2-Day Court Interpretation Bootcamp: Vegas 3/28 + 3/29

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If you are looking for top-notch instruction to hone your court interpretation skills -- and perhaps to prepare for the Federal Court Interpreter Certification Examination in July -- you might enjoy this workshop in sunny Vegas next week. While the Nevada Interpreters and Translators Association (NITA), of which Judy is the proud past president, is not organizing the event, the organization is helping promote this two-day workshop here in Vegas presented by well-known interpreter trainer  and federally certified English/Spanish interpreter Alfonso Villaseñor.

Record your renditions!

This might also be ideal for court interpreters in colder climates (pretty much most of the country), as it's currently in the low 80s in Vegas. You might want to combine a trip to Vegas (affordable hotels in the newly hip downtown) with a top-notch professional development opportunity. And for the record, and as always, we are not getting paid to promote this event. Rather, Judy will attend this workshop herself. While Alfonso Villaseñor does not have a website where you can read more about his workshops, please rest assured that he's a fantastic trainer with a lot of experience. His style is also quite unique, and we've both had the pleasure to hear him present at an ATA conference. As opposed to many interpreter trainers and courses targets at those court interpreters preparing for big exams, Alfonso focuses on technique rather on the simply memorizing terminology, which we think is a fantastic idea.

So here's the link to NITA's website, where you can find more information about this event. It's coming up -- next week! The cost is $500 for two days, and it appears to be well worth it.

If you have any questions, please be sure to contact Alfonso Villaseñor directly by clicking here. Note: this workshop is language-neutral.

The Community Interpreter: Salinas, California

It's a great pleasure to announce a fantastic professional development opportunity to our readers and colleagues. Judy has trained with both the fantastic workshop leaders and highly recommends them! Tracy Young is the founding president of NITA, a long-time trainer for Bridging the Gap and Connecting Worlds, and also a registered nurse (plus a certified medical interpreter, of course). Katharine Allen is a graduate of the newly renamed Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey (formerly the Monterey Institute of International Studies, MIIS) MIIS) and the co-president of InterpretAmerica. She has given many workshops across the country. Both Tracy and Katharine are highly dynamic speakers with several train-the-trainer workshops under their belts. Their styles are very similar in the sense that they use the Socratic method more often than not -- and their hands-on exercises are fantastic. Judy is a graduate of Tracy's fall 2009 Connecting Worlds workshop, where she learned much of what she knows about medical interpreting. Katharine has given several workshops for NITA, including a popular afternoon of simultaneous interpretation and another one of note-taking. You can't go wrong with these two trainers! Ah, we are so excited about this workshop that it even seems like they are paying us - but we assure you they are not. We are merely posting this as a courtesy to everyone, and because top-notch professional development is always worth it, but sometimes hard to find (there are a lot of pseudo-qualified trainers out there, but we digress).

The Community Interpreter (TCI) is a 40-hour workshop for medical and community interpreters that's required to take the natioanal interpreter certification exams for medical interpreting. It is the only 40-hour training course in the US that specifically teaches community interpreting. It was developed by industry leader Marjory Bancroft of Cross-Cultural Communications. TCI goes a bit beyond Bridging the Gap and Connecting Worlds, and the curriculum looks fantastic. Participants who wish to receive the certificate of training at the end must be tested for language proficiency (the fee is included in the total price). Note: this workshop is language-neutral.

The workshop will be held at Natividad Medical Center in Salinas, CA, during the last week of April. For additional information and to sign up, please visit the website. 

The Voice of Love: Interpreting Compassion

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The Voice of Love, led by highly respected industry veteran Marjory Bancroft, is the only non-profit that we know of that offers interpreting training specifically for linguists who wish to work in social services environments to help survivors of extremely challenging life situations. The rules of court or conference interpreting, or even medical interpreting, simply don't apply here, and interpreters need very specific skills to deal with these delicate interpreting situations. We haven't had any training in how to handle these situations, and neither have most of our colleagues, which is why this training (Voices of Love) is so important. Many well-known interpreting experts from around the country have contributed to the training material that this course is based on, among them our dear colleague Nataly Kelly (co-author of Found in Translation). 

This year's weeklong training session will be held Columbia, Maryland, from May 4 through May 8. We wish it would be closer to the West Coast so we can attend, but our travel schedule is already quite packed this year. However, we hope to attend another time. We have heard great things about this training session and wanted to share the information with you here. Please have a look at the flyer, the Voices of Love website or their informative blog. 

Fun Memory Exercise

Today we'd like to continue our tradition of quick posts with very simple tips that are easy to implement. As all of us are in the middle of the holiday season, we figured we'd keep it short. This blog post should take you no more than three minutes to read.

Interpreters are constantly working on their memory, as having great memory is key, especially for consecutive interpreting. We keep our memory sharp with all sorts of exercises, and one of our favorite ones is also quite fun, but it's actually harder than it looks. 

Here's how it works: next time you go to the movies, keep track of the previews that are shown before the actual movie starts. Here in the United States it's usually five previews, but it can be up to eight. Don't write anything down (as that's sort of cheating!) and try to remember all previews in the right sequence until the end of the movie. Can you do it? We usually accomplish it by remembering keywords ("stupid movie based on a cartoon" or "lovely movie based on a best-selling novel" or "horror movie for teenagers") and traditionally do quite well on this. It's become a sport, and anyone who comes to the movies with us gets drawn into this, like it or not!

What do you think about this memory exercise, dear friends and colleagues? If you have other exercises to share, please do so by leaving a comment below.

Quick Interpreting Tip

As our lovely readers and colleagues in the US get ready for Thanksgiving (in the rest of the world, it's just another Thursday), we wanted to share a quick interpreting tip that comes in very handy during practice.

Take a speech from your favorite source (Speechpool, TED, etc.), interpret it simultaneously (consecutive works, too), and record it using a recording software (we use Audacity). We think it's key to record your practice sessions, so it's good to get into the habit of doing so. After doing the recording, try to turn off the memory you have of the source recording and just listen to the target recording. Ask yourself: 

• Does this recording make sense? 
• Would I understand this if I didn't speak the source language? 
• Can I summarize the content of this recording? 

Ideally, once in a while, you'd give the recording to a friend who truly doesn't speak the source language, have him/her listen to it, and have the person to answer the questions we've listed above. In simul interpreting, that is exactly the case - the person(s) you are interpreting for doesn't speak the source language, which is why they need an interpreter. However, so often when we grade exams, the recordings and live performances are disjointed, incoherent and oftentimes consist of fragments rather than entire sentences. Once in a while, if we had not heard the source recording, we would not be able to make sense of the interpretation, which of course is defeating the purpose of having an interpreter to enable communication. 

So next time you listen to your interpreting recording, take off your multilingual hat and listen pretending you only speak the target language. This simple and easy trick has helped us identify weaknesses in our own recordings, such as bad syntax, idioms that didn't quite make sense, etc.

We hope you enjoy this quick tip, dear colleagues! We'd love to hear other tips as well.

Where to Find Us: ATA Conference in Chicago

It's our favorite time of the year! Well, we like the holiday season as well, but the annual American Translators Association conference, which wil be held in Chicago this year, is one of the best weeks of the years for us. We get to spend it together and we have the chance to share a fantastic four days of conference with all our friends, colleagues, subcontractors, and clients. We cannot wait! Come tomorrow morning, we will both be on a plane. Dagy will be coming in from Vienna, while Judy is making the shorter trip from Las Vegas.

We truly enjoy spending time with our friends and colleagues, but with 175 sessions, dinners, lunches, networking events, and a busy exhibit hall, it's sometimes hard to meet up. We therefore wanted to give you an overview of where we will be in case you want to meet up and say hi -- we'd very much enjoy it!

1. Buddies Welcome Newbies (Wednesday, November 5, 5:15 to 6 p.m.): We know how hard it is to attend this big conference for the first time, so we have volunteered to be buddies for a newbie. 
2. Welcome reception (Wednesday, November 5, 6 to 7 p.m.): It is amazing how much fun you can pack into an hour! We always really look forward to seeing everyone for the first time at this event.
3. "Quote This! 7 Essential Elements of a Language Services Price Quote": Judy will be giving this session (IC-13) on Saturday, November 8, 2014, at 10 a.m. Things usually get really busy before and after the session, but we'd love for you to come attend it! Judy's sessions are usually held in one of the bigger rooms with plenty of seating for everyone.
4. "German Orthography for Experienced Linguists" (presented in German; G-5) on Friday, November 7, 2014, at 2:30 p.m. Every year, we present one German-language session and usually have a lot of fun. While the topic can be dry, we strive to make it entertaining. If German is one of your working languages, you might enjoy this session!
5. InTrans Book Service booth: Our favorite bookseller, Freek Lankhof, will be on his farewell tour (yes, we will cry), and we plan on spending as much time as possible at his booth (6/7 in the exhibit hall). We are also doing a book signing on Friday from 3:45 to 4:45. Stop by and see us! We will be signing copies of our popular The Entrepreneurial Linguist: The Business-School Approach to Freelance Translation book, which will be available for sale from Freek.
6. The Nevada Interpreters and Translators Association (NITA) table. All ATA chapters and affiliate groups usually have tables (location to be announced) with information about the organizations, and since Judy is the immediate past president of NITA, she will be helping staff the table. It's the ideal place to find us in between sessions!
7. Spanish Language Division dinner (Friday evening) and German Language Division dinner (Thursday evening): We will be attending both events! 
8. The lobby bar: There's nothing quite like sharing a glass of wine with friends and colleagues. Look for us in the bar. We should be easy to spot, as we are usually the only set of twins.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Quick Translation Tip

We recently decided to introduce regular short blog posts that center on just one short piece of advice that can be implemented quickly and that takes less than three minutes to read.

Today's post is a simple and effective way to improve any translation.

Once you get to your second draft (printed), read every target sentence individually again. Don't look at the source text and don't worry about specialized terminology. Just read it and ask yourself: does this make sense?

Is the population of the UK really 641 million? (No; it's 64.1 million.) Is Yellowstone National Park in California? (No; but Yosemite National park is.) Is Red Bull an Australian company? (It's an Austrian company.) Our point here is: read for obvious errors that aren't linguistic but rather fact-based (easy to research and/or double-check) or somehow related to logic. Sometimes we focus so much on specialized terminology that we misspell names, places, numbers, and just commit general errors that you would easily catch if you remove the translator lens and just review the sentence as an outside reader would.  Read it again and ask yourself: does this make sense?

We've committed many of these mistakes ourselves and usually catch them on our second draft. We hope you like this quick translation tip - we'd also love to hear yours. Just leave a comment below.

AUSIT Conference Down Under: November

Our friends at AUSIT (Australian Institute of Interpreters and Translators) are hosting the Biennial National Conference (titled "Transition into the future") this upcoming November 1 and 2 in Brisbane, and it's shaping up to be a great event. AUSIT was kind enough to invite Judy to speak at this event, but unfortunately, it's just a few days before the American Translators Association Annual Conference in Chicago, where both of us are presenting workshops, so we will be there in spirit!

The conference location looks gorgeous, and the gala dinner will feature a mariachi group from Mexico and fantastic views of the Brisbane skyline. The conference lineup is promising as well, and the workshops include a full day pre-conference session on MemoQ on October 31. We've never been to Australia or New Zealand, and it's certainly true that most translator events focus on the US and on Europe, but let's not forget about these lovely events in Australia and Asia. We've never met anyone who didn't enjoy a trip to Australia, and while it's a long flight from Europe, this event might just very well be worth it. AUSIT has produced a funky video, which you can view here. 

We hope to make it to Australia for the 2017 FIT Congress!

Fall Conference Schedule: Michigan

We are delighted to announce that Judy will be one of the two keynote speakers at the  MiTiN 2014 Regional Conference on Interpreting and Translation (Michigan Translators/Interpreters Network) on Saturday, October 2. She is quite honored to join Lori Thicke, founder of Lexworks and, most notably, the lovely Translators Without Border, which we proudly support through donations. In addition to her keynote titled "10 Habits of Highly Successful Interpreters and Translators," Judy is also giving a workshop titled "Pricing Strategies for Language Professionals." The motto of the 5th Annual MiTiN conference is "Breaking Out of Your Comfort Zone," which should make for very interesting sessions. The MiTiN conference committee has been working very hard to put on this one-day event, and we hope that many of you can join us in Novi, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. Please help us spread the word! The conference, which includes lunch and a networking session, will take place at the Crowne Plaza hotel, and there will also be some exhibitors.

Here's the conference schedule with all the sessions, and you can also visit the conference website.

Spanish Grammar and Writing: In Pictures

Our friends over at Ortografía Real have been tweeting up a storm and have been sharing a large amount of interesting tidbits about the Spanish language. We really enjoy their tweets and their Facebook page, and highly recommend you follow them.

They recently tweeted two images that nicely illustrate some very common mistakes. If we had a penny for every time someone sent us an e-mail with Hay nos vemos (correct: Ahí nos vemos) or Haber si te quedas a cenar (correct: A ver si te quedas a cenar), we would be rich. Perhaps this will clear up some of these common errors. Enjoy!

Thank you, Ortografía Real, for this gem.

Simple and priceless. A ver si se acuerdan.

Workshops in Europe: September

It's official! We will both be in Europe in September, as Judy will be crossing the pond to work from Vienna for a month, and she's also fitting in two recently announced workshops. Here is additional information -- we would love to see you there!

At ITI London, September 2013. Picture by Dagy.

Manchester, UK (North-West Translators' Network, a regional group of the ITI). On September 20, Judy will present her popular three-hour "No Pain, No Gain: Active Marketing to Direct Clients" workshop, which includes exercises, a raffle (win books!), and yes, a skit. Last year, Judy gave this workshop in London and York, and they both sold out very quickly. We felt really bad for colleagues who could not get in, so please do book your spot early! The room seats 60.

Vienna, Austria. UNIVERSITAS Austria Interpreters' and Translators' Association. On September 27, Judy and Dagy will be part of the association's 60th anniversary celebrations (a two-day event) and will present a German-language session on social media for translators and interpreters. More information (in German) is available here. The two-day event will also include a keynote presentation by Nataly Kelly, VP of Marketing at technology company Smartling and co-author of Found in Translation.

We love meeting fellow translators and interpreters at conferences and events! If you plan on attending either one of these workshops, please do drop us a note so we can meet up.

Who Wants to Go to Summer School?

Translators and interpreters are always learning and improving their skills, so there's no reason to not continue doing so during the summer -- well, there are a few reasons, but we digress. This summer, UC San Diego-Extension's Certificate for Spanish/English Translation and Interpretation program (all online), where Judy teaches, offers a variety of classes that might be of interest for both beginning and more advanced interpreters and translators.

Introduction to Interpretation (no prerequisites, starts July 1) is a five-week course delivered via Blackboard (an online learning platform). Every week, students will access customized, pre-recorded PPT presentations with audio, which last approximately 2-3 hours per week. Students complete assignments every week, including weekly quizzes, and learn about all basic aspects of interpreting. The PPT presentations include dozens of exercises with original content. Students are only graded on one actual interpreting assignment (the final exam), as this class is meant for beginners.

Introduction to Translation (no prerequisites, starts August 5) is a five-week course that teaches newcomers to the profession the basics of translation, and introduces them to a strategic way to approach translations. This course is ideal for those who want to find out if this profession is for them. Judy will share the realities of our profession without sugar-coating the challenges translators face. Students will submit two graded translations and many exercises.

Strategic Branding & Marketing for Interpreters and Translators (several prerequisites, starts July 1) is a ten-week course where Judy teaches everything she knows about marketing your services as a translator and/or interpreter. The course follows the same format as the other classes and includes easy-to-use information on marketing to agencies and direct clients, social media, networking, outreach, public relations, etc.

To view all classes in the certificate program, please have a look at this link. Our lovely colleague and federally certified court interpreter Jennifer de la Cruz also teaches in the program, and she's a very popular instructor! Be sure to have a look at her classes, too. Happy summer!

UNIVERSITAS Turns 60: Time to Celebrate!

No, we are not turning 60 yet (for a while), even though our combined age certainly exceeds 60. This round birthday is all about UNIVERSITAS Austria, the Austrian Interpreters' and Translators' Association, and such a big birthday just has to be celebrated, so here's some information about the festivities that will take place in gorgeous Vienna, Austria, on September 26 and 27. We are delighted to be part of the festivities (Dagy is the secretary general of the organization) and will give a presentation on social media for translators and interpreters during the professional development part of the weekend. But don't worry: there will be plenty of time to take a city tour, celebrate, and have fun with your fellow translators and interpreters. There is also a very creative video contest (information in German) that you might want to check out.

Nataly Kelly. Image courtesy of Smartling.

The event's fantastic keynote speaker will be industry insider Nataly Kelly, co-author of Found in Translation and VP of Marketing at technology company Smartling. She has given presentations at the Library of Congress, Google, Apple, Microsoft and everywhere in between, so we will be in for a treat! Her speech will be interpreted into German. The rest of the program is varied and top-notch and includes presentations on MemoQ, interpreting 2.0, audiovisual translation, misused words in EU translations, and much more.

There will be plenty of time for networking, delicious Austrian meals, and of course coffee and cake! The evening event will be held at the beautiful Vienna City Hall on September 26 at 8 p.m. Incredibly enough, the first day, including Nataly Kelly's keynote, is completely free for everyone (sign-up required). The second day is very affordable at EUR 60 even for non-members!

The program is available in German here. We look forward to seeing you there! Happy birthday to UNIVERSITAS Austria and here's to at least 60 more years! The 50-year anniversary party was a huge success and was still talked about many years after, so the bar has been set quite high. See you there?

Webinar on Web 2.0 for Translators (German)

On June 4 and June 11, Dagy will present two one-hour webinars (in German) that are all about social media for translators. She will show you how to use social media to promote your services, get a solid online footprint, and attract more clients. This webinar is organized by the German association BDUE and should be a lot of fun! Dagy has a lot of experience addressing these topics, and she will help you overcome any technology-related fears that you might have. Have you wondered if blogging, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. are for you and how you can get the most out of these tools? Dagy will tell you how, and here's more good news: you don't need to have any programming or advanced IT skills at all. If you can send an e-mail with an attachment or download your digital pictures from your camera, then you are ready to use social media to promote your business! Of course, the very best part of marketing via social media is that the vast majority of it is completely free (other than the cost of your time). 

Please remember that these two webinars (one hour of introductory information on June 4 and one hour of advanced techniques on June 11) will be presented entirely in German. This blog post is in English because, well, our entire blog is in English.

There are still some slots left, so sign up here. 

62 Short Pieces of Advice

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Time flies! We've been writing this blog for almost six years, and we have published almost 500 posts. Not bad, huh? In 2010, we published a book (The Entrepreneurial Linguist: The Business-School Approach to Freelance Translation), which has sold more than 3,500 copies around the world (thank you!) and contains pretty much everything we know. However, we are delighted to keep on writing and sharing, as we get so much positive feedback and we really enjoy it. Even though we publish a lot of free information for beginning and advanced linguists, oftentimes new colleagues ask us at conferences: "What do I have to do to be successful?" There is no easy answer, so we usually say that it would take us the rest of the evening to even attempt to answer that question. However, we also like to come prepared with some memorable (or not) short pieces of advice that might be helpful for those who want some quick nuggets of information. We finally decided to compile some of these pieces of advice here after a new colleague approached Judy at a workshop a few weeks ago. She was frustrated that she wasn't getting the results that she wanted, yet she hadn't invested in herself or her professional presence. A lot of our advice has to do with exactly that: personal growth, outreach, marketing, and customer service.

We have no idea how we ended up with a list of 62 pieces of advice, and these are not ranked in order of importance, nor is this list (obviously) exhaustive. We simply wanted to compile some of the things we think are essential for every translator and/or interpreter and, of course, for entrepreneurial linguists. There are all things you've heard us say before or have seen us write about before, but here they are, for the first time, in one handy-dandy list: 62 pieces of advice on translation, interpretation, and business.

Please read at your own risk and take this with a grain of salt. Yes, we've included some tough love and straightforward advice. 

1.     Running a small business is hard. If it were easy, everyone would do it.

2.     You are not entitled to be successful.

3.     There are no real secrets to success, but start by working hard and by making smart decisions. 

4.     Don't compete on price. Find your competitive advantage instead. Don't become a commodity.

5.     Get a website and a professional e-mail address. If you want to be taken seriously as a   professional, you need a professional presence.

6.     Your success will depend on the quality of relationships you form.

7.     Translators are writers. Are you a top-notch writer? 

8.     The internet is your friend. Online marketing is mostly free and easy. Use it to your advantage.

9.     No translator or interpreter is an island.

10. Have a positive attitude.

11. Avoid making the same mistake twice.

12. One missed deadline might very well have a negative impact on your career.

13. Don't start work on a project until you have written confirmation from the client.

14. Play nicely with others.

15. Set realistic goals and make a plan as to how you will achieve them.

16. Take an honest look at your skills and improve them. You can always become a better interpreter/translator.

17. No one lands high-paying clients by mistake.

18. Translation and interpretation require completely different sets of skills.

19. Take feedback for what it is: a valuable gift.

20. Without clients, you have nothing.

21. Be reasonable, even when others are not.

22. Think before you send an angry e-mail.

23. Learn to be self-sufficient in terms of IT and software.

24. Invest in your business by purchasing the best tools, dictionaries and gadgets you can afford.

25. Keep your personal and business finances separate.

26. Improve your typing speed.

27. Take very good care of your voice if you are an interpreter.

28. When asking others for advice, be respectful of their time and offer to take them to dinner. 

29. Translators: read, read, read. There really is no substitute.

30. Don't complain about your clients publicly. Ever.

31. Don't complain about your colleagues publicly. Ever.

32. Your reputation is the most important thing you have.

33. Your time is the only resource you have. Spend it wisely.

34. Stop talking about yourself. Ask questions instead.

35. Learn how to really, truly listen.

36. Educate your clients about what you do without wagging your finger. No one wants an arrogant translator or interpreter.

37. Tread lightly when correcting source texts. Be respectful with your comments.

38. You earn others' respect by providing high-quality work and by being helpful, friendly and kind.

39. Join your local T&I association, a national association, and at least one association in your specialization.

40. Get out of your comfort zone.

41. Work on your weaknesses.

42. If a client corrects you during an interpreting assignment, stay calm and be professional.

43. Surround yourself with positive and good people.

44. Invest in your professional development by attending conferences, workshops and webinars.

45. Volunteer your time. Learn to give before you expect others to give things to you.

46. Take care of your eyes and look away from the computer for 20 seconds every 20 minutes.

47. Exceed your clients' expectations. Go the extra mile.

48. Send holiday cards and/or gifts.

49. Keep a list of customer preferences. Become a customer concierge.

50. If you don't know a word during an interpreting assignment, say so. It's no fun, but you must be honest.

51. Work on your memory so you remember people's names.

52. Keep all your client files organized and back up your computer every day.

53. Contribute to a retirement fund.

54. Take care of your health and get exercise.

55. You can be in your bunny slippers, but there's no reason your client should know that.

56. Don't use your client as a sounding board. 

57. Have a plan B if your internet is down at home.

58. Keep confidential things confidential. Buy a good shredder. 

59. Consider joining a co-working space.

60. Go to at least one networking event a week, even if you don't feel like it.

61. Your business will grow when you do great work and more people know that you exist. How will you accomplish that?

62. Be humble. Every great translator and interpreter can learn from others. If you think you can't, you are wrong.

We hope you have enjoyed this (relatively) short list, dear friends and colleagues! Which pieces of advice would you add? We'd love to hear your thoughts to add to this endless list.

Keep Calm and Interpret

While "Keep calm and carry on" might be a bit overused these days, it's still a powerful message, and it especially applies to interpreting. Whether you are a conference, court, community, medical, diplomatic o especially military interpreter, keeping cool under pressure is very much an essential part of the job. This usually isn't a problem for experienced interpreters, but if you are a relatively new interpreter, how do you go about controlling your nerves? 

Photo credit: Wikipedia.com 

• Be prepared. The best way to control your nerves is to prepare for the assignment as much as you can. In theory, at university and in workshops we learn that we always have to request material ahead of time, but the reality of our profession is another: you might request materials and only get them half of the time, which can be quite frustrating. However, the internet and all the lovely resources at our fingertips have really changed the way we can do research. For instance, Judy was recently hired to interpret at a high-level court hearing, but the attorney never gave her any detailed information. He did, however, give her the name of the plaintiff, and Judy used that information to look up his case in the public court records system. Those records don't include a copy of the actual complaint, but at least Judy knew what the charges were. It's a start, and unfortunately, in this profession, you have to learn to work with incomplete information. Dagy recently had a difficult conference interpreting assignment, and never received the PowerPoint presentations, even though she requested them repeatedly. She decided to make the best of it and used the basic agenda that she had to read up on the legislation that would be discussed.
• Put on your power suit. This might go without saying, but we still see plenty of interpreters who are not dressed as professionally as everyone else in the room. In addition to the fact that professional dress is mostly required, wearing a good suit (your lucky suit, perhaps) also usually does wonders for your self-esteem. We both have a few suits that we know fit well and that will make us feel strong and confident. We'd feel less confident in yoga pants. What you wear really can change your attitude. When in doubt, wear a suit. It's always better to be overdressed than underdressed, and first impressions go a long way. You can put everyone else in the room at ease by walking in with confidence and well dressed.
• Fake it if you must. We are not suggesting that you should fake interpreting skills that you don't have. Please be sure to only accept assignments for which you are fully qualified, but sometimes nerves can still play a huge part (they certainly do for us once in a while). Even if you are nervous, it's important to not show it. Take a deep breath, sit with a straight back (or stand up straight if you are in front of an audience), focus on positive body language, and trust your abilities. The first few minutes might be challenging, but things usually do get easier with time. Be sure to warm up your voice beforehand. Naturally, your assignment shouldn't be the first thing you interpret that day, so do a few short interpreting exercises just before you start or before you leave home.
• Put others at ease. You probably interpret all the time, but remember that some of the people in the room might never have worked with an interpreter before, so the situation might be stressful for them, too. If it's appropriate, take a few minutes to assure them that you are there to bridge the linguistic barriers, and if there's time, briefly explain how it all works. Judy recently went to an administrative hearing that included an in-person committee, committee members on the phone, a plaintiff on the phone, and an attorney on yet another phone. It was a formidable challenge for all parties, and early on, one of the committee members asked Judy if she could interpret in the following format: "He said.... she said..." Judy explained to the committee member that best practices in our profession dictate interpreting in the first person, and that put him at ease.  We think educating both clients and the public about how interpreting works is very much part of our work.

ESLETRA Conference in New York City

It's not often that a language-specific conference (a language other than English, that is) comes to the United States, so we are delighted to share the following information that we have received from the organizers of ESLETRA. Suffice it today that medical translation superstar Dr. Fernando Navarro will be one of the keynote speakers. Unfortunately, we have other engagements that weekend (Judy will be attending an event in LA), so we won't be able to make it -- we wish we'd heard about this sooner so we could have made plans!

ESLETRA is putting on a fantastic all-Spanish conference in New York City April 25 and 26 (right around the corner) with world-class speakers, many of whom don't come to the US on a regular basis. For more information about the ESLETRA 5th International Conference, please visit their website. 

This is the first time that this conference, which is projected to attract roughly 130 attendees, is held in the US. It's been a few years since the last ESLETRA conference, which was held in Toledo, Spain, in 2008. This year's event is co-sponsored by the Spanish Language Division of the American Translators Association, and our friend and SPD administrator Francesa Samuels will be one of the speakers. As of the time of this writing, there are still a few seats up for grabs, so don't delay!

Here is some additional information about ESLETRA, which the organization sent us:

Who we are

ESLETRA, acronym of El Español, Lengua de Traducción (Spanish – Language of Translation), is the name of an association founded in Brussels in 2002 by a group of translators working in the  European Union institutions.  The mission of ESLETRA is the organization of international conferences on translation and related disciplines to promote awareness of the profession.

ESLETRA firmly believes that international relations are inconceivable without translation, as translators are, by definition, facilitators of dialog and understanding. The contribution of translation to an integrated and consistent society is also an undisputable factor, specially in labor and welfare environments.

TREMÉDICA has been a traditional partner of ESLETRA, supporting and promoting by different means its activities  from the very beginning. It has also been one of the cornerstones of the organization’s conferences by providing a highly qualified group of speakers, well known in the world of medical translation. Among them, Fernando Navarro, the author of the Diccionario crítico de dudas inglés-español de medicina. 

With the support of public and private organizations, ESLETRA has already organized four conferences, one in Almagro (Spain), two in Toledo (Spain) and one in Puebla (Mexico).  The events focused on different aspects of Spanish as a language for translation: Spanish, an International Language, The Words of the Translator, Translation: Contact and Pollination, and Spanish: -- a Translation language for Dialog and Cooperation.

The proceeds of those conferences, published at the Centro Virtual Cervantes  (http://cvc.cervantes.es/lengua/esletra/default.htm), show the wide range of topics and issues discussed at the events. They also highlight the network of professionals working in non-linguistic fields that supports the actual work of translators, both institutional and freelancers.

Considering that the city of New York is currently one of the main centers of international relations, ESLETRA has requested the collaboration of TREMÉDICA, a professional translators association registered in New York State, to celebrate their 5th Conference in the City, which will focus on Spanish translation within international organizations.

With the participation of translators and interpreters from the United Nations, the European Union, the World Health Organization, the International Monetary Fund and other international institutions, a distinguished group of participants will reflect on the current status of the profession at these institutions. Some of the topics to be covered are listed in the last page of this document.

ESLETRA, a non-profit, tax exempt association has requested the collaboration of TREMÉDICA regarding the administrative and financial management of the proposed 5^th Conference, and TREMÉDICA, an  income tax exempt association under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, has agreed to act as Fiscal Sponsor of such Conference, given it considers it is consistent with its purpose and mission.

Webinar: Fundamentals of Waste Management

Abigail Dahlberg.

We love spreading the word about conferences, seminars, and webinars. The latter are very convenient to fit into everyone's busy translation days, as you don't even have to leave the house!

One of our favorite new organizations to do provide high-quality webinars for translators is the LSP-run Alexandria Project. Judy was recently approached to moderate a series of three seminars on "The Fundamentals of Waste Management" by our dear friend and colleague Abigail Dahlberg. We are all about learning about other specializations, especially such an interesting niche, and "Trash Girl" (as she is lovingly known) is just the person to teach it! You can read a previous interview with her on Translation Times right here.

The three one-hour sessions will take place on July 10th, 15th and 17th and you can sign up here. See you there?

Other interesting webinars through Alexandria Project include the following:
SEO 2014: Advanced SEO tactics for translators & LSPs with Anne Diamantitis
Deconstruction a lawsuit presented by our friend Ana Iaria
Medical translation 104: Respiratory system with Pablo Müguerza

NAJIT Conference: Free Vegas Advice!

NAJIT's keynote speaker. Photo: Smartling.

The National Association of Judiciary Interpreters and Translators (NAJIT) puts on one of our favorite conferences every year, and it's always in a different city, which makes for fun travel opportunities. Compared to the annual conference of the American Translators Assocation (ATA), NAJIT's conference is relatively small (250 attendees or so), and that's part of what makes it so special. Attendees have the opportunity to spend some quality time with each other and to learn from some of the most stellar representatives of our industry, including Holly Mikkelson, Tony Rosado, Agustín de la Mora, etc. This year, the conference will be held in Vegas (technically, in Henderson, which is a suburb of Vegas) and Judy had the pleasure of serving on the conference planning committee. We've recently confirmed the keynote speaker, and it's Nataly Kelly, co-author of Found in Translation and VP of Market Development at technology company Smartling. We are quite excited to have her in Vegas and are sure that NAJIT will be a great success as always!

Neon Boneyard, Vegas. Photo by Judy, 2012.

So now, dear friends and colleagues, let's get to the free advice. We know Vegas can be a bit overwhelming, but do not worry! If you are planning on coming to Vegas for the conference and need some advice about attractions, dining, shows, etc., we'd be happy to answer them here! Judy is very much a Vegas expert (19-year resident!) and is looking forward to sharing her insight with you. She is also the immediate past president of NITA (Nevada Interpreters and Translators Association), the local ATA affiliate, which will do everything they can to make this conference a success!. She won't let you go to a bad show; really. Post away and we will be sure to answer as quickly as possible.  

Upcoming Conference: Stridonium in Cambridge

We recently heard about the upcoming Stridonium conference from our friend and colleague Riccardo Schiaffino, who featured this relatively new (well, it's been five years) private online community for professional translators and its upcoming conference on his blog, About Translation. Even though we will not be able to attend, we are happy to spread the word about this one-day conference, which sounds quite fantastic.

Ah, wrong Cambridge. Photo by Judy.

The conference will take place in gorgeous Cambridge (England, not US) on March 24. Have a look a the conference website here. For more information about this community for professional translators, please have a look at their main website.