West Midlands Group

Workshops and AGM planned for 27th April

2012-02-21T10:09:00.006Z

Weare holding two workshops and our AGM on Friday 27 Aprilat Aston University, followed by a meal at Browns near the Bullring in the city centre. The afternoon workshop is free to WMG members.

You can book for the workshops separately or come to both and make a day of it. The morning workshop is on financial translation and will be led by Javier Gill. The afternoon workshop features a talk on ''Thewidespread and increasing use of controlled or simplified versions of Englishby technical writers and translators", given by Dr Stephen Crabbe fromPortsmouth, and a demonstration of Trados software by Charlie Gobbett.

Please see our Events page for further details.

Walk photos

2012-02-06T18:32:00.003Z

Many thanks to Mike Hanson for a beautiful snowy walk around Bewdley last Saturday. Please click on the Photos tab to see more pictures.

Winter Walk and Meal – Saturday 4 Feb 2012

2012-01-13T13:22:00.005Z

This year's winter walk will be in and around Bewdley, a former inland port on the River Severn with a rich history and some attractive waterfronts.
See http://www.bewdley.org.uk for further details.

As usual there will be an afternoon walk (5 miles) and an early evening pub meal, but this year I am asking those coming to the pub meal to give me a firm booking for this, independently of the walk, in case it has to be cancelled due to poor weather. Payment can be made on the day. The meal will be at 5.30pm at the Running Horse Inn on the A456 near Bewdley – see

http://www.chefandbrewer.com/pub-food/running-horse-inn-bewdley/pid-P1474

for details of the menu and location. I’ve made a provisional booking for 15 people – last booking date for the meal will be Tuesday 31 January.

For the walk, meet at the Blackstone Picnic Site off the A456 Bewdley by-pass, from 1.15pm onwards for a 1.30pm start. It is well signposted. SatNav users note – postcode DY12 1PU will take you close to it but probably not all the way there, so best to do the last mile from the roadsigns. Coming from Kidderminster, once you have passed the West Midlands safari park to the left of the A456, take the first exit at the next roundabout (signposted A456 Leominster), go straight through the traffic lights after about a mile, and the picnic site is then immediately on the right.

Everyone is welcome but as a reminder, please note that participants should consider themselves to be on a private excursion - neither the organiser nor the WMG can accept any liability for accidents or injuries sustained by those involved.

Organiser: Mike Hanson

Email: mike@mikehansontranslations.co.uk / mike.hanson@zen.co.uk

Mobile: 07941-389990

Translating business film material

2011-12-13T14:35:00.004Z

A joint workshop held by Aston University and the WMG onSaturday 10 December 2011 at Aston University

Business as usual? Far from it. This workshop led by DrJean-Pierre Mailhac from Manchester, who trains professional translators andpostgraduate students in various European countries and carries out research inapplied translation studies, was exceptionally enlightening, engaging and entertaining.Throughout the day the seven postgraduate students and nine professionaltranslators and interpreters were guided by Jean-Pierre, who has himselftranslated, recorded and supervised recordings of film material for a wide rangeof companies over the last 20 years ,through the problems and pitfalls oftranslating and recording business films.

The theoretical part comprised a detailed description of apressured environment in which translators must first prepare a reasonable quote,then juggle the demands of a complex translation context in which they have tocreate, condense and synchronise the spoken target text with the film.Moreover, they have to do justice to a wide variety of features peculiar to theAV context, including: meaningful accents, dialects and intonation, wordplayand cultural dimensions. The presentation was enlivened by some amusinganecdotes of ruffled corporate cool, sound engineers' frustrations andmismatches between the translated text and the film material: 'the difficultyof finding the right product' as a commentary for a scene in which a ladyeffortlessly lifts a tin of baked beansfrom the shelves. In practical exercises we wrestled with problems such asrecognising and conveying pronunciation, alliteration, assonance (Waggle/Busy/Buddy)and wordplay in several 5-7 minute films, covering anything from publicity forthe Euro (nice one!), to hedge trimmers that were a 'cut above the rest'.

My thanks to both Jean-Pierre and Christina Schäffner of AstonUniversity for presenting and organising the workshop, also to all thoseprofessionals and students who attended and helped make this a most instructiveand enjoyable day.

Jean Darvill 13December 2011

Photos of Translation Workshop

2011-10-17T13:47:00.002+01:00

Photos of the ITI Translation Workshop and trip to Bournville are now on our Photos page. Many thanks to Charlie Gobbett, Aileen Cowan and Alan Mendy for the photos!

2011-10-03T13:14:00.000+01:00

ITI Translation Workshop in Birmingham

ITI's Translation Workshop is being hosted by the WMG and Aston University in Birmingham on Saturday 15th October 2011. Come and tackle a range of interesting texts in language groups, meet fellow translators, share ideas and learn new approaches.

Why not make a weekend of it and join us for a visit to Bournville and the Selly Manor Museum on Sunday 16th October? To register your interest in either of these events, please complete the relevant sections of the booking form on the ITI website at www.iti.org.uk (click on Events - ITI).