A Geordie In Girona

A name change

It was sometime in the middle of last year that I changed my business name to A Geordie in Girona but, for one reason or another, I never really got round to mentioning it. When I began as a translator in early 2021 I came up with the name Lucid Eye Translations. However, I was never entirely happy with it and over the course of last year, after seeing the way that the translation industry has been changing, I finally decided I wanted to come up with a new name. I’m not sure how my business will evolve over the next few years but there just doesn’t seem to be any stopping the cosmic advances in artificial intelligence. As computers continue to swallow up large swathes of the translation sector, the fact of the matter is that there is unfortunately less and less work for translators. Consequently, I decided to go with a name that wasn’t specific to translation.

The future for translators

At present there is still a very real need for human translators because a computer cannot take into account factors such as context, purpose, culture, nuance and style when producing a translation for its new audience. Computers still can’t do these things because they don’t possess feelings (at the moment). They are programmed to follow patterns and are good for gist. They provide a reasonable translation if the customer isn’t too bothered about accuracy or perfection. But AI translation never sounds completely natural. It is usually disjointed and contains a number of glaring errors. You only need to look at websites where the owners have quite obviously used a computer to translate their copy. They think the computer has done a perfect job and are blissfully unaware that their copy is littered with embarrassing mistakes and strange words which, in many cases, will inevitably put customers off using their business. The problem that translators face today is that when we try to educate potential clients about the dangers of AI, it is a bit of a losing battle, as there is this perceived reality from people outside the translator community that AI provides perfect translations. And this issue will continue to grow in the coming years as computers become even more intelligent. Add the financial aspect into the equation, where AI can be used for free, and the battle ahead for translator survival becomes even more concerning.

A Geordie in Girona

Moving away from the joyful subject of translator armageddon, here’s a quick explanation of how I came up with the name A Geordie in Girona. As I’m originally from the city of Newcastle, where the natives are called Geordies, and I now live between Barcelona and the French border in the Catalan city of Girona, I am, quite literally, A Geordie in Girona. As it sounds a bit like the Shakespeare play, Two Gentlemen of Verona, it is also a play on words but, instead of being set in the Italian city of Verona, I’m located a stone’s throw away from the Spanish Costa Brava in Girona. I was always in two minds about whether to come up with a name that incorporated my translation, copywriting and proofreading work, but due to the previously mentioned heavy AI encroachments in the industry, I settled for the carte blanche option. I can always rely on my strap line to explain what I do.

My business last year

Here is a brief summary of the work I completed last year. I have split it into three sections with approximate percentages.

Translation (60%)

A large part of the translation work I was doing last year came from the tourism sector and was related to destinations in Spain and its islands. There was also quite a bit of football translation, mainly player interviews. There was a lot of business translation as well for different organisations including financial institutions, foreign language schools, fashion companies, an engineering firm, a healthcare provider and a company selling swimming pools. I was also lucky enough to work on the translation of a book about architecture. Another area I got a lot of work from was the funeral sector, regularly receiving texts to translate for different funeral companies in Catalonia.

Copywriting (30%)

Most of the copywriting I did last year was for a client who is very big in the world of football. My job was to write text to summarise videos of interviews that would appear on their website. Part of the job was to also come up with snappy headlines that would entice visitors to watch the accompanying video. To add to the challenge, many of these videos were in Spanish so before I could write about them in English, I had to translate them.

Proofreading (10%)

I quite often get asked to look at some work to correct it, making sure that it’s free from error. Sometimes I get asked to look at something created by non-native English speakers so I can help to improve their text and make it sound natural as if it were written by a native. Last year, I also got a few very big proofreading jobs. The most exciting one was a book about the history of Barcelona Football Club. It was a privilege and a joy to do this because it was something I was really interested in and it was so exciting to know that I was the first English person who would be reading the English version of the book. I was even able to alert the Spanish author to a factual error he had made in the book about Bobby Robson concerning when he went on to coach Newcastle after Barcelona. This is something I would not have been able to do if I wasn’t such an expert on all things related to Newcastle United.

A little side project for this year

This year has started off quite well. I can’t afford to buy the swimming pool of my dreams just yet but translation work has been steadily coming in so it doesn’t look like the computers have their feet under the desk just yet. Alongside my normal work, I’m also working on a little side project. When I went travelling around the world almost 20 years ago, I kept a diary. I wrote about my experiences, about the food I ate, about the cultures, the languages, the people I met and their beliefs and customs. I journeyed on planes, boats, trains, buses, cars, motorbikes, tractors, canoes, rafts, helicopters, and even on the back of camels and elephants. I paraglided and I bungee jumped. I trekked to Machu Picchu. I watched tango in Buenos Aires. I picked cotton in Australia. I ate insects and fish eyes in Thailand. Every country had its own sparkle, its own distinctive piece of magic. All these memories are in my diary. I’ve been sitting on it for 20 years now and I’ve finally decided the time has come to write a book from my experiences. Everything I need is there. The problem is that it’s just far too long so the plan is to rewrite it, edit it, add bits, delete bits and put it into book format. When I’ve finished, I’m going to self-publish it on Amazon and see where it goes from there.

So there it is, a little bit about what’s been going on regarding my name change, the future for translators, my business last year and the cheeky little side project I’m putting together this year. I’m hoping that this year will be a decent one but that partly depends if 2024 is the year that the computers decide to take over the human race. I’ll let you know later in the year how things progress, not only on the translation, copywriting and proofreading fronts, but also on how the book is going.

Thanks for reading and if you need a top notch Geordie in Girona translator, copywriter, proofreader or author, feel free to get in touch!