It’s that time of year again – the time of year when overpaid translators take long vacations and underpaid translators receive a sudden influx of work. Yes, that’s right: it’s Christmas! The time for giving and receiving… but what? What’s that? You’re not sure what to buy your translator friend? …because you’ve heard translators are all a bit zanny and therefore buying them something they’d like can be a real challenge? Then fear not! You’ve come to the right place, because, regardless of whether or not anybody will actually read it (last year’s version seems to have slipped by largely unnoticed), we’ve put together another list of last-minute Christmas gifts for translators:
A tablet – of some sort
Kindles, iPads and now Windows tablets… in 100 years from now they’ll probably call 2012 the ‘Year of the Tablet’… Do translators need a tablet? Most will probably say they can live without one, however, that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t love you forever if you bought them one for Christmas!
Windows 8
Oh no, yet another development to mess up the workflow… Windows 8… plus a whole bunch of people are already saying ‘it takes some getting used to’… still, perhaps progress is inevitable… and it’s always good to keep things up to date? …right?
Mox II
Yep, Mox is back… Everybody’s favourite cartoon-translator, Mox is overqualified, misunderstood by all who know him and exploited by those he works for – available from the official website, here.
A year’s subscription to Adobe
There’s no shortcuts to translating (well, not very many anyway) – translating things takes time. Often lots of time. Which means translators don’t have as much of the stuff as you might think: even/especially the ones who call themselves ‘free’lance! Worse still, translators are expected to keep themselves up to date with all kinds of computing developments: new versions of Operating Systems, Microsoft Office, CAT tools… you name it! However, whilst some balk at the idea of spending more time in front of the computer, others revel in it. Should you happen to be looking for a gift for one of the latter, sign them up for a years subscription to Adobe’s new Creative Cloud – that should keep them busy for a while!
Their very own domain name
Did you read last-year’s version of this post? No? Thought not. Still, we stand by the idea of buying a translator their very own domain name for Christmas. Plus you never know, it might be just the push they need to get on and actually create that blog/website they’re always talking about making…
Angry Birds
There’s probably not many translators out there ready to admit they could become interested in smartphone games… after all, translation is a serious business and translators are just too serious (angry?) to play childish computer games. However, we guarantee (not really) you can make any translator who says this eat their words by giving them a dollar to download Angry Birds this Christmas. What’s more it’s basically a wordless game – perfect for translators trying to switch their wordy brains off with then!
Found in Translation
A book about how translation influences you, me, bus drivers and baseball players, how it fuels the global economy, prevents wars, and stops the outbreak of disease, Found in Translation, by Nataly Kelly and Jost Zetzsche, is a fascinating read – plus it’s also about the most sensible thing on this list!
What did we miss? Any translators with secret Christmas-wishlists out there?