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Poll: When I work I like my environment to... Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
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This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "When I work I like my environment to...".
This poll was originally submitted by Keren Terret. View the poll results »
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Michael Harris 
Germany
Local time: 04:43
Member (2006)
German to English
in the background, but not too loud - Radio
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I have to take what I get: children screaming, television, railway station announcements, surgery waiting room chit chat, colleagues in the office, telephones...
My only weapons against all this are:
High concentration skills acquired through having children (you zone out absolutely everything except the scream which says "I really have hurt myself")
Putting on my headphones at work: this is like a notice to say "don't interrupt me, I have a deadline". Peop... See more I have to take what I get: children screaming, television, railway station announcements, surgery waiting room chit chat, colleagues in the office, telephones...
My only weapons against all this are:
High concentration skills acquired through having children (you zone out absolutely everything except the scream which says "I really have hurt myself")
Putting on my headphones at work: this is like a notice to say "don't interrupt me, I have a deadline". People sometimes pay attention to it...
At the moment I'm in the office, it's relatively quiet, with only a couple of people in; if I listen I can hear the secretary talking on the phone, and an osprey calling and the wind blowing around her nest (http://www.swt.org.uk/wildlife/webcams/loch-of-lowes/) but I wouldn't be hearing those sounds if I were working.
Noni ▲ Collapse
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Simon Bruni
United Kingdom
Local time: 03:43
Member (2009)
Spanish to English
| Brain can't cope with background noise | May 5, 2011 |
Sadly music and speaking in particular interfere with the translation process in my brain. It's a bit like when you are trying to do complicated sums in your head and someone starts saying numbers at you.
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neilmac
Spain
Local time: 04:43
Spanish to English
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For most run-of-the-mill translation work (what I call "automatic pilot" stuff, i. e. it doesn't require a lot of thought to get the first draft done) I usually prefer to have the radio on unobtrusively in the background. I sometimes find silence unsettling or distracting, although for proof-reading or more complicated texts I find it necessary.
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neilmac
Spain
Local time: 04:43
Spanish to English
+ ...
There is a night bird around here this past week and it has a ridiculous call, sounds like someone pumping a car horn followed by what sounds like a girl going "woohoo!" really loud. Sort of "honk...woohoo!"... At first I though it might be a party nearby... I was wondering if you know any way to find out what it is? The birdlife around here gets quite busy and different at this time of year in Valencia.
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| Relatively Quiet | May 5, 2011 |
I can't stand being in a completely silent place, it eventually makes me lose my concentration.
On the other hand, despite loving to hear music, I can't stand translating while listening to music or people. Hear words either from persons or music interfere with my concentration as I am also working with words - my head eventually turns into a confusing maze of words leading to three situations: either I stop working and completely freeze, I start writing conversations or the music keywords... See more I can't stand being in a completely silent place, it eventually makes me lose my concentration.
On the other hand, despite loving to hear music, I can't stand translating while listening to music or people. Hear words either from persons or music interfere with my concentration as I am also working with words - my head eventually turns into a confusing maze of words leading to three situations: either I stop working and completely freeze, I start writing conversations or the music keywords in the middle of the translation or my conversation starts including words from the translation. ▲ Collapse
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| Relatively quiet | May 5, 2011 |
I can't work while listening to music and I am not particularly happy with loud noise like trucks, neighbours repairing their cars or motorcycles, etc. But it doesn't have to be perfectly silent either. At the moment, the wheather is wonderful so I work with an open window and enjoy the birds singing (wonderful!), the neighbours mowing grass (less exciting but bearable) and the children playing outside (even less bearable but the holidays are soon over ahahah!)
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| Relatively quiet... | May 5, 2011 |
... and my son is playing drums right now.
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Thayenga
Germany
Local time: 04:43
Member (2009)
English to German
+ ...
| Relatively quiet... | May 5, 2011 |
At last! all that noise from the construction workers has become history.
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| i don't mind some noise | May 5, 2011 |
certain music like jazz. If it's dead silent it gets to me after a while. I can work with sports on tv in the background sometimes...usually baseball. Hockey games are too noisy. I can edit and proofread with the tv on, but for translation I can't have distractions. I live alone and sometimes it does get too quiet, but then i think it's better than trying to concentrate with noisy kids!
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| music without words | May 5, 2011 |
As someone said, we work with words so anything with words is distracting. Especially if there is the temptation to sing along .... !
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Alexey Larin
Belarus
Local time: 05:43
English to Russian
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| Dead silence... | May 5, 2011 |
I can't concentrate on translation when my 3-year old son flying around an appartment, screaming of excitement and kicking the ball all around at the same time. As Noni wrote:
aceavila - Noni wrote:
High concentration skills acquired through having children (you zone out absolutely everything except the scream which says "I really have hurt myself") doesn't work for me. Right now I had no choice but to shift to nocturnalism due to soon approaching deadline for huge project for publishing house in Russia.
But depending on the project I can handle some noise on background... like bird's singing (can't tell them to keep quite ) or child talking to my wife in the kitchen (on the other side of the house behind 2 doors and couple more rooms in between).
[Edited at 2011-05-05 15:21 GMT]
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Marlene Blanshay wrote:
certain music like jazz. If it's dead silent it gets to me after a while. I can work with sports on tv in the background sometimes...usually baseball. Hockey games are too noisy. I can edit and proofread with the tv on, but for translation I can't have distractions. I live alone and sometimes it does get too quiet, but then i think it's better than trying to concentrate with noisy kids!
What kind of jazz do you prefer in the background? Modern jazz or some old school?
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a bit of Doom or Black Metal usually does the trick...
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