Training for Translators

Classes for translators and interpreters


Corinne McKay

Sending messages to Peter Less

Back in 2009, I wrote a short post about legendary interpreter Peter Less, a Holocaust survivor who interpreted at the Nurembeg trials. After a quiet and happy childhood in Koenigsburg, Germany, Peter fled to Switzerland at age 17 when the Nazi party rose to power. Although Peter’s mother assured him that the Nazi regime would not last long and that the family would soon be reunited, she, along with Peter’s father, grandmother and only sister died in the Holocaust, leaving Peter as the only surviving member of his family.

In the face of this almost unimaginable tragedy, Peter showed amazing resilience, attending the University of Geneva on a refugee scholarship program and earning his undergraduate degree and then his interpreting degree, becoming one of the first trained simultaneous interpreters in Europe. At age 25, Peter was one of three interpreters from his University of Geneva class to be hired to interpret at the Nuremberg trials, where he interpreted the testimony of the very war criminals who had murdered his family. Again, Peter’s sense of integrity and resilience were apparent, as he committed to faithfully interpret the testimony of the Nazis, believing that they deserved a fair trial and that the world deserved to know what had happened in the concentration camps.

Peter Less ultimately emigrated to the United States, where he worked as an attorney in Chicago for over 50 years. In 2006, he was awarded the Gode Medal, the American Translators Association’s highest honor. In the post linked above, you can watch a video of Peter describing his experiences, and read an interview between Peter and interpreter Tanya Gesse.

Peter is now 91 years old and in failing health; he is in hospice care. Nataly Kelly has set up a beautiful online tribute to Peter, along with a link to submit a tribute or thank-you of your own. Nataly reports that Peter’s daughter is reading him these messages daily, and that she (Nataly) will assemble all messages submitted by September 25 into an album to be presented to Peter. Thanks to Nataly for setting up this lovely project, and please submit your own message, even if it’s just a few short sentences of thanks to a true hero of translation and interpreting!


Corinne McKay

Upcoming webinars

The American Translators Association has two upcoming webinars that might be of interest to you:

  • On September 11 at 12 noon New York time, the ever-engaging Jill Sommer is presenting a one-hour session on Navigating Your First ATA Conference. If San Diego will be your first conference, I cannot recommend this webinar enough. Jill will tell you what to do with your resumés and business cards, how to network when you don’t know many people, how to plan your schedule for the conference and in general, how to make the most of this (overwhelming but very valuable) experience. Best of all, this webinar is free for ATA members!
  • On September 20, also at 12 noon New York time, Chris Durban and I are presenting Working With Direct Clients. We’ll offer tips on how to find your first direct clients, what to consider before you enter the direct client market, how to become an expert in your subject area, and how the direct client market is different from the agency market. I’ll mainly be in the interviewer role, but you really don’t want to miss Chris’ insights from her work with some of France’s leading corporations. Hope to see some of you there!


Corinne McKay

Getting Started as a Freelance Translator starts September 26

The next session of my popular online course Getting Started as a Freelance Translator starts on September 26 and runs for four weeks. The past three sessions of the course have filled up before the start date, so please head on over to my website and register if you would like to join us! Students in the last session of the course commented:

–Simply put, this is one of the finest resources for any translator. No matter what your specialization is, I guarantee you will take something away from Corinne’s online course. For those just starting, it will instruct and guide. For veterans, it can remind and reaffirm. In either case, you’ll definitely enjoy the experience!

–I think that this course offers tremendous value for the cost. However, this is the smallest part of its worth. Corinne takes you from where you are and helps you move a step forward with thoughtful, detailed, and thorough advice for every question. To my knowledge there is not another course like this, and it fills a terrible void and need, but does so in a friendly yet rigorous way. I cannot say enough good about Corinne’s approach.

During the four-week session, we work on four very targeted assignments: your resumé and cover letter, your marketing plan, your rates and payment terms and your online presence (website, association profiles, LinkedIn page, etc). Everyone in the class receives individualized feedback from me on every assignment, and then we supplement that with at least four question and answer conference calls that you can attend live or listen to at another time. You also receive a complimentary copy of the second edition of my book How to Succeed as a Freelance Translator. The course is open to translators in any language pair, and both beginning and experienced translators are welcome! The course fee is $275 with a $50 discount for members of the American Translators Association. For more information or to register, please visit my website.


Corinne McKay

I love TracFone…there, I said it!

For someone who doesn’t love talking on the phone, I seem to talk and write about phone service quite a bit. My 2011 post about options for home office phone service generated a lively discussion, so now let’s talk about cell phones! And for what it’s worth, I’m still quite happy with my Vonage line, and I think that the sound quality has actually improved since I originally set it up.

If you’re a freelancer, or even just a human on Earth in 2012, chances are you have to have a cell phone. Maybe you only have a cell phone. But I bet that you have one. And in my conversations with many freelancers about their cell phones, here’s what I’ve found out:

  • Almost everyone hates their cell phone company. Nearly everyone will tell you that their coverage, sound quality, tech support or customer service are abysmal, or that all of those are abysmal, or that none of those are abysmal but the cost of that non-abysmalness is far too high.
  • Almost everyone thinks that their cell phone bill is too high. Many people in the US have an unlimited talk, text and data plan with a smartphone, and I’m guessing that if you have that, you’re paying between $60 and $100 a month for your phone.
  • Lots of people feel that they don’t use all of the features that their cell phone plan offers. Unscientifically, it seems to me that most people either talk a lot, text a lot, or browse the Web a lot, but not all three. But if they have an unlimited plan, they’re basically paying for all three whether they use them or not.

I know that for some people, an unlimited plan with a smartphone is the only way to go. If you don’t have a land line and/or you talk on the phone a lot; if you are an interpreter and you are out of the office almost all of the time; if you live in an area where Wi-Fi is scarce but cell service is good, or maybe even if you’re really hungry for work and you don’t ever want to miss an e-mail. Those are all good reasons to sink $1,000+ a year into your cell phone. However, I think that a lot of people spend that money without really casting a critical eye on their need for a full-featured cell phone. For a lot of people, I think that the 90/10 rule could be applied to cell phones; meaning that there could be a phone plan that does 90% of what you want, for 10% of the cost of the full-featured plan. If you don’t really need the full-featured cell phone’s features, you could take a pretty nice vacation for what you’re saving by switching to prepaid.

So here’s my confession: I love Tracfone and the prepaid cell phone service that they sell. This review perfectly sums up what I like about TracFone, and I fully agree with the author’s take on their service (“If you can keep your cell phone minutes down to a bare minimum, or really only use your phone for texting, quick chats, and emergencies, then Tracfone is a great option. It’s essentially taking what has typically been a high-priced subscription model product, and taking it to a frugal, bare bones extreme.”) Like the author, I’ve never had to deal with TracFone’s customer service to activate or add minutes to my phone, even when I accidentally let the service expire while I was out of the country. I don’t think I’ve ever had a dropped call either.  Best, I’ve spent about $100 per year on my phone in the eight years I’ve had it. Also, on the odd occasion when I hate TracFone for a few minutes (their coverage in remote locations is not great), I remind myself that I’m paying $9 a month for the privilege of hating them, not $100 a month.

After eight years of using a totally bare-bones Samsung phone that (get ready) only makes phone calls, I did recently upgrade to one of TracFone’s “smarter” models that has a Qwerty keyboard, Wi-Fi and some type of “mobile web,” although I’m still figuring out what that means. I’ll report on that model once I receive it and activate it! If you’re a heavier phone user, TracFone also owns two other companies, Net10 and StraightTalk, which offer unlimited talk, text and data plans for about $45 per month.

Like other frugal lifestyle options, a prepaid cell phone isn’t the right choice for everyone. Neither is living without a clothes dryer, but my family has managed that for 8+ years. I’ve nearly taken the smartphone plunge numerous times. But after realizing that, like the review author I quoted above, I largely use my cell phone to be available in emergencies, quickly check in with clients or friends when I’m out of the house, and to provide an alternate number in case clients really need to reach me, I’ve stuck with TracFone and saved a ton of money.


Corinne McKay

Off topic: Lake Geneva to Salzburg by bike

As I’ve said before, I think that most freelance translators (and really, people in general) need to have more fun. So, the sole purpose of this post is to tell you about something I did that was fun, and to explain where I was during my July-August hiatus! You can also read previous off topic posts on my travel A-Z, my 40th birthday trip to Costa Rica and llama trekking and making sugar skulls (not at the same time, although the llamas probably would have liked to eat the skulls! This post will mostly appeal to bike geeks, so feel free to skip it if you’re bored!

This summer my family spent two months in Europe, partially for my husband’s job and partially to do a bike trip. You can hear more about it (and about freelancing on the road in general) in a Speaking of Translation conference call here. I need to write up some thoughts on my experience freelancing from Switzerland; it worked out very well overall, but I have some specific tips for anyone thinking of taking their business abroad. In the meantime, let’s talk about the fun part…riding bikes from Lake Geneva to Salzburg, which we did at the end of my husband’s consulting gig.

Q: Who was on this trip?
A: Me (age 40, somewhat in shape); my husband (age 46, legs of steel); my daughter (age almost 10, little legs of steel).

Q: What bikes did you ride?
A: My husband and my daughter rode our Burley Duet tandem road bike, and I rode a single titanium touring bike that we ordered from XACD Titanium Products in China. Here’s me, somewhere in the foothills of the Dolomites!

Q: How did you get the bikes to Switzerland?
A: Both of the bikes have S and S couplers that come apart, allowing the bike to fit in a 26 x 26 x 10 inch case that goes as regular luggage on an airplane as long as it’s under 50 pounds total. You can read about the couplers and the cases on S and S Machine’s website. Our tandem goes in two cases and the XACD bike goes in one. We purchased three of S and S’s “designer-style edge-pull” hard cases for $170 each and were really, really pleased with them. On the domestic flight we paid $20 per case to take them on the plane and on the international flight we paid nothing. If you don’t have a bike with couplers, be prepared to pay a lot to take your bike on an international flight; we saw prices of up to $300 per bike, per direction with our tandem potentially charged as two bikes. And after riding a bike with couplers for the whole trip, I agree with S and S Machine that you don’t even feel them; it rides just like a single-piece frame. To get back to Switzerland from Salzburg, we mailed the empty cases to the owner of the apartment we were renting, then re-packed the bikes and took them in the cases on the train. Like this:

Q: How far did you ride?
A: Almost exactly 1,000 kilometers, so about 600 miles. We rode 14 days, took 3 rest days and then stayed in Salzburg for 4 days.

Q: With a kid?
A: Yes! And actually, my daughter complained much less than I did…seriously. We never really biked toured before my daughter was about 7 and we got our first tandem, and now I actually think it’s a fabulous activity with kids as long as you have a very strong adult to captain the tandem. For example I cannot captain our tandem on hilly/mountainous terrain because I can’t pedal it fast enough. Tandems have a higher minimum speed than a single bike, meaning that you have to pedal a lot harder/faster to keep a tandem upright. So not every adult is well-suited to captain a tandem, but my husband and my daughter love riding ours. Also, it’s worth noting that not everyone who loves to bike tour is cut out for “stoking,” aka riding the back of a tandem. I love bike touring and I kind of hate stoking because you have to pedal at the same rhythm as the captain and you have no brakes or steering. So don’t set off on a 3 week trip with a stoker who’s never done it before.

Q: How did you carry your stuff?

A: In paniers (bike bags) on our bikes. We stayed in hostels or bed and breakfasts and did not camp, so we didn’t have a ton of stuff. Plus, when touring in Central Europe, one really does not need to carry a huge amount of food because there’s a town every few kilometers. When touring in Colorado we sometimes have to carry an entire day’s worth of food and water. For example when we did Trail Ridge Road, the uphill took me six and a half hours (I warned you, I’m slow!) and there is no place to buy food or even refill your water. On this trip, other than the longer pass crossings, we rarely went more than an hour without going through a fairly sizable town.

Q: Best part?
A: We all agreed that the Dolomites were the highlight! The Swiss and Austrian alps are beautiful but they look very similar to where we live in Colorado. However the Dolomites really are otherworldly looking; rolling pine forested hills with 3,000-foot rock formations jutting out of them, like this:

Q: Worst part?
A: Oh, now that’s hard…there really was no worst part, other than the hotel we booked in Bolzano that turned out to be up the side of a mountain. But they were understanding when we called to cancel, and we found a great hotel right in the walking district. And you know the stories you’ve heard about how expensive Switzerland is? They were probably understatements, and I have a $27 bottle of sunscreen to prove it.  Switzerland is gorgeous, but the beauty doesn’t come cheap. Just ride fast toward Italy, which is considerably cheaper, and you’ll be fine. Mostly we felt very lucky that in three weeks, we had only one day of rain. We’ve talked to bike tourers who had the opposite conditions, and during the month we were in Switzerland, it rained at least a couple of days a week. So we felt fortunate!

Here are the stages that we rode. I’ve included some minimal route notes, and if you’re thinking of doing a similar trip, you can contact me directly and ask questions!
Day 1: Leysin to Sierre, Switzerland. 106 kilometers, 6 hours riding. Mostly on the Rhone river towpath, which is harder to follow than you would think. Train from Sierre to Fiesch, Switzerland.
Day 2: Rest day in Fiesch
Day 3: Fiesch to Hospental, Switzerland, over the Furka Pass. 63 kilometers, 6 hours riding. It’s steep! Just put your bike in low gear and crank up those intestinal switchbacks!
Day 4: Hospental to Rhazuns, Switzerland, over the Oberalp Pass. 88 kilometers, 7 hours riding. Not as steep.
Day 5: Rhazuns, Switzerland to Chiavenna, Italy, over the Splugen Pass. 80 kilometers, 8 hours riding. Loooong day. Looong climb up the Via Mala gorge including several extremely dark tunnels. Do not attempt this section without good lights. Ride together if you are in a group. Splugen Pass is fairly exposed and committing. Allow a lot of time and save some energy for the white-knuckle downhill into Chiavenna which involves more tunnels on a gravity-defying road!
Day 6: Chiavenna, Italy to St. Moritz, Switzerland, over the Maloja Pass. 50 kilometers, 6 hours riding. Steady uphill until the very end of the climb, then crazy uphill. But then a nice coast into St. Moritz!
Day 7: St. Moritz, Switzerland to Santa Maria, Switzerland, over the Ofen Pass. 75 kilometers, 7 hours riding. Don’t even get me started on the “up and down” aspect of the Ofen Pass, but the ride through the Swiss National Park is incredible.
Day 8: Santa Maria, Switzerland to Bolzano, Italy, 120 kilometers, 6 hours riding. Mostly downhill on bike paths through the highly scenic Val Mustair to Merano, Italy, then another downhill bike bath from Bolzano to Merano. Not as hard as 120 kilometers sounds.
Day 9: Rest day, Bolzano. What a cool city!! Don’t miss the Otzi the Ice Man museum!!
Day 10: Bolzano to Selva Gardena, Italy. 46 kilometers, 6 hours riding. Nice rolling ride into the foothills of the Dolomites. Gelato!!
Day 11: Selva Gardena to Caprile, Italy, over Passo Sella and Passo Fedaia. 7 hours riding. This might have been our favorite day; the scenery is just incredible if you’ve never seen the Dolomites before!! More gelato!!
Day 12: Caprile to Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, over Passo Giau. 39 kilometers, 7 hours riding. Giau is steep, and it’s one of the standard stages of the Giro d’Italia. But you’ll have plenty of company, maybe more bikes than cars! And at the top there’s this cool weather vane!

Day 13: Rest day, Cortina d’Ampezzo
Day 14: Cortina d’Ampezzo to Dobbiaco, Italy. 30 kilometers, 3 hours riding. This is all on a bike path and is slightly uphill then slightly downhill; mellow day.
Day 15: Dobbiaco, Italy to Heiligenblut, Austria. 90 kilometers, 8 hours riding. This starts out on a bike path and is all downhill to Lienz, Austria. Then the fun really begins as you cross a small mountain (Islesberg), lose all the elevation you just gained, then regain that elevation and more on the bike path to Heiligenblut.
Day 16: Heiligenblut to Zell am See, Austria, over the Grossglockner Pass. 57 kilometers, 7 hours of riding. This was our only rainy day, and probably the hardest climb of the whole trip. The Grossglockner High Alpine Road is a great ride, but with a sustained 12% grade, it’s a thigh-buster! Also be aware (which we weren’t) that the pass is a double summit: up to the highest point, down a few hundred meters, back up to about 3 meters below the highest point, and then down the other side.
Day 17: Zell Am See to Lofer, Austria. 42 kilometers, 3 hours riding. A nice, mostly downhill cruise on a bike path.
Day 18: Lofer to Salzburg, Austria. 51 kilometers, 4 hours riding. Another nice, mostly downhill cruise on a bike path. We took the Mozart Radweg from Lofer and somehow ended up lost in Berchtesgaden, Germany, picked up another bike path and did finally end up in Salzburg, so if you do this route, be aware that it’s not totally obvious where the main bike path goes!
This was our first bike trip in Europe; an incredible experience that we can’t wait to repeat!