Read This: Slaves Of the Internet, Unite!

For the record: We paid for this image.  This past Sunday, we did what we always do on Sundays: We read the print edition of the paper of record, The New York Times. Yes, we are old school like that and really like getting ink on our paper. And the paper smells great, too, but we digress. One article on the cover page of the Sunday Review caught our attention, and we wanted to share it with all of you, dear...

A New Tool: TranslatorPay

Earlier this month, we saw a quick Tweet by our friend Eve Bodeux of Bodeux International. She mentioned TranslatorPay as a new tool for translators to get paid internationally without having to incur significant bank fees (which we are not very fond of). We were intrigued and decided to have a look at the website. We have a long history of doing international bank transfers and PayPal transfers (both receiving and...

Mysterious Ways

This week, we've been thinking about the fact that business opportunities can really present themselves anywhere, and that has certainly been true for us. Here are a few examples of how business has worked in mysterious ways for us: Dagy just issued a price quote to a long-time customer in Vienna. We briefly talked about the project, and then reminisced about the fact that she met this client in her Pilates class....

The Results: Federal Court Interpreting Exam

After three months of waiting, Judy knows the result of the oral portion of the Federal Court Interpreter Certification Examination (FCICE), which she took in Denver in mid-July. Read below for her take on it. I will make this short and sweet: I did not pass. It was close, but I still failed, and it's certainly very disappointing. I scored a 76%, and I needed 80% to pass. This was my first time taking this notoriously...

The Translation Tribe

We've both been on the road quite a bit lately -- actually, we have been traveling to workshops and conferences in Europe together, which has been truly fantastic. During our workshops (we do some jointly, and many individually) we like to emphasize how important it is to have great working relationships with your colleagues. These professionals are your friends, your support team, your cheerleading team (if you need...

Free E-Book: The Translator Diaries

We are delighted to announce that our colleague Lloyd Bingham, a senior in-house translator in the UK, has put together a nifty free e-book that's just recently become available. It's a collection of great insight for beginning translators, gathered from many fantastic contributors, and we really like the format. It's divided into easy-to-read chunks, it's quite informative, and the lay-out is visually appealing. The...

Business Lunches: Etiquette Question

It's a lovely place indeed. Taking our clients -- and potential clients -- to lunch is one of our favorite business activities. Who doesn't like a nice meal with lovely people? It's also a good way to get to know your clients, and clients don't have to invest too much of their time: just an hour or two. We've previously written about the art of the business lunch, and now it turns out that we have an etiquette question...

Humor: Seductive Tasty Pleasure in Santorini

Not great. Today's post is just for fun, because life is short and it's good to laugh, even if the translations/slogans are scary. The picture on the left is a photo of a flyer that we received from a restaurant in Santorini, Greece. In spite of the fact that this restaurant is abusing the English language a bit, we ate there anyway, and we are happy to report that there's nothing fishy about this restaurant. But...