What looks like a fictionally framed look at French child protective services garnered thirteen nods, followed by a political drama concerning a government official with 11, and finally that black & white silent film with a dog at ten (same number of nominations as Intouchables).

Taking a page from Jean Dujardin at the SAG awards last night, bonne chance et à bientôt à tous et toutes!

Carrying forward last year’s:

• Investing myself in my TM tools:  2011 was my best year thus far in my translation business.  I would like to have taken more time this past fall to revisit numerous financial projects translated earlier last year, and hope to do so through the remainder of the winter as annual report season starts.
• Revisiting my business plan:  I reached out in a new way to potential ideal clients, and while business was strong, I’m still eager to find a greater direct to indirect ratio this coming year.
• Working to become a “CT” (certified translator):  Of everything, this is the one that has been on hold, and I hope to move more aggressively into this in the coming months.
• Revising and updating my website:  Of all last year’s goals, I’m proud to say I made the greatest headway here, but am not quite finished yet.  Stay tuned for a formal reintro of my site.

Wishing all of my followers, readers, clients, and anyone simply looking for a solid translation out of or into French from English, a splendid 2012!

I plan to see the film again – appropriately, in all respects, in 3D!

The film, thanks to Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson, has already hit Europe, and the reaction, certainly in France, has been understandably qualified.

I’m stating what to some might be obvious, because as a professional translator, besides bridging multiple linguistic worlds, I am also a businessperson.  The current stature of anyone with specific skills, accrued in and on human time and terms and not technological ones, is becoming rapidly irrelevant and eroded.

Translators, like utilities, big box stores, licensed health professionals, and a host of other “old” economy entities, provide a service that has real costs which we price accordingly.  To seek out someone who is a specialist in a particular field, versus DIY computerized fudging, might not always be cost-effective, but consider how many decisions you make daily prejudicing quality over the bottom line, and in the end what you really get for what you’ve paid.

I was delighted to see Dany Boon’s new film the other night, which on the one hand is a send up of our overly partisan yet constantly shifting world, and on the other an attempt to recreate the gargantuan success of his first film.

There’s talk of a remake (after Will Smith snapped up the rights for his earlier film), and it’s intriguing to imagine where they would base the comedy if transplanted here.  Canadian border comedy was long-ago exhausted by SCTV, and demographic-based humor can be tricky these days.

Otherwise, I was on-set last fall across the soundstage where this other film (itself reflective of  previous posts of mine about the ever increasing internationality of film production) was being filmed here in Los Angeles.  “Droid” or “avatar”, it looks like fun, and certainly an homage to American films from that time with a definite French touch.

Monsieur Lazhar:  From the producers of the Oscar-nominated Incendies comes a classroom story similar to the docu-drama The Class from a few years back, full of social conflict in Québec.

Elles:  Juliette Binoche plays a journalist for Elle magazine researching prostitution, and whose worldview is altered by her subjects.

Monster in Paris:  Animated terror in the City of Lights, circa 1910, in which a creature unleashed from a greenhouse may not be entirely menacing, inciting hilarity and (adult) bad guys.

I will revisit my business plan and examine how I’m targeting my ideal clients and niche market.  I have made the most progress here, discovering that my ideal client isn’t who I thought they were.

I’d like to really invest myself into my TM tools (Trados and Wordfast), and organize the vocabularies I’ve developed through my output.  I’ve had a very productive summer, and now that I have some downtime, will commit to making inroads here before September.

I’m going to work on becoming a “CT” (ATA-certified professional translator) in my language pair.   I will take a practice test I’ve purchased before the end of this month.

I’m revising my website, and would like to blog more this year, especially about what I love about my current and planned language pairs.  My website revision is almost complete, and I will be promoting it this fall.  Blogging still feels like I chore that I never fully “own”, i.e. trying to be “personal” as I discuss my business.  This reminds me though about the last point, which I do look forward to blogging about soon.

Maybe the ridiculously insatiability of crowd-sourced media and platforms, as bashfully “a-promotional” as a Versailles courtier, can be useful in simple, human terms after all:  accountability and goals.