We'd Like to Pay More, Please

It's all about the money. Or is it? A few weeks ago, we received a pair of quite puzzling phone calls from two of our favorite clients. We've tried to transcribe the gist of both conversations here. We've added some lines for comedic effect, but the point of the conversations has been left intact. We are on very friendly terms with both clients and our conversations are usually quite casual. Client: Hi Judy, thanks...

Book of the Month: The 5-Minute Linguist

A few months ago, a wonderful little book found its way to our mailbox. Now, we receive many books from authors who request reviews of their work for this blog as well as our German-language book review blog, but this particular package contained no note. We called the usual suspects. They are friends and family who have the fantastic habit of buying books for us when they find something they think we would like....

100 Days of Interpreting

Inspired by Dagy's performance at the accrediting test for freelance European Union interpreters, Judy decided to invest some time preparing for the oral portion of the Federal Court Interpreters Certification Examination, which will be held in July (she passed the written portion this summer). Now, we are twins, but there's no doubt that Dagy is more disciplined when it comes to interpreting practice than Judy....

Interpreting for Europe

While Dagy was getting her master’s degree in conference interpreting at the University of Vienna, the EU’s recruiting efforts for freelance interpreters kicked into full gear. A lot of freelancers will be retiring soon, which means that especially the German and the English booths desperately need new talent. That is why the EU started a serious campaign to get young conference interpreters to apply for what they call...

Free Online Dictation

Our web guru recently discovered this free online dictation software, which seems to work quite well. Warning: it's no Dragon Naturally Speaking, but it is free and seems to be a good option for short messages. Perhaps you want to try it for your annual Christmas letter? We do a tremendous amount of typing, and any sort of relief we can get is great, so we took Online Dictation for a spin. Here's a brief overview of our very informal software testing: There's no need to install any anything. Just click on the link and...

Holiday Gift Ideas

Ah, it's that time of the year, isn't it? We've already made several Santa-style delivery trips with gifts to friends, colleagues and clients, and we are just getting started. While we personally have everything we need and prefer to support worthy non-profits, here's a line-up of fantastic gift ideas for the friends, clients and colleagues on your list. In recent months, after reading a very enlightening...

Kindle Edition: Entrepreneurial Linguist

We are happy to announce that our book, The Entrepreneurial Linguist: The Business-School Approach to Freelance Translation, has finally been released in an edition suitable for e-readers, including Amazon's Kindle. The book was initially released in the spring of 2010 (including a not very hip PDF version), and we've had many requests for an e-reader edition. Unfortunately, it took us a while to finally get it done,...

Jobs: Manager of Language Services (Las Vegas)

Please see the following job posting, which was recently announced. It will be located in Las Vegas, NV. The hiring company is Language Access Network (LAN), a well-established provider of video remote interpreting services. The company is requesting that all résumés and letters of intent be e-mailed to careers@lan.us. Please contact LAN directly if you have any questions. We have no connection to LAN and are sharing this job posting as a courtesy -- perhaps one of our fantastic colleagues will get this position? Established...

State Court Interpreting Examination: Nevada

The AOC (Administrative Office of the Courts) of the Supreme Court of Nevada just announced that the first phase of the state court interpreter certification process will be held in Las Vegas and Carson City (outside of Reno) in January and February 2013. Nevada is part of the Consortium for Language Access in the Courts, which means they offer (some) certification reciprocity between member...

Disconnected

Last month, we took one of our annual twin trips and decided to hike to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Judy had done this strenuous 8-mile hike before, while Dagy had not. The Grand Canyon is within easy driving distance of Vegas, where Judy lives and Dagy was spending a month, so this was one twin trip that was relatively easy to plan. The canyon is 277 miles long, and one of the few places where one can...

Royalty-Free Pictures on Pixabay

This week's technology tip comes, as always, from our very own web guru Thomas Gruber, who has a knack for finding interesting stuff that we like sharing with our colleagues. Many of you might find yourselves looking for good online pictures for use in, well, blogs, newsletters, T&I association matters and even for clients. Yes, we sometimes replace language-specific images in translations (if the client agrees...

Should You Ask the Client?

Running a successful business can mean having to successfully negotiate around landmines, and oftentimes there are no right answers. Every client is different and most situations are unique. One issue we've been thinking about lately is whether or not you should ask the client about questions you have concerning the source text, formatting, the intended use of the translation, the audience who will read the text,...

Results: Federal Court Interpreter Certification Exam

The results of the written portion of the Federal Court Interpreters Certification Examination (FCICE) were finally sent out the week of November 15. Judy took the exam at the beginning of August (she reported on her experience here), and we are happy to report she passed. Here's Judy's full report on her grades, which she is disclosing in great detail. Even though the FCICE website emphasizes that no printed communication will...

ATA Conference: San Diego Restaurants

We both look forward to seeing many of our fantastic friends and colleagues at the ATA conference in San Diego in a few days! We are busy putting the finishing organizing touches on our lunches, dinners and meetings, and now our friend, colleague and fellow foodie Marianne Reiner, who lives in San Diego, has kindly put together this list of restaurants. We are grateful to Marianne for taking the time to do this for all her colleagues. We hope you find this list helpful. We are really hungry now.... San Diego Restaurants...

Win a Blogging Toolkit

A few weeks ago, Judy gave an interview sharing what she knows about blogging to fellow translator Olga Arakelyan of Russia, who also runs a Sharp End Training, which offers training for freelance translators with her business partner Jonathan Senior, who works out of the UK. Olga and Jonathan interviewed several translation bloggers and created a nifty how-to-get-started package for beginning translation bloggers. While it turns out that this information will not be free, but will rather be available for...

Advice for Beginning Translators and Interpreters

A few weeks ago, Judy participated in a "Getting Started in Translation and Interpreting Workshop" in Reno, Nevada, which was organized by the non-profit she spearheads, the Nevada Interpreters and Translators Association. She presented this workshop with other industry veterans, including well-known French-to-English chemistry translator Karen Tkaczyk, who made a series of excellent points, which we will include...

The Interpreter's Mid-Career Crisis

Many of the best interpreters in the world have the pleasure of working at the European Parliament. The star of this hilarious video, which is of course completely tongue-in-cheek, is a full-time employee at the European Parliament, where he works in the English-language booth (meaning he interprets from at least three languages into English). Watch Matthew in action! We had a very good laugh about this. We hope you enjoy it as well! ...

Donuts, Please

We always knew that clients love it when you come bearing gifts. That's why we send gifts on special occasions and enjoy buying our clients lunch or dinner. Recently, however, Judy got schooled in the high art of bringing donuts to the people. Read on for a real-life scenario from our small business. Note: some embellishments and funnier-than-in-real-life one-liners have been added for comedic effect. Judy...