Language That Works

As translators, we many times keep an eye out for things that have been mistranslated or just don't work in the target language. We have to admit that we have an entire German-language website dedicated to translation mistakes. However, there are more examples of great translations out there than we acknowledge. This of course is related to the fact that many times things that are correct don't attract much attention...

ATA GLD List Get-Together in Vienna

This Friday, February 27, marks the first get-together (that we know of) of German Language Division members of the American Translators Association (ATA) here in Vienna, Austria, where I am spending several weeks. We already have a small group, and we are meeting at Frank's (website in German only), conveniently located a few steps from Schwedenplatz (easily reached by subway). If you are not a regular reader of the GLD list or would simply like to hang out with fellow ATA members in Vienna, please e-mail us and let us know....

Free Localization Webinar

A colleague and friend, chemical translator Karen Tkaczyk just told us about a free localization seminar that's being offered on February 28, 2009. We have attended several useful webinars in the past, so it might be worth checking it out. The webinars we attended virtually were held by another company (whose name escapes us), and lead to several sales calls from said company. Still, we learned something. We are not familiar with the company offering this particular Webinar, but we hear there is quite a bit of useful information....

Fraud Warning: Small Businesses Targeted

The Latin Chamber of Commerce in Las Vegas just sent out an e-mail to all its members with a warning for all small businesses. Fraudulent letters are circulating on fake Small Business Administration (SBA) letterhead, asking small businesses to disclose bank information for tax purposes. Many of these scams are so obvious it's really not worth warning fellow linguists about, but this one appears to be harder to detect than most, so we wanted to post it here. Here's the text of the press release as issued by the SBA. Please...

NITA Announces Health Care Interpreting Training

NITA, the Nevada Interpreters and Translators Association, is proud to announce its Health Care Interpreting Training to be held in Reno, NV. Held on five Saturdays in March and April, this forty-hour professional development course is aimed at interpreters who want to break into the much-in-demand healthcare interpreting field. Topics covered include: Medical Terminology and Common Medical Problems, Sight Translation,...

Twitter: Uncle, We Joined!

After several inspiring posts from fellow writers and translators, solid advice from our resident web guru, and informal input from an online marketing guru friend, we decided we could no longer stay away from one of the fastest-growing social networking tools on the planet: Twitter. January 1, 2009, marked our entry into the Twitter universe. We already have profiles on LinkedIn, Xing, Projo, MiGente (and 25+ other professional and social networks), so we were a bit hesitant about adding to our online lives. So far, so good:...

Proz Pow-Wow in Vienna

For Thursday, March 5, 2009, we are planning a casual get-together (Proz Pow-Wow) with fellow linguists here in Vienna. Adequate set-up permitting, I will present my informal lecture "What I Learned in Business School: The Entrepreneurial Linguist" at a to-be-determined location. My hands-on speech includes tips and strategies from business school and elsewhere and focuses on marketing, accounting, economics, etc., and hopefully has some good information for everyone in attendance. We'd also very much enjoy getting a lively...

Negotiating: Art, not Science

One of the most important parts of running a translation business is setting your price and negotiating your contracts. After all, we are all in business to make a profit, and in order to achieve that, we sometimes have to fine-tune our prices and work on our negotiation techniques. While this is an area of continous learning and improvement, we'd like to present a few strategies and lessons learned during the last few years. Some of them were learned by trial and error, while some are basics that we have established as business...