Ahmed T al-Hamdi (Mr)

• Where do you live/work?

I live in North Manchester. My office is located in the vibrant and historic Deansgate area in Manchester City Centre, United Kingdom.

• Are you a translator or interpreter or both? Which languages do you work with?

I am a certified translator and consecutive interpreter. I provide translation and interpreting from English into Arabic and vice-versa. I work closely with an assistant, translating legal and technical texts, and taking on transcription and subtitling jobs.

• What are your specialist fields?

My specialist areas are legal, business and semi-technical. Please see more specialist areas on my website: https://www.arabictranslatoruk.com/services/translation

What’s the strangest/most interesting project you’ve ever worked on?

A translation of a 433 page book from old Arabic into English. It is a history book of Sudan in the 18^th Century.

• Tell us about a particularly proud moment in your translation/interpreting career so far:

I fondly remember being greeted by Major-General Michael Charlton-Weedy, CBE Chief Executive of Emergency Planning College, Cabinet in York. I had travelled from Manchester to the York countryside very early in the morning. When meeting me at reception he stated, “Thank you very much for the heroic arrival, Mr al-Hamdi.” Major-General Michael Charlton-Weedy was a pleasure to work with and treated me extremely well. Please see his testimonial on my website: https://www.arabictranslatoruk.com/testimonials

 Tell us two reasons why you like being a translator/interpreter:

I find joy in the mental acrobatics of translation, comprehending the source text and enjoying the flow of meaning into the target text. It is a heavenly miracle : “And one of His signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the diversity of your languages and colours. Surely in this are signs for those of ˹sound˺ knowledge.” Holy Qur’an- Ar-Rum Chapter 30: Verse 22. “Then by the Lord of heaven and earth! ˹All˺ this is certainly as true as ˹the fact that˺ you can speak!” Holy Qur’an –Adh-Dhariyat Chapter 55: Verse 23.

Translation: From initially receiving the job to sending the final translation back to my clients, it is a joyful journey. It involves studying the text, checking terminology, translating, proof-reading, discussing ambiguities, finalising the text and delivering the documents. It’s a great pleasure to see an initially stressed client relax once they’ve received their certified translation by Special Guaranteed Delivery post.

Interpreting: It is the pleasure of sharing communication from the mind of a presenter, my mind and the minds of those in the audience. The presenter’s speech, processed in my mind, is verbalised by me and comprehended by the audience. The contented looks on the faces in the audience is an assurance to me and to the presenter that the information is being conveyed.

• Where is the most interesting place where you have lived/visited?

Campus of Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh and Morocco.

In the 1990s I attended the enjoyable NWTN meetings held at the YHA in Castlefield,  Manchester. On approaching the building and enjoying the canal side location, I was full of hope and peace, knowing I’d be greeting many kind friends.

My visits to the British Council in al-Waziriyah, Baghdad during the 1970s  are very precious memories, as I thoroughly enjoyed the civil and cultural setting of the British Council Library, with its valuable language, linguistics, literature books, and research papers. The film screenings, theatre and musical performances held at the Hall of British Council in Baghdad were the happiest cultural events I ever attended, and they helped form the foundation of my competence of English and British culture. 

• What are your plans for professional development or a new field you’d like to work in?

I published translations of literary, history, psychology and children’s books, and am looking to focus on book translation in the future.

• Tell us something not many people know about you:

I look at life through the eyes of the Lord. I always ask myself if the deed I am about to do satisfies the Lord or not. I receive my heavenly guidance through the heavenly holy books; the Holy Qur’an, the Holy Bible and the Holy Torah.

I write, recite and translate Arabic and English poetry. On 17^th July, 1986, I performed a public poetry recital in English of translations of poems by modern Arab poets in Covent Garden in London. I was interviewed by Mrs Leila al-Tami of BBC Arabic Service at this event. Please see details of my translated poems “Songs of Life” on my website: https://www.arabictranslatoruk.com/publications

The post Member Monday presents: Ahmed T al-Hamdi appeared first on North West Translators' Network.

Translation Rates and Inflation / CAT Tools and Discounts / AI, Machine Translation and Post-Editing / Changing Our Working Methods / Full and Light Editing / Light Editing Into or Out of Our Mother Tongue / Offering Multiple Languages or Specialising in One Language Combination Only

Translation Rates and Inflation

What do you think our industry will bring for 2024?  Judging by numerous posts I’ve read on the various social media platforms and many conversations I’ve had with colleagues over recent weeks, 2023 was probably the most challenging year in terms of turnover to date for many of us.  This year, in 2024, I’ll be celebrating 30 years in business as a Dutch<>English translator, and although I’m very proud of my achievements over the past three decades, it’s quite depressing to think that my income has steadily decreased since entering the 21^st century!  Comparing my source word rate for agency clients in Europe between the 2000s and the past few years, my base rate has seen a net drop of as high as 17%, i.e. invoice amounts have decreased by a staggering 17% in euros since 20 years ago.  This doesn’t even take into account inflation or the rise in the cost of living, investments in technology and CPD commitments.

CAT Tools and Discounts

At the start of the 21^st century, productivity gains and time savings could still be achieved through the use of CAT tools and we were free to choose our preferred CAT tool and the way we organised our work.  In recent years, many agencies have started to dictate which CAT tool we should use or they have moved their translation operations to online platforms for us to work on in real-time using their terminological databases on their systems.  More and more of our translation work is pre-translated by CAT tool leverage so, where in the past we used to be paid for both the easy and the difficult parts of a text, we are now only dealing with the harder parts of the text.  Our time spent on research is the same, but our earnings have considerably decreased.  Plus, client databases often contain many errors and inconsistencies as they do not appear to be properly maintained by knowledgeable translators or revisors, yet these incorrect segments are still included as fuzzy matches leading to discounted rates, with us translators having to spend a lot more time on delivering quality translations for much less pay.

AI, Machine Translation and Post-Editing

Over the past few years, the focus of many discussions in our industry has been on AI, Machine Translation and Post-Editing taking over our profession.  Initially, translators may have been of the opinion that we had nothing to fear, as the quality of MT output used to be rather poor, and editing poor translations was always more time-consuming than doing the translation ourselves in the first place.  However, is this still the case now that technology and database input are constantly improving?  I first subscribed to DeepL about two years ago now and I must say that for translations between Dutch and English, I have found the quality of MT output to be astonishingly good.  I generally use DeepL alongside my own work and often prefer the translations suggested by DeepL to what I came up with myself.

So we’d better get used to it!  AI, Machine Translation and Post-Editing are real contenders and here to stay, but rather than posing a threat to our profession, I think we need to embrace all this new technology and make it work for us.  These are exciting times for our industry!

Changing Our Working Methods

Having said that, changing the way we work can be painful and will require changes in our attitude and our way of thinking so we can learn new skills.  This applies not just to us, but to agency owners and their PMs too.  Take post-editing for example.  One agency prescribes the process for post-editing as follows:
a) Read the target segment;
b) Read the source segment;
c) Check that the meaning conveyed is the same;
d) Does the MT definitely need changing or are these preferential changes?;
e) Change the MT accordingly.
However, according to the RWS Post-Editing Certificate training material, the steps to follow are:
a) Always read the source segment first and identify anything you’re unsure about;
b) Look at the MT output and see how close it is to the translation you had in mind;
c) Make the necessary corrections to the translation using the MT output as a basis;
d) Reread the target segment and compare it against the source segment and make any final changes if necessary.

Full and Light Editing

And then there is the distinction between the different levels of editing, i.e. Full or Light Editing and their respective rates of pay.  I would equate Full Editing with what we used to call Translating for Publication Purposes, and Light Editing with Translating for Information Purposes.
Again, the RWS Post-Editing Certificate training material prescribes the following for Light Editing:
a) Only correct critical or major errors for mistranslations, omissions/additions;
b) Check client-preferred terms against the client glossary at the end;
c) Do not correct mistakes in grammar and spelling unless they affect the meaning;
d) Do not correct errors in consistency, style, country standards, register or tone.
For most translators, Light Editing will be a shock to the system as it goes completely against our instincts and what we have always been told to do.

Light Editing Into or Out of Our Mother Tongue

So, what does Light Editing mean for translators and agency owners and their PMs?  If mistakes in grammar, spelling, consistency, style, country standards, register and tone are supposed to be left untouched and only critical and major errors and client-preferred terminology need correcting, who will be the best professional to do this: someone who is a native speaker of the source language or of the target language?  In my opinion, this will bring a shift of emphasis in favour of the importance of the source language.  The editor should have a perfect command of the source language to understand all the specific nuances.  Whereas agencies in the UK have always insisted that translators should translate into their mother tongue only, I feel that, for light editing, editors should be working out of their mother tongue to be able to pick out all critical and major errors.

Offering Multiple Languages or Specialising in One Language Combination Only

What this means for translators is that rather  than having multiple languages to work out of into our mother tongue, I believe we will be better off specialising in one language combination to reach native or near native language competence in the one foreign language and our own.  So, someone who completed a degree in one or two foreign languages, where they studied another language from scratch for a year, may have been translating from all their foreign languages into their mother tongue for years.  However, is their command of the language they learned from scratch for a year going to be sufficient to carry out light editing, i.e. will they be able to pick out all the critical and major errors?  For Dutch into English translations, the Dutch will generally have little faith in English native speakers having a thorough enough understanding of the Dutch language to be able to do a light editing job and they will insist on having a Dutch person carry out these jobs.  Will the same apply to the languages you work with?  What will this mean to you and your future in the industry?  How can you prepare for this?  Should you specialise in your strongest language combination to futureproof yourself?  Hopefully, this has given us all some food for thought.  If you have any comments to add to this debate, it will be great to hear from you!

Nicole van den Wittenboer, Interpreter, Translator, Dutch<>English

The post INTO OR OUT OF OUR MOTHER TONGUE? appeared first on North West Translators' Network.

Written by Roz Howarth –

Rose Jenkinson (née Oakes) sadly passed away in August 2023, following a two-year battle with bowel cancer. She is survived by her husband, Russ, and her two young daughters Iris and Amy.

I first met Rose in Chester at a Translators’ Powwow event organised by Michaela (Pschierer-Barnfather) at around the time of International Translation Day in 2008. The three of us were the only ones there, so we had a good chat and got to know each other.  I learned that Rose was a French and Spanish to English translator, and a Spanish<>English interpreter. I told Rose and Michaela about the NWTN, and they both joined soon after.

At the time, I was the NWTN Events Organiser. When I had to leave the NWTN committee in 2011, as I was having my first baby, Rose kindly stepped in to take my place.

Rose and I attended a soirée held by one of our regular clients in Paris, in June 2019. After being invited to the annual event several years running, we finally decided to bite the bullet and get on a plane! We had an amazing time, spoke lots of French, ate lots of fabulous food and drank a little too much champagne. We had such a great time in fact that we resolved to go back again the following year. Little did we know that due to the pandemic and subsequent events, that would be our one and only trip to Paris.

Over the years, Rose and I became good friends, and we would meet up regularly with Michaela, and at translation and interpreting events including the annual dinner, and the biannual ITI conference. When she couldn’t attend the Brighton ITI Conference in 2022, it felt very strange to me not having her there, and I felt quite lost without her.

I have so many good memories of meeting up with Rose, at walks, meals, afternoon teas and co-working events to name but a few. Our last event together was a lunch and tour organised by the NWTN in May 2023, at the RHS gardens in Manchester. It was a beautiful sunny day.

Rose was a lovely, kind, unassuming person and always willing to be flexible. She always put others first, a point that was raised at her funeral on 11^th September. Rose was a valued family member, friend and colleague to many. I realised the extent of this when I saw how many people had come to pay their respects at her funeral.

When I last saw Rose, at the beginning of the month in which she passed away, she kindly gave me some of her translation reference books and dictionaries, which I will treasure. She was kind and selfless to the end. I will really miss her.

Rose’s family would be very grateful of any donations to their chosen charities Penny Brohn UK and Bowel Cancer UK:

https://www.justgiving.com/page/russell-jenkinson-1693996250867

www.bowelcanceruk.org.uk/donate

by Roz Howarth

The post Rose Jenkinson 1981-2023 appeared first on North West Translators' Network.