I just returned from the mid-year conference of the American Translators Association Translation Company Division, which was held this past weekend in Washington, DC. This was without a doubt one of the best conferences I’ve attended; huge kudos to TCD Administrator Rina Ne’eman and Assistant Administrator Grant Hamilton for their incredible work to organize the event!
The theme of this conference was “10”; as in 10 presentations with each presentation covering 10 tips/strategies/predictions related to the translation industry. The sessions were so good that I’m going to devote an individual post to the ones I attended, and if you’re interested in following the conference buzz on Twitter, search for the hashtag #TCDinDC. For the moment, here are some of the most interesting websites that I learned about:
- From Michael Wahlster: the Flash-based presentation tool Prezi. Michael’s presentation on technology tips was outstanding from the content point of view but it was also visually stunning; he used Prezi to create a visual map of his presentation and he then zoomed in and out of various images, quotes and screenshots throughout it. As someone in the audience said, “No more death by bullet points!!”
- From Grant Hamilton: his new book Les trucs d’anglais qu’on a oublié de vous enseigner (Stuff about English they forgot to teach you). This book is aimed at French-speakers who want to learn more about English idioms and phraseology, but it looks just as valuable for French to English translators!
- Two from Renato Beninnatto: How did I miss Google’s April Fool’s Day prank, Gmail Motion? This is almost too funny for words (my favorite is “to send, lick a stamp and place it down”). But more amazing is the fact that a group of Georgia Tech researchers brought Gmail Motion to life by hacking an XBox Kinect to control Gmail through American Sign Language. Renato also mesmerized the audience with this public service advertisement about language access, produced by the Texas Association of Healthcare Interpreters and Translators. Honorable mention if you can guess what language the non-English speakers are using! This video is so powerful because it truly gives English speakers an insight into what non-English speakers experience in our country every day. As the parent of a young child, I was sitting in the audience thinking “That could have been me in Bosnia, Moldova, Brazil, etc.” Wow!
Thanks to everyone for a great conference, with more posts coming soon!
That PSA is powerful! What a good insight into how many people in our country have to live and deal with language barriers, and into the importance of medical interpreters.
Thanks Allison! Yes, I agree, that PSA is incredible. Huge kudos to TAHIT for producing it.
I couldn’t agree more about how powerful that PSA announcement is!
It was also very timely; I just passed it on to a medical writer who happens to be looking for a medical interpreter to contribute to her blog. I figure at the very least she could post it and open up quite a discussion.
(And if you happen to be a medical interpreter willing to write a blog post on the topic, please get in touch with me!)
Glad to hear the TCDinDC was so good! I really wanted to attend but had other commitments that weekend. Look forward to more posts about it…
Thanks Lisa! Yes, I agree that the PSA is really heart-stopping, especially if you have little kids. A great insight into what non-English speakers feel like in the US. TCD was really great, I’ll work on some more posts about it.
Esperanto, wasn’t it?
I thought I recognized “Does anybody speak English” and “Do you speak Esperanto” phrases in there.
Or, I might be an irony bias, because it would make a total sense to use the other “universal” language to show what English feels like to non-speaker.
YES!! It’s Esperanto! I have to admit that I didn’t recognize it at all, but I agree that it’s a neat choice because of the “gotcha” factor that you mentioned.