It’s hard to believe we’re halfway through the year already, but seeing as how we’re already approaching the midway point, it seems like a great time to catch up as a community and discover what kind of projects 2021 has brought for all of you. This time, we’d like to hear about any interesting sidelines that you’ve been working on, and particularly any unusual projects that you’ve been involved with this year, both within and outside of translation.
Translators are, by definition, natural writers, so we’d love to hear about any writing projects that you’ve been involved with in any language, and we’d also like to know whether you pursue any other activities that could broadly be described as ‘creative’, such as music, dance, or photography. Or perhaps you’re a secret designer, you teach languages, or you have another skill that not everybody knows about? Even if it’s something that you think is silly, it will surely be interesting to an audience that’s not familiar with it, so please don’t be shy about sharing!
We’ve always been struck by how many talents our translator community has, and by how easily you can all turn yourselves to an incredibly eclectic set of activities. Whatever you’ve been working on this year, please do feel free to discuss it! We’d love to hear which creative projects 2021 has brought for you!
17 comments
I think we'll all find your activities interesting and inspiring, Astolat! Trading and translation - what a combination! Thanks for getting the conversation going, and best of luck with the Finnish studies :D
The town I live in Japan was designated by the government as a Regional Circular and Ecological Sphere, and I attended town meetings on the issue, where I found that most of the attendees recognized it as just circulating more money in the region. Having been a student of ecological economics and being a practitioner of permaculture, I thought that was far from SDGs, so I decided to translate Charles Eisenstein's "Climate - A New Story" into Japanese. Striating in March last year, it took me almost a year to complete the whole book, on a purely voluntary basis. I made a printed copy and brought it to the town office, hoping to reach the Mayor. Here's the link to the translation. It's open to everyone based on the Creative Commons License, just the same as the original text. https://note.com/taikoen/n/nab63af24d1c4
I picked up quite a few new hobbies since the pandemic began, including getting really into tea and skincare, but one of the more creative ventures I've taken on is crocheting amigurumi dolls. I'd never picked up a crochet hook before purchasing a pattern of one of my favorite characters from the Animal Crossing video game series (Coco), and I taught myself how to do it as I went. It took 35 hours to complete and there are a lot of mistakes, but I'm onto my next doll and I can already tell I'm learning from my mistakes. I'd definitely recommend it for anyone who likes making homemade gifts for friends and family or who likes having cuddly things around!
These are all fantastic activities!
Yasuyuki Sakai - I'm humbled that you managed to translate 'Climate - A New Story' in less than one year. I checked on Amazon and the English-language version of the book is showing as having 352 pages, so I think it's fantastic that you were able to complete it all in such a short space of time - and on a voluntary basis, too. I checked the link that you sent and although I can't read Japanese, your page looks beautiful. I'm sure that those members of our community who do know Japanese would be very curious to read the words of one of their fellow translators. Very good work!
Yocom.Emily - I looked up amigurimi dolls on Google Images, and they look so beautiful. Again, I'm amazed you managed to complete one in only 35 hours. I'd love to get into this as well. I always think that one of the nice things about working on any kind of art projects is having something to show for it at the end - or to give to other people, like you say. I never knew that dolls had patterns, but you learn something new every day!
By the way, if anyone wants to share pictures of anything that they've created (or even just of something cool), please don't hesitate to use the picture icon at the top of the text box to upload an image. No pressure, though!
My own hobby of the moment is photographing street art in Belfast, where I live. I found this amazing mural a couple of weeks ago:
Please keep letting us know about cool things you've been involved in! It's so interesting to read about everybody's many interests :D
Katrina, what a beautiful photo of a beautiful mural! It must be fun to go around looking for things to photograph.
If you're interested in getting into amigurumi crocheting, I recommend checking out "amigurumi patterns" on Etsy, as well as this YouTube channel full of tutorials: https://www.youtube.com/c/Yarndrasil/videos.
I started learning about stock markets and opened my first trading account. As I believe that India is an emerging economic market and I always wanted to learn the basics of the stock market so I learned about it and started my investments at a small scale and hence I am managing my savings when I am not translating.
Now that the spring semester is over (graduate certificate program in translation), I'm independently studying three self-paced courses: anatomy & physiology, biology and screenreading. The science courses are meant to help prepare me for the day when I will specialize in medical translation. The screenreading course is about learning to be an official reader of scripts (film, television) for producers, actors and screenwriters, providing a review of the strengths and weaknesses in the script. When I'm not doing all that, I try to fit in some genealogy research. I'm a member of DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution) and want to prepare the genealogical data on a second direct ancestor who fought in the Revolution.
Thanks for the question, Katrina! It's very interesting to read about the activities of others.
I actually work full time for an international company, so translating for Gengo is what I do when I'm not working... :-P
I'm a music metadata specialist and my area of expertise is Latin American music. Think of it as a huge database of artists and recordings which we need to keep up to date and which feeds some important music streaming services.
But I'm also a hobbyist musician and, in fact, thanks to Gengo I was able to buy a new bass and amp and I try to practice everyday, polishing my music skills (I spent something like three years without an instrument, so I'm re-learning some things).
Great posts everyone!
Well, Gengo is my main source of income, I really love this Job, and I would like take master in translation, but I also consider myself an artist
I've been drawing since childhood, and a I've been studying university, a career on Graphic Design and Digital Animation, and I've been learning a lot, recenlty I get art comissions, so it's another source of income, really appreciated, after I finish my career I would like to focus on my artistic career, but also, I do really love this job, so I'm not sure if I should take that master in translation.
Anyway here's a little piece I colored recently.
Hello again, everyone!
Once again, I'm blown away by how talented everyone is! I was really excited to find so many interesting comments when I logged on this morning.
yocom.emily - I'm glad you like the mural! It's by a famous street artist called Dan Kitchener (you can find him on Instagram here). I really got into street art after I moved to Belfast because there's a lot of it here, but I think that there are many cities in the world that are famous for street art. Thank you for sending the link to the YouTube channel about crocheting - these videos look really helpful. I always think that a great think about the internet age is that there's almost nothing you can't learn from YouTube these days.
Kashif - I see that you and Astolat are fellow traders! I'm really curious now about the link between translating and trading - I wonder if there's something about the translator mindset that is helpful when looking at data and making analytical choices. Perhaps we should all become traders! I hope that you both make some good investments :)
Kathleen - Again, very eclectic interests! I'm really inspired to hear that you're studying towards working in medical translation - I think that's a great, and really worthwhile, area of expertise, and quite a contrast to the screenreading, though I'm sure there are parallels. I also admire your motivation for keeping up with self-paced studies, since I think a lot of us can fall by the wayside. (My other interest this year is learning Irish, and even though I 'attend' online classes, I do struggle to keep up with it sometimes.)
davy.martinez - A music metadata specialist! That's a very interesting line of work. It must be wonderful to be familiar with so many songs, and to always have an amazing song to call on in every situation. Music can make such a huge positive contribution to our lives. I'm glad that you managed to get the bass and amp, and it must be great to have access to instruments again after a break. I always think it's nice when people work in a certain area and this also forms part of their free-time activities.
Ivan - Thanks for sharing your artwork! I remember that when we were all discussing the best book that we read in 2020, you said that you liked comic books, and you mentioned 'El ombligo de la luna' in particular. Do the comic books that you read help to inspire your artwork? I'm sure we'd all be really curious to learn more about your picture - I know I would. In particular, I wondered what's the significance of the books that they're holding? And also whether your artwork is inspired by Mexico, as you mentioned that 'El ombligo de la luna' was?
It's been such a pleasure to read everyone's comments. Thanks again, and keep contributing!
Since I got retired I have stepped up my translation work, but I still have time for many other things. Among other things, through my Rotary-club, I have been very engaged in the fight against plastic pollution in the oceans for some years now. It all started back in 2017 when a Cuvier's beaked whale stranded in the area where I live. The Bergen University dissected the whale and found some 30 (!) big plastic bags/sheets in its stomach! That became a huge 'wake-up call' for us locally, and later internationally, as this story reached the international news. (Sky news made a big feature of this). I am also involved in some startup companies working on circular bio-economy - we aim to turn organic food waste into fertilizer for microalgae cultivation and the use the microalgae as feed supplement for the aquaculture industry, to replace scarce and non-sustainable soy. As Katrina I also love taking pictures, and I will also post a favourite street art photo that I have taken here - notice that it is all made up of triangles - fantastic! Gunnar
Katrina - Hello, some comics inspire me to write and create my own stories, for my artwork, they inspire me to keep learning and improving my artwork.
The picture represents my best friend and me, we like to discuss about philosophers, their work and how the present events of life can be compared to what some philosophers wrote and said.
The blue rabbit represents me and I'm holding the book "Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime" by Immanuel Kant
and the yellow dog represents my best friend and he's holding the book "The Virtue of Selfishness" by Ayn Rand
I don't consider my art to be inspired by Mexico, but some are inspired by personal experiences in a everyday life in Mexico.
I have started to learn how to sew, a project I have intended to take on for several years now. I finally bought my sewing machine, all the needed tools and started to work on my projects. I love cosplay culture, and intend to sew my own cosplays in the future, as I get better at it.
I also changed my diet and stopped eating meat. This gave me an idea to start a YouTube channel on new vegeterian products available on the market, new "vegetal meats", and help others going through the same journey I am currently on. I'm currently working on developing content to kickstart the channel.
Aside from that, I'm studying 2 new languages, so I will expand my translating skills in the future, as this is, and I believe will remain, my main source of income, as I love so much this job.
Hello everyone!
Thanks to all of you who left comments over the weekend and earlier this week. Again, we have some really interesting activities!
Gunnar - That's great to hear that you're so involved with the environment; I think that's a wonderful and very worthwhile thing to spend free time on. I was really saddened to hear about the whale that stranded, and I wonder whether its consumption of plastic was part of what contributed to it stranding, or whether it was something different. I've heard of whales occasionally making it into the Thames in London and I sometimes wonder whether it's the general disruption to the natural environment that confuses wildlife, as well as probably other factors. I think you would know more about such topics than me, though. The street art that you posted is beautiful, and I don't think I'd have noticed it being entirely made of triangles if you hadn't told us! Street art definitely seems to be becoming more commonplace these days, at least in the limited number of places I've been to recently.
Ivan - Very interesting to know! I always love when people's art has an autobiographical element, and I like how the representations of you and your friend are holding copies of actual published books; a very nice real-life element.
erikacurto - That's great about learning to sew; I always think that must be a wonderful skill to have. And I really admire anyone who runs a YouTube channel - I think it takes real courage and creativity, but I also think it's great when people have a message to share with the world, and I think that one of the good things about social media is that it gives us a platform for all of us to do this. I think a lot of people would be interested in learning more about plant-based living, since this seems to be an increasing trend these days (both among people who are fully plant-based, and those who are trying to reduce their meat consumption). Once you've got your channel up and running, feel free to share it with us (if you want to!)
Thanks to everyone that's left responses so far. I hope you're all enjoying the discussion!
Hi everyone!
It was really interesting to read about everyone's projects and I'm glad to see how translation has allowed us all the flexibility to pursue other activities as well. Thanks for starting this conversation, Katrina!
When I'm not translating (or subtitling), I'm usually practicing my languages, writing book reviews on Goodreads or working on a collection of short stories. This year I've also started Python and Natural Language Processing courses on Coursera and Udemy.
Hello Facundo, I'm glad you've been enjoying the discussion! That's great to hear that you're into subtitling, as that's something that not a lot of people seem to talk about here on the forum. It's fascinating to think about the many challenges that subtitling presents, and how we might overcome these. I also think it's nice that your work as a translator ties in so well with your side projects, since it sounds like you spend a lot of time reading, writing, and using languages. A few months back, we had quite a good discussion going about reading (which you can read here) but it's gone quite quiet now. By the way, if anyone ever has a particular topic that they want to talk about in depth, please don't hesitate to start a new discussion on the forum - you don't have to wait for us.
That's also great to hear about Python and NLP. I like how this thread is seeing so many activities relating to art and so many relating to science, sometimes within the one person's post. Thanks to everyone who's written in so far - and don't hesitate to keep leaving more comments!