Tips 'n' Tools for Translators - current affairs

BDÜ links for refugees and helpers in Germany

nospam@example.com (Carl) — Thu, 24 Dec 2015 21:26:00 +0100

The Bundesverband der Dolmetscher und Übersetzer, or BDÜ for short, is a relatively large professional association for translators and interpreters in Germany and currently has well over 7,000 members. Over the last few months, a number of these members, including the staff who run the body at a regional and national level, have been asking themselves and one another how the BDÜ can help refugees who are now coming to Germany or have already been registered by the authorities and are now living in temporary homes, awaiting a decision on their official status.

In the latest e-mail newsletter sent out to members, one of the points mentioned is what the BDÜ has actually started doing for these needy people now, many of whom are from Syria and other war-torn countries like Eritrea and are applying for long-term residence permits without being able to speak a word of German: it has set up a special page on its national website listing numerous links to language resources of potential use to refugees and their helpers in Germany. Some of these resources are also intended for government authorities to help them interact with refugees and obtain the information they require to deal with applications, for example. So in short, the BDÜ sees its main role as acting as a linguistic and cultural consultant for these three groups of people.

The list of links has been arranged in appropriate categories such as 'General information about life in Germany', 'Learning German', 'Teaching German as a second language' and 'Help for refugees'. The last category includes areas such as interpreters' training on asylum issues and news for refugees in their own languages, as you can see below:

Some of the material listed is available in other languages than German, fortunately. Klett Verlag has produced a refugee guide on living in Germany, which is in English, Arabic and French as well as German, which is a good start in my opinion.

Apart from publishing this list of useful information for the various groups concerned, the BDÜ is also calling on its members to contribute to the Refugee Phrasebook, which is an ongoing project in which a practical phrasebook to help users with basic phrases and terms in German is being compiled with translations in various languages. Words associated with seeing a doctor or being in hospital in Germany are listed here with equivalents in 28 languages, apparently. A juridical phrasebook has just been started on this website as well, which lawyers are contributing to on a voluntary basis.

I wonder what supportive action is being taken by translators' and interpreters' associations in other EU countries affected by the current wave of immigration. What is happening in Greece, Italy and Sweden, for example? What does the umbrella organisation known as FIT have in mind, if anything? If you know of any similar projects outside Germany, please let me know about them.

Regards,

Carl

Related topics

Volunteering with the British Red Cross to work as an interpreter to help refugees

An article from August on ways of helping in the German capital: '10 ways you can help refugees in Berlin'

Volunteering to translate for a good cause, e.g. with Translators Without Borders

Images: logo © BDÜ, screen shot taken from the BDÜ's resources page, 'Hilfe für Flüchtlinge'.

Working for peanuts?

nospam@example.com (Carl) — Wed, 02 Apr 2014 14:31:00 +0200

The other day I happened to stumble across a job advert by SDL plc, a well-known producer of software tools for translators, one of which I reviewed here briefly last autumn. The position was being advertised via monster.de, the big job portal on the internet, and looked as though it was in nearby Munich, which was why it initially caught my attention. It turned out it was actually an internship as an English to German translator. On closer reading, I found that the post was over in Sheffield (in the UK) and that SDL expects the person who is fortunate enough to get the job to work for what I would call peanuts – the National Minimum Wage in Britain, a stunning £6.50 an hour (7.85 euros at today's exchange rate).

Here's the top half of the ad, showing an appealing picture of a young team of professionals around a laptop, presumably to put you in an enthusiastic mood:

Looking at the job description, it sounds like an interesting position for a qualified translator. You would be working with a variety of CAT tools (obviously, since that's what SDL produces) and doing translating and editing work that can be demanding (post-editing machine-translated texts). You'd also have a degree of responsibility because you'd be checking software to find any mistakes or problems with it, testing websites (presumably how well they work) and doing terminological work, which means building up and possibly verifying and editing terms in a terminology database, no doubt for other members of staff (= translators) to use.

You need an educational background in translation or terminology for this job, as SDL specifically requests, and very good skills in two languages as well:

What do you think about this advertisement? My first reaction was one of disbelief; I asked myself why anyone with suitable qualifications should want to undertake work like this for a pittance? After all, it's a full-time position, even if it's only for six months (apparently with no option of being taken on properly afterwards).

Is it reasonable for an employer to expect this kind of work to be done by an intern, do you think? I could understand them offering the internship for a shorter period, say three months, but six seems a bit steep to me under these circumstances. On the other hand, it's become quite common for young people, including recent university graduates, to try and get some work experience in business fields that interest them even if it means them not being paid anything at all – it's the experience that counts for them rather than their earnings. (Think of the media, for example – TV and advertising.) In that respect, this particular position could be regarded as a particularly attractive one since you'd be getting paid all the time in addition to being given the opportunity to learn a lot about modern translation technology.

Still, I must say I find it unsettling to see low-paid positions being advertised that require skills that not everybody happens to have. Although the person's manpower would be tied up for half a year and the work they'd do would benefit the employer's own web marketing, they'd only be offered a token salary. Something's not quite right there, is it?

Carl

Kinofilm über Dolmetscher in Afghanistan

nospam@example.com (Carl) — Fri, 28 Mar 2014 17:04:00 +0100

Seit dem 27. März läuft ein neuer Film über den Einsatz der Bundeswehr in Afghanistan in den deutschen Kinos. Besonders interessant für uns Übersetzer und Dolmetscher ist, dass er die Beziehung eines deutschen Soldaten zu seinem afghanischen Dolmetscher in den Mittelpunkt stellt.

Die Handlung:

"Bundeswehrsoldat Jesper (Ronald Zehrfeld) meldet sich erneut zum Dienst in das krisengeschüttelte Afghanistan und erhält mit seiner Truppe den Auftrag, einen Außenposten in einem kleinen Dorf vor dem wachsenden Einfluss der Taliban zu schützen. Dabei wird der junge Afghane Tarik (Mohsin Ahmady) als Dolmetscher zur Seite gestellt.

Jesper versucht mit Tariks Hilfe, das Vertrauen der Dorfgemeinschaft und der verbündeten afghanischen Milizen zu gewinnen – doch die Unterschiede zwischen den beiden Welten sind groß.

Er steht immer wieder im Konflikt zwischen seinem Gewissen und den Befehlen seiner Vorgesetzten. Als Tarik, der von den Taliban bedroht wird, weil er für die Deutschen arbeitet, seine Schwester in Sicherheit bringen will, geraten die Dinge außer Kontrolle."

Die Regisseurin Feo Aladag realisierte den Film an Originalschauplätzen in Afghanistan.

Der Film ist von aktuellem Interesse, da die deutschen Schutztruppen dieses Jahr – nach mehr als 10 Jahren vor Ort – aus Afghanistan abziehen. Sie hinterlassen ein unbefriedetes Land und zahllose lokale Mitarbeiter, die von den Taliban als Kollaborateure der Besatzungsmächte gesehen werden. Auch lokale Dolmetscher, die für die Bundeswehr gearbeitet haben, stehen jetzt in Gefahr. Manche von ihnen versuchen mit Mühe, nach Deutschland zu kommen, um wieder ein sicheres Leben führen zu können.

Weitere Infos dazu gibt es vielerorts im Internet, u.a. auf der Website der tagesschau und bei arte. Auch Übersetzer- und Dolmetscherverbände wie der BDÜ haben dazu Stellung genommen und gefordert, Dolmetscher aus Afghanistan aus dringenden humanitären Gründen aufzunehmen.

Der Film ist sehr sehenswert. Einen Trailer finden Sie hier.

Carl

Bilder: © Wolfgang Ennenbach / Majestic Filmverleih. Textabschnitte: Pressemappe von Majestic Filmverleih.

In the news: a bogus interpreter

nospam@example.com (Carl) — Thu, 19 Dec 2013 19:26:41 +0100

I wonder how this happened. It's true, but almost seems too outlandish to be real...

At a memorial service for late South African President Nelson Mandela held in Johannesburg just a few days ago (on 10 December), a 34-year-old man who claimed to be a sign-language interpreter stood on the podium next to high-ranking international speakers and proceeded to "interpret" what they were saying so that the deaf community could follow the events. The thing is, it turned out afterwards that what he had expressed with his hands was utter nonsense!

Photo: On the right, the sign-language interpreter "punches the air" beside India's President Pranab Mukherjee as he speaks to a full stadium of mourners during a memorial service for President Nelson Mandela (caption and photo credit: Reuters/Kai Pfaffenbach)

There was quite an uproar among South African viewers and the media reported on the matter as a result. Paul Mashatile, Minister of Arts and Culture, has apologised publicly for the mishap:

"Without passing judgement, nobody should be allowed to undermine our languages. We sincerely apologise to the deaf community and to all South Africans for any offense that may have been suffered."

Fortunately, something good seems to have come of this awful farce. In his statement, Mr Mashatile went on to declare the following:

"We have long recognised the need for the language profession to be reformed and improved. We hope to speedily begin regulating the profession in early 2014 through the South African Language Practitioners' Council Bill, so that this kind of incident doesn't ever happen again."

The South African Language Practitioners' Council Bill was presented to Parliament earlier this year, according to the government announcement, which also explains what it intends to achieve:

"The Bill provides for the regulation of the language profession, it also seeks to regulate the training of language practitioners and provide for control of the accreditation and registration of language practitioners [...] We are confident that the measures in the Bill will go a long way towards elevating the status of the language profession, ensuring that it is properly regulated and that it contributes meaningfully to language preservation and development."

That's certainly good news for professional language practitioners in South Africa. If such people want to be taken seriously and receive adequate pay and recognition for the services they render, they need to obtain adequate professional training that is also reflected in the formal qualifications they acquire. What's more, they need constant practice and ought to keep on acquiring more knowledge in their subject areas throughout their careers ("lifelong learning"/"CPD").

Professional associations can be a big help in this respect, providing they are well organised and focus on meeting international standards among similar groups of professionals, be they language teachers, copy writers, translators or interpreters. Judging by the profile of a South African language practitioner I found on a careers page on the Web, which also provides details of a training institute for translators and a potential government employer, the usual requirements are already in place.

In view of this, it would be particularly interesting to learn how our bogus interpreter actually came to participate in an event of this calibre. Was his engagement intentional? Was he really an experienced interpreter who was simply overwhelmed by the event, as he claims? I doubt it; I don't believe you can keep on getting sign language (or, indeed, any other language) wrong if you really do master it. Perhaps contacts in high places played a role in getting him the assignment, or money did. SA Interpreters, the language company the man apparently worked for, had vanished from the face of the earth when Reuters attempted to get an interview, they say. Well, whatever happened, I'm confident the South African government will vet the language companies it contracts quite carefully from now on, meaning standards will improve.

Carl

News links

Reuters' own report on 12 Dec. 2013

Announcement by South Africa's Minister of Arts and Culture

Related blog posts

Professional associations for translators