Mox's Blog is created by Alejandro Moreno-Ramos and depicts the daily life and "adventures" of a somewhat hapless freelancer, (very) loosely based on the author himself, in charmingly simple cartoons. Satirical and fun.
]]>This means I can support a worthy cause, while simultaneously furthering my translation skills. Great!
]]>Today I was informed that I won second place! This means I will get my story published in the NWTN journal and I will receive a book voucher!
Here is my winning entry:
Last year was Cheshire's year of gardens and I was called by Cheshire Council whether I could interpret for a group of German delegates, whom they were planning to show around some of Cheshire's gardens.
We met on a lovely, sunny morning in July outside the Queen's Hotel in Chester, where a coach was waiting for us. There was a representative from Cheshire council and about 10 or 12 people from a North-German Parks and Gardens Association. Our first stop was Arley Gardens, where we were welcomed by a proper English Lord in tweeds. He was a really friendly chap and very accommodating about the fact that an interpreter was present. He showed us around the stately home, the grounds and gardens, explaining the history and the lay out and talking about his family's involvement in the upkeep of Arley House and Gardens, always speaking clearly and distinctly and being open to questions, of which there were a lot. It was a really enlightening and enjoyable visit.
Next stop was Tatton Park. First we had some lunch in what looked like some former stables, with exposed beams - impressive! Then the manager of Tatton Park led us into a conference room for the formal part of the visit. There was one short and one longer presentation and a Question and Answer session afterwards. This was also the most challenging bit as this was about exchanging ideas and discussing of how to better promote and sustain parks and gardens and how to best co-operate across countries. All eyes and ears were expectantly trained at me, but it all went quite well. Afterwards it was time for some more relaxing stuff as the manager showed us around the vast park area with its multitude of trees, hedges, flowers and water features. There was an alpine garden, a Japanese garden and a herbal garden and various installations in celebration of the year of gardens. It was truly stunning. I struggled with the names of some of the more obscure plants, but between us we managed quite well. On the way back in the bus we filled in a questionnaire about the visit to Tatton Park, whereby I translated the questions from English, the group shouted out their answers in German and I wrote them down in English. It was good fun. When we arrived back in Chester at around 6pm everybody thanked me profusely and I got home feeling truly overwhelmed.
This year's venue was the University of Westminster in London, a formidable building dating back to the 1830s. There were 70 people in total, but we split up into smaller groups, working in our specific language combinations. We tackled a variety of texts during the course of the day and it was very interesting to see the different approaches in dealing with difficult passages and even more exhilarating to have your proposed translation approved by others.
I'll be back next year!
]]>I had travelled down to Birmingham the day before, on the 14th of January and stayed in a serviced apartment in walking distance of the exam centre, the University College of Birmingham. I had brought with me a travelcase full of dictionaries, including my new Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, a copy of the "Spiegel" and the "Profil" magazines and a list of law terminology compiled by myself.
On the morning of the 15th I just about managed to get some coffee down, but I couldn't face any breakfast. I walked over to the centre for 9 o'clock, so I had half an hour to spread out all my books and to write my candidate details and language combination on a number of exam sheets. I was the only candidate there to deliver the exam in handwriting, all the others were working on PCs.
The clock for the first paper was started at 9:36 and the next three hours just went by in a concentrated haze. It is very different working in longhand, as you can't go back and delete as easily as on a computer and you have to be a lot more precise about what you are going to put down in word before you actually put it down. I did not do too bad in this first general part and had even plenty of time to read through and make some amendments. But there was more to come...
Lunch came and went and I had to force myself to some fruit and biscuits.
Then the second paper. I chose Business and some business that was! There were several terms I struggled with and I'm afraid my translations are quite a long way off the mark. I also ran out of time and had no time to read it through again. It was good to learn afterwards, that others had felt the same.
For the third paper I chose Law. I actually found myself in a bit of a dilemma here: Law is the subject I have actually most experience in translating and is the one, together with Business, I had prepared for the exam, but when I skimmed through the Science option I thought that that text looked a lot easier to do and so it was "Do I stick with what I know, even thought it seems harder or shall I venture into new terrain and risk it, just because on first sight it seems easier?" Well, you already know the answer. But if it was the right one, I shall only know in three months time...
7 Hours of examination is a lot, but the day just flew by and at the end of it I felt both exhausted and exhilarated and "so tired I could not sleep".
For now it's just "abwarten und Tee trinken!"
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