ASMR and the interpreter

We know, we know: it's been a hard year and we haven't posted much in 2020, but we are wrapping up the year with some posts that we hope you find useful. If you've never heard of ASMR and you are an interpreter/translator/hard-working linguist/work in any other profession, you are in for a treat. We are aware this ASMR thing sounds quite esoteric, but hear us out and try it if you'd like so you know what all the buzz...

Zoom simul: Learning to embrace imperfection

As a follow-up to our post on consecutive interpreting via Zoom, we are now featuring a guest post by the wonderful team of interpreters behind trying to teach us all how to use the simul interpreting function in Zoom. Without further ado, please read below for this guest post by Ernest Niño-Murcia (his bio is at the very end of this post). Photo courtesy of Tamber Hilton. Zoom demo with Judy and Anabella. Our colleague...

Jobs: Spanish court interpreter (federally certified) in Laredo and Brownsville, TX

We recently received a notification from the Southern District of Texas that two US District Courts have vacancies for federally certified Spanish interpreters, which we are happy to share here. These sound like great opportunities for federally certified Spanish interpreters who might want to make the switch from freelance to full-time in-house employment. As much as we love running our own business, we can certainly see how attractive it would be to work in-house, especially during these unprecedented times. We have not yet...

Jobs: Spanish court interpreter (federally certified) in Del Rio, TX

We know this pandemic has been very tough for many freelance linguists, especially those who focus exclusively on interpreting (we do both interpreting and translation and while both have suffered, it's nice to have two income streams). We've heard from several long-time freelance court interpreters that they are beginning to look for in-house positions, of which relatively few exist here in the United States. We've got some good news for those fellow court interpreters who are federally certified (Spanish): the US District...

Interpreting depositions via Zoom

It's been a while since we have posted, and we hope you forgive us. After more than 10 years and 500+ blog posts, we'd run out of ideas a bit, and there are now so many other excellent blogs for translators and interpreters that we thought we'd take a break. But now that we are in lockdown due to COVID-19, we have some new ideas for topical issues. Today's topic is about interpreting depositions via Zoom and whether...

Webinar on German-language orthography

That's Peggie. She's an expert. Dagy has been giving in-house workshops about German orthography at large companies in Austria and Germany for many years now. People often ask her about classes for individuals, which she wasn’t able to offer in the past. This has changed, thanks to ACADEMIA webinars, for which Dagy recorded a 65-minute webinar for (aspiring) language pros. We know German orthography can be tricky,...

Cocktails for breakfast: Client acquisition at an online marketing conference

Keynote speaker Patricia Bergler of Facebook on stage Entrepreneurs are supposed to spend time and money on client acquisition when business is good so that they will be prepared for rainy days. This is why Dagy decided to try to expand her client base at a time when she was really busy, following a slow start into the new year. Still, spending 400 euro on a 1.5-day conference that wouldn’t be relevant for me as...

New Client, New Payment Practices

Oftentimes we only hear bad news about payment practices in our profession, so we figured we'd share some good news instead.  Earlier this week, we received a phone call from a Las Vegas law firm we know that had not previously been a client. Their translation needs were urgent and required us to drop everything, cancel dinner, and work a few hours in the evening to get it done. We usually ask for a deposit for new clients, but this was a last-minute and urgent request, so we used the highly scientific method known...

Learn from the Best: Interpreting Training with Darinka Mangino

A few months ago, we both had the pleasure of meeting Mexican presidential interpreter Darinka Mangino at the ATA conference in New Orleans, and we had a great time. She reminds us a bit of our dear friend, the late and dearly missed Esther Navarro-Hall. Darinka is a member of AIIC one of our interpreting heroes with  more than 3,000 days (!) of interpreting at the very highest level (learn more about here here...

Stockholm Syndrome

A few months ago, Judy had the honor to speak at the SLAM! (Scandinavian Language Associations' Meeting) conference in Malmö, Sweden. It was a fantastic event, and after it ended, Judy treated herself to some R&R in gorgeous Stockholm, Sweden. There she learned that the term "Stockholm Syndrome" derives from an actual bank robbery in Sweden in the 1970s. It makes absolute sense that it's based on a real event,...