A True Gem: Translator Scammers Website

Scammers have been around for a long, long time, and it's nothing new that they have been targeting translators by using a variety of methods, including posing as clients and requesting your bank information only to wire you too much money and asking you to wire part of it back. Then, of course, you find out that the original money that had been sent to you was drawn on a closed account. This is a very well-documented scam and a disturbing one indeed. 

The second main scam revolves around stealing actual translators' information and trying to "sell" fictitious translation services to unsuspecting clients using the real translator's information and credentials, etc. We even heard from a translator colleague who received an e-mail from a scammer who was offering his translation services, and turns out he had attached our colleague's CV to the e-mail! The way that particular scam works is that "translators" request work from unsuspecting clients, ask for payment in advance, and either take off with the money and don't perform any work or deliver a Google translation, etc. And of course the real translator's information is being used and abused, which is quite terrible. One way to prevent scammers from stealing your CV is to always make it available in PDF format rather than Word or any other editable format.

You get the idea, right? Photo by Chris Floros.

Now, hundreds of blog posts and articles in every corner of the world have been written about the variety of ways that translators get ripped off by scammers. The American Translators Association has published detailed information about this important topic, which you can read here and here. However, we recently heard about a colleague who fell for one of the oldests scams (the overpayment scam). With every business transaction, you need to use your common sense and your business skills to get a feel for the potential customer. Issue a formal price quote and have the customer sign it. Don't let anyone rush you. Ask for pre-payment via PayPal (or other secure method) if you have any doubt that the person is a legitimate customer. Of course it's difficult to know if anything is a scam until after you get scammed, but translators are smart people, so at the danger of repeating what's already been said many times, here are some red flags:

• The potential client writes from a Gmail address, yet claims to be a professor or other distinguished person. We personally don't do business with folks who have free e-mail addresses, unless they want a birth certificate or similar document translated, in which case we ask for payment in advance.
• The "client" seems very eager to get started with the project and is quite pushy and even insists on providing payment ahead of time, as long as you give him/her your bank information. Now, for anyone who's been in the industry for more than a week, it should be surprising that a client is so eager to pay. And handing out your bank information to strangers is just a no-no: that's what PayPal (or similar services) are for. Of course, in Europe, bank transfers are very common, and you could protect yourself by waiting a week or two to see if they payment has indeed cleared. Of course, no real client would overpay you and ask you to wire money back, so you should be on high alert if that ever happens.
• Many times, the writer will claim that he or she is going to a conference in ________ and is giving a workshop, so that's why they need a translation of their original article (attached) into ______. Of course, the obvious question is: If the sender doesn't speak the language he/she wants the translation in, how will he/she present at the conference in a foreign language? In addition, if you take the first four lines of the attached article (be careful with opening attachments from unknown sources!), you quickly realize that the article is from Wikipedia or some other source. It's usually verbatim.
• These scammer messages are riddled with grammatical and spelling errors and the sender oftentimes resides in Pakistan, Kenya, Nigeria, etc. 

We don't want to sound unsympathetic, but any translator who gets scammed at this point perhaps did not do enough due diligence. Information about translator scams is widely available, and information is power. Add common sense and some business skills, and no translator should get scammed. 

Finally, one translator colleague, J. Roque Dias, a Portuguese translator, has gone to the trouble of putting together an entire website dedicated to this. Thank you so much, J. Roque! What a great service to the community. Please have a look at the very complete Translator Scammers website. J. Roque focuses only on the very disturbing scam trend of stealing real translators' information, and he's providing a tremendous public service here.

Voice Training for Interpreters

A few months ago, we went to see superstar voice coach Roger Love, who had come to Vegas to give a presentation for the Downtown Speaker Series. We asked some of our interpreter friends to join us, and we learned  a great many things. Roger is an entertaining and accomplished speaker, and we loved his point about taking some time to improve your voice. After all, if you hate hearing yourself on voicemail, other people will probably feel the same way. Of course voice is important for everuone, but even more so for interpreters, who work with their voice for a living. However, relatively little is written about this subject beyond avoiding very hot beverages, coffee, alcohol, etc.

Roger Love in Vegas. Photo by Judy.

Roger mentioned that most people fall into one of a few so-called voice categories, and the one that we've heard very often -- and the one that makes speakers sound the most insecure -- is the "Valley girl" voice, where your voice goes UP the beginning of a sentence rather than down, which makes everything sound like a question. We are sure you have heard this one before, and many women unconsciously do it. We actively try to avoid it, but we fall into plenty of other voice traps. Roger likes to do a bit of show-and-tell in his presentations, and he takes question from the audience, which mainly consist of queries about what to do if my voice sounds XYZ (too high, too low, etc.) and he guarantees 30-second fixes. They usually work, too! (Roger has done this before; once or twice.)

We figured we'd let Roger speak for himself, so you can have a look at his voice tips here. He also has some nifty free videos. However, rather than full-sized videos, they are just very short video clips with one or two tips. The are useful enough, though.

We do have the same voice! Photo by Judy

One thing that caught our attention was Roger's mentioning of the fact that no two people have the same voice; that voice is almost like fingerprint. Being twins, we beg to differ, so we went up to talk to him after, and yes, we did prove him wrong indeed. One  voice tip that he had for us (we got a bit self-conscious around him voice-wise, as did others, too) was the following: unclench your jaw. Who knew we were talking with our jaws clenched all this time? Of course, Roger exaggerates a bit to make his points, but his advice is excellent: we need to open up our jaws indeed (this also happens to be the first tip on Roger's vocal tips page).

There are also a few interesting-looking voice books and CDs that you could buy, but we have not yet done so.

Do you have any other great tips for your voice, dear fellow interpreters? 

A Worthwhile Volunteer Translation Project

The road ahead. Photo by Chris Floros.

Last year, the Nevada Interpreters and Translators Association (NITA) was hoping the state legislature would approve the so-called Driver Authorization Cards (DAC) in Nevada, and they are now a reality. These cards will be issued to undocumented immigrants so they can drive without being fined and so they can obtain insurance, thus making Nevada roads safer for everyone. This is something that should have happened a long time ago, as we don't quite see the connection between immigration status and driving privileges, but we digress. Now that DAC have been implemented (there was some opposition, as is to be expected), undocumented immigrants can finally drive with some peace of mind. Now, in order to get these cards, applicants must have some documents translated, and NITA lobbied to have qualified translators do this work (which succeeded only to some extent). Since a significant percentage of applicants do not speak English, the question that arose very quickly was: How will applicants pass the written driving test? The driver's manual had been pseudo-translated into Spanish, but it was so bad few Spanish speakers could comprehend it, and the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles was very aware of what happens when you let non-professional translators do the work. One DMV representative told us that even he could tell that the handbook was terribly translated, and he only speaks rudimentary Spanish. 

Naturally, NITA saw this as an opportunity to do some client education and outreach and met with DMV about the importance of hiring professional translators. After all, non-English speakers have a right to access public services. Unfortunately, we ran into an all-too-familiar problem: there was no budget, not even $10,000 or so, to have the 75-page document translated into Spanish. So NITA volunteered to translate the document as a pro bono project. Here at Twin Translations we donate 10% of our yearly work hours to non-profits (we made an exception for this one, as DMV is a public agency), and we thought this would be a crucial public service. Judy is the immediate past president of NITA, and she went to work with NITA's current president, Lorena Pike, and board member Cristina Sánchez as well as NITA member Maria Peralta de Gomez. Lorena Pike did all the heavy lifting, project management, and client communication, and the result is something that we can be quite proud of. Have a look at the translated manual here.

Photo by Chris Floros.

NITA just issued a press release about this important pro bono project, which you can read here.

While her portion of the work took Judy at least 40 hours to complete, this is a very worthwhile endeavor indeed. We are huge believers in volunteer work, and we hope that many Spanish-speaking drivers can finally get their driver's licenses. 

What about you, dear colleagues? Is there any particular pro bono project that you are very proud of? We'd love to hear about it!

Truly Mortifying Marketing Materials

Not very professional. Photo by Judy.

Happy 2014 to all our wonderful readers, friends and colleagues! Time flies, doesn't it? We figured we'd start 2014 off with a post on marketing materials and on how you should NOT do it. We usually refrain from making fun of errors and mistakes on this blog, but sometimes a picture speaks a thousand words. We think the marketing materials we are about to show you pretty much make every error in the book, so let's use them for illustrative purposes. Of course, the name of the company that sent this to us shall remain anonymous, but we would like to thank them for giving us this gem. It does seem amazing that this company, let's call them Amazing Vegas Real Estate, would think that the card they sent us would create a business opportunity for them. 

So what's wrong with this picture? With the two pictures, actually? Let us count the ways.

They shall remain anonymous. Photo by Judy.

1. Opinions on this might differ slightly, but cards with a snapshot and somone's child or pet on them are not cute, but unprofessional and shouldn't be used unless you are sending a card to a good friend or trusted business associate whom you know well. We just cringed when we saw this image and wondered why there was a kid with a $100-dollar bill on a card that a business sent us. Under some circumstances, this could have been funny, perhaps for a store that sells children's clothes or some other cute connection. However, for a very traditional and quite serious business like real estate, this doesn't work at all. The card feels like a bit of a joke and certainly doesn't get across an important message that marketing materials should generally communicate: that the sender is a trustworthy and serious business professional. We truly believe any images on professional marketing materials should be taken by an expert -- no snapshots and selfies, but that goes without saying, we thought.
2. You open this gem and out falls a small hand-cut piece of paper that's been folded several times. It feels like a fortune cookie, except fortune cookies are not annoying because you expect the piece of paper to be there. At this point, we just felt terrible for the sender. There's a great Spanish-language term for this: pena ajena.  This looks like a fifth grader made it, and it's not appropriate to send to potential clients. Incredibly, these guys are trying to get business from us! Are they just trying to stand out in a crowded marketplace by being different? That's certainly laudable, but this doesn't work.
3. We did not include a picture of the envelope because we couldn't hide the company's identity on it, but it is addressed to "Dear neighbor," which is a sure way not to get our attention. The only reason we opened it is because it was too thick to fit in our shredder inside the envelope. A basic marketing tip is that it's essential to address people by name.
4. Brrr, we are cold. As you might imagine, we have no idea who Awesome Vegas Real Estate is. While Judy and her husband do own a house in Vegas, they have no intention of selling it, and if they ever did, they will be very sure to stay away from someone who can't even figure out how to send a professional card. Could you imagine trusting these folks with complicated real estate contracts and hundreds of thousands of dollars? Yep, we can't imagine that, either. And cold calling/e-mailing/sending flyers rarely works, so we think it's a waste of time.
5. Low quality. We understand that budgets are stretched to the max these days, but sending low-quality paper is not a good idea. What else is the company saving money on? If you cannot (yet) afford to invest in high-level paper goods for your marketing materials, perhaps it's best to wait a bit until you have the funds to send a professional product. Sending cards made on your home computer on very thin paper just doesn't work.
6. Inside the card, the company manages to thank us for our business, but we've never done business with this company, nor would we. Do they not have updated databases of customers? Do they think it's funny to send this to everyone, thanking them for business when they haven't given them any? Do they have too much money to burn? We don't know, but we do know that this is not a good approach to getting business. There are thousands of real estate agents in Vegas trying to get their hands on real estate listings, and if we ever list the Vegas house, we will be sure to stay away from Awesome Vegas Real Estate.

Of course, we've exaggerated our outrage a tiny bit to make the point that these marketing materials are the opposite of what you should be doing, so take it with a grain of salt. In general, try to create professional and serious-looking (but not boring, which is a challenge) cards and flyers that are personalized and customized to the client. And stay away from cute pictures. Safe those for your personal holiday cards.

What do you think, dear friends and colleagues?

Business Tip: Small Talk

Our last post of the year will be short and sweet. It's about the art of making small talk at business events, which can be quite mortifying for many introverted translators. Try the following approach.

We prefer networking with food. Photo by Judy.

Ask a question. Instead of immediately talking about yourself, which most people will do, ask the person you are speaking to a question about herself or himself. Most people will be happy to talk about themselves, especially in the US, and you will get the conversation started without having to "sell" yourself, which is what so many translators are afraid of. Now, the question doesn't have to be personal at all, and can be rather general, along the lines of the quality of the food offered at the event, whether the person has been there before, a compliment about their dress (works best if the person is of the same gender), a comment about the person's profession (if it's obvious), etc. Trust us: asking questions is usually a good thing. And the best question of all is: May I buy you a drink/coffee/sandwich? We have yet to meet someone who has declined that offer.

With that, we would like to wish all a very happy and successful 2014! Here is to much successful networking!

Do You Have Klout?

Earlier this year, our dear friend and colleague Karen Tkaczyk mentioned that a Klout score higher than 60 would get her into a fancy airport lounge at San Francisco International Airport. We'd heard of Klout, but had never spent any time researching it. This nugget of information got our attention.

So what exactly is this thing, Klout? Well, it is a sophisticated set of algorithms that measures how important one might be on the internet. Of course, internet fame or influence should always be viewed quite suspiciously, but the idea in itself is intriguing. According to Wikipedia: 

Klout is a website and mobile app that uses social media analytics to rank its users according to online social influence via the "Klout Score", which is a numerical value between 1 and 100.

That makes sense. The more active you are online, and the more of an influencer you are perceived to be, the higher your Klout score, which will earn you a certain number of so-called Perks. Most of the items Judy has earned (discounts at restaurants, free stuff meant to promote the company giving it away) have not been too exciting yet, but Klout seems to be a fascinating beast indeed.

Seen in the most positive of lights, Klout rewards online behavior that is useful and of interest to others. For instance, if all you do all day is post updates about what you ate and what your cat is doing, that will most likely not be too thrilling for others and thus won't increase your Klout score. On the other hand, if you engage others, get them to retweet your post and discuss your idea on Facebook or any other social media outlet, this will increase your score. That also makes sense. Now the question is: What's the point? At our most cynical, we could say Klout is just another online popularity contest with no real tangible benefit other than marketers benefiting from what we do online. However, we want to spend some more time exploring Klout before we make up our minds. While much has been written about how to increase your Klout score, Judy recently tried some of these strategies, but her score remains steady at 62 or 63, which is a bit puzzling. Ah, the mysteries of algorithms...

What about you, dear colleagues? Have you tried Klout? What's your take on it? We'd love to hear your opinion. 

Intro to Translation at UC San Diego-Extension: Starts January 7

Judy at UC-San Diego this summer.

Happy holidays, dear friends and colleagues around the world! We are taking some well-deserved (we think) time off during the holidays, but wanted to let you know about some of Judy's upcoming online classes at the University of California-San Diego Extension (the Translation/Interpretation Certificate for the Spanish/English language combination).

Have a look:

Introduction to Translation: This five-week asynchronous online class starts January 7 and runs through February 10 ($225). The class includes pre-recorded PowerPoint presentations with audio, lots of exercises, student-instructor interaction, detailed feedback on two translations, and much more.  Sign up here. 

Introduction to Interpretation: This class had traditionally only been offered on campus, but due to popular demand, UC San Diego-Extension decided to create an online version, which Judy taught for the first time last quarter. It was a big success, so the class is back! It also lasts 5 weeks (starts February 11, ends March 17) and includes dozens of self-study exercises (original recorded content in English and Spanish), exams, detailed evaluation of your final exam, lots of student-instructor interaction and a weekly overview of specific areas of interpreting (court, medical, conference, community). Sign up here. 

The university requires an admission exam for students wishing to take the entire certificate (either in translation or in translation and interpretation), but you can take these introductory classes without taking the exam. For more information, please have a look at UC San Diego-Extension's dedicated page for the Certificate in Translation/Interpretation (Spanish/English). Here is a short brochure. The university also offers free informational sessions, which are held at the La Jolla (San Diego campus).

We are delighted at the University of California education system offers these online opportunities, as formal university education in the field by bricks-and-mortar and well-known universities in the US are relatively rare, especially online. Please help us spread the word! Translation and interpretation programs in Europe abound, but that's not the case in the US, creating an educational deficit for US-based linguists. However, the internet has made access much easier, and in a way, California is leading the way for interpreters and translators. 

InterpreTIPS: New Resource for Interpreters

Interpreting at a museum. Photo by Dagy.

We are delighted to announce that two wonderful colleagues (who happen to be true industry dynamos) launched a very useful website for interpreters. It's cleverly titled InterpreTIPS and it's a series of videos featuring Katharine Allen and Marjory Bancroft They answer questions about interpreting submitted by colleages around the world. The first three videos are already up, and they are a great source of information for both interpreting students and experienced professionals. We are particularly grateful that two accomplished interpreters and interpreter trainers decided to make this available for free for everyone, as there are relatively few excellent free videos of this type for interpreters. Thank you, Marjory and Katharine!

Have a look at their well-designed website and join the conversation! Please help us spread the word. 

MOOCs for Translators and Interpreters

Judy at Harvard, 2011.

At this point, most people and probably all of our readers are familiar with MOOC (massive open online courses), which are offered for free (yes!) by some of the world's best universities. They are offered entirely online and all students can sign up, although a few courses are intended for advanced students in certain fields. We've written about MOOCs before, and we are delighted to see that more and more top universities in countries other than the U.S. are adding courses in other languages. Coursera now offers courses in a total of 12 languages.

A few weeks ago, we decided to take a Spanish-language class from the well-known Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (it starts in February). Even though we attended part of elementary, all of middle school and part of high school in Mexico City, we haven't taken college-level classes in Spanish, so this should be a real treat. We also got our recently retired dad to sign up for the class (Scientific Thinking) with us, so it's a family activity! Coursera and EdX are our favorite MOOC platforms, and we've found many courses that might be a good fit for colleagues with very specific specializations and interest. Here are just a few:

• (In Spanish): Pensamiento científico. Offered by Coursera.  --> We have signed up for this class!
• (In Spanish): Correctión y estilo en español. Offered by Coursera. --> We might take this one, too.
• (In German): Einführung in Computer Vision. Offered by Coursera. 
• Understanding Europe: Why It Matters and What It Can Offer You. Offered by Coursera.
• Introduction to International Criminal Law. Offered by Coursera.
• English Common Law: Structure and Principles. Offered by Coursera.
• The Age of Sustainable Development. Offered by Coursera.
• Asset Pricing. Offered by Coursera.
• Drugs and the Brain. Offered by Coursera.
• Design and Interpretation of Clinical Trials. Offered by Coursera.
• Energy 101. Offered by Coursera.
• Principles of Written English. Offered by EdX.
• China. Offered by EdX.
• Introduction to Computer Science. Offered by EdX.
• Introduction to Statistics: Inference. Offered by EdX.
• Artificial Intelligence. Offered by EdX.
• The Challenges of Global Poverty. Offered by EdX.
• Terrorism and Counterterrorism. Offered by EdX.
• Electricity & Magnetism. Offered by EdX.

We are very strong believers in professional development, as evidenced by the dozens of conferences and workshops we attend in person every year. However, we've never taken a class at an Ivy League university, so this is quite a treat. Regardless of one's field of specialization or interest, there seems to be a MOOC out there that will deepen and broaden one's knowledge and insight. We can't wait to get started. What about you, dear colleagues? Have you taken a MOOC before? Tell us about your experiences!

Question & Answer: Interpreter Ethics

We oftentimes get questions from colleagues and we are flattered that our colleagues think that we are qualified to answer them, and many times we can. However, due to the sheer volume, it can be difficult to answer individual questions. That's why we try to answer some questions here on the blog for the benefit of all. Here's one of the recent questions we received.

Ready for the EU? Picture by Dagy.

A colleague who is not yet court-certified asked us the following question (amended to protect the colleague's privacy):

"I have a big court hearing on Friday and I don't know anything about the subject matter or anything. I have never interpreted at this type of hearing before. Can you recommend some glossaries that I can use to study for this? I don't feel ready for this."

Wow, we thought! Finally, an easy one. 

Here's the short answer: Don't accept the assignment. It's a matter of interpreter ethics.

Now, we thought about this some more, and here is the longer answer with (hopefully) some useful nuggets of information.

This is indeed a good question, but the long answer is still relatively straightforward. Interpreters, just like all professionals, have a professional obligation to only accept assignments for which they feel qualified. This is in addition to any ethical obligation they might have under applicable codes of ethics. It's not fair to the client (be it an agency, a direct client, a government agency, an NGO, etc.) and very much not fair to the person you are interpreting for. This is especially important in judicial proceedings. Can you imagine being stuck in jail in a foreign country, say, China, and that the interpreter who shows up KNOWS she doesn't know what she's doing? Would that make you feel warm and fuzzy? Probably not. So in judicial matters, one really has to take a hard look at one's skills and ask: can I do this? Would I be putting anyone in danger if I accepted this assignment? What's the worst-case scenario in terms of outcome? Medical malpractice? Unlawful deportation? You get the point.

For other types of assignments, things aren't quite that dramatic. For instance, if you are Jewish and are asked to interpret at a Catholic wedding (mass), you probably won't know too much. However, these are things that can be acquired, and you can study up and read and print out prayers and other elements of mass in a week or so. Also, if you have to go interpret at a family court adoption hearing and you've never done family court, but you are a certified court interpreter, you will probably have enough of a terminology base and access to resources to get through this. For instance, you could ask the court clerk for a transcript of a similar proceedings and then study up on some vocabulary.

So the short long answer is that we think you should not accept the assignment unless you feel like you are qualified or you feel that you can adequately prepare in the time you have before the assignment. We'd be especially careful with court-related hearings and medical matters, but for community interpreting and perhaps even conference interpreting, the lines aren't always that clear. In general, if the assignment usually calls for a certified interpreter(and those certifications exist for a reason) and you don't have that certification (medical, court) then you should definitely stay away from it. Nothing good can come out of it.

That said, we want to leave you with one final thought. In a way, one can never be 100% completely ready for some situations. Even if you've interpreted hundreds of depositions, sentencing hearings, status hearings, arraignments and have spent years in court, the first time you do a trial is scary and will make you question your abilities. The first time you go to a hospital to interpret pre-surgery instructions you will be nervous, but if you passed the certification, there's only one way to get more experience under your belt: you need to go and interpret.

We hope we've provided some food for thought. Interpreter codes of ethics (Judy is certified in California and Nevada) are notoriously vague on some issues, but not on this one. When in doubt: decline the assignment. There will always be other assignments. Err on the side of the conservative.

We would love to hear your thoughts!