Open Thread: Mistakes Were Made

Once in a while, it's entertaining to think back on our mistakes and figure out what we learned from them (we usually learn a thing or two). We'd also love to hear your most embarrassing or simply favorite mistake in the translation or interpreting world. We are more thinking about business mistakes rather than linguistic mistakes, but all are welcome. Here is ours. Almost ten years ago, we sent an invoice to a fantastic client (still a client, actually). It was for a small project and we sent the invoice via e-mail. A day...

Dictionaries: Found

Book signing at the InTrans booth in Denver, 2010. Every outstanding translator and interpreter we know is quite proud of his or her dictionary collection. We've never really met a serious linguist who is not passionate about acquiring as many top-notch resources as possible, but unfortunately, in the US, it is sometimes quite challenging to find a place to purchase dictionaries that are not widely available. Enter...

Supreme Court Ruling on T&I

It's been an exciting week for language news: the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that, essentially, translators write and interpreters speak. Of course, it's a bit more complicated than that, and to read up on the details, we'd like to point you to analysis by professor Barry Olsen of the Monterey Institute and co-president of InterpretAmerica, who contributed to the amicus brief that was submitted to the Supreme Court a few months ago. You can read his excellent analysis here. So now, when you get ready to explain the difference...

Another Giveaway: $100 in Google AdWords

Google keeps on sending us so many free certificates for $100 in Google AdWords for new users, and we are happy to raffle them off. As usual, we will raffle off the certificate to a colleague (freelancers only, please) who answers one question correctly. We will e-mail the access code to the winning person so he or she can get started with Google AdWords. The certificate expires July 31, 2012. A caveat: you...

Google+ Hangout: Court Interpreting

Endless Possibilities is a an informal online "hang-out" organized by dedicated industry professionals Esther Navarro-Hall, Gerda Prato-Espejo and Al Navas. You don't have to have a Google Plus account to join the conversation (as of a few days ago, Judy did not, either). The channel is public, so anyone can join! A recording will also be available on YouTube. For this upcoming Sunday, Endless Possibilities has invited Judy to talk about court interpreting and the pay cuts that have been in the news recently -- both...

You Must Read This: How to Succeed as a Freelance Translator

When we started our business many moons ago, relatively little information on how to run a translation business was available. We only wish that Corinne McKay’s classic “How to succeed as a freelance translator” was available back then, but it came out in 2006, after we’d already made many beginners’ mistakes. The new generation of translators and interpreters are in the lucky position of having many books at their disposal,...