About Translation Therapy

Hi,
My name is Shai, and I’m an English to Hebrew independent translator specializing in Information Technology and Life Sciences.

About This Blog

The idea to start this blog was suggested to me by a colleague and a friend who proposed that consolidating some of the topics that I usually discuss in various social channels and forums into a blog might be a good idea. At first I dismissed the idea because I wasn’t sure that this is something that I could commit to, or if I even want to, but after giving it some additional thought I started to see the potential advantages, such as:

  • A blog might be a more appropriate and possibly effective platform for certain types of content over a traditional forum or a social media post;
  • A blog makes it easier to manage the content, as well as reference and share specific articles and information instead of reiterating the same idea and retyping the same content over and over again (which I found myself doing from time to time); and
  • I like the idea of having a general place for ‘brain dumping’ various thoughts, ideas, and perspectives that might be of interest to others.

I follow and draw inspiration from several other translation-related and other blogs such as (and in no particular order): About Translation, Signs & Symptoms of Translation, Anmerkungen des Übersetzers, Thoughts On Translation, Translation Tribulations, Lingocode, Mox’s Blog, Multifarious, <a href=http://thefreelancery.com/”>The Freelancery, Patenttranslator’s Blog, Translation Times, Between Translations, Kevin Hendzel’s Blog, Translation Wordshop which I consider as an invaluable resources of knowledge, opinions, and insights from professional translation practitioners. If I will be able to create content that comes even close to these blogs, I will consider this little adventure into blogging to be a success.

In this blog I intend to cover a variety of relevant topics. Anything from the state of the marketplace and the business side of things through technical topics related to Translation Environment Tools and general IT topics, to general thoughts and ideas that might be of interest. In the process I also hope to collaborate with other bloggers, or anyone else who might be interested to contribute something but currently don’t have the right platform for it.

Why the name Translation Therapy?

When thinking about what topics I would like this blog to cover I came to realize that the real underlying question that I need to ask is what is the purpose of the blog, what I want it to become, and why should people care about it?
I love the translation work and I’m proud in what I do, but I know how stressful this line of work, like any other career actually, could be at times. So, when thinking about the purpose of this blog I kept coming back to one term: Therapy. One dictionary definition of the term Therapy reads:

Therapy:
any act, hobby, task, program, etc., that relieves tension.

and this definition sums up very well the essence of my vision: A blog that presents and discusses some thought provoking topics and offers relevant information, advice, and opportunity to engage with others in an humble attempt to relive and alleviate some of the stress, tension, and challenges (and in a very good day maybe even some of the uncertainty or doubt) that are relevant to, and associated with, the translation profession.