Here are some of my educational projects for Warsaw University, Poland’s Book Translators’ Association or schools.
Piotr Szymczak
Learner • Educator • Translator
Educational Projects
Book to World
Book to World was a literary translation group I ran in the English Department at University of Warsaw. Nine students translated Oscar Wilde’s complete fairytales from The Happy Prince and Other Tales (1888) and A House of Pomegranates (1891).
I copyedited and set the book myself, and we sold it commercially for a while to recoup the publication costs (we succeeded!). The complete book is now available to download or read online for free from Wolne Lektury, a Creative Commons book sharing platform. Check it out, it’s awesome.
This is a Polish-language podcast on translation that I run for the Association of Literary Translators (STL).
Miłe złego początki is a free e-book containing advice for novice literary translators (in Polish). I created it in collaboration with the Polish Literary Translators’ Association (STL).
In the book, experienced translators explain how they got their first book translation contracts, and share advice with upcoming translators.
With over fifty stories arranged in chronological order, the book is a trove of stories, first-hand experiences, tips on professional practice, and cautionary tales.
I’m also running a project called Humanities for Health where my translation students at the Institute for English Studies, University of Warsaw volunteer their time and skills to produce Polish translations of medical information for Cochrane Collaboration.
The Cochrane Collaboration is a citizen science network: anyone can join the volunteer effort to help bring healthcare evidence to people so they can make better healthcare decisions based on sound science.
I like assignments that are useful and memorable. One way to do that is to create actual Wikipedia articles. Over the years my student have written, translated or otherwise improved dozens of articles in Polish and English. Recently we’ve been working to increase Polish Wikipedia’s coverage of Translation Studies and translation in general. My students were involved in creating or improving the articles on Otto Kade, John Florio as a translator (in Polish, Italian and Russian), Werner Koller, Friedrich Schleiermacher’s contributions to translation theory, John Catford and his concept of Translation Shifts, the concept of equivalence in translation, Gideon Toury’s concept of translation norms, community interpreting, Etienne Dolet and many others.