Early-Bird Deadline for ATA Conference is Today!

Just like every year, the ATA conference, which will be held in gorgeous Denver, Colorado, this year, is going to be a fantastic event with several thousand linguists in attendance (can you tell we love this conference?). We also love saving money, so if you sign up for the full conference today, it's $325 for ATA members instead of $390. Sounds like a great deal to us! Register on the ATA website. 

Proz Virtual Conference

As self-employed linguists, we are always looking for professional development opportunities, as it's important to keep our skills sharp. We regularly attend in-person seminars, conferences,and educational sessions -- and there's really no substitute for meeting colleagues in person -- but we have also been very impressed with the recent online offerings. Best of all, Proz.com's all-virtual conference is entirely free! You have to sign up for it, and the event will be held on September 30, 2010. By attending all or part of the events, you will have free access to all materials after the event as well (for a limited time). We also like that the event is offering prizes -- who doesn't love prizes? -- and we were happy to donate a copy of our book to it. Register for the conference and let the virtual learning begin!

Faculty Position at National Hispanic University in San Jose

Ah, the power of Web 2.0. Through LinkedIn, we were contacted by the National Hispanic University in San Jose, California, about a faculty position. We don't live in the area, but we told the university folks that we'd be happy to post this on our blog for our colleagues in northern California. Here are the details:

Part Time Faculty—Translation and Interpretation Class 306---National Hispanic University in San Jose, CA

Established 28 years ago, National Hispanic University provides accessible and affordable quality education for underserved students. Through innovation, engagement and student-centered learning, National Hispanic University, a fully accredited, four-year university is fostering successful academic and economic futures of its students.

Part-time faculty members serve in a part-time capacity to educate National Hispanic University students by effectively and proficiently delivering information, feedback, and critique in thoughtful, carefully formulated, well written, and timely communications. This is accomplished in an environment that is respectful of student, the Faculty Member, National Hispanic University, and the discipline in which the Faculty Member is involved. Faculty Members are expected to adhere to all National Hispanic University expectations, which are set forth to the Faculty Member at the start of his/her employment with the University.

EDUCATION and/or EXPERIENCE:

*Earned Doctoral degree, preferred. Masters Degree required in Education or English and Spanish from an accredited university
*Practical experience as a translator and interpreter
*5-10 years teaching experience in interpretation/translation, linguistics, Spanish, English, ESL, Composition and Grammar at the University Level
*Strong background in Translation & Interpretation theory and techniques, and linguistics
*Bilingual in English and Spanish
*Experience working in multicultural settings
*Certified by the State of California in Translation/Interpretation and United States courts, preferred.

For more information, please visit the university's website. Per the university, the requisition number is 00005694.

If you apply for and/or obtain this position, we'd love to hear from you!

Choosing a CAT Tool - Free Videos

If you either own a CAT (Computer Assisted Translation) tool -- also called TenT (Translation Environment Tools) or are thinking of purchasing one, chances are you have heard  the name of German translator and CAT guru Jost Zetzsche (and no, you don't have to pronounce it). Years ago, when we were looking for CAT tools, both for our business use and for corporate use when Judy was working as an in-house translation department manager, we turned to Jost for help, who very graciously answered all our questions. Jost has been a relentless advocate for CAT tools, a progressive forward-thinker in terms of technology, an expert on anything computer-related that makes translators' lives easier, and the publisher of an outstanding free computer newsletter for translators, the Tool Kit. He has also created Jeromobot (pictured); the modern patron saint of translators. You can follow him @jeromobot on Twitter.

Without a doubt, the best place to find out which CAT tool is the best for you is Jost's website, which is fee-based, but worth every penny. However, there is some fantastic free content, too: he has just added 20 excellent videos about tools that give you a great overview and should make your purchasing decision easier. If you like what you see, please consider supporting his efforts by purchasing a membership. 

Studying Jorge Ramos

In preparation for tomorrow's Supreme Court of Nevada court interpretation exam, Judy has spent hundreds of hours working with court-specific terminology lists, professionally developed mock exams, and has interpreted dozens of hours of recorded testimony, opening and closing statements, and other court-related materials. All this is well-documented on Judy's new best friend: a digital tape recorder. 


After she ran out of official court materials, she turned to YouTube to interpret -- who would have thought -- Judge Judy episodes into Spanish. While those are a bit light on the legal terminology, they are somewhat representative of what happens in small claims court. However, the prize for best videos to practice to goes to any video of Univisión nightly news anchor and Spanish-language journalist extraordinaire, Jorge Ramos. If you live in the U.S., you can see him nightly at 6:30 p.m. in every time zone, and there's just something magical about his delivery, speed, eloquence, and tone (and no, none of Judy's interpretations have thus far matched Jorge's cadence). Plus, it doesn't hurt that he's extremely good-looking: somehow, it makes these interpretation exercises easier! For the English speakers, we have chosen an English-language video. For professional materials, we highly recommend the ACEBO website (warning: not a pretty website), in particular, the The Interpreter's Edge.  

The Facebook Experiment

Readers of this blog will know that we are both big fans of social media and the opportunities that these technologies create for small business owners like ourselves. The traditional marketing/advertising model seems almost obsolete because of these innovative new ways of creating interest, spreading the word, and keeping in touch with our customers. For us, Facebook is a hybrid in the sense that we use it for both professional and personal reasons -- a happy medium. We spend roughly 30 minutes a day on Facebook, and just like everyone else, we are not immune to the almost hypnotic powers of Facebook and its ability to draw one into its world -- which can result in spending more time on the site than one would like.

We are always quite busy, but this week is especially challenging for Judy, as she is presenting the oral exam in the hopes of becoming a Supreme Court of Nevada state-certified court interpreter (a long shot, due to insufficient simultaneous interpretation experience). She needs every minute she can get to study, so she has decided to save the 30 minutes a day usually reserved for FB by staying away for 7 days. Can she do it? Stay tuned and find out. Today is day #2 and she is alive and well. Note: if you are reading this posting on FB, it is because it is fed automatically into the application by our blogging software. Judy is keeping in touch with the world via Twitter.

What about our readers: can you live without any particular form of social media? 

Surprise!

Late last week, we woke up to an e-mail from a direct client who is the only person in more than a year who had not paid us for our services. The invoice was issued in February, and after several progressively more direct reminders, both via e-mail and voicemail, we were quite sure we would not be able to collect on this small sum. It was quite frustrating, especially because every time we open our Translation Office 3000 software, where we log every project and invoice, it would stare at us to remind us that we had not collected. We were getting ready to write the amount off at the end of the year (small claims court isn't worth it for such a small sum), but this payment came out of the blue. We won't speculate too much on what happened, but perhaps our invoice simply got lost in the shuffle. We are delighted to have received payment, and are off to the bank to deposit it!

What is the longest you have had to wait for payment? What steps did you have to take to get paid? We'd love to hear from our colleagues -- you can leave a comment below. 

Free Translation Price Calculator

This free translation price calculator, which you can easily install on igoogle, comes courtesy of our IT superhero and guardian angel, Thomas Gruber. We use Translation Office 3000 for our professional quotes, but sometimes we just want to get a quick rate without actually logging a not-yet-approved project. Thomas was tired of seeing us pull out our very uncool handheld calculators; so he programmed a tool for us. We are happy to share it with all our colleagues -- simply enter your rate, the lines/words, etc., and click on "calculate." We hope you like it as much as we do. Download it here.

Professional Development in your Pajamas

The American Translators Association recently announced a way to make getting professional development points even easier: finally, webinars are here. This is especially great for translators who live in remote areas or who simply want to get professional development at a very reasonable price without having to leave the comfort of their homes. This fall's line-up includes well-known Corinne McKay, author of "How to Succeed as a Freelance Translator" and a fantastic free session on October 5. Presented by ATA director Naomi Sutcliff de Moraes, it will teach you how to get the most out of your ATA membership. Finally, we are happy to announce that Judy's "Entrepreneurial Linguist" workshop will be debuting the series on September 23. Log on and learn! The cost is $35 for ATA members and $50 for non-members for the 60-minute sessions.

Deposition of the Week

Now that Judy is working very hard on her Nevada court interpreter certification, she's spending a lot of time in court and practicing simultaneous interpretation with the help of official test preparation kits and also just good old YouTube videos. We just found this hilarious video of a deposition by the president of a company accused of fraud who answers most questions with "I don't know." It is quite stunning how she can keep her composure and claim to have no knowledge of  -- well, pretty much anything. Her inability to identify an investor is particularly amusing.  Legal issues aside: it's easy to interpret! Enjoy.