Translation Industry Featured in Wall Street Journal Online

This morning, we were very excited to see that the Wall Street Journal's online edition had published a short profile about the translation and interpretation industry that has been several months in the making. Judy, who is profiled in the article, gave an in-depth interview to the WSJ, and while some of the information she discussed -- professional development, translator associations, difference between working for direct clients or agencies -- were not addressed, we are still very happy that our industry is getting some much-needed coverage. You can read the full article here. Thanks to our friends at GALA, the Globalization and Localization Association, who made this article with the WSJ happen and recommended Judy to be featured in the article. Unfortunately, GALA did not get mentioned in the article.

This makes two high-profile translation articles in a month: remember Abigail Dahlberg's front-page Los Angeles times piece?

Translation in the News

We woke up to some excellent news. Our friend and colleague, fellow blogger Corinne McKay, who pens the excellent Thoughts on Translation, posted a link about another dear colleague, Abigail Dahlberg, who was profiled on the first page of the Los Angeles Times! We are so proud of her, and we've always thought that her specialization, which is German to English waste management, was incredibly interesting and relevant. We missed Abigail at this year's ATA conference, but clearly, she was well remembered by all; which resulted in this article.

Who knew -- translators on the front page of the Los Angeles Times? It's fantastic news for our profession. Congratulations to Abigail, to the LA Times for a well-researched article, and thanks to Corinne for letting us know about the article (even though Judy lives on the West Coast, she's a NYT girl). Read the article here.

Should Spanish Be an Official Language of the US?

Bilingualism, language acquisition, official languages, and services to speakers of foreign languages have been areas of interest for us in the past. As the United States' percentage of non-English speakers grows, the amount of services available in Spanish and other languages increases accordingly. There are very interesting points of debate on either side of the aisle -- should the US cater to speakers of other languages or shouldn't it? If yes, what are the limitations? We are happy we are not in the difficult positions to draft public policy about this, as there is no easy answer. Through one of our mailing lists, the Interagency Language Roundtable, which we highly recommend, we came across this interesting article which addresses the issue: should the US adopt Spanish as an official language? While this article certainly provides no definite answers, it's very interesting food for thought. Read the article here.

Bloggers' Lunch at ATA Conference

In keeping up with a tradition introduced last year, our friend and colleague Jill Sommer from Musings of an overworked translator is organizing another bloggers' lunch during the ATA's national conference. This year it's happening during the American Translators Association's 50th annual conference in New York City. We are going to meet on Thursday, October 29, at 12:30 p.m.

To let us know you are coming, please visit Jill's blog for detailed information and let her know that you will be attending by leaving a comment. We look forward to another entertaining lunch. Last year in Orlando we got to make contact in the real world with fellow bloggers as well as friends and also speculated about the Masked Translator's secret identity. Shall we do it again?

Short Survey for Judicial Interpreters

In an ongoing effort to improve the quality of court interpreting services available on both the state and national level, the National Association of Judiciary Translators and Interpreters (NAJIT) is kindly requesting interpreters' help with filling out a 15-minute survey. This is done through the anonymous Survey Monkey software and is completely confidential.

The purpose of the survey is to obtain detailed information nationwide about the ways in which state and federal courts use certified and non-certified spoken-language interpreters, so that NAJIT may best target its future advocacy work. The data generated by this survey will be made available to all participants and will be summarized on the NAJIT web site and in its advocacy efforts. No specific information that could reveal the identity or locations of the survey participants will be published.

You can take the survey here. For more information about NAJIT, please visit their website.

Link to Payment Options: A Great Overview

Translation and interpretation is an increasingly international business, and entrepreneurial linguists need to determine the best ways to accept payments from both domestic and international clients. There are many options, and some have some intransparent fees, while others are just too expensive for small amounts. Which one should you chose? PayPal? And what's ACH? And what does Bloomberg and the interbank rate have to do with anything?

Join our friends and colleagues Corinne McKay and Eve Bodeux as they discuss the different payment options in a well-researched, easy-to-follow report, which also includes links to the most important sites that they mention. Listen to the informative (and unique!) Speaking of Translation here to ensure that getting paid doesn't get too expensive for you.

Online Resources: World Languages

We just came across a very interesting website sent to us through one of the listservs that we belong to. It's a site that covers information on a wide variety of languages spoken around the world, including Malayalam, Pashto, Quechua, Dakota, Tok Pisin and many others that you probably aren't familiar with (we weren't.) It's a fascinating resource, especially for language professionals, and it has a wealth of extremely well-researched information, including difficulty of language acquisition, dialects, background, strucutre, writing, etc. This is a good website if you need to settle any discussion about languages; for instance: where is Telugu spoken? Answer: it's spoken by 70 million people in India, mainly in the state of Andra Pradesh. Or: what's the third official language of Ruanda? Answer: Kinyarwand. Warning: this site is not only highly informative and academic, but also highly addictive. Enjoy learning more about languages of lesser diffusion! Visit the World Languages site here.

Translation Times Turns One

This week marks this blog's first year of life on the blogosphere, and we have been delighted with our blogging experience. We were inspired to add a translation blog to our list of blogs by many of our fantastic colleagues who have blogged about translation for years. Here are some of this year's highlights:

• 125 posts
  
• Average of 7 -9 blog posts per month
• Hundreds of comments and interesting discussions
• Appreciative feedback from readers we informed of an interpretation company that has not paid many contractors, as reported to us by affected parties
  
• Our most popular blog entries, by number of comments, were the above-mentioned non-payment alerts, including this one here and the accused's response here.
• Many good ideas and suggestions from our readers, which inspired new blog posts, including one on languages in literature.

Thanks for reading, everyone! We are appreciative of your input and feedback and look forward to continue strengthening our translation community by writing about relevant things for linguists. We will continue bringing you popular posts about marketing tips, advertising strategies, cost-saving tips, information on professional development, and much more. We'd love to hear from you as well - let us know if you'd like us to address a particular issue. Here's to a great second year! Note: the above picture was taken by our good friend and volunteer photographer, Ulf Buchholz, in front of a run-down building in east Las Vegas, signaling the end of the building boom in Nevada. No end of the blogging boom in sight, though!

Language in Literature: Budapest by Chico Buarque

Last month, we wrote about a work of fiction that did the interpretation profession a disservice through inaccurate portrayals, and it made us think about how the translation and interpretation profession is generally portrayed in literature. One of our most loyal blog readers, Guillermo, suggested that we read "Budapest" by Brazilian author Chico Buarque. Guillermo refered to it as a masterpiece on language, so we had to get it. We ordered it from our local library, and Judy read it in one day. If Dagmar's take on the book differs drastically from Judy's, we will post it here soon as well. Thanks a lot for the great tip, Guillermo!

I don't speak Portuguese, so I read "Budapest" by famed Brazilian artist Chico Buarque in its good new English translation by seasoned literary translator Alison Entrekin. It's quite a challenge to communicate some of the finer points of Romance languages and nuances in a non-Romance language, and at times, the writing doesn't seem as eloquent as it probably is in Portuguese. However, Entrekin certainly did the author justice (she apparently worked closely with Buarque on the translation).

The book, set mainly in Rio de Janeiro and Budapest, Hungary, tells the tale of a ghostwriter who lives in the shadows of his outstanding work, which repeatedly brings others fame and fortune. On a whim, he decides to move to Budapest and learn the "only language the devil respects." What follows is the protagonist's, José Costa's, immersion in the Hungarian language, life, and of course, love, which comes in the form of an enigmatic and unorthodox Hungarian teacher. Buarque's writing is at times breathless and always quite stunning, and it reminds me of some of Andrea DeCarlo's earlier works. Buarque's descriptions of language acquisition are very interesting, and while this book does not focus on the translation profession per se, it's an insider's view of learning a new language as an adult. While some of the aspects of the plot are highly unlikely (we won't spoil it for you here) and some passages seem a bit out of place or don't do much for the story, it is a well-developed tale full of descriptive power.

The passion for language -- both the author's and the protagonist's -- comes through very clearly, and it's a fantastic read for those of us who make our living by working with languages. It's great to finally read a good book about loving language, the place language occupies in our lives, how we define ourselves through language, and the liberty to perhaps choose your own native language. You can buy the book here or check if your local library carries it.

A Day Without the Internet

Last week, the wireless system in Judy's house in Vegas went down. Both the PC and the laptop weren't connecting to the internet. While we are software power users, occassional beta testers and feel very comfortable with anything HTML and e-commerce, hardware isn't our thing. After an hour or so disconnecting and connecting the modem, the router, and anything else that had a plug, Judy gave up. Well, a call to our cable service provider was made, and they assured us that the problem wasn't with them, but clearly with Judy. Instead of fretting for the rest of the afternoon, Judy did something atypical and forgot about the ever-present online access and focused on something else, mainly writing our "Entrepreneurial Linguist" book which we've talked about here before. Without constant online distraction, we are happy to report that the second draft of a chapter on social media was written in one afternoon. Lesson learned: you can live (and get work done) without the Internet, and perhaps we could even self-impose an internet-free afternoon (it's doubtful that we will really do that, though). The picture to the right features Judy's laptop poolside with no internet acccess. Perhaps it needed an online break, too.

Miss Universe 2009: Beauty and the Interpreter

Yes, we admit it: we occassionally watch Miss Universe (at the gym, while running). This year, Judy had an incentive, as she has two friends working at the Atlantis resort in the Bahamas, who put on the event (great job, guys!). When it came time for the dreadful final question phase (we won't get into the merit of the answers here), several contestants required an interpreter. First of all: our hats are off to an interpreter who's willing to stand in front of millions of people at a live TV show and interpret while being distracted by gorgeous women. It's very scary, and there aren't that many linguists who wouldn't panic at the thought (we would). That said, the interpreter had some noteable mishaps, but he held his own with remarkable self-assurance.

The interpreter struggles with his interpretation for Miss Dominican Republic, and he certainly made an ethically incorrect decision by not interpreting the contestant's mistake (she meant to say "descuido" -- mistake -- but said "cuidado" -- care), but correcting it for her in his English interpretation. Part of the judge's question was: "According to the World Health Organization, there is an urgent need for HIV testing across the globe." Interpretation: "La Organización Mundial de la Salud exige que alrededor de todo el mundo se hagan pruebas para descubrir si la persona padece de SIDA o no." Translating back the interpreter: "The World Health Organization demands that AIDS testing is done all around the world to determine if the person has AIDS or not." The WHO does not demand such a thing, nor did the judge say that. And the testing is for HIV (VIH in Spanish), not for AIDS (SIDA in Spanish). This interpretation mistake would certainly have been disastrous at an international conference, but how serious is it here? What do you think? As professionals, we say that it certainly matters, but that mistakes happen, especially in high-performance situations. Was it good enough? And what's your stance on the interpreter not following the rules of his profession and correcting the contestant's mistake, to her benefit? We'd love to hear your thoughts on the interpreter's performance. On another note, we are still wondering why Miss Puerto Rico, who is from a country with two official languages (English and Spanish), needs an English<->Spanish interpreter.

Watch the video. Warning: the quality of the video is very poor:

Not for Sale: Dealing with Self-Promotional Blog Comments

Those of us who write blogs have to determine a strategy for dealing with comments that readers leave. Most of the time, the comments section is what takes the blog entry to a new level , fueled by interesting insight our readers leave. We strongly believe that the comments section is a great forum for exchanging information and ideas with fellow linguists. However, we do moderate comments, which means that if a reader leaves a comment, it's not live on the site immediately. 99.9% of the time, we will approve the comment right away, and it will appear on the blog.

The reason we have to moderate the blog comments in the first place is because of the unfortunate fact that more and more spammers, pseudo-savy internet marketers, companies desperate for business, or simply unethical folks who want to take advantage of our hard work are trying to promote their businesses on our blog. So, for our reader's benefit and for universal fairness, we have come up with the following:

• We will not, under any circumstances, publish a comment left with the sole intention of readers clicking on the commenter's link. A comment would be along the lines of "Great post. Please visit www.bestcarsontheinternet." It won't happen. This blog is a forum of professional exchange between linguists and is not a platform for others to promote their services.
• We will not promote anyone else's services or products on our blog unless we deem them to be of great interest to our readers. We will, however, recommend things that we think are useful: dictionaries, new software, translation-related books, etc. However, there is never any financial interest with the publishers -- we are not getting paid to do any of this.
• We will not participate in link exchanges. We will, however, link to our favorite blogs written by other linguists in our blog roll, and don't necessarily expect a link back.
  
• We will not accept any invitations by dubious new translation-related websites to review their services. We frequently get invited into "bloggers' programs," which apparently is a thinly disguised ploy to get some free publicity.
• The final word: we work very hard on this blog, and we appreciate our readers' loyalty. Hence, we won't turn it into a mouthpiece for anyone wanting to promote their services, nor do we want to put our readers through reading advertising copy. Whoever wants to promote something can start a blog of their own.
  

Interpreters' Portrayal in Literature: Fail

Dagmar just read a book about a conference interpreter, the book’s clever title being “The Interpreter”, written by Suzanne Glass. According to her bio in the back of the book, the author is a former conference interpreter who is fluent in seven languages. That seems hard to believe, especially after reading certain German-language passages in the book. Here is an excerpt for the German speakers among us. This is from a letter quoted in the book: Aber nun setze ich mich hin und schriebe [sic] Dir. […] Ist es möglich dass es erst sieben oder acht Monate her ist? Es scheint doch wie ein Leben. There are quite a few mistakes in there. The last sentence doesn’t sound German at all. Suzanne Glass is really doing our profession a disservice here.

Having read about this book in an anthology about the image of interpreters and translators in literature, my curiosity was piqued, even though the back cover praises “a heady mix or romance and intrigue,” which would usually discourage me from reading it. While the author quite accurately describes the work of conference interpreter Dominique Green, this book has an unpleasant aftertaste. Dominique is described as “not having her own voice” – whatever that means – and this fact is attributed to her work. That is, of course, nonsense. I find it disturbing that Dominique eventually finds her own voice only through the miraculous love of a man. At the end of the day, the author probably just wanted to write a (barely interesting and sometimes cheesy) love story and her own profession just provided the logical background.

This book could’ve been a good opportunity for conveying a positive image of our profession. Too bad that was apparently not the author’s intention. For a detailed review of this book in German, please click here.

Vote for Your Favorite Language Blogs

We were delighted to hear that our colleague Emma Littner nominated our little blog for the Top 100 Language Blogs. Thanks, Emma!

The Top 100 Language Blogs list is compiled by the managers of a fantastic blog on language,s in several languages, Lexiophiles. We frequent the site for excellent insight into languages, and used their Top 100 Language Blog list last year to find our favorite blogs. There's a lot of talent out there in the translation world, and most of the blogs are fantastic (we link to our favorites on our blog roll to the left). It's wonderful that these blogs -- and the busy professionals behind them -- will be getting recognized.

We heard from the ranking's organizers that we are encouraged to put this button on our blog in case you would like to vote for us. We'd be honored and delighted, but please have a look at all the other contestants and vote for your favorites (you can vote for one in each category; ours is in the languages professionals group). Have fun, and if you decide to vote for us -- thank you! Voting starts today and concludes on July 28. Winners will be announced on July 30.

Speak English or Else

We subscribe to the very interesting listserv by the Interagency Language Roundtable, which is a federal agency that creates and shares information about language-related activities. They keep us up-to-date on highly relevant matters for our industry, including legislation developments on interpretation on the federal level. We highly recommend subscribing to their listserv here.

The listserv's most recent posting caught our attention:

Speak English well, or get a ticket
Truckers face hefty fine for breaking law that says they must be able to talk with police.

Tuscaloosa, Ala. —- Manuel Castillo was driving a truck through Alabama hauling onions from Georgia and left with a $500 ticket for something he didn't think he was doing: speaking English poorly.
Castillo, who was stopped on his way back to California, said he knows federal law requires him to be able to converse in English with an officer, but he thought his language skills were good enough to avoid a ticket. Still, Castillo said he plans to pay the maximum fine of $500 rather than return to Alabama to fight the ticket. "It just doesn't seem fair to be ticketed if I wasn't doing anything dangerous on the road," he said. Federal law requires that anyone with a commercial driver's license speak English well enough to talk with police. Authorities last year issued 25,230 tickets nationwide for violations. Now the federal government is trying to tighten the English requirement, saying the change is needed for safety reasons.
Read the full article.
It makes sense that commercial truckers need to be able to communicate with an officer in basic English when stopped on the road. However, getting a ticket for no other offense than being a "non-English speaker" is highly controversial (to put it mildly). The topic of English proficiency is hotly debated and doesn't have an easy answer-- what do the languages professionals think in this case? Who determines if the driver's English is good enough? The officer? How can she/he correctly assess language skills? Are there any discrimination issues? Would these drivers have the right to an interpreter? We'd love to hear your thoughts -- just leave a comment.

LinkedIn Translation Fiasco Makes the NYT

Our friend Jill Sommer sent us a note that the paper of record, the New York Times, just published an article about the fact that LinkedIn recently sent an e-mail to thousands of translators, essentially asking if they would help translate LinkedIn for free. This has been covered very widely in translation blogs and forums, and we certainly support the majority's viewpoint that professional translation services should not be available for free. It's disappointing to see that a major player like LinkedIn fails to take our profession seriously enough to compensate professional linguists for their services. We wonder if LinkedIn also sent an e-mail to attorneys, asking them to review some documents for free?

Read the NYT's excellent coverage, including a comment by Matthew Bennett, who started a LinkedIn groupd that hotly debated this issue, here.

Good News: Optimism in the Industry

We would like to share some economic data that we received from the folks at GALA (Globalization and Localization Association). They recently completed their third quarterly survey among their members, and have sent us the results. While the realities of these challenging economic times have affected all of us in one way or another, it is nice to hear that the outlook is generally quite positive. Here are some highlights from the study:

A full 78 percent of respondents said they had been impacted by the downturn in the last three months (Feb – April), a marked increase from 57 percent who indicated they had been impacted in the previous February survey. Far fewer in North America felt a direct impact (55 percent) than Europe (83 percent) and Asia (85 percent).

However, the outlook is not nearly as grim. A full 30 percent of respondents anticipate an actual increase in demand in the next three months—way up from eight percent in the previous survey. And many more respondents are optimistic about the future (44 percent) than are not (15 percent).

Other findings include:

* More than 82 percent of respondents have not cut workforce as a result of the financial crisis. There have been other reactions by many LSPs, including reductions in overtime and outsourcing, wage reductions and salary freezes.
* More than half of respondents (53 percent) report lower revenue compared to three months ago.
* Forty-four percent of respondents are optimistic about the next 6 to 12 months, while 15 percent are not optimistic and 41 percent are unsure.
* Similar to the first quarter, more than half of respondents have not had any projects or contracts canceled due to the economic situation. But there is a lot more downward pressure on price and some projects have been delayed.

Mocking the Spanish Language in Vegas

For many years, I ran the Spanish-language version of a travel website, and one of my (sometimes painful) jobs was reviewing Vegas shows. There really are many more bad shows than good shows in Vegas. After 14 years in town and more than 300 shows, I've seen some really, really bad ones. My least favorite include the ones that play on racial stereotypes while not being funny and that showcase people who don't have much talent. The show I saw this week, Criss Angel Believe at the Luxor falls in all categories.

I will spare you the painful details about the hype, hubris, demented bunnies, goth-like dancers, and fake-corpse chewing creatures as well as the amateur-like execution of basic magic tricks (doves from a hat, anyone?) and get to the point: cultural insensitivity.

Some of Criss Angel's sidekicks are clearly Hispanic. When Criss, who has a terrible sense of comedic timing, asks the main sidekick, whom he refers to as "maestro" to do something, the maestro answers in Spanish. That part is actually quite hilarious, as the maestro throws in some fantastic profanities at the resident black-leather-wearing magician. This is where it goes downhill: Criss Angel says that he wants to speak Spanish now that he's been learning it, so he instructs the maestro to open the damn "box-o" and the "lid-o" and to take off the "lock-o". Fellow magiciain David Copperfield does something similar, but he shows that he appreciates the importance of the Spanish language in this country and doesn't mock it. He asks for the translation of "lock" and then shows off his Spanish counting skills "uno, dos, tres, dos-dos." Criss Angel, on the other hand, comes across as a culturally insensitive entertainer who enjoys making fun of Hispanics. Addressing language and race is always a tricky subject, it can work well if you truly are funny, show some respect for the subject you are making fun of and are geniuine-- all of which Criss Angel lacks.

Just like many people who were at the show, I was pretty dumbfounded. This is a Cirque du Soleil show, which is one of the powerhouses of high-end productions on the Strip and creators of some of my favorite shows in town. As is widely known, Cirque is a French Canadian company and is composed mostly of international performers. Why would the talented team at Cirque allow Criss Angel to be so culturally insensitive?

Statistically speaking, nearly 20% of the audience in that showroom was Spanish-speaking., and just like I, the ones I heard from weren't amused. Adding an "o" to every English word does not make it Spanish, just like adding "-akos" to everything doesn't make it Greek (hint: Criss Angel is of Greek descent).

Guest Post: Getting a Ph.D. in Translation Studies

By B.J. Epstein

I am nearing the end of my time in a doctoral program in translation studies, so I thought I would write a little bit about what it means to get a PhD in the field.

In September 2006, I moved from Sweden to Wales in order to study at Swansea University. There are not that many schools yet that offer translation studies; more often, one must study a language or comparative literature. So what does it mean to be in a translation studies program?

Translation programs on the BA or MA level generally focus on training translators. Such programs combine theoretical and practical work. Students improve their language skills, read and discuss translation theory, practice translation, learn about computer programs and terminology, and maybe get information about starting a company or working for agencies, and other such things. In other words, these kinds of programs are aimed at students who are good with languages and want to work in the field of translation.

In a sense, translation studies might as well be totally unrelated. I have met many people who study or work in the field of translation studies and yet have never translated and have no intention of doing so (I tend to find this odd, but that is a different issue). In a Ph D. program, a student is being prepared to become a researcher, not a translator. As in BA or MA programs, students learn about translation theory, but by the Ph.D. level, they are expected to have (or to quickly obtain) in-depth knowledge about this. Students should already have extensive language skills. One doesn’t really attend courses, although this depends on what country the program is and what individual students require. For example, I chose to sit in on several classes about translation theory and the history of translation, mainly out of interest and a desire to refresh or extend my knowledge. Basically, one spends most of the time researching. Students must be independent and good at working hard and making their own schedule.

Research what? Well, there are many different possible areas. One can research and analyze the translation of specific kinds of non-fiction or fiction works or specific types of language, the translation of a particular author, what it means to translate between two or more different languages, how translators feel about their jobs, what translators actually do as they work, how translators are or ought to be trained, how translators use (or don’t use) computer tools, how ideas of translation have changed over time, critiquing translation, how translation can be used to control certain populations, how translation can develop a target language, what conditions translators work in, differences in how translators and those studying to be translators work or think about their work, and much, much more. Remember that much of this can apply to interpreting too, which is generally subsumed under the field of translation studies, though interpreting studies as a separate field is growing, and also to subtitling.

As an example, my own research has been focused on children’s literature and I have been particularly interested in how figurative language is used and translated in books for children from English to Swedish. I also know people who research the translation of medical texts between English and Chinese, and the translation of idiomatic phrases in non-fiction from Spanish to English, and the subtitling of talk shows. Some researchers use computer programs to help with their research (particularly if they need a large corpus of texts), while others interview translators or sit with them while they work, and still others focus on close analysis of texts.

Those who are starting out in the field often spend a lot of time learning about translation theory in general and their particular field specifically. For example, in my first term or two in the PhD program, I read everything I could find on the translation of children’s literature, on translation in the colonial and postcolonial contexts (this was related to my need to learn more about translation and power), on functionalist theories and skopos, on translating dialects and wordplay, and related topics. Others might want to read about gender theories or issues of in/visibility or financial translation or interpreting in a legal setting or think-aloud protocols.

The next step is picking one’s texts and starting the research and, of course, trying to find something new and important to contribute to the field. I use primarily textual analysis and statistical analysis, which means I study texts and their translations, and then compute how common certain translatorial strategies are. In the first term, students often begin writing literature reviews and chapters of their dissertation. Here, one’s supervisors should give detailed criticism on one’s writing style and ideas.

In the first year, many students start attending academic conferences and sometimes even presenting at them. Conferences are an excellent way to learn about what research is taking place in the field and also to get feedback on one’s budding research. Next, one ought to try to get articles published. Attending and speaking at conferences and having work published are both essential when one is finished and looking for a job. Research trips may also prove beneficial; I spent two wonderful weeks at the National Library in Stockholm, studying various translations of work by Lewis Carroll and Mark Twain.

I have really loved my time being a PhD student in translation studies. I have continued to translate, edit, write, and teach throughout my years in Wales, and that has been really stimulating for me, although many Ph.D. students prefer to focus solely on their research. It’s a lot of fun to research translation and to try to contribute to the field and in the future. I hope to continue combining research with being a practicing translator.

B.J. Epstein is a Ph.D. student and a Swedish->English translator living in Wales. She's originally from Chicago, and lived and worked in Sweden for many years. She's also a friend of ours whom we had the pleasure of meeting in Vienna earlier this year. Don't miss her fantastic blog, Brave New Words.

Link: Translator Community Mourns Ben Teague's Death

Ben Teague, former American Translators Association (ATA) president, German->English translator and theater aficionado, was fatally shot on Saturday, apparently by a University of Georgia professor while attending a picnic. It appears that Ben was trying to protect the real target, the shooter's ex-wife.

Although we did not know Ben Teague personally, many of our colleagues did, and our hearts go out to this corageous linguist's family. Ben had inspired many people and translators during his career, and contributed a tremendous amount to our profession. The Austin Area Translators and Interpreters Association has a short account of the tragedy and additional background on Ben on their blog. For more information, please see here.