New Year's Resolutions: Buy a Colleague a Drink

It doesn't have to be top-notch. Image: Judy Jenner As this wonderful 2015 comes to an end, we've been thinking about New Year's resolutions for both ourselves and for the profession at large. We think this is a lovely profession, but of course we can always make it even better. So we came up with one simple thing: pick out a colleague you do not know very well (yet), either in your city, at a conference, or when...

The Client Perspective: The Ideal Interpreter

Created on www.canva.com Today's quick post is from the client perspective, because in addition to being services providers ourselves, we are quite oftentimes clients ourselves, meaning that we buy interpreting services. More specifically, we outsource interpreting work to colleagues, mainly for conference interpreting projects. We'd like to give you a quick list of things that we look for, in no specific order....

Interpreting Politics in Vienna

Presidents Bachelet and Fischer and their interpreter. Photo credit: Peter Lechner/HBF Have you ever wondered what it's like to interpret at a high diplomatic level? Read on for Dagy's report on yesterday's assignment in Vienna, Austria. As I stood in the courtyard of the Vienna Imperial Palace on a cold and windy morning, somebody grabbed my hand and asked if I too had cold hands. I did, and the person asking...

Gift Ideas for Clients (Video)

Image created on www.canva.com Can you believe it's almost December? We can't--where has this year gone? We are busy putting together gifts for our lovely clients, and we wanted to share our thoughts with you, dear readers/viewers. We've recorded a brief video for you all; enjoy! We are still trying to investigate the strange issue with the first few seconds of audio not playing if the video is viewed in Google Chrome....

Interpreting Bond, James Bond

Image from http://www.007.com/spectre/ It's not often that interpreters play a role in big blockbuster movies, but maybe our moment has arrived courtesy of Bond, James Bond. We went to see the latest Bond movie, Spectre, last weekend, and while it might not be the best Bond movie ever, we really enjoyed the fact that interpreting was crucial in the movie. Well, maybe not crucial, but allow us to elaborate. We...

Video Post: Quick Interpreting Tip

Happy Friday, dear friends and colleagues! Today's brief post is another video featuring Judy and a brief interpreting tip that should help you increase your performance regardless of your interpreting field. Note: the first few seconds of audio don't work again (we are still troubleshooting this issue), but you don't miss much, as it's just an introduction. The audio works fine after that. Apologies for the inconvenience. ...

Video Post: Thoughts on Passing the FCICE

Happy Friday, dear friends and colleagues! We want to continue our tradition of video blog posts, and today we would like to share some brief thoughts that Judy has on the FCICE (Federal Court Interpreting Certification Examination). Enjoy! Note: There is an issue with the audio during the first few seconds of the video, but it works just fine after the fifth second (sorry about that)....

The Results: Federal Court Interpreter Certification Examination

After three months of waiting for a result of the oral portion of the Federal Court Interpreter Certification Examination (FCICE) that she took in Tucson, Arizona, on July 21. She took the written portion in 2013 and passed it with a high score, but she did not do well enough--but it was very close-- on the oral examination in 2013 (which she took in Denver).  However, the second time is the charm! Judy...

American Translators Association: Take the Compensation Survey

The last ATA survey on translators' and interpreters' compensation dates back quite a few years, so we were excited to hear that the second-largest T&I organization in the world has now made a new survey available. It's completely anonymous, as only aggregate data will be collected, and no one at ATA will have access to individual answers, so your data is entirely confidential. We think these numbers really are...

What Should I Tweet About?

We have a confession to make: well, it's not really much of a confession, but we think Twitter is great. It's revolutionized communication in many ways, and it's a powerful and free tool for self-promotion. We know that there are many Twitter haters out there, but there are fewer now than were a few years ago. Oftentimes we get asked what self-employed linguists should tweet about. While there are no solid rules that...

Upcoming Fall Workshops

While it does not feel like fall here in Vegas (which we like), we wanted to include Judy's upcoming workshops for translators and interpreters during the next few months. We'd love to meet you, so if you are in Orlando, San Francisco, Miami, or online--come join us! Here's the overview: September 19, 2015 Orlando, FL National Association of Hispanic Journalists: Excellence in JournalismLocation: Orlando World Center...

Looking for English->Spanish Translation Pet Peeves

Happy Friday, dear readers! Today's your turn to share your English->Spanish pet peeves, and we know you have a lot of them (so do we). Here are the details: Judy is one of the spokespersons of the American Translators Association, and as such, she was invited to speak (via the Association of Translators and Interpreters of Florida) at the Excellence in Journalism conference, which is a joint event between the National...

Coming Soon: The Interpreter Movie

We recently heard from our friends at InterpretAmerica that they have teamed up with USC Media Institute for Social Change and the non-profit No One Left Behind to make a movie about military interpreters, specifically about Afghan interpreters who work for the U.S. forces. The title of the movie is "The Interpreter."  Photo credit: http://www.nooneleft.org/ This is a topic that we are very interested...

How Do I Market My Translation Services to Clients? (Video)

Without a doubt, the question we get the most from fellow linguists (especially beginning linguists) is: how do I get clients? How do I market my services? We have both had the pleasure of speaking at conferences around the world to address this very topic, and we did publish a book on this topic as well, but now there's more: a 10-week class that Judy is teaching at the University of California-San Diego's Extension program. It's entirely online and there are no prerequisites (even though the class is part of the Certificate...

Meet Wordycat

We recently heard about Wordycat through a colleague and are happy to spread the word about it. It's a new platform for translators, and before you roll your eyes and think "I've heard this before," have a look at what they are doing. They might be on to something!  We are not associated with Wordycat in any way, but we think it's a great idea. But enough of us writing about them: here's a link to their Kickstarter campaign. We like how this new project describes itself: "Wordycat is an exclusive network in which...

Getting Started: 10 Tips

Created on www.canva.com We oftentimes get questions about how to get started in the profession, and that's a long answer. Actually, part of this blog is dedicated to answering precisely that question, and we have a long list of articles that we've marked for beginners. However, a dear friend of ours recently asked us to compile 10 tips on what one needs to do to get started (he was thinking about becoming a translator)....

Quack, Quack: A Museum for a Translator

Image: http://www.erika-fuchs.de/erika-fuchs/ One of our dear German translator colleagues recently shared a gem of information with us: there's now a museum in Germany that honors a translator (yes, one translator).  The English->German translator is none than the amazing late Erika Fuchs, who translated all things Disney comics (specifically, Carl Barks' comics featuring Mickey Mouse) for more than...

Interpreting: Anatomy of a Deposition

Today's quick blog post is a link to a video Judy recorded for Speechpool a few months ago. It's about what happens during deposition proceedings. While the video was recorded to practice interpreting, the content covers exactly what happens during a deposition, which is why many interpreters have found it helpful to prepare for this type of proceedings. We love this, as we are killing two birds with one stone here! We have had several requests to make the video available outside of Speechpool, so here it is. There will...

Improve your Sight Translation: Quick Tip

Created on www.canva.com. Today's quick tip doesn't really directly relate to interpreting technique, but it has everything to do with preparation. As many of our readers know, sight translation (despite its name, it's considered a form of interpreting) is very frequently used in court settings. While we learn at university and at prep courses that we should never, ever start sight translating until we've read the...

The Pro Bono Factor

Created on www.canva.com Happy Friday! For today's quick post, we wanted to talk about the lovely colleagues we hire as contractors for projects every week.  We recently realized that they have many things in common. The one that stands out the most (in addition to excellent language skills, of course) is that the vast majority of them are active in their translator and interpreter associations or do some other...

Interpreting Tip: Try This

Image created on www.canva.com For today's quick and short post about interpreting (which will take you less than three minutes to read), we'd like to share an easy technique that should help you improve your interpreting skills. It's a true-and-tried technique, but one that we also frequently forget about. Whenever we do remember to do it, we feel that our subsequent interpreting renditions are stronger. The...

Do Nothing

Image created on www.canva.com. We oftentimes hear from our lovely colleagues that they are stuck in a situation that they don't like, mainly that they don't receive the rates that they deserve. This is a common complaint not only in our industry, but in many other industries. In our book and on this blog, we have given advice for many years on how to get what you want from your business, including the rates that...

A Career-Preserving Skill

Image from www.canva.com.  For today's quick post, we wanted to focus on a skill that's relatively easy to master.  All it takes is a few sentences, sincerity, and heart. However, its importance and impact are often forgotten. All translators and interpreters are human, and as such, we make mistakes (see our previous post on Judy's mistake of the month). During some point in your career, you will make...

Ouch: Mistake of the Month

Because few things are as fun as poking fun at ourselves, we wanted to do a quick post with this month's utterly horrifying mistake. We make many errors, but try not to make the same ones twice. This one was Judy's, so we will let her tell the story. A few weeks ago, Dagy had the unique opportunity to interpret at an OPEC conference (English booth), and I was to be the back-up interpreter (I also did get to interpret)....

Webinar: No Pain, No Pain (Active Marketing)

Created with www.canva.com. Happy Friday! Judy is very excited to present another webinar on June 9, 2015 (yes, that's in 10 days). She will present a 90-minute webinar for ASETRAD, the Spanish Association of Translators, Copyeditors and Interpreters. Note: all links to ASETRAD from this blog entry lead to Spanish-only pages, but here's a link to the English-language homepage. The topic is a popular and often...

Job Posting (Vietnamese): Las Vegas

While this job is not directly translation-related, it comes from a dear client and it might be of interest either to a beginning translator or a Vietnamese speaker who is looking for a steady entry-level position. Please see the job posting and application information below . Let us know if one of you gets the job! Image created on Canva.com Nevada State Government Agency is seeking an Applicant who can speak...

Introduction to Translation Starts 6/23

Happy Friday, dear readers! This is just a quick note to let you know that Judy's online class (English/Spanish) for University of California San Diego-Extension is starting again on June 23, 2015. The class is Introduction to Translation, and it's offered entirely online (asynchronous), and it lasts five weeks (through July 27, 2015). The class is offered via the user-friendly online learning platform Blackboard.  The...

Translation Pricing: Should We Charge Hourly Rates?

The inside of Judy's wallet. For today's quick post, we wanted to touch on something that we've been thinking about a lot: the way translators charge for their services. Traditionally, translation services in the U.S. have always been billed by the source word, meaning the translator will know exactly how much she or he will charge the client before the process starts. And the client has an exact figure, which is...

Kiva Looking for Volunteers (Into English)

Source: www.kiva.org We've frequently written about Kiva, a leading microlending organization with big impact on poverty that relies on volunteer translators to try to change the world, one microloan at a time. We have no working relationship with Kiva other than we think that they are doing great work, and we are happy to spread the word about them on this blog. We frequently recommend volunteer translation opportunities...

Bad Client?

Made on www.canva.com.  Today's  post is about something that comes up in our industry quite often. The scenario is this: the highly talented translator delivers a world-class translation, only for the clueless client (we mean this tongue-in-cheek, in case you haven't noticed) to destroy it by "editing" it when the client should stick to his or her area of expertise and leave the translating to the talented...

Jobs: Language Specialist at Netflix

Source: www.netflix.com Just in time for the weekend, we wanted to share a job posting that a friend recently sent to us. We have no other information about this particular job nor are we getting paid to post it, but Netflix sure does sound like a great company to work for. The job is located in Silicon Valley.  We are copying and pasting from the company website's posting here: Language Specialist Los...