3.3.19 Do/did you act as a beta reader for other translations?

A simple question to find out whether the translators beta-read other translations, too. The total number of respondents who do provide a beta-reading service is 50 (65%). This relatively high number is in line with the argument about the fandom being a close-knit community, where everyone participates or offers to participate in multiple ways, but could also be caused by a high number of respondents from the hpkizi.sk site, which seems to be well organized and where having a beta reader seems to be considered a norm.

19. Do/did you act as a beta reader for other translations?
Number of responses: 76
	respondents	percentage
No	26	34,2%
Yes, sometimes	37	48,7%
Yes, often	13	17,1%

Table 16.

3.3.20 Self-education

20. Do/did you actively seek to self-educate with regard to translating, do/did you look for tips and advice?
Number of responses: 76
	respondents	percentage
No	17	22,4
out of which are students of translation studies or professional translators	5	6,6
Reluctant	10	13,2
Yes	49	64,5

This was a freeform question, the answers to which could be coded into three groups. Unsurprisingly, most of the respondents cite the internet as their source of information and stress the importance of looking up specific idioms. The total number of respondents who declared “yes” seems rather high, however, most of them didn’t specify any exact methods or resources used.

Selection of answers:

“Definitely, English is an idiomatic language. Urbandictionary proved to be invaluable.”

“Of course, I have books and dictionaries, which helped me back then. I don't need them anymore, I just copy and paste the text into a new column and start translating.”

“yes - I'm always using dictionaries of idioms, I frequent the Czech Language Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences webpage and work on expanding my vocabulary and grammar (including Czech)”

“Before my first translation I tried to find out to what extent the translation should be literal, because I didn't want to degrade the author's style but at the same time wanted to avoid being heavy-handed.”

“Fanfiction translation has in my case always been intrinsically linked to my study and career specialization (translation research and translation editing); any extra information I obtained while being involved with fanfiction often proved useful in my studies or in my work, and vice versa. During my time as an active translator, I frequented the translation discussion forum at sosaci.net and participated in their translation challenges, all this has been a good source of information.”

“Yes, I look for sources on the internet, in literature and I rely on knowledge of my friends that I know have a good command of English.”

“Yes, I doubt it would be possible otherwise :) I often stumbled upon something I didn't know or wasn't sure about, so I started investigating. Also my beta readers educate me :)”