ya sebagian kan udah gue ceritain ya diatas, tapi intinya Art Director tanggung jawab ama “art” nya sama estetikanya. Kebanyakan ya visualnya, kalo iklan cetak Art Director yang me-lay-out nya, ngerancang logo kadang-kadang, untuk iklan tv mereka yang supervise editing, grading warna, penambahan efek dan macem-macem lagi. Sedang pada proses presentasi ke klien Art Director juga membuat Storyboard, minimal corat-coret dan ngasih brief ke ilustrator/visualizer. Udah ah, ini kan FAQ ttg Copywriter :).
Q: Siapa aja yang bisa jadi Copywriter?
A: Siapa aja dengan jiwa sedikit ngaco :), punya wawasan luas, kreatif buat making up ide-ide baru dan bisa nulis kayaknya sih bisa. Apalagi kalo suka baca, suka musik dan suka film karena hal-hal tersebut suka nyambung satu sama lain. Kalo kamu suka merhatiin iklan tentu aja ngebantu banget. Dan, gue sih curiganya, walo gue ga pasti :) kamu juga harus punya selera yang bagus :). Dan yang udah pasti lagi kamu harus bisa kerja sama dengan anggota tim kamu dan bisa berkomunikasi lancar, gimanapun juga kalo kamu jadi seorang Copywriter kamu kan berarti berada di industri komunikasi.
Kalo ada temen kamu yang kayaknya suka sama kalimat-kalimat kamu udah ada tanda2x tuh berarti! :) Berarti minimal kamu bisa menkomposisikan rangkaian kata yang menggerakkan orang yang bacanya. Oya, akan sangat ngebantu banget lagi kalo kamu suka kata-kata tentunya.
Q: Apa yang dibutuhkan buat jadi Copywriter?
A: Kayaknya sih seorang Copywriter butuh a little bit of everything. Kamu perlu ngerti dasar-dasar pemasaran, strategic thinking juga, kamu mungkin punya jiwa seniman juga sedikit tapi kamu perlu bisa berpikir secara terstruktur juga buat melalui proses pencarian ide, nentuin konsep. Kamu juga perlu percaya diri banyak2x hehehe.. buat ngomongin ide kamu tanpa takut disebut garing misalnya, buat ngomong jelek kalo emang jelek dan bagus kalo emang bagus, buat ngomong suka kalo emang suka dan ngomong ya lumayaannn lah kalo emang ga suka. :) Kamu juga butuh kemampuan bahasa asing juga. Intinya yang udah pasti kamu perlu kreatif, kamu perlu bisa nulis, kamu ga keberatan kerja jadi ujung tombak kapitalisme ;) dan kamu juga berani bikin sesuatu yang baru. Ini semua kayaknya kali yeeeee… :D
Q: Gimana cara jadi Copywriter?
A: Buat saat ini blom ada sekolah khususnya yang lumayan ternama. Kecuali di luar negri kali ye dimana advertising udah jadi industri gede sendiri. Kalo kamu sarjana komunikasi kamu punya modal tuh, kalo kamu lulusan sastra juga. Tapi terus terang tiap orang ga peduli latar belakang pendidikannya, kalo emang suka, bisa, mampu dan good at it udah pasti bisa coba, yang perlu dilakukan tentu tinggal ngeyakinin orang yg bakal ngehire kamu aja jadi Copywriter. Caranya gimana? Ngelamar ke Advertising Agency yang butuh Copywriter, dan yakinin bahwa emang kamu punya semua kualitas itu. Itu yang gue kerjain dulu pas ngelamar.. hehe.. jujurnya sih nembak, kebeneran yg dicari emang ga perlu pake pengalaman tapi perlu bisa belajar cepet. Wohohohooo tentu aja cepet gue sih kalo belajar hal yang baru.
Cari iklan lowongan kerja buat Copywriter di Kompas, atau di majalah satu2xnya tentang dunia periklanan Cakram, atau di tabloid Marketing suka ada juga atau juga ikutan milisnya orang2x iklan ttg iklan di Milis Kritik-Iklan.
Q: Bagaimana masa depan profesi Copywriter?
A: Bagus sih kayaknya :) Ini karena menurut gue ga ada sekolah formalnya jadi Copywriter termasuk mahluk langka yang banyak dicari. Ke depan, kalo ekonominya makin bagus tentu makin banyak barang yang mau dijual ke segini banyak orang di negri ini, makin banyak butuh Copywriter dan saat ini ga ada banyak. Beda dengan Art Director yang dasarnya Desain Visual Komunikasi yang udah ada sekolah ternamanya, jadi Copywriter masih ga ada sekolah khususnya dan mungkin ga perlu? Ga tau juga.
Jenjang karirnya biasanya dari seorang Copywriter dia bisa jadi Senior Copywriter, lalu mungkin bisa jadi punya jabatan manajerial, team leader kayak Creative Group Head atau Associate Creative Director yang membawahi beberapa team yang terdiri dari masing-masing Copywriter dan Art Director. Dan tentu aja bisa juga jadi Creative Director di agency itu atau mungkin bahkan bisa melarikan diri dari bidang kreatif dan jadi kepala agency itu. Bisa juga. Tentu aja jadi jalur karir lain, yaitu pindah ke sisi klien, sebagai orang yg punya pengalaman agency dan ngerti marketing serta industrinya tentu dibutuhin juga ama klien2xnya. Intinya, seorang Copywriter masa depannya bagus juga sih kayaknya :)
Q: Enak ga sih jadi Copywriter?
A: Hakhakhak.. lumayanlahhh. Kata gue sih enak. Dimana lagi dan kapan lagi kamu dibayar buat duduk-duduk ngekhayal-khayal. mencetuskan ide-ide yang ga mungkin di kehidupan nyata, dan setelah waktu yang ga berapa lama (kadang2x lama juga lo, lama banget) ide kamu itu bisa diliat orang banyak, dan kamu bisa bilang, eh itu gue lo yg bikin.. hehehekk..
Dan kalo kamu very good at it, kamu bisa juga menang awards buat iklan2x yang kamu buat. Tapi intinya cocok2xan juga sih. Kalo kamu suka suasana yang bebas, terbuka, cuek, lingkungan kreatiflah pokoknya dan kamu ga suka kerjaan rutin yang terus2xan sama, kalo kamu suka belajar hal yang baru terus, kalo kamu gampang bosen, the chance is, kamu bakal cocok kerja di bidang kreatif, dan kalo kamu suka nulis, tambah cocok deh kamu jadi seorang Copywriter.
Q: Siapa Copywriter Indonesia pertama yang tercatat sejarah?
A: Copywriter pertama Indonesia yang tercatat adalah Tirtoadisoeryo alias Mingke, tokoh di Tetraloginya Pramoedya Ananta Toer. Periode hidupnya dimana dia nulis “adpertensi” di koran-koran adalah di buku yang ketiga, “Jejak Langkah”.
Q: Copywriter bahasa Indonesianya apa ya?
A: Media dan banyak orang nerjemahinnya jadi penulis naskah. Terus terang terjemahan ini meleset karena nyempitin artinya, walo mungkin bener sih secara literal. Penulis Copy harusnya kali ya, tapi Copy bahasa Indonesianya apa? hehe.. ga tau deh. Kalo tanya gue mending keep Copywriter aja jangan diterjemahin.
Q: Film tentang Copywriter atau Advertising Agency ada ga?
A: Ada. Yang paling baru dan lumayanlah walau ga mencerminkan agency banget tuh judulnya What Women Want keluaran tahun 2000 yang maen Mel Gibson, sama tonton juga tahun 2001 Sweet November yang dibintangin sama Keanu Reeves.
Q: Copywriter yang ngetop di dunia sapa ya?
A: Salah satunya David Ogilvy, dulunya Copywriter trus punya agency sendiri yaitu, Ogilvy & Mather, yang sekarang jadi perusahaan komunikasi multinasional, tempat gue kerja skrg ini :). Yang masih aktif sekarang dan salah satu yang ngetop juga adalah Neil French dia sekarang Creative Director Worldwide buat Ogilvy & Mather.
Enda Nasution, April 2002
Saat ini seorang Copywriter.
Friday, April 11, 2008
[Publishing] 7 Macam & Jenjang Editor
Menarik membaca Kiat Menjadi Editor yang dimuat MATABACA edisi September 2004. Di
Dalam sebuah kesempatan, tidak disengaja, saya coba menyampaikan kepada salah satu pengasuh majalah ini bahwa artikel tersebut perlu dibaca dengan bijaksana. Kami sampai pada kesepakatan, bahwa artikel yang dimuat itu murni pengalaman di luar negeri. Dan layaknya pengalaman yang lain tidak ada yang salah. Semua pengalaman benar adanya. Bukankah setiap pengalaman sudah dialami?
Lalu apanya yang salah, dan karena itu, saya sewot?
Yang membuat saya sewot ialah kalau ada eksekutif, atau editor
Di luar negeri, dikenal 7 macam editor. Sementara di negeri kita ada dua, bahkan kalau mau diperas, cuma satu macam saja. Asalkan pekerjaan seseorang menypiapkan naskah untuk diterbitkan menjadi buku, lalu dikalungkanlah ke lehernya medali editor. Tidak peduli, apakah medali itu kemudian sanggup disandangnya atau tidak.
Yang kerap terjadi ialah, sang editor sarat beban. Tall puppet, istilah manajemennya. Bukan karena ia tidak kabapel, melainkan banyak tugas yang dijalankannya sebenarnya bukan tugas pokoknya. Tapi tugas yang melekat pada jabatan lain yang, di luar negeri, ditangani publisher atau senior editor. Terdorong hasrat untuk sekadar mengingatkan bahwa di luar negeri job des dan remunerasi pekerja di bidang industri perbukuan sudah canggih dan rapi dan atas saran salah satu pengasuh majalah ini saya menulis artikel ini. Sumber diambil dari buku pegangan asosiasi penerbit Amerika, semacam Ikapi-nya kita.
Inilah tujuh macam dan jenjang editor di
1. Editorial Director
Nama lainnya ialah publisher, editor-in-chief, executive editor, vice president, dan editorial. Seorang editorial director bertanggung jawab atas seluruh rangkaian manajemen editorial, terutama dalam perencanaan dan pengembangan program editorial dalam sebuah perusahaan. Selain itu, ia juga bertanggung jawab atas kontrol anggaran dan pengembangan staf. Atasan langsung editorial director ialah direktur divisi atau direktur kelompok (president, executive vice president, division vice president). Ia mensupervisi senior acquisition editors, managing editor, dan project editor. Pendididikan minimalnya sarjana muda atau yang sederajat, pernah mendapat training mengenai bisnis dan keuangan. Disyaratkan untuk memegang jabatan ini seorang yang berpengalaman dan cakap dalam membuat perencanaan, perrnah mencatat raport yang baik dalam bidang penerbitan, dan cakap di dalam memenuhi kebutuhan produksi dan pemasaran.
Berhasil tidaknya pemangku jabatan ini dapat diukur dari:
a. return of investment;
b. profit gross margin;
c. sanggup memotivasi dan mengarahkan staf di dalam mencapai tujuan redaksional;
d. mampu bekerja sama dengan bidang terkait, termasuk dengan pengarang dan pelanggan.
2. Senior editor
Nama lainnya ialah acquisiton editor, sponsoring editor, editor, dan project editor. Fungsi utama senior editor ialah menyediakan sejumlah naskah yang memenuhi target penjualan, merencanakan dan mengelola pengembangan proyek perbukuan.
Disyaratkan ia sebelumnya pernah berpengalaman sebagai asisten atau associate editor dan cakap di bidang editorial. Keterampilan yang diandaikan dimiliki senior editor:
a. menguasai disiplin ilmu tertentu;
b. sanggup memecahkan persoalan dan dapat mengambil keputusan yang tepat;
c. memiliki kemampuan mengorganisasikan;
d. memiliki kemampuan supervisi;
e. memiliki keterampilan negosiasi.
3. Managing editor
Tugas pokok managing editor ialah mengkoordinasikan fungsi-fungsi editorial sebagaimana mestinya dalam rangka memenuhi seluruh rencana penerbitan. Ia lebur dalam totalitas kerja sama antarbagian redaksi, pemasaran, dan produksi. Ia mengarahkan fungsi-fungsi staf redaksi dalam kaitannya dengan pencapaian target. Diandaikan managing editor memiliki pengalaman sebagai seorang profesional di bidang editorial. Ia pernah menjadi supervisor, pernah ambil bagian dalam perncanaan dan berpengalaman dalam mengkoordinasi rencana-rencana redaksional.
4. Associate editor
Nama lainnya ialah editor, project editor, text book editor. Tugas utama seorang associate editor ialah memeriksa naskah-naskah. Kemudian, memberikan rekomendasi bagaimana naskah itu ditangani. Jika perlu, ditulis ulang di bawah supervisi project atau senior editor. Diandaikan associate editor mempunyai keterampilan menulis. Selain itu, ia juga disyaratkan memiliki pengetahuan mengenai desain buku. Dan yang sangat diharapkan dari editor jenis ini ialah kemampuannya membaca dan menangkap tren yang sedang berkembang di bidangnya.
5. Copy editor
Tugas utama copy editor ialah mengedit naskah sesuai dengan
6. Assistant editor
Nama lainnya ialah editorial assistant dan editorial trainee. Tugas pokoknya ialah memeriksa dan mengedit naskah untuk disetujui oleh associate editor atau managing editor. Ia harus memiliki keterampilan menulis.
7. Edtorial assistant
Nama lainnya ialah editorial secretary, editorial trainee, assistant editor. Pendidikan minimal sarjana muda. Disyaratkan cakap dalam mengetik, memiliki pengetahuan mengenai perkantoran, dan menguasai proses editorial. Ia membantu editor di dalam mengkoordinasikan kopi editor lepas dan pembaca proof. Ia juga membantu mengurus jual beli copyrights.
Catatan Kritis
Lain lubuk lain ikannya. Lubuk (penerbit) di luar negeri khususnya Amerika dan Eropa banyak sekali ikan (produksi dan omset)-nya. Sementara lubuk di
Maka membandingkan posisi, tugas, dan gaji antara editor luar negeri dan
Selain itu, jenjang gaji antara eksekutif dan pelaksana perusahaan penerbitan di luar negeri tidak beda jauh. Di Indonesia? Gaji antara pelaksana dan eksekutif 1:10! Karena itu, membaca artikel 20 Kiat Menjadi Editor dalam MATABACA edisi September 204 (halaman 3–31), mestilah bijaksana. Kiat yang disampaikan di
Di Indonesia, asalkan seorang tugasnya menyiapkan naskah untuk diterbitkan menjadi buku, sudah dibaiat sebagai editor. Tidak peduli latar belakang pendidikan, kualifikasi, dan pengalamannya. Juga, tidak peduli ia digaji berapa. Tugasnya bisa merangkap semua yang dilakukan editor seperti diulas dalam MATABACA.
Di luar negeri, karena kinerja seseorang sangat terkait dengan jenjang karier didukung semua orang bisa fair dan dapat mengakui keunggulan orang lain bisa saja seorang copy editor kelak menjadi publisher.
Sementara di negeri kita, seorang yang sejak hari pertama masuk sebagai asisten editor, sampai pensiun juga tetap asisten editor. (Saya teringat, pernah direktur sebuah penerbitan mengkritik seorang asisten editor yang mengeluhkan tentang tidak jelasnya jenjang kepangkatan. Sang direktur berkata kepada asisten editor, Tapi gaji kamu berubah, tidak statis
Itu sebabnya, usai membaca rubrik Sunting di MATABACA Volume 3 No.1 itu saya bertanya dalam hati, Editor yang mana?
-- R. Masri Sareb Putra
[Translation] Translation and Text Understanding
Translation and Text Understanding
By Carolina Orloff
Introduction
“…The literary imagination is not a grace
of life or a diversion: it is the best way we
have found of reaching for the meaning of
existence.”
R.Fulford in The Literary Imagination In our Time.
In the Author’s Note to The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, the Czech writer Milan Kundera asserts that, after thorough revision, ‘French translations have become…more faithful to the Czech originals than the originals themselves’. So much does the author trust these translations that, for the English translation, the book has been translated from the French on Kundera’s advice. ‘I had the pleasure of seeing my text emerge in [Aaron Asher’s] translation as from a miraculous bath. At last I recognized my book.’ In Kundera’s statement, I see the ultimate wish of the translator come true: to understand the original text in such depth, as to reach the original essence of the text even before it became one. That is, to understand the text from within the author’s mind, to become the author’s mind thinking and writing in another language.
The translator assumes a responsibility that not only concerns a book and an author, but an entire culture. Understanding is fundamental in every respect, for beyond the fixed text, there is also a culture to be translated into mirror words of a different language. This essay attempts to look at the many levels of understanding involved in the creation of a ‘good’ translation. We shall only concentrate on examples of literary and philosophical texts.
a. Translation as a Powerful Conductor of Cultures: Understanding Language
“A translation is only a somewhat provisional
way of coming to terms with the foreignness of
languages.”
Walter Benjamin, ‘The Task of the Translator’
“Language: to humbly speak thought.”
J.L.Borges, ‘An Investigation of the Word’
In discerning the ethics of translation, Venutti adopts Berman’s view that a ‘good’ translation is one that ‘opens a dialogue, a cross-breeding, a decentering’, forcing the domestic (i.e. the target) language and culture to acknowledge and even learn from the foreignness of the translated text. The translator aims to portray the understanding of the foreign text through another that may be faithful to the original, even in its foreignness. However, the reader should not be completely marginalized, feeling that a ‘foreignizing’ translation is as unreadable as the untranslated original. If necessary, the translator will have to create a new language, one that renders, to quote Brisset’s examples, the cockney dialogue in Pygmalion or the lunfardo (i.e. local slang) of R. Arlt’s Buenos Aires, and still embraces the richness of the target language and culture.
A good example is S.J.Levine’s translation of M. Puig’s Boquitas Pintadas, literally meaning ‘Little Painted Mouths’ and interestingly translated as Heartbreak Tango. The difficulty within this text lies not only on the use of Argentinian slang, but also in the key use of tango lyrics. In the original text, quotes from tango songs appear as epigraphs before
each chapter. The Argentinian (and Uruguayan, perhaps) would immediately associate that quote with a certain melody and even a sentiment, yet how to translate this effect for an English-speaking readership?
S.J. Levine admits that the author’s deep knowledge of the popular culture of United States helped enormously in their joint creative translation for the North American edition. The translator becomes a craftsman, in the search to find words that are familiar to the Anglo-reader and at the same time evoke the same feelings originally provoked in the Hispanic-reader.
The translation of such culturally loaded texts takes into account the world of the author and needs to anticipate the target readers and universe. The translator must somehow be able to know the readers (the way they think, react, live, remember, feel), in order to predict the effect that words are going to have on them. The understanding of language by the translator must be impeccable on both sides of the text: from the culture of the author to that of the reader. Apart from language and as part of it, what also needs to be portrayed faithfully is the author’s precise and deliberate choice of words. For that, the translator must again understand language to perfection, that is, understand the power of isolated words in both cultures.
In the translator’s preface to Kafka’s stories, J.A.Underwood claims that the (usually translated as) ‘giant bug’ which Gregor Samsa has became in The Metamophosis,
does no justice to the cultural resonance of Kafka’s predilection for ‘ungeheures Ungeziefer’. Although ‘giant bug’ does not capture the social and religious exclusion implicit in Kafka’s choice, the literal ‘monstrous vermin’ would not read well in English. Thus, after the understanding, the compromise.
Another example is Plato’s pharmakon, famously ambiguous, meaning both ‘remedy’ and ‘poison’ in Greek. This is discussed by the French philosopher (and translator) J. Derrida, who sees in this semantic ambivalence the vulnerability of the entire course of Platonism in the hands of translators. Undoubtedly, this is a fundamental ambiguity. One only need think of Socrates’ death to understand the importance of translating the right meaning of a single word.
b. The Inevitable Act of Infidelity: Understanding Style
“It will be our destiny to mould ourselves to syntax, to its
treacherous chain of events, to the imprecision, the maybes,
the too many emphases, the buts, the hemisphere
of lies and of darkness in our speech.”
J.L.Borges, An Investigation of the Word.
The creativity of the translator is not in the choosing of the right words, for language conventions exist and restrict the ways in which a certain word can be held to mean the same in another ‘idiom’. It is with style and the attempt to remain loyal to the author in this, that the art of translation blooms…and despairs! How faithful can the style of the translated text remain to that of the original, without obscuring the sense or making the reading too awkward?
I thought of Marcel Proust’s writings, and how the translator had approached his problematic style. The translator of the Penguin edition, T. Kilmartin, argues that if there is a need for a revision of a previous translation, it is because Proust’s style has been altogether misinterpreted and thus, wrongly portrayed. Although ‘complicated, dense, overloaded’, he argues, ‘…Proust’s style is essentially natural and unaffected, quite free of preciosity, archaism or self-conscious elegance’. Whether he succeeds in maintaining it in English or not, I have not yet had the luxury to find out. Yet, the translator has made the decision to remain faithful to the author. This in itself is already a successful act of the understanding of style.
Another example is the complexity of Dostoyevsky’s style. The translators of Crime and Punishment elucidate the problems of Dostoyevsky’s Russian, from the intricacy of names, to a different calendar, punctuation and other nuances. Nevertheless, they set themselves the task of a literal rendition of the Russian chosen by Dostoyevsky, showing a supreme understanding of the culture as well as the text.
It is a delusion to think that an author’s style will remain intact after translation. However, if the translator has fully understood the language and its universe and has, as it were, entered the mind of the creator, s/he can also understand the logic behind a style, which is never a whimsical matter.
Borges’s most faithful English translator, A. Hurley, has fully captured the author’s logic behind his style. He explains thus:
“Borges’ prose style is characterized by a determined economy of resources in which every word is weighted, every word (every mark of punctuation) “tells”. It is a quiet style, whose effects are achieved not with bombast or pomp, but rather with a single exploding word or phrase, dropped almost as thought offhandedly into a quiet sentence (…) Quietness, subtlety, a laconic terseness –these are the marks of Borges’ style”
With such an understanding of the author’s style, thoughts and implicit intentions, the translator moves on to produce a fine text. “I have rendered Borges in the style that I hear when I listen to him”, admits Hurley to the reader, in the hope that the reader, in turn, shall hear something of the genius of Borges’ storytelling and, indeed, style.
c. Translator’s exile and the miracle of translation: Understanding the translated text
“In translation, the work of thinking is transposed into
the spirit of another language and so undergoes an
inevitable transformation (…) [which] shines a new
light on the fundamental position of the question…”
M. Heidegger
“The power of illumination…is the supreme power of translation”, argues Berman in the idea that translation is, by definition, a clarifying process, for it makes an unintelligible language, readable. The reader becomes ‘illuminated’ by translation, which unveils a new text and, through it, an entire culture.
The responsibility in the hands of the translator (literally) is unfathomable; particularly with regards to non-fictional texts, such as Philosophy, where the essence of ideas have to be rendered on a deeper level than that of the tangible realm of words. Yet, how does the translator approach this final text, after being torn constantly between two languages and cultures, writing and reinventing a text which s/he has never created in his mind? The translator is in exile from his own language, being at the service of another one. This must allow for an enriched perspective, for a deeper final understanding of the text.
The translator is a merciless reader, and as such reading his/her own work, the translator must understand the translation as clearly as s/he understood the original, if not more. It is this second understanding, the enriched ‘bridge’ between one language and the other, that should be portrayed in the final translated text, which is a new version of another final original one.
Conclusion
There are translations that have understood the language and syntax, and have tried to remain loyal to the style, but have failed to understand the final translated text, i.e. the impact that the words the translator has chosen have on the reader. An example of this is P. Blackburn’s translation of J.Cortázar´s Historias de Cronopios y de Famas. In this translation, there are no notes at all. Given the difficulty of the book, even in its original language, this is surprising, for an English reader, for example, will not be able to capture any of the subtle cultural references. I would argue that his translation is culturally irresponsible, that the tranlator has failed to understand his own text.
A.Hurley resorts to an opposite extreme, soaking his translation of Borges text with ‘Notes to the Fictions’, which aim to level the Anglo-reader with the knowledge that a LatinAmerican would have. A certain justice is thus achieved, for although these notes might come across as condescending, the option (to understand more) is there. In that option, lies the possibility of understanding the text in its completeness. For, the translator has already been inside the author’s mind, and is now willing to illuminate us by showing us some doors to the author’s world. The translator has understood that in the essence of what s/he is translating, might lie the very meaning of existence.
Bibliography
Berman, A. (1985) Translation and the Trials of the Foreign. Trans. Venutti, L. In Venuti, L.(ed.) Translation Studies Reader. London: Routledge, 284-298.
Borges, J.L. (1998) Collected Fictions. Trans. Hurley, A. London: Penguin Books.
--------------. (1999) The Homeric Versions. Trans. Weinberger, E. In Weinberger, E. (ed.) The Total Library: Non-Fiction 1922-1986. London: Penguin Books, 69-74.
--------------. (1999) An Investigation of the Word. Trans. Weinberger, E. In Weinberger, E. (ed.) The Total Library: Non-Fiction 1922-1986. London: Penguin Books, 32- 39.
Brisset, A. (1990/96) The Search for a Native Language: Translation and Cultural Identity. Trans. Gannon, R & Gill, R. In Venuti, L.(ed.) Translation Studies Reader. London: Routledge, 345-375.
Cortázar, J. (1994) Cronopios and Famas. Trans. Blackburn, P. London: Marion Boyars.
Derrida, J. (1981) Dissemination. Trans. Johnson, B. London: The Athlone Press.
Dostoevsky, F. (1992) Crime and Punishment. Trans. Pevear, R. & Volokhonsky, L. London: Vintage.
Fulford, R. (1990) The Literary Imagination in Our Time. In Manguel, A. (ed.) Soho Square III. London: Bloomsbury Publishers Ltd.
Kafka, F. (1981) Stories 1904-1924.Trans. Underwood, J.A. London: Abacus.
Kundera, M. (1996) The Book of Laughter and Forgetting. Trans. Asher, A. London: Faber and Faber.
Levine, S.J. (1998) Escriba Subversiva: Una Poética de la Traducción. México DF: Fondo de Cultura Económica.
Mochulsky, K. (1967) Dostoevsky: His Life and Work. Trans. Minihan, M.A. USA: Princeton University Press.
Nietzsche, F. (1968) The Portable Nietzsche. Trans. Kaufmann, W. (ed.) London: Penguin Books.
Proust, M. (1981) Remembrance of the Things Past. Trans. Scott Moncrieff, C.K. & Kilmartin, T. London: Penguin Books, pp. ix-xii.
Reiss, K. (1971) Type, Kind and Individuality of Text. Decision Making in Translation. Trans. Kitron, S. In Venuti, L.(ed.) Translation Studies Reader. London: Routledge, 160-171.
Venutti, L. (1998) The Formation of Cultural Identities. In The Scandals of Translation: Towards an Ethics of Difference. London: Routledge, 67-87.
By Carolina Orloff
Introduction
“…The literary imagination is not a grace
of life or a diversion: it is the best way we
have found of reaching for the meaning of
existence.”
R.Fulford in The Literary Imagination In our Time.
In the Author’s Note to The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, the Czech writer Milan Kundera asserts that, after thorough revision, ‘French translations have become…more faithful to the Czech originals than the originals themselves’. So much does the author trust these translations that, for the English translation, the book has been translated from the French on Kundera’s advice. ‘I had the pleasure of seeing my text emerge in [Aaron Asher’s] translation as from a miraculous bath. At last I recognized my book.’ In Kundera’s statement, I see the ultimate wish of the translator come true: to understand the original text in such depth, as to reach the original essence of the text even before it became one. That is, to understand the text from within the author’s mind, to become the author’s mind thinking and writing in another language.
The translator assumes a responsibility that not only concerns a book and an author, but an entire culture. Understanding is fundamental in every respect, for beyond the fixed text, there is also a culture to be translated into mirror words of a different language. This essay attempts to look at the many levels of understanding involved in the creation of a ‘good’ translation. We shall only concentrate on examples of literary and philosophical texts.
a. Translation as a Powerful Conductor of Cultures: Understanding Language
“A translation is only a somewhat provisional
way of coming to terms with the foreignness of
languages.”
Walter Benjamin, ‘The Task of the Translator’
“Language: to humbly speak thought.”
J.L.Borges, ‘An Investigation of the Word’
In discerning the ethics of translation, Venutti adopts Berman’s view that a ‘good’ translation is one that ‘opens a dialogue, a cross-breeding, a decentering’, forcing the domestic (i.e. the target) language and culture to acknowledge and even learn from the foreignness of the translated text. The translator aims to portray the understanding of the foreign text through another that may be faithful to the original, even in its foreignness. However, the reader should not be completely marginalized, feeling that a ‘foreignizing’ translation is as unreadable as the untranslated original. If necessary, the translator will have to create a new language, one that renders, to quote Brisset’s examples, the cockney dialogue in Pygmalion or the lunfardo (i.e. local slang) of R. Arlt’s Buenos Aires, and still embraces the richness of the target language and culture.
A good example is S.J.Levine’s translation of M. Puig’s Boquitas Pintadas, literally meaning ‘Little Painted Mouths’ and interestingly translated as Heartbreak Tango. The difficulty within this text lies not only on the use of Argentinian slang, but also in the key use of tango lyrics. In the original text, quotes from tango songs appear as epigraphs before
each chapter. The Argentinian (and Uruguayan, perhaps) would immediately associate that quote with a certain melody and even a sentiment, yet how to translate this effect for an English-speaking readership?
S.J. Levine admits that the author’s deep knowledge of the popular culture of United States helped enormously in their joint creative translation for the North American edition. The translator becomes a craftsman, in the search to find words that are familiar to the Anglo-reader and at the same time evoke the same feelings originally provoked in the Hispanic-reader.
The translation of such culturally loaded texts takes into account the world of the author and needs to anticipate the target readers and universe. The translator must somehow be able to know the readers (the way they think, react, live, remember, feel), in order to predict the effect that words are going to have on them. The understanding of language by the translator must be impeccable on both sides of the text: from the culture of the author to that of the reader. Apart from language and as part of it, what also needs to be portrayed faithfully is the author’s precise and deliberate choice of words. For that, the translator must again understand language to perfection, that is, understand the power of isolated words in both cultures.
In the translator’s preface to Kafka’s stories, J.A.Underwood claims that the (usually translated as) ‘giant bug’ which Gregor Samsa has became in The Metamophosis,
does no justice to the cultural resonance of Kafka’s predilection for ‘ungeheures Ungeziefer’. Although ‘giant bug’ does not capture the social and religious exclusion implicit in Kafka’s choice, the literal ‘monstrous vermin’ would not read well in English. Thus, after the understanding, the compromise.
Another example is Plato’s pharmakon, famously ambiguous, meaning both ‘remedy’ and ‘poison’ in Greek. This is discussed by the French philosopher (and translator) J. Derrida, who sees in this semantic ambivalence the vulnerability of the entire course of Platonism in the hands of translators. Undoubtedly, this is a fundamental ambiguity. One only need think of Socrates’ death to understand the importance of translating the right meaning of a single word.
b. The Inevitable Act of Infidelity: Understanding Style
“It will be our destiny to mould ourselves to syntax, to its
treacherous chain of events, to the imprecision, the maybes,
the too many emphases, the buts, the hemisphere
of lies and of darkness in our speech.”
J.L.Borges, An Investigation of the Word.
The creativity of the translator is not in the choosing of the right words, for language conventions exist and restrict the ways in which a certain word can be held to mean the same in another ‘idiom’. It is with style and the attempt to remain loyal to the author in this, that the art of translation blooms…and despairs! How faithful can the style of the translated text remain to that of the original, without obscuring the sense or making the reading too awkward?
I thought of Marcel Proust’s writings, and how the translator had approached his problematic style. The translator of the Penguin edition, T. Kilmartin, argues that if there is a need for a revision of a previous translation, it is because Proust’s style has been altogether misinterpreted and thus, wrongly portrayed. Although ‘complicated, dense, overloaded’, he argues, ‘…Proust’s style is essentially natural and unaffected, quite free of preciosity, archaism or self-conscious elegance’. Whether he succeeds in maintaining it in English or not, I have not yet had the luxury to find out. Yet, the translator has made the decision to remain faithful to the author. This in itself is already a successful act of the understanding of style.
Another example is the complexity of Dostoyevsky’s style. The translators of Crime and Punishment elucidate the problems of Dostoyevsky’s Russian, from the intricacy of names, to a different calendar, punctuation and other nuances. Nevertheless, they set themselves the task of a literal rendition of the Russian chosen by Dostoyevsky, showing a supreme understanding of the culture as well as the text.
It is a delusion to think that an author’s style will remain intact after translation. However, if the translator has fully understood the language and its universe and has, as it were, entered the mind of the creator, s/he can also understand the logic behind a style, which is never a whimsical matter.
Borges’s most faithful English translator, A. Hurley, has fully captured the author’s logic behind his style. He explains thus:
“Borges’ prose style is characterized by a determined economy of resources in which every word is weighted, every word (every mark of punctuation) “tells”. It is a quiet style, whose effects are achieved not with bombast or pomp, but rather with a single exploding word or phrase, dropped almost as thought offhandedly into a quiet sentence (…) Quietness, subtlety, a laconic terseness –these are the marks of Borges’ style”
With such an understanding of the author’s style, thoughts and implicit intentions, the translator moves on to produce a fine text. “I have rendered Borges in the style that I hear when I listen to him”, admits Hurley to the reader, in the hope that the reader, in turn, shall hear something of the genius of Borges’ storytelling and, indeed, style.
c. Translator’s exile and the miracle of translation: Understanding the translated text
“In translation, the work of thinking is transposed into
the spirit of another language and so undergoes an
inevitable transformation (…) [which] shines a new
light on the fundamental position of the question…”
M. Heidegger
“The power of illumination…is the supreme power of translation”, argues Berman in the idea that translation is, by definition, a clarifying process, for it makes an unintelligible language, readable. The reader becomes ‘illuminated’ by translation, which unveils a new text and, through it, an entire culture.
The responsibility in the hands of the translator (literally) is unfathomable; particularly with regards to non-fictional texts, such as Philosophy, where the essence of ideas have to be rendered on a deeper level than that of the tangible realm of words. Yet, how does the translator approach this final text, after being torn constantly between two languages and cultures, writing and reinventing a text which s/he has never created in his mind? The translator is in exile from his own language, being at the service of another one. This must allow for an enriched perspective, for a deeper final understanding of the text.
The translator is a merciless reader, and as such reading his/her own work, the translator must understand the translation as clearly as s/he understood the original, if not more. It is this second understanding, the enriched ‘bridge’ between one language and the other, that should be portrayed in the final translated text, which is a new version of another final original one.
Conclusion
There are translations that have understood the language and syntax, and have tried to remain loyal to the style, but have failed to understand the final translated text, i.e. the impact that the words the translator has chosen have on the reader. An example of this is P. Blackburn’s translation of J.Cortázar´s Historias de Cronopios y de Famas. In this translation, there are no notes at all. Given the difficulty of the book, even in its original language, this is surprising, for an English reader, for example, will not be able to capture any of the subtle cultural references. I would argue that his translation is culturally irresponsible, that the tranlator has failed to understand his own text.
A.Hurley resorts to an opposite extreme, soaking his translation of Borges text with ‘Notes to the Fictions’, which aim to level the Anglo-reader with the knowledge that a LatinAmerican would have. A certain justice is thus achieved, for although these notes might come across as condescending, the option (to understand more) is there. In that option, lies the possibility of understanding the text in its completeness. For, the translator has already been inside the author’s mind, and is now willing to illuminate us by showing us some doors to the author’s world. The translator has understood that in the essence of what s/he is translating, might lie the very meaning of existence.
Bibliography
Berman, A. (1985) Translation and the Trials of the Foreign. Trans. Venutti, L. In Venuti, L.(ed.) Translation Studies Reader. London: Routledge, 284-298.
Borges, J.L. (1998) Collected Fictions. Trans. Hurley, A. London: Penguin Books.
--------------. (1999) The Homeric Versions. Trans. Weinberger, E. In Weinberger, E. (ed.) The Total Library: Non-Fiction 1922-1986. London: Penguin Books, 69-74.
--------------. (1999) An Investigation of the Word. Trans. Weinberger, E. In Weinberger, E. (ed.) The Total Library: Non-Fiction 1922-1986. London: Penguin Books, 32- 39.
Brisset, A. (1990/96) The Search for a Native Language: Translation and Cultural Identity. Trans. Gannon, R & Gill, R. In Venuti, L.(ed.) Translation Studies Reader. London: Routledge, 345-375.
Cortázar, J. (1994) Cronopios and Famas. Trans. Blackburn, P. London: Marion Boyars.
Derrida, J. (1981) Dissemination. Trans. Johnson, B. London: The Athlone Press.
Dostoevsky, F. (1992) Crime and Punishment. Trans. Pevear, R. & Volokhonsky, L. London: Vintage.
Fulford, R. (1990) The Literary Imagination in Our Time. In Manguel, A. (ed.) Soho Square III. London: Bloomsbury Publishers Ltd.
Kafka, F. (1981) Stories 1904-1924.Trans. Underwood, J.A. London: Abacus.
Kundera, M. (1996) The Book of Laughter and Forgetting. Trans. Asher, A. London: Faber and Faber.
Levine, S.J. (1998) Escriba Subversiva: Una Poética de la Traducción. México DF: Fondo de Cultura Económica.
Mochulsky, K. (1967) Dostoevsky: His Life and Work. Trans. Minihan, M.A. USA: Princeton University Press.
Nietzsche, F. (1968) The Portable Nietzsche. Trans. Kaufmann, W. (ed.) London: Penguin Books.
Proust, M. (1981) Remembrance of the Things Past. Trans. Scott Moncrieff, C.K. & Kilmartin, T. London: Penguin Books, pp. ix-xii.
Reiss, K. (1971) Type, Kind and Individuality of Text. Decision Making in Translation. Trans. Kitron, S. In Venuti, L.(ed.) Translation Studies Reader. London: Routledge, 160-171.
Venutti, L. (1998) The Formation of Cultural Identities. In The Scandals of Translation: Towards an Ethics of Difference. London: Routledge, 67-87.
[Translation] Business Plans for Translators
Business Plans for Translators
By Kevin Lossner
I suspect that most of us in the business have never written a formal business plan nor seen the need to do so. If work is coming in at a good pace and all the taxes and bills are paid with enough left over for extras, then there is indeed no urgent reason to think about such things. Nonetheless, the insight one can gain from writing a formal business plan may be of great benefit even to a highly successful business. And when things get rough or extra funds are needed for equipment and software investments or other things, then a good business plan can make all the difference?
What is a business plan? Good overview descriptions can be found on Wikipedia and elsewhere. Put simply, a business plan is a statement of goals, the reasons why you think they are relevant and the plan for achieving them. There are no rigid rules for the content, but plans usually include an analysis of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to the business (aka SWOT analysis) and background on the businesses personnel and other resources. Depending on the purpose of the business plan, financial data (such as profit and loss statements) may be included.
If you are an agency owner with an incorporated business, a number of employees, large cash inflows and outflows, etc. this is possibly all rather familiar. Freelance translators, however, are probably less familiar with the subject. In the country where I live (Germany), it may have been necessary for a freelance translator who used funding from the German federal employment agency for business startups to write a business plan, but even then, many people let their accountants write a minimal plan and scarcely give it a glance. A good business plan, however, is not a one-off effort at the start of a business or just a dog-and-pony show to fool a bank into giving a loan. It is a tool to help you understand your business in its past and present state and to plan where it should be going and how to get there.
Freelancer scenarios
Some specific cases where business plans are of value to a freelance translator might include:
starting the business where funding may be needed for equipment and software
investments in new technology (such as servers or upgraded licenses) for an ongoing business
a loan for building an addition to a home to provide separate office space
detailing possible cooperation with other businesses to form partnerships, etc.
planning a move "up market" to increase the quality of one's customer base
(… fill in your own business quandary to solve here)
A business plan can be a good focus of discussion when taking advice from consultants, your tax advisor or a business mentor. It is another way of showing your professional seriousness and is treated accordingly by lending institutions among others.
My business plans
My first foray into written business planning was many years ago when I was in the process of planning a spin-off from an existing consulting business, and it was necessary to define in detail the responsibilities and ownership shares for each partner in the new business. A lot of the writing at that time was handled by attorneys and my partners with my occasional review and commentary, and I must admit I didn't learn much more than keywords for the whole process. Even creating some educational software on the subject years before that hadn't taught me a lot: there is a world of difference between reading about something and actually doing it.
My first business plan for which I can claim full credit was written in the months during which I planned my transition from a wage slave in my newly adopted country back to an independent businessperson. At first my intention was to qualify for the "transition funding", but I soon found the process so informative and valuable for shaping my future that I continued to develop the plan even after I was told that as a foreigner with only a few months left on his residence visa I didn't qualify. It was sort of like brainstorming, and it opened my eyes to a lot of resources that I had not been consciously aware of before. I ran my freelance translating business according to the plan for the first two years and got off to a very good start.
A few years later I had merged my business with another translator, we were thinking of hiring one or more employees for back office tasks and also considering buying or building a house with enough room for living and business. There were many, many things to consider, bank officers to convince and potential employees to inform of how we work and why and what their roles should be. Once again, time invested in updating the business plan was well spent, and we were surprised to find that our business was better and our risks lower than we had assumed.
Business plan outline
There are numerous free outlines available for writing business plans; I started with one of these from the web site of a local chamber of commerce. There are commercial web sites that are ready and willing to sell you a plan for $30 or so, but I think the free samples are a good enough starting point for most people. Take the template and adapt it to fit your business. The outline that eventually developed for our business plan looked something like this:
0 Summary
0.1 Goals
0.1.1 Objectives of the business plan
0.1.2 Objectives of the company
0.2 Success factors
0.3 Status and plans
1 The company
1.1 Areas of activity
1.2 Legal structure
1.3 Personnel and organization
1.3.1 In-house personnel
1.3.2 External personnel (freelance, consultants, etc.)
1.4 Professional organizations
1.5 Location and technology
2 Market and competitive situation
2.1 Unique selling points of the company
2.2 The domestic and international translation market
2.3 Customers
2.3.1 Customer list (as of )
2.3.2 Classification of the customers
2.3.3 Distribution of business from the customers
2.4 Advertisement
2.4.1 External web sites
2.4.2 Our Internet presence
2.4.3 Participation in newsgroups, online forums, etc.
2.4.4 Future plans for advertising development
3 SWOT analysis
3.1 Strengths
3.2 Weaknesses
3.3 Opportunities
3.4 Threats
4 Finances
4.1 Current situation
4.1.1 Overview of fiscal years XXXX and YYYY
4.1.2 Business accounts
4.2 Desired situation
5 Administration
5.1 Authorized signatories
5.2 Technical tools for management
5.3 Pricing and quotations
6 Insurance policies
6.1 Professional liability, etc.
6.2 Other
7 Business development plans 200X-200Y
7.1 Location:
7.2 Continuing education and qualification
7.3 Internal technical infrastructure
7.4 Cooperative projects
7.5 Other
Appendix 1: Resumes
Appendix 2: Online profiles & Internet site (page printouts)
Appendix 3: Profit & loss statements
Appendix 4: Partnership contract
Appendix 5: Customer letters, certificates, etc.
Appendix 6: Insurance documentation
Appendix 7: Hardware, software, and reference inventories
This outline structure is by no means optimized; it is presented merely as an example. But it should give you some idea of how a business plan for a small translation partnership might look.
Filling in the details
This is the hard part, of course, but this is where you really get to know the "hidden" aspects of your business. Details for my business plan were drawn from many sources. My accounting software provided some nice, easy-to-understand graphs about the earnings from my top customers (showing the spread of risk); ProZ charts for rates showed the relationship of my rates to others working the online market; web statistics showed how many hits my web sites received and how these might relate to other activities like published articles, courses taught, etc. How much time and effort you invest here will depend on how you plan to use the business plan. You might very well have different plans with different levels of detail for various purposes.
Conclusion
Writing a business plan can be hard. And, unlike translation work, nobody pays you to do it – or do they? I firmly believe that the clearer understanding you gain from a well-formulated plan helps you focus and work better, identify weaknesses in your business (oh gee – maybe I need written terms and conditions for my customers!) and correct them, explain your business to people who may need to understand it (really, Uncle Moneybanks, I can repay that home loan!) and overall become more professional in planning and performing your work.
By Kevin Lossner
I suspect that most of us in the business have never written a formal business plan nor seen the need to do so. If work is coming in at a good pace and all the taxes and bills are paid with enough left over for extras, then there is indeed no urgent reason to think about such things. Nonetheless, the insight one can gain from writing a formal business plan may be of great benefit even to a highly successful business. And when things get rough or extra funds are needed for equipment and software investments or other things, then a good business plan can make all the difference?
What is a business plan? Good overview descriptions can be found on Wikipedia and elsewhere. Put simply, a business plan is a statement of goals, the reasons why you think they are relevant and the plan for achieving them. There are no rigid rules for the content, but plans usually include an analysis of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to the business (aka SWOT analysis) and background on the businesses personnel and other resources. Depending on the purpose of the business plan, financial data (such as profit and loss statements) may be included.
If you are an agency owner with an incorporated business, a number of employees, large cash inflows and outflows, etc. this is possibly all rather familiar. Freelance translators, however, are probably less familiar with the subject. In the country where I live (Germany), it may have been necessary for a freelance translator who used funding from the German federal employment agency for business startups to write a business plan, but even then, many people let their accountants write a minimal plan and scarcely give it a glance. A good business plan, however, is not a one-off effort at the start of a business or just a dog-and-pony show to fool a bank into giving a loan. It is a tool to help you understand your business in its past and present state and to plan where it should be going and how to get there.
Freelancer scenarios
Some specific cases where business plans are of value to a freelance translator might include:
starting the business where funding may be needed for equipment and software
investments in new technology (such as servers or upgraded licenses) for an ongoing business
a loan for building an addition to a home to provide separate office space
detailing possible cooperation with other businesses to form partnerships, etc.
planning a move "up market" to increase the quality of one's customer base
(… fill in your own business quandary to solve here)
A business plan can be a good focus of discussion when taking advice from consultants, your tax advisor or a business mentor. It is another way of showing your professional seriousness and is treated accordingly by lending institutions among others.
My business plans
My first foray into written business planning was many years ago when I was in the process of planning a spin-off from an existing consulting business, and it was necessary to define in detail the responsibilities and ownership shares for each partner in the new business. A lot of the writing at that time was handled by attorneys and my partners with my occasional review and commentary, and I must admit I didn't learn much more than keywords for the whole process. Even creating some educational software on the subject years before that hadn't taught me a lot: there is a world of difference between reading about something and actually doing it.
My first business plan for which I can claim full credit was written in the months during which I planned my transition from a wage slave in my newly adopted country back to an independent businessperson. At first my intention was to qualify for the "transition funding", but I soon found the process so informative and valuable for shaping my future that I continued to develop the plan even after I was told that as a foreigner with only a few months left on his residence visa I didn't qualify. It was sort of like brainstorming, and it opened my eyes to a lot of resources that I had not been consciously aware of before. I ran my freelance translating business according to the plan for the first two years and got off to a very good start.
A few years later I had merged my business with another translator, we were thinking of hiring one or more employees for back office tasks and also considering buying or building a house with enough room for living and business. There were many, many things to consider, bank officers to convince and potential employees to inform of how we work and why and what their roles should be. Once again, time invested in updating the business plan was well spent, and we were surprised to find that our business was better and our risks lower than we had assumed.
Business plan outline
There are numerous free outlines available for writing business plans; I started with one of these from the web site of a local chamber of commerce. There are commercial web sites that are ready and willing to sell you a plan for $30 or so, but I think the free samples are a good enough starting point for most people. Take the template and adapt it to fit your business. The outline that eventually developed for our business plan looked something like this:
0 Summary
0.1 Goals
0.1.1 Objectives of the business plan
0.1.2 Objectives of the company
0.2 Success factors
0.3 Status and plans
1 The company
1.1 Areas of activity
1.2 Legal structure
1.3 Personnel and organization
1.3.1 In-house personnel
1.3.2 External personnel (freelance, consultants, etc.)
1.4 Professional organizations
1.5 Location and technology
2 Market and competitive situation
2.1 Unique selling points of the company
2.2 The domestic and international translation market
2.3 Customers
2.3.1 Customer list (as of )
2.3.2 Classification of the customers
2.3.3 Distribution of business from the customers
2.4 Advertisement
2.4.1 External web sites
2.4.2 Our Internet presence
2.4.3 Participation in newsgroups, online forums, etc.
2.4.4 Future plans for advertising development
3 SWOT analysis
3.1 Strengths
3.2 Weaknesses
3.3 Opportunities
3.4 Threats
4 Finances
4.1 Current situation
4.1.1 Overview of fiscal years XXXX and YYYY
4.1.2 Business accounts
4.2 Desired situation
5 Administration
5.1 Authorized signatories
5.2 Technical tools for management
5.3 Pricing and quotations
6 Insurance policies
6.1 Professional liability, etc.
6.2 Other
7 Business development plans 200X-200Y
7.1 Location:
7.2 Continuing education and qualification
7.3 Internal technical infrastructure
7.4 Cooperative projects
7.5 Other
Appendix 1: Resumes
Appendix 2: Online profiles & Internet site (page printouts)
Appendix 3: Profit & loss statements
Appendix 4: Partnership contract
Appendix 5: Customer letters, certificates, etc.
Appendix 6: Insurance documentation
Appendix 7: Hardware, software, and reference inventories
This outline structure is by no means optimized; it is presented merely as an example. But it should give you some idea of how a business plan for a small translation partnership might look.
Filling in the details
This is the hard part, of course, but this is where you really get to know the "hidden" aspects of your business. Details for my business plan were drawn from many sources. My accounting software provided some nice, easy-to-understand graphs about the earnings from my top customers (showing the spread of risk); ProZ charts for rates showed the relationship of my rates to others working the online market; web statistics showed how many hits my web sites received and how these might relate to other activities like published articles, courses taught, etc. How much time and effort you invest here will depend on how you plan to use the business plan. You might very well have different plans with different levels of detail for various purposes.
Conclusion
Writing a business plan can be hard. And, unlike translation work, nobody pays you to do it – or do they? I firmly believe that the clearer understanding you gain from a well-formulated plan helps you focus and work better, identify weaknesses in your business (oh gee – maybe I need written terms and conditions for my customers!) and correct them, explain your business to people who may need to understand it (really, Uncle Moneybanks, I can repay that home loan!) and overall become more professional in planning and performing your work.
[Translation] Dealing with Quality Issues on the Translation Process
Dealing with Quality Issues on the Translation Process
By Manuel Martín-Iguacel
The following is just a quick overview and not an exhaustive analysis.
Premise:
It is an imperative key principle not only to fulfil the customer’s needs but also to exceed their expectations so that they are happy and willing to create a long-lasting working relationship. In order to make this possible, we should address the quality issues in the most effective way.
There might be several reasons for explaining common quality issues. These are listed at random below.
1. Guidelines/instructions factor
Unclear guidelines and/or instructions regarding terminology and terminological priorities. Sometimes instructions are unnecessarily long and yet the same time not so informative. They contain references to “old battles” (issues), which do no longer apply and take an awful lot of space. Obviously, this may discourage many translators from reading on further. I am, personally, in favour of providing the translator with long initial instructions for reference only at the beginning of the project/collaboration and then providing them with short and concrete updates containing relevant information related to the potential issues in the future.
2. Time factor: Unrealistic or extremely tight deadlines.
They (the final clients) always want unrealistic deadlines: “I want it for yesterday”. Well, unfortunately this is they way it is, but it does not mean it is the way it should be. The truth is that very few final clients bother to try and understand the fact that the translation process, when carried out properly and professionally, must take a bit longer than just a tiny while.
3. Translator factor
Sometimes so-called experienced translators are just very enthusiastic junior translators with no proven track record or an unfinished educational background, i.e. they are not so experienced at all in the end.
Cheap translators are a very inviting and dangerous temptation. We all know that quality demands a price! Trying to save money at the initial stage (the translation itself) proves to make the whole localisation process in the end more expensive.
4. Project size factor (huge projects) – Teams of translators
When too many different translators work simultaneously on the same huge project, this endangers its consistency, accuracy and quality. This is a very common practice due to the commonly so unrealistic/extremely tight deadlines of huge size projects. If this working procedure is applied, then: 1. the use of common basic reference material and 2. a very thorough proofreading stage are absolutely vital.
5. Sub-contracting factor
Some translators might, illegally, sub-contract projects or parts of them assigned by a specific agency to third parties. If a translator wishes to sub-contract any work, this must be agreed to and permitted by that agency. Also, before delivery, the translator should always read the translation s/he has commissioned to a different translator in order to make sure it complies with the expected/desired level of quality.
6. Source text factor
Last but not least, the style and composition of the source text is quite often far from consistent and clear. The authors are experts on engineering, automotive, trucks, backhoe loaders, information technology, intelligent software, etc., but for whatever reason they do not have the time to write properly or they simply do not care. It is quite common to see the use of different words and expressions for the same concept, technical part, etc. Also, the construction of the sentences is too complex or unnecessarily long. To be fair with the technical authors, I must admit that they also experience time constraints, which obviously affect the final result in the negative way that everyone involved in the translation business has already noticed. Furthermore, sometimes the alleged source is also a translation, which raises unnecessary problems, leading to confusion and generating potential issues and queries.
Suggestions:
The ideal translation process I try to implement, by all means wherever is possible, is pretty comprehensive:
Translation + two Proofreading stages (un/formatted) + DTP format check
Initial and continuous reward to good/consistent and punctual translators is better than later punishment to not so good translators.
Giving frequent and positive feedback to the translators is as good and important or even better than only giving not so good feedback when it is too late...
Unfortunately it is quite difficult to find the time to send any feedback at all, unless something goes pretty wrong (there is a catastrophe…). This practice, however, should be established. It would contribute to creating and strengthening a bond between the agency and the translators/proofreaders, who would feel closer and more willing to deliver good work to the agency.
The practice of providing the translator with the formatted source text for reference has proven (to be) very useful, also as a potential problem-solving strategy.
Communication with the client.
It is essential to get the client used to maintaining an active channel/line of communication.
Frequent and quick feedback from the client concerning the translators’ queries can speed up considerably the translation and correction processes. It can also be helpful to share the queries generated by different the translators of different languages, when multilingual projects.
Educating the final client.
This is almost a “mission impossible”, but it might be a serious option to consider. Making the client aware that 1. the translation process and 2. a high quality final product requires reasonable deadlines to be properly and professionally implemented. Otherwise, and we all know that, the consequences can be fatal. Murphy is a quite hyperactive kind of guy and does not need much sleep.
Good luck!
¡Hasta la vista y saludo!
By Manuel Martín-Iguacel
The following is just a quick overview and not an exhaustive analysis.
Premise:
It is an imperative key principle not only to fulfil the customer’s needs but also to exceed their expectations so that they are happy and willing to create a long-lasting working relationship. In order to make this possible, we should address the quality issues in the most effective way.
There might be several reasons for explaining common quality issues. These are listed at random below.
1. Guidelines/instructions factor
Unclear guidelines and/or instructions regarding terminology and terminological priorities. Sometimes instructions are unnecessarily long and yet the same time not so informative. They contain references to “old battles” (issues), which do no longer apply and take an awful lot of space. Obviously, this may discourage many translators from reading on further. I am, personally, in favour of providing the translator with long initial instructions for reference only at the beginning of the project/collaboration and then providing them with short and concrete updates containing relevant information related to the potential issues in the future.
2. Time factor: Unrealistic or extremely tight deadlines.
They (the final clients) always want unrealistic deadlines: “I want it for yesterday”. Well, unfortunately this is they way it is, but it does not mean it is the way it should be. The truth is that very few final clients bother to try and understand the fact that the translation process, when carried out properly and professionally, must take a bit longer than just a tiny while.
3. Translator factor
Sometimes so-called experienced translators are just very enthusiastic junior translators with no proven track record or an unfinished educational background, i.e. they are not so experienced at all in the end.
Cheap translators are a very inviting and dangerous temptation. We all know that quality demands a price! Trying to save money at the initial stage (the translation itself) proves to make the whole localisation process in the end more expensive.
4. Project size factor (huge projects) – Teams of translators
When too many different translators work simultaneously on the same huge project, this endangers its consistency, accuracy and quality. This is a very common practice due to the commonly so unrealistic/extremely tight deadlines of huge size projects. If this working procedure is applied, then: 1. the use of common basic reference material and 2. a very thorough proofreading stage are absolutely vital.
5. Sub-contracting factor
Some translators might, illegally, sub-contract projects or parts of them assigned by a specific agency to third parties. If a translator wishes to sub-contract any work, this must be agreed to and permitted by that agency. Also, before delivery, the translator should always read the translation s/he has commissioned to a different translator in order to make sure it complies with the expected/desired level of quality.
6. Source text factor
Last but not least, the style and composition of the source text is quite often far from consistent and clear. The authors are experts on engineering, automotive, trucks, backhoe loaders, information technology, intelligent software, etc., but for whatever reason they do not have the time to write properly or they simply do not care. It is quite common to see the use of different words and expressions for the same concept, technical part, etc. Also, the construction of the sentences is too complex or unnecessarily long. To be fair with the technical authors, I must admit that they also experience time constraints, which obviously affect the final result in the negative way that everyone involved in the translation business has already noticed. Furthermore, sometimes the alleged source is also a translation, which raises unnecessary problems, leading to confusion and generating potential issues and queries.
Suggestions:
The ideal translation process I try to implement, by all means wherever is possible, is pretty comprehensive:
Translation + two Proofreading stages (un/formatted) + DTP format check
Initial and continuous reward to good/consistent and punctual translators is better than later punishment to not so good translators.
Giving frequent and positive feedback to the translators is as good and important or even better than only giving not so good feedback when it is too late...
Unfortunately it is quite difficult to find the time to send any feedback at all, unless something goes pretty wrong (there is a catastrophe…). This practice, however, should be established. It would contribute to creating and strengthening a bond between the agency and the translators/proofreaders, who would feel closer and more willing to deliver good work to the agency.
The practice of providing the translator with the formatted source text for reference has proven (to be) very useful, also as a potential problem-solving strategy.
Communication with the client.
It is essential to get the client used to maintaining an active channel/line of communication.
Frequent and quick feedback from the client concerning the translators’ queries can speed up considerably the translation and correction processes. It can also be helpful to share the queries generated by different the translators of different languages, when multilingual projects.
Educating the final client.
This is almost a “mission impossible”, but it might be a serious option to consider. Making the client aware that 1. the translation process and 2. a high quality final product requires reasonable deadlines to be properly and professionally implemented. Otherwise, and we all know that, the consequences can be fatal. Murphy is a quite hyperactive kind of guy and does not need much sleep.
Good luck!
¡Hasta la vista y saludo!
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