Training for Translators

Classes for translators and interpreters


Corinne McKay

Tour of the UN Office in Geneva

If you find yourself in Switzerland with some time for a professional development day, I highly recommend the tour of the UN Office in Geneva (UNOG). Here’s the link to the information about the tour. If you’re a language or international relations buff, the tour offers a really interesting view into the facilities and workings of the UN in Geneva, and it’s the second-largest UN facility, after New York City.

Once in Geneva, if you’re coming from the Gare Cornavin, take the #15 tram to the end of the line at Nations, then walk up the hill about half a kilometer to the public entrance for the UN compound. Make sure to bring your passport, and you can take photos anywhere on the tour, but no videos. While you’re waiting for the tour to start, you can also browse the UN’s well-stocked bookstore, which has various UN-branded souvenirs plus all kinds of books on international cultures, international relations, diplomacy, etc.

The tour itself costs 13 Swiss francs and takes you through most of the major conference rooms in both the new and old sections of the Palais des Nations. The guide for my tour was terrific, and she even pointed out the interpreter booths in most of the conference rooms! My favorite parts of the tour were the assembly hall (after seeing so many pictures of it, it’s truly inspiring to be there in person!) and the Council Chamber, which has beautiful murals and has served as the location for many important negotiations over the years. The tour takes about an hour and is offered in a variety of languages, although there were (oddly enough!) no French tours running while I was there. It’s definitely a worthwhile investment of an hour if you’re in the Geneva area.



Corinne McKay

Goals for 2012: are you halfway there?

Shockingly enough, June 30, and with it the end of the second quarter of 2012, is on Saturday. It’s a great time of year to evaluate your progress on your 2012 goals, while you still have six months left before December 31. Before you panic and refuse to think about any goals at all, give yourself some slack. You still have six months, maybe your goals have changed since January 1, and now is a good time to refocus. So ask yourself:

  • What exactly were you planning to do this year? Did you write down some goals in January or just formulate some ideas in your head? Were some of your goals more critical than others? Have you achieved something that you hadn’t set as a goal but that felt good nonetheless?
  • How are you doing on your critical goals? If you haven’t made any progress on them, why? If you’ve branched out in other directions, why?
  • What’s your plan for the next six months? Keep chipping away at your general 2012 goals? Set some new ones? Take a break?

I know it’s always hard to go first, so I’ll go first! Overall, I feel good about the first half of 2012. In terms of work volume and income, the first quarter was slow-ish; not scary slow, but slow enough that I wanted things to pick up for the rest of the year. After finally getting my act together to do a direct client marketing campaign that had been on the back burner for approximately forever (one goal achieved!), the second quarter roared along at almost double my target income. So from the financial standpoint, things are looking good. My family is spending the summer in Switzerland for my husband’s job and I don’t have to stress out about how much I work while we’re here, which is a good feeling.

I also did a bit more marketing for my online course and my book, and three consecutive sessions of the class were full. Another goal achieved! My next book, a compilation of entries from this blog, is ABC (all but cover) and just today I updated my professional website for the first time in about two years. My super colleague Eve Bodeux motivated me to buy and learn Trados Studio 2011 and whaddaya know, I love it.

Not that 2012 has been all roses and kittens. During the past few months I’ve been largely in survival mode, working nearly every evening and barely keeping up with my non-translation tasks. On the day before we left for Switzerland, I answered 97 backlogged e-mails and my Inbox still wasn’t empty. In addition, I put a fair amount of time into some direct client bids that didn’t come to fruition; of course we all know that this is just part of the ebb and flow and freelancing, but it’s still a downer when it happens. So, my primary goal for the second half of 2012 is to try to achieve a better balance between sanity and income by continuing to work on marketing, finding new sales channels for my book and having specific tasks that I want to work on when I’m not translating.

Readers, how about you?


Corinne McKay

Speaking of Translation call recording

On June 13, Eve Bodeux and I broadcast the latest installment in our series of Speaking of Translation conference calls. This call focused on “taking your freelance business on the road,” and we talked about issues related to working while you’re in another country for an extended period of time. With some great input from Tess Whitty of Swedish Translation Services, we answered questions related to technology, mobile communications, choosing a location for your freelance sabbatical, including your family in the sabbatical and managing your money while overseas. You can listen to the recording (it’s about 45 minutes) without downloading anything; just hop on over to the Speaking of Translation website!


Corinne McKay

Using Gmail with your own domain

Do you ever read The Meh List (subtitle: Not Hot, Not Not, Just Meh) in the New York Times Magazine’s One Page Magazine feature? Well, if I were assembling a Meh List for the translation industry, “Translators who own their own domain but still use a Gmail address” would definitely be on it. I always try to refrain from criticizing other people’s decisions, but here I have to make an exception: just as free business cards with the printing company’s marketing message on them scream “I’m not willing to invest the princely sum of $25 in my freelance business,” owning one’s own domain name but still using Gmail screams (to me, at least) “I’m not willing to spend half an hour figuring out how to set up domain name e-mail.” For anyone who’s not familiar with it, domain name e-mail is like “corinne@translatewrite.com.” You buy a website domain name and then create e-mail addresses to go with it.

But, here I find myself preparing to spend two months in Europe this summer, and my current e-mail solutions are problematic. I love my ISP (Front Range Internet), but Gmail gives me more storage space and a fuller-featured webmail interface. And I don’t want to use a non-webmail interface for this extended stay abroad, because I don’t want to be tied to just one computer. So, all of a sudden I was faced with the prospect of becoming one of those translators who owns a domain and uses Gmail anyway, but I’m here to tell you that yes, you can set up Gmail with your own domain. If I set it up without having to call tech support, so can you. Here’s how:

The issue is that it’s easy to forward your domain name e-mail to Gmail, so that people can *send to* your domain name address. It’s a little harder to *reply as* your domain name address, so that people never see the @gmail.com domain. First, read Gmail’s knowledge base page on “Sending mail from a different address.” You’re probably “A Gmail or Google Apps user sending from an external address,” so open that section of the page and read it.

Basically you just follow the instructions on that page; Gmail advises that if this is your work e-mail address, you should use your domain’s SMTP servers rather than Gmail’s servers. My Unix admin husband tells me that this is to avoid your messages being flagged as spam because the SMTP server domain and the e-mail domain don’t match. In my case, my ISP helpfully has all of their SMTP server information in their knowledge base (you need to know the mail server address, the correct port to use, your username and your password) and all of that worked the first time I entered it. Then I simply forwarded my mail from my ISP to my Gmail address and it seems to be all set. This way, my clients do not see my Gmail address but I can take advantage of Gmail’s massive storage allocations and excellent webmail features.

For more on solutions that can help you work while on an extended trip abroad, you can listen to Eve Bodeux’s and my Speaking of Translation call tomorrow (Wednesday, June 13) at 12 noon New York Time. Or listen to the recording afterward! Here’s the link to the call access information (it’s free and you don’t have to preregister) and we’ll post a recording afterward.


Corinne McKay

Speaking of Translation call: freelancing on the road

Next Wednesday, June 13, at 12:00 noon New York time, Eve Bodeux and I will be hosting our next Speaking of Translation conference call. This time we’ll be talking about freelance sabbaticals (and extended vacations) abroad and how to manage your business on the road. These calls are a continuation of our Speaking of Translation podcast and each one focuses on a different topic related to translation or the business of translation.

Here’s the full description of our topic: Part of the appeal of working as a freelancer is location independence: in theory, translators can work from anywhere with a reliable Internet connection. But what’s actually involved in taking your freelance show on the road? How do you create a truly mobile office? Find a place to live? Manage your clients while in another country? As Eve and Corinne prepare for their own “overseas sabbaticals,” they will offer their insights and take your questions about working abroad as a freelancer.

The call will last about 30 minutes; it’s completely free and you can listen in by phone or by Skype, or listen to the recording that we’ll post afterward. Eve and I will talk a bit about our upcoming freelance sabbaticals, and we’ll answer any questions that you submit in advance. For all of the details, hop on over to the Speaking of Translation website!