Notes from the TEFL Graveyard

It may be the fact that I'm sliding inelegantly towards 40 like a man on a dustbin liner down a rain-soaked slag heap , but a few months ago I decided to get myself definitively into shape for the first time in around 15 years. Another factor that has helped me find motivation is my brother-in-law's suggestion that the calcified herniated disc in my back may be best treated by removing an entire vertebra and connecting some metal apparatus to keep me erect , a surgical procedure that may look good on his CV, but will not have my willing, or conscious, participation if I can help it. My diet has been enriched by the serendipity of Brazilian fodder . Most fattening foods and drinks are entirely unsavoury as far as I am concerned. The beer makes me nauseous or bloated , or both, the ham is like an overly pink slab of an overweight adolecent's buttock , the bacon is 90% fat and 10% meat , but best/worst of all, all the cheeses taste exactly the same , and may be differentiated ...

I can barely control my bladder with the excitement of finding out that Rio de Janeiro will be hosting the Olympics in 2016 . That'll be a football World Cup in 2014 and an Olympics two years later, with non-stop samba in between. Big winners? Lula , who will no doubt use this as a victory for his government. Politicians and construction company owners (often the politicians' brothers-in-law) who will be already totting up just how much they can overcharge and what this amount will buy in country mansions, good snuff and bikini-clad teenagers. Pelé , who has finally got a call right, after never managing to predict the correct result of a World Cup since he last played in one. And the drug lords in Rio , who will no doubt be offered unofficial "concessions" in exchange for being good boys during the event. And, last but not least, Paulo Coelho , a somewhat unexpected inclusion in the Olympic delegation, but who may now be remembered for something other than his book...

Here is my second package of carefully hewed nuggets of potential aid to the budding translator, many of which may fall into the category "bleeding obvious". I've numbered them 1 to 5 again as I can't seem to make the list start at 6. In fact, I've numbered them 1 to 6, as I remembered another one at the end that I hadn't bargained for: Don't miss deadlines . This may seem obvious enough to make you wretch, but it is amazing how many translators apparently fail to follow this one simple rule . To help me not to forget files, I immediately save them in a folder named after the month and year, inside of which I have another folder for each client I work for, and then inside those folders I make a folder for each day that I have a file due. I can thereby see at a glance what I have to do, and I also keep an Excel spreadsheet with a list of upcoming jobs . Keep to deadlines if you want them to keep coming back for more. Learn how to search the Internet effici...

" Wardy ," people bleat, " how did you take a step sideways into translation, then? " In answer to this question, I have put together a hotch potch of ten translation tips , in no particular order of utility, which may help a budding linguist escape the TEFL control room before things start to malfunction and they get their eyebrows singed off in the ensuing catastrophic blast. I am assuming, of course, that you have sufficient fluency in your foreign language o f choice before you begin, that you love writing and that you have no problem in spending time exhausting every avenue towards finding the meaning of obscure terminology. Join proz.com . You can become a member of this site for free initially (as I did), but to access the really useful features it pays to take out an annual subscription . A kind of marketplace for freelance translators, you can check out the Blue Board for comments made by fellow translators on potential outsourcers (for example, if they...

Some months ago, I was hurrying to the high street to make some urgent purchases when I was accosted by a waif in a state of great peturbation . He proceeded to recount to me a tragic tale of how his lorry had been hijacked by armed ruffians while making a delivery to a nearby factory. "Why, that's abomnable, my man!" I cried, "We must summon the beadle forthwith!" As I strode out towards the Police Station, a shabby building that periodically bursts into flames as incarcerated delinquents make incendiary protests as to their innocence, I became aware of the poor fellow trotting along beside me, gibbering excitedly . "I've already informed the Police," he snapped, "and they're useless. It isn't worth even going there again." "Well, what are we to do then?" I enquired. "I need to get a bus to Campinas," he said, a city that lies a good two hours away by road. " Do you happen to have any money to help m...

Endless autumn: Waiting for the Waiting To cease.

I recently caused some controversy on my Facebook page when I stated that I was sitting in my room freezing with no glass in the window while working on the mother of all translations. But I stand by my assertion - I have never been so uncomfortably cold as I have in Brazil . Now, in terms of absolute temperatures, of course Brazil is not the coldest place I have been, by several packs of frozen produce. Demure debutantes have been known to swoon when gathered around my piano on hearing my tale of when I got off a superheated Soviet train in Moscow one February in the late eighties in a T-shirt, drowsily aware of a bit of a nip in the air, only for the platform display to reveal an ambient temperature hovering around a bracing -20ºC . Here, we rarely get below 10ºC, but with everything geared towards bermuda shorts, sandals and little shame, the stone floors, lack of insulation, tropical humidity and, in our case, shoddy glazing practices all lead me to recall stories of my shirtless ...