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...