Translation Opportunities in the Football Industry

Post date: 16-Nov-2011 06:46:53

During the call for papers for the recently held III Conferência Brasileira de Tradutores, organised by ProZ.com in Rio de Janeiro, I proposed two presentations, both of which were accepted: whilst the first one would deal with translation opportunities within the football industry, the second one would take place in a workshop format, aiming at providing hints and tips for EN-PT football translation.

Other commitments prevented from me delivering both presentations, and in the end I decided to keep the first one and leave the workshop, which I have previously conducted in Porto Alegre, for a forthcoming opportunity.

The turnout for my 'Tradução por Esporte' presentation exceeded my expectations, especially as two other sessions took place at the same time — one of them was an attempt by a translation agency to lure novice translators, whereas the other was organised by ProZ themselves and thus received special attention from the organisation.

Even though my presentation was not intended for interaction, many attendees were very active and contributed with questions and comments throughout the session, especially after I finished my delivery. Many such remarks were in agreement with the 'triad' I referred to when talking about 'what translation clients want' in the field of sports journalism, namely superb journalistic writing, a passion for sport and an understanding of football's underlying concepts in both the source and the target languages.

Since I had just one hour for my presentation, I didn't plan to include any of the topics initially prepared for the workshop, such as translation exercises and drills. However, I noticed that many attendees were eager to find out how they could develop their translation skills in the sports arena, especially as they noted down the URL for the FIFA.com style guide.

I was also asked about specific training courses for football translation, but I'm afraid I really can't recommend anything. For the time being, I hope the style guide is useful, and I'll make every effort to be able to present my workshop again in the near future.

Finally, I'd like to thank the organisers for the travel and accommodation arrangements. The event in Rio coincided with a huge police operation to 'reclaim' some of the areas historically dominated by drug lords and organised crime in general. Luckily our hotel was located at the exclusive neighbourhood of Barra da Tijuca, where most of the venues for the 2016 Olympics will be located.