Editing in a Foreign Language (Part 2)

I've now wrapped up the 2-week gig copyediting a Spanish-language magazine that I described in part 1. The magazine ended up being 80 pages long, a terrific learning experience, and full of the surprises that only deadline-driven publishing can bring ("Crap, we're going to press tonight and we need text for the spine... Jen, can you translate this in the next 5 minutes?!?").

Editing in Spanish has been an amazing experience, and I'm grateful to have had the opportunity to grow professionally. Still, I don't know if I would work for this company again if they offered me the job (which there's a chance they will), because:

1. I'm not as good at it as I'd like to be. This may sound like perfectionism talking. But when I edit in English, it comes so naturally. I don't think consciously about it - I just go with my instinct of "this or that doesn't sound right" based on having internalized the English language since toddlerhood. And being a natural-born editor with many years of experience, I know I can knock most English-language projects out of the ballpark. Not so with Spanish. While this Mexico edition of the magazine was undoubtedly improved after my editing, I was more of a glorified proofreader on this project, editing for obvious errors and for length. Someone truly native would have done a better job.
   
   
2. The company was not a good fit, in general. The people were nice enough, but overall the corporate culture was not for me. Working on an ancient eMac, where I squinted at the tiny screen and wasted at least 30 minutes every day dealing with the finicky "Suitcase" font management program, did not make the job any more appealing. The computer equipment was whatever the opposite of "the icing on the cake" is -- the lemon juice on the paper cut, perhaps.
   

All that being said, I learned a ton at this job. Here are my take-home lessons:

1. Every proofreader of English looks at text with certain culprits in mind to watch for. It’s the same in Spanish, but the culprits are different. In English, it might be misplaced commas. In Spanish, it’s missing accent marks. Much is the same, however. Comma usage is very similar in both languages, and misused phrases are always important to keep an eye out for. Spanish, like English, has commonly misspelled words that can’t be caught by spell-check (e.g. cuarto/cuatro). You still have to watch for verb tense consistency and make sure that verb forms match subjects.
   
   
2. I immediately started making a list for myself of vocabulary that I needed to remember. Business Spanish is something you don’t usually learn in school, or from your friends, or from traveling — and those were the sources of my Spanish-language education. An entire section of my vocabulary needed, and has now received, an upgrade.
   
   
3. The absolute hardest part of my job was the knowledge I lack from not being a native speaker. It cannot be underestimated how integral phrases and colloquialisms are to any language. Misuse of a phrase, or use of an incorrect article within a phrase (e.g. wrongly using “depender en” instead of “depender de”) is an immediate signal to readers that the text was either written or edited by a non-native.
   
   
4. Finding a dictionary that you trust is paramount. I used www.wordreference.com/es, which not only contains translations and full definitions in both English and Spanish, it provides copious examples of the uses of words within phrases. This was an enormous help. Bonus: the forums where you can talk to other Spanish speakers and learners to polish up certain phrases.
   
   
5. I must accept my own imperfection. When editing in English, perfect grammar and punctuation are my goals, as well as making the text artfully written and flowing. In Spanish, since I’m not a native, my goals are different. I will never do as great a job as a native Spanish-speaking editor, at least not without a lot more practice. But I can make the text better, more accurate, and more consistent, and that’s a good thing.

Till next time!