The First Stridonium Conference - Cambridge, 2014

We were recently enticed to visit Cambridge, England, by the interesting program of the first Stridonium Conference.

King's College - Cambridge

Anyway, the conference was a good excuse for visiting a bit of England that we had never visited before: we were especially keen on seeing both Oxford and Cambridge.
The event was held at the Møller Centre of Churchill College: a particularly pleasant environment for such a cozy conference, that was intended as a meeting of both translators and people from the world of business and foreign affairs.
There weren't many participants at this first Stridonium conference, but the group, though small, was diverse. There were translators, teachers of translation from several different universities, a few students, some translation company representatives, and people from the world of foreign affairs and business.
The presentations were all of excellent quality:

• Andrew Wood, a solicitor specialized in advising Dutch companies that want to do business in Britain, or British companies that want to operate in the Netherlands, gave a presentation about the importance of being aware of different communication styles when conducting negotiations, as well as various potential problems when translating from a common-law country (such as England) to a civil law one, such as the Netherlands.
• Susannah Poulton, culture and language adviser for UK Trade and Investment, mentioned the difficulties of providing advice to small companies that want to do business abroad, but that don't understand the necessity of planning any translation and language work well in advance, and asked for advice about how to persuade such small businesses that translation, and especially well-planned translation, is very important for succeeding abroad.
• Charles Grant, a foreign policy expert, talked about the real possibility (worst case scenario) that Britain might leave the EU after 2017, following a referendum, and how that might actually finally trigger the secession of Scotland from the UK (and subsequent application of Scotland for EU membership).
• Sir Colin Budd, a retired diplomat and former UK ambassador to the Netherlands, explained why language is key to effective diplomacy, the importance of knowing language and cultural nuances for both diplomats and translators, and how for diplomats (and of course for the translators that help them communicate), knowing, for example, how to be consciously ambiguous is sometimes essential.
• Jeff Heasman, an expert in international business communications, addressed the danger of "Chinese whispers", that is, the danger of unintended bad communication due to the difficulty of understanding overly verbose or complicated documents, advocating instead the use of plain English.
• Christina Guy spoke briefly on the importance of "getting language right", that is, not fall into some of the blunders that amuse translators and cost business real money.
• The conference ended with a four-person panel (consisting of Mr. Wood, Ms Poulton, Jeff Heasman and myself), which fielded questions from the attendees on various aspects of international translation.

  

  The panel: Schiaffino, Wood, Heasman, Poulton

All in all, a pleasant conference, well organized and interesting, well worth going.

Stridonium: an internet community for professional translators

Guest post by Christina Guy

After my guest post of last week, Riccardo asked me to provide a brief description of Stridonium. I'm often asked about the name. It's called Stridonium after the birthplace of Jerome, the patron saint of translators.

Stridonium was set up five years ago with the help of colleagues who were interested in creating a private internet community for professional translators. As you can see from the site’s home page on the site, we aimed to create a place where seasoned professionals and dedicated newcomers could meet to exchange views, seek advice and ultimately to help further the interests of – and hopefully raise standards in – the translation industry.

Basically, we wanted to provide a venue for professional translators to interact in a collegial spirit of give and take, with no advertising and no attempts to sell products or services to members (and no moderators). The decision to make Stridonium a private forum was a conscious one, so that members’ posts lie beyond the reach of Google and other search engines (although because the private nature of the site forbids direct viewing by non-members, we did produce a presentation to give language professionals who are interested in joining Stridonium an insight into the community). It was also a conscious decision to apply relatively strict membership criteria.

Over time, the site has also become a platform for organising a limited number of specialist workshops and lectures and of course the "Business in Communication" conference in March this year. Also for this year, we have organised three lectures by Stuart Bugg (for lawyers, legal editors and specialist legal translators) and we're looking forward to lectures in the autumn given by Jeff Heasman and Mark Childress. We always apply to the ATA and the Dutch translators’ association NGTV for continuing professional development points.

And our latest project (still in its infancy) is to offer the services of our translators individually or in teams. More about that after the conference!

--- O ---

Chartered Linguist Christina Guy is a Dutch to English legal translator and interpreter based in The Netherlands. As a native of the UK with long experience in providing language services in the legal, commercial and diplomatic sectors, she is a passionate advocate of efficient quality. Several years ago, she and other committed language specialists established the translators' forum Stridonium .

The Stridonium 2014 Conference

Guest Post by Christina Guy

First of all, thanks to Riccardo for inviting me to write a guest post about the Stridonium conference in Cambridge this year.

For readers who aren’t familiar with Stridonium, it was set up in 2009 as a venue for professional language specialists. Originally a private site for professional exchange and support for translators, it is now exploring alternatives to further the interests and raise the standards of the translation sector.

Most of the Stridonium site is open to members only, but you can get more information by visiting our Home Page, or our Mission Statement.

The Stridonium 2014 Conference

Communicating in Business – Getting Language Right

Stridonium will host this conference on 24 March 2014 at the Møller Centre in Cambridge.

The aim of the Stridonium conference is to engage with businesses. It will emphasise to an audience of businessmen and language specialists the importance of getting language right and – maybe more importantly – point out the pitfalls of getting it wrong.

When corporations spend so much time, money and effort on texts in their own language, isn't it only logical that they be as meticulous about the quality of communication in other languages?

Unfortunately, as many of us know, that doesn't always follow. Translation in particular is too often an afterthought or an “add-on”, with everything from marketing texts to crucial legal documents being bundled off unceremoniously by a hapless secretary to the first translation agency she can find on Google.

So this conference will help businesses and at the same time raise the profile of quality services as a distinct segment within the language industry. It will emphasise the benefits of giving language higher priority, getting the right language specialists on board and making them a more integral part of the team and the process. With more and more companies trading across borders, this message has never been more important.

Stridonium's initiative has the support of some high-calibre speakers with backgrounds in politics, business and diplomacy, including:

• Sir Colin Budd KCMG, former British Ambassador to the Netherlands
• Charles Grant CMG, Director of the Centre for European Reform and Vice Chair of the Executive of Business for New Europe
• Jeff Heasman, Director at the Pyramid Group
• Andrew Wood, Consultant at Birketts LLP and member of the Executive Board of the Dutch-British Chamber of Commerce

All of our speakers will draw on their wide knowledge and a wealth of anecdotal experience to illustrate the importance of using the right words – and the consequences of using the wrong ones.

They will explain the benefits of:

• setting company-wide language policy
• effective legal and business communication
• using the right language for effective advertising campaigns
• avoiding cultural pitfalls
• saving money by buying wisely

In the last afternoon session we will wrap up by offering businesses practical information on how to procure language services, what to look for and where to look.

To register for the conference, click here.