Archivo de la categoría: Traducción / Translation

Interesting articles I’ve translated for Aleteia.org

One of my regular clients for Spanish-English translations is the website Aleteia.org., which publishes Catholic news and spirituality articles.  Many of the articles are the work of the site’s own team of authors and reporters (including one by me that started off as a simple translation of some words of Pope Francis); others are culled from other reliable Catholic web sources.

I’ve worked with them for over a year now and it’s always a pleasure to see something from Aleteia in my inbox – not just because it’s work (which is always a good thing), but because I enjoy the subject matter. I spent many years as a member of a Catholic religious community, working in and for the Church, and although my life and employment have changed, I still carry the Church in my blood. That makes translating Catholic news and spirituality often both enjoyable and enriching  (and sometimes uncomfortable, in a good way – the message sometimes pushes me out of my comfort zone, as the Gospel should…). The most interesting of all nowadays is translating articles about Pope Francis, who never ceases both to challenge and surprise me.

If you’d like to read some interesting Catholic articles and get a taste of how I translate, here are some I find particularly interesting:

If you need Spanish to English translations on any topic, contact me for a quote.

Combining translation with origami at the OrigamiUSA Convention 2014

The two main activities that I offer through Servimatices International are translations and origami.  At the end of June, I had the opportunity to do both at the same time!

Isa Klein (foto de su sitio - haz click para visitarlo!)
Isa Klein (photo from her website)

Whenever I can, I participate in OrigamiUSA’s annual convention, which is held in Manhattan.  The event – which this year had more than 650 active participants (not including adults who were accompanying children) – includes classes, competitions, an exhibit (of extraordinary quality), and many opportunities to spend time and share origami with origami folders from all over the world.  The special guests this year were evidence of the internationality of the event.  One was  Isa Klein, a Brazilian origami artist known especially for her modular designs and for her instructional videos; the other was  Nick Robinson, origami teacher and prolific author of origami books, from the United Kingdom.

Nick Robinson (photo from his webiste - click to visit it!)
Nick Robinson (from his site)

Words are not strictly necessary in order to share origami; it’s a very visual and tactile art, and there is a more or less uniform international system of symbols used in written diagrams.  However, verbal communication does help, especially in classes with more than two or three people where not everyone can see up close what the teacher is doing.  So this year, I decided to respond to the official petition for volunteer translators to interpret classes by teachers who don’t speak English.

Diego Becerra (foto de su perfil en FaceBook)
Diego Becerra (photo from FaceBook)

 

 

There were already two translators for Portuguese to English, so I didn’t have the pleasure of translating a class for Isa Klein, although I did get to have some nice conversations with her;  as is usually the case, she is not only a talented origami artist, but also a very nice person.  However, they needed someone to help with Spanish, so I ended up translating (technically, doing consecutive interpreting) for a class taught by Diego Becerra. Diego teaches origami at the University of St. Thomas in Bucaramanga, Colombia.  Although he is mostly known for his (amazing) insect designs, the model he taught in the class I translated was a dragon.  It was the first time in a few years that I have done real-time interpreting, but there weren’t any problems; on the contrary, it was  great experience which I hope to repeat on other occasions! After all, I got to learn a new origami model and translate at the same time – what more could I ask for?

Here is a photo of the origami that Diego Becerra had in the exhibition, including several examples of the dragon that he taught in the class I translated:

Origami de Diego Becerra
Origami by Diego Becerra

I loved his idea of using Lego® to build bases for his models!  The colors of the bases are the colors of the Colombian flag; don’t forget, this was during the World Cup…