Interpreting: Online FCICE Prep Course with Ernesto Nino-Murcia

It's that time again: the oral portion of the FCICE (Federal Court Interpreter Certification Exam) is being offered again in mid-2017, and if you are thinking about taking it, you should definitely already be preparing for it. Our friends at MATI (Midwest Association of Interpreters and Translators) have helped eliminate geographical boundaries, which make it much easier and cost-effective to attend these preparation courses, as they are being offered via Facebook Live. Our esteemed colleague and Judy's fellow federally certified...

Upcoming Classes: University of Denver and University of California-San Diego

Another exciting year in the world of T&I is coming to an end, and we'd like to thank all our friends and readers for following this blog, for reading it, and for being part of our fantastic community. Before we head to Berlin to celebrate the arrival of 2017, we wanted to give you some information about upcoming online classes that Judy will be teaching in the next few weeks. Her class at the University of Denver...

Risks and Rewards

As the end of the year approaches (time flies, doesn't it?) we wanted to discuss, very briefly, something that is near and dear to every entrepreneur's heart: risk. You can't be an entrepreneur and move your business forward without taking any risks, but oftentimes we see ourselves as linguists first and entrepreneurs second, and we've always proposed doing it the other way around. Now, what kind of risks are we talking about here? Allow us to elaborate. New clients. While keeping the status quo is always easier and a lot...

Job Posting: In-House at Epic (German)

Today's brief blog post is a job announcement that we received because the company in question, Epic, was asking if Judy would be interested in applying. As you might expect, we are not looking to transition from business owners to in-house translators, but there are many advantages to working in-house (been there, done that). First and foremost: a steady paycheck and benefits. Full disclosure: we have absolutely no...

Should You Wear a Suit?

Happy Friday, dear colleagues! Today's quick post is meant for interpreters, especially court interpreters, and the answer to this very simple question should be: yes. We put on suits for you. Photo by Ulf Buchholz. Oftentimes in our profession we battle with the fact that we might not be perceived as true professionals by others, which is disheartening. However, we haven't always done ourselves a favor by not...

Celebrating Each Other: Happy International Translation Day

Congratulations to all our lovely friends and colleagues around the world! September 30 is International Translation Day, and we celebrate St. Jerome, but of course that includes interpreters as well. Instead of announcing some cool new conference or celebration, may we suggest we all do something very simple to strengthen our community and our profession? It goes like this: 1.) Find a colleague who happens...

Let's Talk About Rates

Image created on www.canva.com Our lovely colleague Jo Rourke of Silver Tongue Translations in the UK is hosting a live chat to discuss something that's very near and dear to all translators' hearts: rates.  It's oftentimes not discussed enough, mainly due to restrictions on doing so (price fixing), but these are important conversations to be had, especially for newcomers to the profession. The live chat...

Business Pitfalls: The Trouble With E-Mail

It's Labor Day here in the U.S., and while we are not working that much today, we wanted to leave you, dear readers, with a brief post about business practices. For better or for worse, the vast majority of business communication most of us do is via e-mail, and while as translators we know that the written medium is a fantastic choice for many things, it also has myriad limitations. People could read things into...

ATA Annual Conference: Advanced Skills & Training Day

Time flies, doesn't it? Our favorite week of the year is almost around the corner, and readers of this blog will know that we are talking about the annual conference of the American Translators Association (ATA). This will be the 57th conference (amazing, huh?) held in gorgeous San Francisco, and as the organization is constantly striving to improve the conference, there's something somewhat new this year.  What...

Tuesday Laughs: Voice Recognition Meets Scottish Accent

Happy Tuesday, dear readers! We know there's a lot happening in the world of voice recognition, and here's a humurous take on it. Many thanks to our lovely colleague Willy Martínez in Argentina for sending us this gem. Enjoy...

Packing Technique: Carry-On Only

Both of us travel quite a bit for both work and for fun, but mostly it seems that we are on the road for work these days. Judy greatly prefers to travel with carry-on only, and most her trips involves getting on an airplane, while Dagy takes a lot of trains in Europe. In the last eight weeks, we've been to: Mexico City, Boston, Reno/Tahoe, Vegas (for Dagy, as Judy lives here), Houston, and Washington, D.C. Judy's...

Interpreting and Flying: The Connection

At the tiny airport in Ixtapa, Mexico. Photo by Judy. Today's quick post is about two of our favorite things: interpreting and flying. Yes, we love to fly, and we fly a lot. Neither of us knows how to fly a plane, even though Judy's recent Google searches include "private pilot classes in Las Vegas." We've often thought about the similarities between interpreting and flying, and if you think that's a stretch, hear...

Mentoring Conference Interpreters in Austria

Dagy recently had the pleasure of being a mentor to young interpreters at the 3rd International Conference on Family-Centered Early Intervention for Children who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing in Bad Ischl/Austria. Following an initiative by the president of the Austrian Interpreters’ and Translators’ Association UNIVERSITAS Austria, Alexandra Jantscher-Karlhuber, the conference organizers agreed to give recent interpreting...

Upcoming Conferences: Denver, Houston, Philadelphia

Source: www.canva.com Happy summer to all of you, dear readers! Summer is usually not our main conference season, but here are two great events in July that you might enjoy and one in September in Philadelphia. Please contact the organizers if you have any questions about the content or registration. CAPI General Member Meeting and Educational Conference (Golden/Denver, July 9 and 10: Colorado Association of...

Becoming a Better Interpreter

We oftentimes get this question from beginners, students, those trying to achieve certification, and everyone in between. We are also constantly striving to become  better interpreters ourselves, as there is no finish line: this is a lifelong journey. We've long tried to dispense short nuggets of advice to those who ask, but we are simply unable to answer every e-mail with this question, so we promised we'd do...

Link: 139 (Mostly) Free Tools for Translators

Today marked the publishing of a blog post by our dear colleague Alina Cincan over at Inbox Translation, and it sure is an exciting day for those of us who want to discover new software tools. This is, as far as we know, one of the best and most comprehensive lists of free (or almost free) tools for translators. In total, 72 translators, including Judy, contributed to this list, and we want to try them all out right...

Quick Translation Tip

Today's quick translation tip is simple and easy in theory, but not always that easy to do in practice. After you have finished the second draft of your translation, try the following. Read each and every sentence in isolation without consulting the source document and ask yourself these questions:  Does this sentence sound idiomatic in the target language?  Would I have written this if it weren't...

Language Lovers Blog: Voting Phase

Once again we are absolutely delighted to have been nominated in the Top Language Lovers 2016 competition! This humble blog has received several awards in the Languages Professionals category in 2011, 2013 and 2014, and it's an honor to be nominated alongside so many fantastic blogs written by our friends and colleagues. All of them are equally worthy of your vote, but we would be thrilled if you considered voting...

Anatomy of a Deposition: Workshop at NAJIT

Today's quick blog post is to let you know about one of Judy's upcoming workshops for the National Association of Judiciary Interpreters and Translators (NAJIT), which will hold its annual conference in San Antonio May 13-15. Judy is delighted to present a three-hour pre-conference seminar on Friday, May 13, 2015. It's on a subject that many interpreters want to know more about, but one that's rarely included in conference...

Wanted: Presidential Interpreter (German/English)

Judy the White House tourist. Have you ever wondered what it's like to interpret for the President of the United States, currently Barack Obama? So have we, but we have never gotten anywhere near the White House (other than as tourists). For the record, Dagy has interpreted for two presidents (Austria and Chile), but that's not quite the same as interpreting for POTUS and traveling on Air Force One. Actually,...

The Dog Park Client

Lexi the matchmaker (sort of). Do you ever wonder where in the universe you can meet clients? We can't say it enough: you can actually meet clients essentially anywhere. Allow us to elaborate with one of the oddest places we've met a client. Yes, it's clear from the title of this post. We did indeed acquire a client at the dog park. Last year, Judy's husband Keith was at the dog park with our rambunctious...

Spring Classes at UCSD (Translation, Interpretation, Marketing)

Happy Friday, dear friends and colleagues! Today's quick post is to let you know about three of Judy's upcoming classes at the University of California San Diego.  This spring, UC San Diego-Extension's Certificate for Spanish/English Translation and Interpretation program (all online) offers a variety of classes that might be of interest for both beginning and more advanced interpreters and translators. Introduction...

Mistake of the Week

The solution is on the left side. True to our tradition to occasionally poking fun at ourselves with the goal of having others learn from our mistakes, here's Judy's mistake of the week during a legal interpreting assignment. All Judy knew was that she was to interpret at a deposition. She had the case name, the time, the plaintiff's name and the deponent's name. It's very common to get incomplete information...

Making Yourself Popular With Attorneys

Created on www.canva.com As a federally certified court interpreter for Spanish, Judy works with attorneys on an everyday basis. Most are quite grateful to have the services of an interpreter, as it enables communication with their clients and/or the other party. There are a few things that attorneys have told us that they appreciate throughout the years when it comes to interpreting rendition, and there's one thing...

I Speak Spanish!

We speak Spanish, too. Photo taken in Mexico City. Happy Friday! For today's post, we figured we'd send you off into the weekend with some humor. Fellow Spanish court interpreters can surely relate to today's (humorous) post. This is a situation that Judy, in her role as a certified court interpreter, encounters relatively frequently. This is the situation: You walk into a deposition or into a courtroom, and next...

Can Translators Learn to Love MT?

Created on www.canva.com First things first: we are not experts on machine translation (MT) by any stretch of the imagination, but we certainly know that it's an incredibly polarizing topic in our industry. It is, perhaps, the most polarizing issue we've encountered in the last 10 years--in addition to how much we should charge for our services, of course. Now, our lovely colleague Jost Zetzsche is, without a doubt,...