On Saturday 20th June, Karen Rennie, our in-house German to English translator attended the ITI Scottish Network Summer Workshop at McDiarmid Park in Perth entitled “Style Matters”.

The one-day event was hosted by Chris Durban and Ros Schwartz, two top-flight French to English translators. Approximately 60 translators attended the event, mainly freelancers, most of whom were based in Scotland.

The focus of the workshop was stylistic translation and Ros and Chris gave two lectures about how to avoid “clunky awkward-sounding translations”. The translators divided up into small groups to work on texts, trying to improve the style then each group appointed a spokesperson to report back on what had been discussed.

Chris Durban made the point that high-quality translators should only produce 200 words of polished translation per hour and that agencies should not trust translators who claim to do 500 words per hour or 4000 words a day as the English is likely to be stilted and sound unnatural. Chris, a top-flight financial translator who works for major direct clients such as BNP Paribas, said that she herself only produces 200 words per hour and works anything between 8 to 10 hours per day. Chris also gave a short presentation on how to market yourself as a freelance translator. Karen found the workshop very useful and it was a great opportunity to network with other translators and put some names to faces!