Happy New Year/Guten Rutsch/Próspero Año Nuevo

As 2009 is less than 30 minutes away for my twin Dagy Jenner in Vienna, Austria, we wanted to check in and wish all our fellow linguists, friends, business partners and clients around the world a fantastic New Year. Thanks for your business, trust, friendship, feedback, great blogs, and awesome camaraderie on the WWW (Wild Wild West) that is the Internet. 2008 was a fantastic year for us, as I finally joined Dagy full-time...

One More Business Expense

I recently received a membership renewal reminder from the American Translators Association (ATA). I am glad they reminded me: I will pay my dues for 2009 and thus claim the tax deduction for 2008. For those of you who have not thought about renewing in the middle of the busy holiday season, now is a good time to do so. The ATA allows you to renew your membership online. Contact your local or national organization to claim the year's last business expense. Have a great start into 200...

My Worst Typo of the Year

It's time to poke some fun at ourselves! While we are both usually hyper-aware of grammar and spelling in our four languages, we, just like the Sunday New York Times, make mistakes. Unfortunately, my recent one has embarrassed me so much that I've literally lost sleep over it. As a board member of the newly formed Nevada Translators and Interpreters Association (NITA), I am trying to increase our membership. We wanted to include sign-language interpreters, so I sent an e-mail to all the sign-language interpreters in our state...

Translations for Peace

On Sundays, we read the paper of record. This week's New York Times held a special surprise. On page 29, there was a full-page ad with one line of text, in varying fonts and sizes (and alphabets, for that matter) stating: Imagine peace. The English line was surrounded by more than 20 other languages, many of which we can't identify. We found our other three languages (Spanish, German, French): all perfectly translated. We...

What I Learned in Business School -- Part 1.0

Cèline over at Naked Translations had a very interesting post asking readers to give advice to beginning translators. I left a lengthy (perhaps too lengthy!) comment with some of our own hard-earned lessons, which I am summarizing here. These recommendations center on the business (and not linguistic) side of things, as I have this handy M.B.A., which I figured I could use to share some of my business tips. Most of these can be grouped into economics/finance/marketing/accounting/statistics/entrepreneurship. In future posts,...

Everybody Can English: Denglish Atrocities

For Friday amusement for our fellow German speakers, we can't help but briefly address a gigantic language pitfall in German-speaking countries: Denglish. For the uninitiated, that's an atrocious combination of German (Deutsch in German) and English = Denglish. While most of our direct clients in Europe have a fairly good command of the English language, they are usually not experts, which is why they hire us. However, once in a while a client wants to correct something that turns out to be, well, wrong. Trying to convince them...

Where Have the Good Old Phone Calls Gone?

Communication in the 21st century is easier than ever. While we don’t even want to picture what life as a translator must have been like without PCs and without the Internet, the new communication channels seem to have completely taken over, much to the detriment of, well, somehow old-fashioned but still highly useful means of communication like…the good old phone! Talking on the phone seems to be something you did as a teenager who had nothing to say but talked for hours anyway. Today, you don’t call, but you send e-mails or...

Tax Tip of the Week

A dear friend recently gave us a book (Sandy Botkin's Lower Your Taxes -- Bit Time!) on how to take advantage of many pro-small business tax rules and regulations here in the U.S. Mr. Botkin's book is thorough and well written, and might be worth checking out from your local library (we have no affiliation with the author whatsoever). To save you the time or the trouble, here's our highlight from said book: If your home is your main place of business (which it is for virtually all the freelancers we know), then all...

The Intersection Between Translation and Running

Many times, being a language professional feels like being an endurance athlete. Your client sends you the document, you open it with nervous anticipation and see an enormous amount of words in a very difficult and research-intensive subject matter to be translated very, very quickly. At first, it seems like an overwhelming and impossible task. Here's where our endurance athlete attitude comes in. As they say in some ads: impossible is nothing. The way we tackle projects that are very large, very difficult, or very challenging...

Advertising Strategy of the Week

Just when you least expect it, someone makes a suggestion about how to get more business (which we can all always use), and it's a really good one. This week, a friend of mine suggested I get listed in our state's (Nevada) film directory. It's a government agency that coordinates all the film production companies that come into the state. The film management folks are given a hard copy and links to listings for photographers, extras, florists, models, make-up artists, and... translators and interpreters. This is truly something...

Going Green and Greener

Both of us have always been pretty green, both at work and at play. Lately, we have started brainstorming about how, as home-based translators, we can become even more green. Not commuting to work is certainly a huge factor in cutting down our carbon footprint. Here's what we have done for a long time: Dagy, who is based in Vienna, Austria, does not own a car Judy, who is based in Vegas, has driven a Toyota Prius since...

Transatlantic Turkey Day: Just Another Thursday

While one half of our business -- the American side -- will come to a virtual standstill during the next few days because of the Thanksgiving holiday, all the cooking and houseguests that are involved, and all the sleeping in front of the fireplace that needs to be done, for our Austrian side (Dagmar in Vienna), it's business as usual. When you live in the U.S., where even fast food outlets are closed on Thanksgiving, it's sometimes hard to believe that nothing special is happening in Europe and elsewhere. This is, of course,...

10 Lessons from the Trade Show Floor

Many of us have been talking about working with more direct clients lately. While a substantial number of freelancers really enjoy working with agencies who take care of the business of translation, many others enjoy the higher prices and direct contact associated with end consumers. We fall in the latter category, and decided to explore some new methods for finding new clients. One of my dear friends here in Vegas, who works in the gaming industry, offered me a free pass to roam the exhibit halls at G2E, the Global Gaming...

The Business of Referrals

As the vast majority of translators and language professionals are self-employed, we all know the value of referrals. We have many other friends who are entrepreneurs in different fields -- lawyers, dentists, HR consultants, auto mechanics, owners of small restaurants -- and we gladly refer them, as we love their services. We are delighted to say that several fellow ATA members have referred us this week. On the other hand, we also referred several small projects to our translator friends for languages we don't translate into....

We Heart Our Direct Clients

It's time for an ode to our wonderful clients, which have been made up by 100% direct clients for six years minus a first-time agency experience last week. Here is why we like and enjoy working with you so much: You really value our services as professionals You pay us our regular rate and know that you shouldn't haggle as if you were at a Turkish spice market or Mexican tianguis You don't send out mass e-mails looking for the cheapest translation rate You understand the source text, as it's about your business, and you...

Unexpensive Translation?

As seen this morning on the Las Vegas edition of Craigs List under writing/editing/translations, this is another sad example of what the lack of barriers to entry has done to our profession. There are several things that are quite disturbing about this ad. First and foremost is the point that being bilingual does not make you a translator. Being bilingual is the minimum qualification; the lowest common denominator. Clearly, this person is not bilingual. There's a dictionary to look up terms, but no self-respecting translator...

Proz Search Box for iGoogle

Just like many fellow translators, we love iGoogle. Now Dagy's boyfriend, Tom Gruber, our resident IT guru, website designer, go-to-techie-anything and one of the driving forces behind our company, programmed this nifty box that integrates the Proz search box into your iGoogle for easy searching. We use Proz pretty much exclusively for term searching, and it comes in very handy. Get the link on your iGoogle here or use the +iGoogle below....

ATA Bloggers' Lunch: Where's Masked Translator?

One of the many highlights of this year's ATA conference in Orlando, FL, was the bloggers' lunch that Jill Sommer and Corinne McKay organized. There are a few very active bloggers in the ATA, and as blogging for the translation world is a somewhat recent phenomenon, we wanted to meet other bloggers in person (although many of us had already met) and exchange ideas. In addition, blogging guru Corinne also presented a...

Kennedy Space Center: Linguists Needed?

This Sunday, as a fantastic ending to the 49th annual ATA conference in Orlando (more to come on that), I headed to Kennedy Space Center, about one hour's drive from Orlando. At KSC, it is all about the history of space exploration, its proudest moments, and, most importantly, about the people who pioneered the race for the stars. I had the chance to meet one of those human stars: a real, true astronaut. John Blaha...

Thunderbird Auto-Responder Woes

As mentioned here and on all translator blogs in the last few weeks, the American Translators Association (ATA) Annual Conference starts tomorrow, November 4 (yes, election day) in Orlando, Florida. I will be leaving tomorrow morning to attend two very interesting pre-conference seminars and will attend all days of the regular conference through Saturday, November 8. On my endless to-do list before tomorrow's bright and early departure, I noted that I needed to program an out-of-office message, which I have done hundreds of...

Proof It!

There's no doubt that Spain's El País is one of the top newspapers in Europe, and we recently started reading it online. We also read Mexican newspapers online, but it's interesting to get the Spanish perspective (even though their Spanish is, well, funny!) on the news. This week, El País reported on the widely discussed closure of the historic airport Tempelhof in Berlin, which resisted the Berlin Blockade by the Soviets....

Fishy: Strangest Translation Inquiry of the Year

Many of our fellow language professionals receive strange inquiries once in a while, ranging from someone willing to pay $30 for the translation of a 10-page aeronautical engineering document to someone's widow somewhere in Africa who needs documents translated into German (and no, it's not the Nigerian scam). Many times, our colleagues share these inquiries with us and give us a heads up on fishy inquiries. It's been relatively quiet on our bizarre inquiries front. However, this week, we received one that we want to share...

Interpreting Politics

Many times, there's an unsuspected intersection between politics and our profession. Although neither one of us in an American citizen, as our country of birth, Austria, does not allow double citizenship, but we are strong supporters of the party that does not feature an elephant. As we have violated our self-imposed non-political-spending rule, we received an e-mail from the Obama folks that the candidate would be...

Holocaust Translations

A few days ago, I discovered an article with my name that got indexed on my ZoomInfo professional networking site. The Internet is a wonderful thing, and I have run across many old press releases, newspaper articles, online comments, etc. that mention our past or current work. This one, however, is one I had not thought about it in quite some time, because it precedes my work as a professional translator and because it is about the bleakest subject one can possibly imagine: the Holocaust. During my graduate days as an M.B.A....

Joyce Carol Oates and Literary Translation in Vegas

One of America's preeminent writers and thinkers, prolific novelist Joyce Carol Oates, gave a reading at my alma mater, the University of Nevada Las Vegas on Saturday, hosted by UNLV's Black Mountain Institute. I was elated, as Vegas has infrequent visits by authors of her caliber. Joyce Carol Oates is as thin and elegant as she appears on the back covers of her books, but there is nothing weak or frail in her voice,...

MSNBC News Story: Lost in Translation/Interpretation

"In the beginning of the timing of the laws, I said there is no difficulties base." Huh? Rachel Maddow doesn't understand it either, and she's a Rhodes Scholar. Last night, I was watching her news program on MSNBC. I really like her show, and while her political stance (which I share) is hard to miss, she presents very interesting news. Last night, our profession was the topic of one news item. Check it out here --...

Where Have All the Translators Gone?

Well, for the American translators and interpreters during election week in the U.S., that would be, drumroll, please: The 49th Annual ATA (American Translators Association) Conference in Orlando, Florida. From November 4 (yes, we know, election day) until November 8, several thousand language professionals will descend upon the Hilton in the Walt Disney World Resort (really!) to partake in what is arguably the biggest exchange of translation information in the country. Clients, consider yourselves warned: get your projects...

Translating Nevada

It’s official! As of this week, I am a proud board member of the recently formed Nevada Interpreters and Translators Association (NITA). A few months ago, I was considering starting such an association, but luckily I heard through my colleague Karen Tkaczyx, a fellow translator who lives in northern Nevada, that NITA had been started earlier this year. NITA is headquartered in Reno, and I am thrilled to be representing the organization in my neck of the woods (Las Vegas). As opposed to many other western states (mainly, California),...

Paul Auster: Goose Bumps in Vienna

We are voracious readers of fiction in four languages, amateur self-appointed literature critics, and literature bloggers. We generally do not translate fiction, as translating serious literature is an enormous and complex task that is unfortunately mostly not very well paid. Our hats are off to our extremely talented literary translation colleagues. Thank you, translator Wibke Kuhn, for making Stieg Larsson’s fantastic...

A Question of Grammar

By way of introduction: Dagy serves on the national board of directors of the Austrian equivalent of the American Translators Association (ATA), and is running into an interesting problem in the naming of the organization.The Austrian Translators' and Interpreters' Association, formerly known as Österreichischer Übersetzer- und Dolmetscherverband UNIVERSITAS, is being renamed Universitas Austria – Berufsverband für Dolmetschen und Übersetzen – Interpreters' and Translators' Association (yes, all that; it's quite a mouthful).While...

The Bible for Freelance Translators

Surely many of you have heard of French->English translator, frequent American Translators Association (ATA) presenter and technology guru Corinne McKay. A big cornerstone of Corinne’s work is her fantastic self-published book “How to Succeed as a Freelance Translator”, for which she is currently writing the second edition. Full disclosure: Corinne is not only one of the most talented and most involved translators...

The Translation Sample Dilemma

So far, we've been fortunate enough to work with direct clients only, steering clear of agencies. However, some potential direct clients seem to have adapted a controversial approach commonly used by agencies: sample translations. While nobody would think about asking a lawyer or a CPA for free work with the goal of verifying his or her qualifications, it is common practice with translators. Why is that? We believe that part of the reason is our profession's low prestige (we might discuss this issue in the future). Be that...

To spend or not to spend?

A few days ago, I was telling a friend and business associate about my decision to join my twin in working full-time on our translation business and leave the corporate world behind. The first question my friend asked me was whether I had an advertising and marketing budget. I was taken aback by this a bit -- what budget? As most of us who are self-employed and run very small businesses, our budgets are limited, to say the very least. In the beginning, we are keeping our so-called budget for the U.S. to a minimum to include: American...

¡Viva Hidalgo! ¡Viva Morelos! ¡Viva México!

We are delighted to see that today even the mighty Google is paying tribute to the most important Mexican celebration of the year: Mexican Independence Day (Día de la independencia mexicana), which is celebrated tonight. Google's logo is decorated in the colors of the Mexican flag and features the bell that Miguel Hidalgo rang for the first time in the early morning hours on September 16, 1810, signaling the beginning...

Does the world need another translation blog?

Short answer: probably not. However, we are undeterred as we think that there are not enough translation blogs in cyberspace that are written by twins. Yes, we really are twins. Identical. We love languages; several of them: Spanish, German, French and well, English. For simplicity's sake, we will be posting in English, perhaps with the occasional entry in another language. We also collect grammar and translation mistakes,...