Training for Translators

Classes for translators and interpreters


Corinne McKay

Staying comfortable in the office

One of the appealing aspects of working from home is that you’re free to configure your work environment however you want, especially if you have a dedicated office room in your house. Readers, what are some of your favorite strategies/configurations/products for staying happy and comfortable in your office? I recently gave my office a thorough cleaning and used the occasion to evaluate the ergonomics of my setup. Here are what I think of as some critical elements of feeling good and being productive at home:

  • Good light is absolutely essential. I love this about my office: my desk is centered between two north-facing windows and two west-facing windows, so I have lots of natural light without a lot of glare. I use an overhead light but I find that a desk lamp creates too much direct light for my taste.
  • I’m addicted to two large monitors. This used to require a second video card in your computer, but most late-model computers will now support two monitors without a lot of reconfiguring. With two 21-inch (or larger) monitors, you can have a pretty good view of four documents at once: for example I often translate with the French and English documents side-by-side on one monitor and an online dictionary and the project glossary side-by-side on the other. The only downside is that I’ve lost the ability to translate using only one monitor!
  • For your hands’ sake, invest in a keyboard that you really like. It seems like a small thing, but if your hands are going to be striking this thing 40 hours a week, you want the experience to be pleasant. I cannot speak highly enough of Unicomp keyboards; they are the descendant of the legendary IBM “buckling spring” keyboard which gives you a very audible “click” when you strike the keys. I have the SpaceSaver 104 model ($79) and I love it so much that I clean it with rubbing alcohol on Monday mornings to keep it grime-free (seriously; just don’t tell too many people!).
  • What you sit on has a lot to do with your in-office comfort too. I’m not a huge fan of the traditional office chair because  I often end up sitting sideways with my legs crossed which is obviously not great from the circulation or posture point of view. I’ve thought about trying a kneeling chair, but my favorite office chair is actually a $20 fitness ball that I’ve had for years. I like fitness balls because it’s physically impossible to sit on one with your legs crossed, and they encourage you to sit in a neutral (non-hunched) position.
  • I’m not a neat freak, but I do think that a relatively clutter-free office is key to productivity. I find that if there are piles of stuff around me, I think about cleaning them up rather than what I should be working on. I also like to keep some of my favorite family pictures and pictures of my favorite vacation places where I can see them from my desk.
  • Sound is a big contributor to workplace comfort as well. I listen to music only if I’m doing something totally mindless like entering receipts into my accounting program. Once in a while if I’m working very late at night, I’ll listed to disco music on my iPod just to stay awake. At the same time, I don’t like a totally quiet environment when I’m working during the day. I’ll admit this is a weird behavior, but my preferred sound environment is to leave the radio in the kitchen on NPR (news/talk radio) so that I can hear the sound of voices but I can’t make out what they’re saying. For some reason this is just enough background noise for me to focus and not enough noise that it’s distracting.

Any other tips for feeling good in the home office?


Corinne McKay

The importance of aiming low

…well, maybe not “low.” Maybe “The importance of setting realistic expectations” is a better way to put it.

Over the years, I’ve noticed that many translators fail to reach their long-term goals because (paradoxically) they aim too high. Typical case scenario: a translator who has been in the business for a few years wants to move into the direct client market. Instead of marketing to small consulting companies, other solo entrepreneurs or small professional associations, the translator targets Fortune 500-size companies and is disappointed in the lack of response. Following are some tips on how aiming low/setting realistic expectations can help you achieve your long-term professional goals.

  • Break daunting tasks into smaller chunks. Sandra Smith, the multi-award-winning translator of Suite Française and many other titles, told me that she finished her first book-length translation by translating two pages every morning. This is a great strategy: rather than waiting for that big block of time that is never coming (“I’m waiting to translate this book because I need a month with nothing else to do”), pick a daily chunk of work that you will actually do.
  • Stop waiting to be completely ready. I’m currently reading C.J. Hayden’s Get Clients Now, and really loved her tip- “You will never be completely ready. Start from where you are.” This relates to a post I wrote last year on the tyranny of the sub-goal. Don’t let the elusive goal of complete readiness hold you back. If you’re avoiding doing e-mail marketing because your website is out of date, go to some in-person networking events instead. If you feel like you need 100 prospects in order to market in a new specialization, find one prospect a day and contact each prospect as soon as you find them.
  • Focus on building critical mass. Especially if your goals relate to marketing, focus on how many contacts you will have made if you persevere over time. One contact a day doesn’t sound like much, but if you contact one potential client a day for three months, you will have made 60 contacts. And I’m guessing that if you wait until you have time to contact 60 potential clients at once, you will probably never get there.
  • Aim at the appropriate level. Over time (and through a combination of success, failure, frustration and elation!) I’ve learned that in order to land a new client, you need to be able to get to the person who can actually hire you. Hence, in the Fortune 500 example at the start of the post, the translator likely failed because he/she did not have the level of contacts to get to the person who actually procures translation services for IBM or Sanofi-Aventis or the World Bank. But if you focus on organizations where you can make a direct contact with the person who can write a purchase order for your services, you’ll be a lot more successful. Some freelancers are at the level of the aforementioned organizations and some are at the level of contacting small consulting firms. Either way, if you aim at the appropriate level, you’ll get some interest!
  • Aim in accordance with your personality. Case in point: I hate cold-calling. I’m actually not a big phone person in general, even with my own friends. So I don’t even think of cold-calling prospective clients. E-mail works if you do it correctly and really target your messages. In-person networking works, because you learn to ask people about themselves so that you don’t have to talk about yourself so much. People love getting handwritten notes because it shows an investment of time and attention on the part of the person who wrote the note. So regardless of what you think of the potential effectiveness of a marketing technique, focus on what you will actually do and what will actually work for you.

Readers, anything else to add?


Corinne McKay

Colorado Translators Association mid-year conference

For the first time in many years, the Colorado Translators Association will be holding a mid-year conference! We have a full program of activities: the main conference on Saturday, May 14 features a full slate of 12 presentations plus lots of networking opportunities, lunch and a closing reception. On Sunday, May 15 we’re offering two Trados training sessions with certified Trados trainer Tuomas Kostiainen and an ATA exam sitting. All of this will take place in the spectacular setting of the National Center for Atmospheric Research Mesa Lab and Visitor Center in Boulder, Colorado. We even have some nice lodging discounts for our out-of-town colleagues as well! Hope to see some blog readers there.


Corinne McKay

Shoshin

This post has either nothing or everything to do with translation, depending on how you look at it! Here goes: I’ve been thinking a lot about Shosin, the Zen Buddhist concept most commonly translated as “Beginner’s Mind.” It’s most commonly described as an attitude of openness and lack of cynicism about experiences, or as the ability to see a familiar experience from the perspective of a beginner. At the same time, I had been looking for a goal to work toward for my upcoming 40th birthday. Long and expensive story short, I decided to combine my interest in teaching and my passion for telemark (free-heel) skiing and take a season-long ski instructor training course. The course is in progress right now, and I’ve definitely gleaned a few translation-related observations from it.

  • All of us should be more patient with beginning translators who don’t know anything about translation or the industry but are eager to learn. Being an enthusiastic beginner is really, really hard. It’s much harder than being an apathetic beginner. An apathetic beginner doesn’t really care about excelling, while an enthusiastic beginner does. During the run-up to my ski course, I had a thousand and one dumb questions: do I bring my own lunch or are we buying? do I need a notebook that fits in my coat pocket? are we skiing right away or is the first day in the classroom? and on and on. Enthusiastic beginners ask lots of questions that seem, dare I say it, stupid to experienced professionals, but we need to be more willing to answer these questions without being condescending.
  • I love translation overall, but there are also things about it that don’t thrill me all the time. My intent with this ski instructor idea has never been to quit translating. I love translating too much and I probably couldn’t afford to ski full time even if I wanted to! However, this  process has shown me that in some ways, sitting at a computer for every moment of my work day is draining in a way that doing something active and social for 8 hours is not. This has made me think about incorporating more social stimulation and non-computer time into my translation work.
  • Being forced into a challenging situation is an outstanding way to grow. After 8 years of translating in my current specializations, I feel pretty confident about my abilities nearly all the time; I can’t say (and this is largely my own fault) that I feel stretched, pushed or out of my comfort zone on a typical work day. But the first time my ski instructor took our group to a really steep tree-covered slope and said “see you at the bottom,” I was terrified and convinced that I would have to be helicoptered out, or that I would be woefully inadequate compared to the rest of the class. This was a great exercise in positive self-talk rather than the negative self-talk that we freelancers engage in so often. I had to consciously tell myself “You can do this. You have practiced these maneuvers lots of times. Just take it slowly and don’t forget to breathe!” And at the bottom (Yes! I didn’t have to be helicoptered out!), I was ecstatic. I was intimidated,  but I did OK because I trusted that I had built up a foundation of skills to get down that slope in one piece. That made me realize that I need to deliberately take on some translation work that is more of a stretch and a challenge: not a “get me out of here on a helicopter” challenge, but a “you are ready for this” challenge.
  • Even experts have a lot more to learn. This is true of skiing and it’s true of translation. My ski instructor is, to put it mildly, an amazing skier to watch. But when we looked at the video footage of ourselves skiing, he saw just as much room for improvement in his skiing as in the students’. This is part of the thrill of translation too; you can always become a better writer or learn more about your subject areas or read the translations of people who are more skilled than you are, and that’s a very inspirational thing.

This whole experience has let me look at our industry from (more of) a “Beginner’s Mind” perspective. Any other readers taking on some new and terrifying challenges??


Corinne McKay

Options for home office phone service

Lately I’ve been thinking about phone service for the home office. I’ve had a custom ring number (an extra phone number that runs over my home phone line but rings differently) ever since I started freelancing. At the time, Internet telephony was not a well-developed option and I didn’t want to switch exclusively to a cell phone for work. Here’s a look at the various home office phone options I’ve found, along with a few pros and cons for each.

  • A plain old land line is the most straightforward option. If you live alone or don’t have small children, you can probably get away with one line for work and personal use. However, if you need to have a second land line installed, the process can be expensive especially if you have to have additional phone jacks put in.
  • The aforementioned custom ring number is great in that it’s inexpensive ($5 per month through our local phone company), doesn’t require an additional physical phone line and gives you a way to distinguish between business and personal calls. But there are a few downsides, which are becoming more of an issue for me now that I work for more direct clients. The custom ring number and the main number have to share an outgoing voice mail message, so either my clients get to listen to the “you’ve reached the home of…and the home office of…” message, or I have to put an office-only message on the home line. Also, only the main number is displayed on the caller ID when I phone someone, so my clients have occasionally redialed that number. Then when I answer, I think it’s a personal call when it’s actually a work call (awkward if one happens to be cooking dinner with a group of friends when a client calls!). In addition, it is not possible to forward the custom ring number to another phone without forwarding the main number at the same time.
  • A business cell phone is another option, and not a bad option if you need or want a smartphone for work. Keeping the cell phone for business use should allow you to tax-deduct the bill, and you don’t have to worry about how to handle your phone calls when you’re out of the office. Two issues keep me from switching to a business cell phone: I would need one with an international calling plan (expensive) and as much as I try to be adaptable, I just hate talking on cell phones for long periods of time. I do have a cell phone that I use to check my work messages when I’m not home, but I wouldn’t want to use it as my exclusive work phone.
  • Because of these issues (largely the separation of voice mail and forwardability), I’m thinking of switching to Internet phone service. Due to issues with emergency calling, I wouldn’t switch my main phone to an Internet-based system, but it’s not an issue for my work phone. In addition, most of the main Internet phone services do enable call forwarding, so if I want to answer work calls when I’m not in the office, I can forward the work line to my cell phone. I’ve been looking at a few plans such as Vonage Lite, some of which are around $10 per month.

Any other thoughts on the pros and cons of the various home office phone options?