METM25 presentation

Five ingredients to cook up a better text

Ana Carolina Ribeiro, Badalona, Spain; Simon Berrill, Badalona, Spain

The starting point for our presentation is our bilingual cookery blog, where every recipe is written in either Brazilian Portuguese or English and translated into the other language. We will begin with a brief explanation of how our blog came about. But what we will do goes far beyond explaining how we “did a nice thing”, and it won’t be a talk about culinary translation, either.

Instead, our talk will focus on the interesting ways that translating each other’s posts has taught us, maybe not for the first time, relevant lessons that we both apply in our individual businesses. We refer to these as the five ingredients that have spiced up our working recipe, and they touch on areas such as tone of voice, target audiences, communication with clients, editing, and the use of CAT tools.

We believe that awareness of these five ingredients is of value to all language professionals. While the lessons we will describe have been useful to us as experienced translators, they would be just as helpful for those who are starting out in the profession, as well as for editors and writers. We intend to show how all our experiences – including those from everyday life, hobbies and interests – can help us, as language professionals, to keep firmly in mind useful working and business practices we might have neglected or forgotten.

We hope this talk leaves the audience with a taste for adding more of these ingredients in their own practices to cook up better texts.
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About the presenters

	Ana Carolina Ribeiro is a transcreator and copywriter from English into Brazilian Portuguese, with over 13 years’ experience in marketing texts for the technology, sports apparel, cosmetics and hospitality sectors. She has given presentations for the BP, APTRAD and ABRATES conferences, and has facilitated workshops on inclusive language for APTRAD.
	Simon Berrill is a translator and writer. No longer British for Brexit reasons, he works into English from Spanish, Catalan and French and specialises in cultural tourism and wine. He has given presentations and workshops for MET, the ITI and NEaT, and was a founder of the Revision Club movement.