Every month or so the OTW will be doing a Q&A with one of its volunteers about their experiences in the organization. The posts express each volunteer’s personal views and do not necessarily reflect the views of the OTW or constitute OTW policy. Today’s post is with Madoc, who volunteers as a translator.
How does what you do as a volunteer fit into what the OTW does?
I’m part of Team Welsh, which is part of the Translation committee. What I do is translate any and all OTW content that is able to be translated to make it accessible to Welsh speakers. This can range from translating the website to translating Abuse and Support messages.
What is a typical week like for you as a volunteer?
Normally I wake up, have breakfast and translate for a good few hours before lunch, normally whilst listening to Welsh or Swedish radio. Right now, Team Welsh is going through a review so that more material online can be made available in Welsh, so my mornings are often spent spell-checking and rejigging some previous Welsh translations. Outside the review, the time is normally split between translating and having my nose stuck in a dictionary.
After that, I eat, then focus on my university work, writing notes and going to lectures. My evenings are either filled with dance lessons, choir or doing fannish things like writing fanfiction or knitting a fannish craft. I also find some time to teach myself Swedish!
What sorts of OTW content have you worked on?
Since Team Welsh is a new team and consists entirely of me, not much! I’ve worked mainly on translating the main site of the OTW, but I’m also available to assist with Welsh Abuse and Support queries.
I’m hoping that once Team Welsh gets a little bigger we’ll be able to handle bigger, more time sensitive things like news posts, and also be able to finish translating the main site and expanding to other OTW projects.
What’s the most fun thing to you about volunteering for the OTW?
As much as I love the feeling of contributing to the cause, the most fun thing to do is speaking to other translators. I’m a massive fan of any and all languages, and chatting to other translators is always a barrel of laughs. It also gives us an opportunity to commiserate over how weird English is as a second language — the mishmash of different word etymologies makes English a very difficult language to learn!
What fannish things do you like to do?
I love to write fanfiction, but more than that I love to worldbuild! Making something robust out of scraps of canon is absolutely my favourite thing to do, be it creating an alien culture from scratch or adopting a minor character and fleshing them out. One of my favourite fanworks involved extending an alien conlang! (I never seem to get enough of languages, it seems!)
I also knit and make fannish toys and other crafts. Currently I’m the very proud owner of Kelas Parmak the Cardassian chameleon, two knitted Newt/Hermann dolls from Pacific Rim, Hedwig the snowy owl, and a yet-to-be finished patchwork blanket with several fannish patches already made for it.
Now that our volunteer’s said five things about what they do, it’s your turn to ask one more thing! Feel free to ask about their work in comments. Or if you’d like, you can check out earlier Five Things posts.