Teaching medical translation – an interview with Tzviya Levin Rifkind

[Zoom teaching*]

 

It is an honor but also a challenge to be given the opportunity to teach your skills to others. Tzviya Levin Rifkind, my wife, has just completed teaching a 12-hour enrichment course on medical translation to students in the English-to-Hebrew translation track at Beit Berl College in Israel. Her answers to my questions reveal the skills required to be a professional translation as well as the unique aspects of medical translation.

*           *          *          *           *

What is your background in medical translation?

I worked as a nurse for many years and began translating 23 years ago to earn extra income. I discovered that my broad experience applying medicine gave me a great advantage in translating material on medicine. I have focused on that area ever since.

Which knowledge and skills did you teach the students?

Given that the students have no medical background, I began by defining the word medical, stressing how many domains include medical translation. I then explained some basic terms in medicine so as to gain familiarity with the subject and allow them to identify medical elements that may appear in any type of texts from prose to marketing. I then worked on how to relate to them and avoid common pitfalls when translating less familiar elements. More importantly, the students learned what to do when they are not certain, including seeking solutions and asking questions. I also discussed back translation and transcreation in brief.

How did the students apply this knowledge and practice these skills during the course?

In class exercises, the students actively participated in identifying and solving translation issues, first discussing among themselves in groups and then together as a class. The home tasks involved light or non-medical translation tasks that required them to analyze texts and find solutions for medical translation issues, thus developing not only their translating skills but also their thinking skills.

[Medical terms]

What did the students learn in regards to being a professional translator in general?

They learnt how vital it is read and understand all instructions. Furthermore, the students came to understand the importance of asking questions, whether of the client or any other source, when they are uncertain. The course also brought into focus how attention to details is one of the keys of proper translation. Finally, the students learned to not send work immediately but instead to allow time to conduct proper QA.

How did you find the experience of teaching translation as compared to actually translating?

As a nurse, patient and colleague education were integral parts of my job. Thus, I had experience transmitting knowledge and skills. Today, I often help in translation groups and even voluntarily invest time helping new translator one-on-one. So, teaching was not that different except for having the status of “teacher” with all the attached privileges and duties as well as the requirement to teach at a fixed time and place. I have to admit that teaching through Zoom was a new and challenging experience.

*           *          *          *           *

Also being an educator, I can attest that teaching is a form of learning, probably the most intense but also the most satisfying. Sharing knowledge and enriching others creates a great feeling of contribution while also, most curiously, broadening the perspective of teachers themselves. I am sure that both Tzviya and her students were enriched by this course.

* Captions provide the blind with full access to the Internet. Pictures from Pixabay.

Worthiness – Freelancers and Fraudulent Syndrome

 

[Skeleton soldier*]

You show up at a conference or participate in a Zoom meeting and strive to put your best foot forward and sound successful. However, not far below the surface, seemingly obvious to everybody else, you think to yourself – "What am I doing here? – Do I belong here? – These people are true professionals, not like me." These are classic symptoms of the fraudulent syndrome and are experienced by numerous professionals, especially freelancers, not only in the beginning of their career but for many years. I first had this feeling when I attended my first conference and only filed it away a few years ago. The impact of a sense of inadequacy is not only emotional but financial. Freelancers in particular market (some would say “sell”) themselves more than their services as the quality of the latter will only be known after the initial project is completed. Therefore, entrepreneurs must work through the challenge and change their self-value to from negative to positive if they want to build a proper customer base.

[Half-full cup of water]

The cup – half full or half empty

Low self-esteem is not the only trigger for a sense of inadequacy. In reality, in any given field, a professional will find colleagues that are better in one or more aspects. That statement is accurate at all stages of a career. Thus, people can only control how they view the situation. In my opinion, the following facts are true to one degree or another for 99% of all professionals:

1.       Many of my colleagues earn more money than me but many of them earn less money.

2.      Many of my colleagues can produce a higher quality product or service than me but many produce lower quality work.

3.      Many of my colleagues worry less about income than me but many worry much than me.

4.      Many of my colleagues have more experience than me but many have less.

5.      Many of my colleagues are more recognized than me but many are less.

In other words, the cup is half empty, give or take a few drops. Freelancers can choose to enjoy the success they have achieved and strive to add to it. The relatively greater success of others does not fundamentally detract from the achieved success nor does the size of the group with less achievements eliminate the need for continual improvement. If freelancers, including translators, focus on the liquid, not the air, they can feel pride in their work and, importantly, transmit that confidence when working with customers.

Fake it till you make it

[Happy and sad mask]

Clearly, the vast majority of entrepreneurs do not develop this confidence overnight. It is a continuing process, shorter or longer depending on the circumstances. First, it is natural, especially in the beginning stages of a career, to feel less qualified than your peers. On the other hand, generational differences create reverse inequalities. Younger professionals often have superior knowledge and skill in computers and marketing, for example. Thus, it is important to keep the negative comparisons in perspective. Furthermore, fortunately, people cannot read our thoughts. It is important to project confidence in your ability and skills, hard and soft, as colleagues have a tendency to accept your self-assessment until you prove otherwise. This projection, derogatorily referred to as faking, most curiously becomes natural over time and becomes ingrained. In other words, through achievement, growth and active reinforcement, the projection becomes a reality. Instead of pretending that they belong to a group, confident entrepreneurs “know” that they belong. The alternative, projecting negative skills and potential, does not create any growth. If freelancers work on the belief that they have been personally successful so far, the belief becomes a reality.

[Wily Coyote]

Everything in moderation (including moderation)

Clearly, confidence and arrogance are two different attitudes. The former is a realistic assessment of one’s actual and potential skills while the second is boasting beyond any sense of proportion. For example, when inexperienced translators that are born and raised in Israel state that they can translate doctoral theses from English into Hebrew because they have studied the field of the thesis, I have no problem believing them. However, if they insist that that they can translate into English like a native English speaker, I am very skeptical about the claim and person. Especially in the early stages of a career, do like Theodore Roosevelt suggested and speak softly but carry a bit stick as it is more effective approach. Wile E. Coyote, Genius is not an ideal marketing model.

Human beings are both worthy of respect and often troubled by doubts. Entrepreneurs, especially freelancers, must project the former and work on the latter. They not only can but must strive to overcome the sense of inadequacy and realize their worthiness as professionals in their own right.

* Caption pictures to allow the blind to fully access to the Internet. All pictures via Pixabay.

On advertising, marketing and freelancers

 

[Store marketing flow*]

Most freelancers find advertising and marketing a bit mysterious, confusing and/or disturbing in some way. For this reason, among others, they try to avoid investing in them on a regular basis. In practice, advertising and marketing are two different activities in terms of goal, method and measurement with marketing being a much more practical, effective and affordable for most entrepreneurs.

To explain, advertising is promoting short term sales. It involves exposing a product or service to a specific audience and encouraging immediate action. The customer motivation to buy may be limited time or supply or a notably low price. The promotion, whether in audio or visual form, emphasizes the product and the reason it is advisable to purchase now. Advertising generally involves a short-term, often high, cost. The business owner measures the results by comparing the estimated profit without advertising to the estimated profit attained through promotion, deducting the advertising expense. For example, if a new business advertises a grand opening, a successful advertising campaign would lead to a much larger showup to the event and an increased volume of sales on and around the opening. Likewise, if an established business advertises a product whose inventory it wishes to reduce or eliminate, it is possible to compare volume and profit before and during the campaign. Once the promotion is over, the seller returns to business as usual.

By contrast, marketing emphasizes brand over item. Specifically, it aims to create an identification between a service or product and the provider. As extreme examples, Google, McDonalds and Pampers each invest great effort in creating link between their name and their product, search engine, fast food and diapers, respectively. Marketing campaigns generally lack short term incentives to purchase, including low prices, but instead focus on a positive attribute of the product or company. A name-recognition effort can take on a variety of forms, including media adverts, sponsorship, signing, conferences and talking to your neighbors. The sky is the limit but many forms of marketing only involve investing time, not money. However, successful marketing does involve consistent effort as the fruits of marketing are invisible and slow and require multiple exposure. Simply put, it may take makes months or even years to financially profit from the effort even though the name recognition campaign is actually effective. Large companies can afford to conduct measuring surveys to ascertain the actual effectiveness. Most freelancers must have faith, a necessary attribute in all respects for a freelancer. Successful marketing requires long-term, directed action.

Advertising may be appropriate for some freelancers. For example, an accountant or translator specializing in tax form preparation and translation may try to reach companies and individuals in the first quarter of the year as the tax filing deadline creates a time incentive to purchase their service. Likewise, a recently established site designer or immigration document specialist may be willing to sacrifice short-term profit in order to build a portfolio and reputation. Service providers can reasonably provide large discounts if they are especially efficient in their work. Of course, those entrepreneurs finding themselves with no customers can choose to offer especially low prices choosing to prefer low profit to no income. The issue is trying to raise the prices to normal levels later but that is a long-term problem, a luxury for some people. Thus, for entrepreneurs with short-term goals, an advertising campaign may be worthwhile.

However, for most freelancers, including translators, marketing is the better option in terms of effectiveness and cost. Since most independent business people offer a product or service that is generally only occasionally required, the best method for incoming business is the create a connection between that service or product and the potential provider. To give an example, a customer contacted me this week for a French to English translation after her Masters advisor read a previous post of mine and labeled me as a potential provider of translation should occasion arise. Even more, marketing does not necessarily involve significant financial outlays. For example, business group zoom meetups and telling your hairdresser what your profession are free of charge as are posts in Facebook and other social media. One graphologist posted a simple business sign in her garden and regularly profited from opportunity clients. Marketing does require time to think, create and act. For better or worse, many freelancers had and have far too much free time in the last two years. Marketing is a way of converting that surplus into a future financial profit.

As a trigger to thinking about marketing, I would suggest considering the following questions:

1.       Do people in my local community know what I do?

2.      When I enter my name in Google search, do my profession and contact details appear?

3.      Have other people in my profession in my country and abroad, if relevant, heard of me?

4.      Have my potential customers ever heard of me?

If the answer to any of the questions is negative, it is time to actively think about marketing and then begin an ongoing effort to change the answer to positive. The results probably will not occur immediately. However, in an especially volatile market, all entrepreneurs must consider the question of where they want to be two years from now, keeping in mind that the failure to act is an action in itself. Despite their connotations and the lack of comfort they create for independents, advertising and, even more so, marketing are important options for all freelancers building a long-term future in their business.

* Picture captions open up the Internet to the blind.

Picture credit: Image by <a href="https://pixabay.com/users/megan_rexazin-6742250/?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=image&amp;utm_content=4156934">Megan Rexazin</a> from <a href="https://pixabay.com/?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=image&amp;utm_content=4156934">Pixabay</a>

Transformation by addition – The strange incident of French nouns that were mutated by an adjective

 

[Dog in moonlight*]

Meaning is contextual. In the case of words, the form, position and connected modifiers define their actual significance. As an example, a hot dog can refer to a panting canine  after a long walk in the heat but is a sausage when put in a bun. In some cases, an attached adjective affects a noun to the point of creating a meaning beyond the common, isolated sense of the words. French has several expressions that go beyond the inherent significance of the word.

[Coffee and croissant]

Very common adjectives can have this effect. The word droit means right, as in the direction, in French. However, tout droit, literally “all right”, means “straight”, also the physical direction. The difference is significant if you need to understand directions using the French version of the Waze application. Likewise, in France, a déjeuner is a lunch but a petit déjeuner is not a light lunch but instead breakfast. Given that traditionally lunch is the heavy meal in Paris, the choice of one or the other word affects food expectations. Another example is the term grande école, which is not a large school but instead one of the elite colleges preparing people for leadership positions in France. UC Berkeley, with some 70,000 students, is not a grande école but the École Normale Supérieure in Paris with 2300 students is. Literal translation can be deceiving.

[Goulash]

For some reason, descriptions of women in French can be a bit obscure. For example, your beloved belle-mère, “mother-in-law” in English may not be so pretty. For that matter, your beau-père and belle-soeur, father-in-law and sister-in-law, respectively, are not always so good-looking either. The term femme forte can be used to describe your belle-mère if she is a matriarchal figure but generally is directed at any women that is noticeably overweight. Context and tact are quite important here. On a positive note, your belle-soeur may a sage-femme, which does not imply any great wisdom but merely that she is a midwife. Curiously, bonne femme food can also be prepared by not-so-good hearted women and even by men because it is simple, home-style cooking. The French language has many hidden linguistic minefields.

[3 fork roadsign]

When I tried to find similar phrases in Hebrew and English, two languages in which I have a good vocabulary, I was unable to identify any similar terms. It is possible that equivalent terms are escaping me at this moment. However, I strongly suspect the nature of the languages subtly affects its use of words. English has both an extensive vocabulary and tends to be direct and concrete, even labeling indirect terms somewhat derogatorily as euphemisms and politically correct. For example, any man that stated that he had an expanded forehead would be mocked for making an absurd attempt to avoid saying the word bald. By contrast, modern Hebrew, not biblical Hebrew, is a very young language with a relatively small lexicon, which means it has not had sufficient time for the meanings of words to evolve. The French are the exact opposite, relishing la belle phrase, the beautiful sentence, and willing to sacrifice directness and specificity for the sake of the aesthetics. It seems that the tendency in French is be obtuse creates the ideal environment for the development of abstract connections.

To paraphrase Dinah Washington, from these examples, we can see what a difference an adjective makes. In French at least, it can transform the meaning of its attached noun to the point that the connection becomes a true puzzler. On the bright side, what’s wrong with a good mystery?

* Picture captions expand the Internet to the blind. All images through Pixabay.

Law education, present, past and future – a personal tale

 

[Raspberries in different stages*]

I just successfully completed a semester course on contract drafting from the Concord Law School, an accredited online law institution. It had been more than 30 years since I completed my year of law studies at the University of Oregon and some 17 years since I began working as a legal translator. As a result of this course, I reinforced my opinions about learning and age, my previous career opinions and I best manner of legal writing.

In the spirit the well-known expression, education is somewhat wasted on the youth. I discovered that not only was I able to follow and keep up with complicated material at the “old” age of 60, I actually understood and absorbed it better than I did then. To clarify, my discovery was that my many years of experience translating contracts as well as the immediate need to apply my learning allowed me to achieve more learning. Far from age being a disadvantage, I not only still “have it” but am much a better law student today than I was then. For the record, my average on the course was 86 but the main satisfaction was proving to myself that I was still capable of formal learning.

The course also calmed any doubts I had had about my choice then to not continue law school. I completed the year not on probation. Those that went to law school will understand the significance of that. However, after 3 days, I already understood that I lacked any of the main motivations to become an attorney, specifically, the drive for money, fame or justice. The knowledge I gained from that year helped me greatly in my second career but I do not claim that I knew that at the time. Nothing in life is wasted, including seemingly irrelevant knowledge, but we do not know when we will need it. This course resurrected the mixed feeling of the love of legal theory and language and a lack of interest in actually working as an attorney. As I wrote in a previous post, intuition is generally correct.

Finally, the course material, both that previously known and that new to me, reinforced my belief that legal language in English, like all text in English, can and should be clear and accessible. Steven Erikson wrote that tradition was the last bastion of fools. Clearly, fools did not write legalese but there is no justification today for writing texts that only judges and attorneys can understand. Part of the course involved understanding and rewriting contracts and regulations in such a manner that not only simplified the language while retaining the content but also brought out inconsistencies and omissions in the original text, which had been long lost in the circuitous phasing. With this knowledge, I will confidently apply plain but correct language in my translations and strive to educate other translators that “garbage in, garbage out” is not an effective strategy either for the legal customer or translator. I now am fully certain that legalese can be understandable to lay people without losing precision.

Thus, with no homework this Saturday and feeling “free” just like any student after the end of the semester, I look back on my course on writing contracts with great satisfaction in regards to my understanding then and now. Furthermore, I intend to share my knowledge of the relevant techniques with others at any opportunity. Education is growth at any time of one’s life.

For those interested in more information on plain English in legal writing, I will be giving a 2-hour workshop at the Translation and Localization Conference at the end of September.

* Picture subtles help the blind access the Internet.

Picture credit: Image by <a href="https://pixabay.com/users/elstef-3091248/?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=image&amp;utm_content=5298416">Elstef</a> from <a href="https://pixabay.com/?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=image&amp;utm_content=5298416">Pixabay</a>

Second-cousin languages

 

[Cousins*]

All that glitters is not gold nor do any identical letters make for identical languages. The confusion is not between Spanish and Italian or German and Dutch, languages that evolved sufficiently long ago so as to be immediately distinguishable, but instead between languages that are directly related by history but have only recently (in historical terms) gone different ways.

One example is French from France as compared to that written in Quebec. Clearly, the letters and grammar are identical as are most of the words. However, a deeper analysis would identify some traps for the unsuspecting translator. On the one hand, Quebecois tends to more firmly insist on French roots as compared to English roots in business, e.g., réunion and planification instead of the free French use of meeting and planning. On the other hand, funny Americanisms, such a chien chaud for hot dog, do show up. On a lexical note, French-Canadian meanings can differ, including déjeuner and dîner are breakfast and lunch, respectively, in Quebec as compared to the Parisian petit déjeuner and déjeuner. For more information see https://www.technitrad.com/the-differences-between-french-and-canadian-french-when-translating-professional-documents/ Both customers and translators should confirm the source of the French text.

Hebrew and Yiddish share the same letters but have different vocabulary sources. Hebrew uses roots derived from Hebrew and Aramaic with some more recent English and Russian additions. On a humorous note, I just heard a music judge say “lejamjem”, meaning to have a jam session. By contrast, Yiddish is a localized combination of Hebrew, Russian, Polish and German roots, transliterated into Hebrew applying Yiddish grammar. It was the language that allowed Jews from all over Eastern Europe and Russia to communicate with each other. Clients see the Hebrew letters and assume that the text is in Hebrew. While a non-Yiddish speaker can understand some of the text, it is a language in itself.

My personal bugaboo is Ukrainian. I translate many certificates from Russian and occasionally don’t pay attention to the entire text when quoting. Only upon started the job do I discover that the months of the year are different. Curiously enough, the Ukrainians use a much older system of month names based on agriculture and plants, naming each month for that feature of it. For example, travyen means grass and is the equivalent of May while Syerpen means a sickle and is the equivalent to August.  For a beautiful presentation of the Ukrainian calendar see https://www.ukrainianlessons.com/months/.This is only one of the differences in these two separate languages but it is easy to catch and helps me avoid having to find a Ukrainian translator. Not all Cyrillic languages are created equally.

In the most perfect of worlds, translators would always read the entire document carefully before proposing a price and accepting a job. In reality, there are occasional lapses. As Bregalad the Ent would say, they are occasionally "hasty" and don’t properly check the source text to identify the actual language, creating a solvable but avoidable problem. On the bright side, it does make for a funny story.

* Picture captions allow the blind to access the Internet. 

Picture credit: Image by <a href="https://pixabay.com/users/thevirtualdenise-5804203/?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=image&amp;utm_content=2491047">Denise Husted</a> from <a href="https://pixabay.com/?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=image&amp;utm_content=2491047">Pixabay</a>

Yahrzeit – Thoughts one year after my father’s death

 

In Judaism, the one-year anniversary of person’s death is an important milestone, representing the end of bereavement and a time for contemplation. My father, Melvyn Spector Rifkind, died last year on June 14 (22 Sivan) at the age of 95 from complications from a stroke. Since then, through conversation and filed-away papers, I, his youngest son, have learned much both about him and myself. This deepening understanding of who he was has led me to a greater sense of thanks, appreciation and acceptance.

Thanks: I can thank my father for providing for us financially, instilling important values and preparing us to be adults. While he never achieved his dream financial goal, he made sure that neither my mother nor I and my brother will want of money. He was a brilliant investor to his last days, outperforming industry experts. Careful in his investments, he almost never fell in love with them and knew when to sell. Furthermore, he taught by example that we should work hard, honestly and ethically to advance ourselves and that the means are no less important the goal. Finally, he succeeded in one of the hardest tasks parents have: preparing their children to stand on their own feet. It is painfully ironic that the litmus test of effective parenting is no longer being needed. Children need to learn how to make our own decisions, learn from our errors and accept responsibility. For this education, I am grateful.

Appreciation: I have also learned to appreciate his achievements, modesty and wisdom. My father, like most of his generation, has a difficult childhood, having to deal with poverty, immigrant parents, and World War II.  He succeeded in becoming a journalist and later a top figure in financial public relations and began a new life in Los Angeles with almost no money in his pocket. He fought in the Ardennes (Battle of the Bulge) and Metz, experiences that marked him for life. Yet, he never talked either about his difficulties or his successes. He exemplified that idea that rewards, whether financial or public recognition, are not the goal in life but instead tools to help create a good life for his family and the community. He generously gave to charity but quietly filed away the letters of gratitude he received. The world was not about him but our role in it. Finally, I have discovered how many of my attitudes came from him. He did not believe that people fundamentally change, a bit like Emile Zola, but accepted people as they were, warts and all. His few close friends were intelligent and generous. Without being rude, he chose not share his time with fools and buffoons. I fully understand and agree.

Acceptance: In this year, I have accepted his death and am happy that he died before corona would have completely isolated him from all that he loved. I also know that he was thoroughly familiar with the strengths and weakness of his sons. Our failure to meet his hopes at any given time may have saddened or angered him for a moment, but he moved on and continued to believe in us, never saying "I told you so". He did not try to change us but instead accentuated the positive, as the song goes. I have strived to apply this approach when raising my own daughter. Being similar in nature, I saw many of his shortcomings even while he was alive and viewed them as an essential part of him. However, I now better understand their origin and their place. As Edith Piaf, there is nothing to regret.

 In English, the phrase for deceased people is “May they rest in peace” while in Hebrew it is “May their memory be blessed”. To my father, I can say that you can rest in peace because your memory is blessed.