24 The Linguist Vol/61 No/2 2022
thelinguist.uberflip.com
REVIEWS
As soon as Bristol Translates 2021 was
announced I was quick to sign up. Organised
by my alma mater, Bristol University, the
summer school takes place over a week in
July. Three days are dedicated to language
workshops, overseen by an expert tutor, while
the remaining sessions are led by a range of
literary translation experts. The keynote for
2022, 'A Life in Translation' by Susan Bassnett,
sounds fascinating, as do the multilingual
workshops coordinated by Daniel Hahn.
Although the online sessions ran smoothly,
with participants logging in from as far afield
as America and Australia, it will be great for
participants to return to in-person sessions this
year. The workshops were intense. We spent
three hours in the morning and close to three
hours each afternoon closely analysing a
variety of fiction and non-fiction texts. With
Italian language tutor Tim Parks, we spent all
three morning sessions focusing on a four-
page extract from Roberto Calasso's Il libro
di tutti i libri, a work that Parks had translated
but that wasn't yet in the public domain.
The text was challenging, to say the least.
Never have I spent so long analysing the
merits of 'donkey' over 'she-ass' or 'fatal' as
opposed to 'fateful', and whether the word
'stranger' can be repeated in English when it
wasn't in Italian. It's very telling that, by the
end of the week, we as a group had only
been able to come up with about three
paragraphs on which we all agreed.
With Howard Curtis, we analysed three
different texts, more journalistic in style. One
Bristol
Translates
University of Bristol
Literary
Translation
Summer School,
School of Modern
Languages;
4-8 July 2022
£315
The meteoric rise of the podcast has not left
our industry untouched, with dozens of high-
quality productions on offer, covering every
aspect of business, productivity and health
imaginable. In this brief roundup I offer a
selection of current and top podcasts from a
cross-section of the language services
industry. Hopefully you'll find something that
catches your ear.
First a selection of podcasts from
translators on the ground, covering the sorts
of day-to-day subjects most freelance
translators will have encountered. With 13
years of podcasts, Eve Bodeux and Corinne
McKay have produced a great body of work.
If it's not at speakingoftranslation.com, it's
not important.
English-Swedish translator Tess Whitty has
hosted over 280 episodes to date, which
possibly makes her 'Marketing Tips for
Translators' the most prolific and wide-
ranging translation podcast available:
marketingtipsfortranslators.com/podcasts-
for-freelance-translators-and-interpreters.
Hosted by Dot Roberts, who specialises
in audiovisual translation and topics such
as art, entertainment and sustainability,
dotrobertstranslation.com/podcast
has been putting out monthly episodes
on business, freelance and agency life
since 2020.
A business and productivity focused
podcast, smarthabitsfortranslators.com
/podcast-episodes has a back catalogue
of 60 episodes from the duo Veronika
Demichelis and Madalena Sánchez
Zampaulo, who between them work in
Russian, Spanish, Portuguese and English.
Finally, thanks to National Lottery and
BBC funding, a few choice words from
the literary world can be found at
soundcloud.com/vagabond-voices-books –
a project based in Glasgow.
When it comes to interpreting, you will
discover a huge range of subjects at
troubleterps.com, run by Sarah Hickey and
Alexander Gansmeier. Some of its 68
episodes are led by previous hosts Alexander
Drechsel and Jonathan Downie. With an
impressive 65 episodes since 2020,
brandtheinterpreter.buzzsprout.com is
hosted by English to Spanish interpreter
Mireya Pérez, who specialises in education.
Language Service Providers also
produce some good quality podcasts.
Among the best is slatorpod.com, where
you can explore over 100 episodes produced
by a site with its finger on the industry's
pulse. Hosted by Sultan Ghaznawi and
sponsored by YYZ Translations, thetranslation
companytalkshow.podbean.com gives an
agency-eye view of the industry.
I hope you enjoy browsing this selection
at your leisure. I certainly have, although I'm
not sure there are enough (free) hours left in
the year to listen to the entire back
catalogues – not to mention all the other
linguistics and language 'pods' available.
Happy listening!
Luke Spear MCIL; lukespear.co.uk/blog
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Top picks
Luke Spear recommends podcasts covering a wide
range of interests in translation and interpreting
