Training for Translators

Classes for translators and interpreters


Corinne McKay

Two posts that translation clients should read

For anyone who’s a translation buyer, here are two excellent blog posts on what makes a good client. Ryan Ginstrom’s Five practices of agencies that get it gives five specific examples of how his agency clients have impressed him. I agree with these wholeheartedly; especially the feedback piece. It’s not hard to understand why clients are reluctant to pass on negative feedback; they don’t want to get into a “your word against mine” argument with the translator, they’re not in the business of training translators, and it’s probably easier just to dispense with using the problematic translator and hire someone else in the future. However, I think that clients are often equally sparse with their positive feedback because they’re busy, they’ve moved on to another project and (possibly the strongest factor) they assume that good translators know how good they are. Clients, trust us here… most people who are excellent translators are excellent in part because they are perfectionists who are very critical of their own work and constantly striving to improve. Even a simple “the client was really pleased with it” or “it required almost no edits” goes a long way.

Then, make sure to check out Jill Sommer’s 10 simple rules for project managers to live by and keep me happy. I love these tips; many of them help remind clients that although translators (and other freelance service providers) are often willing to go the extra mile for our clients, we are not their employees. Because most translators are relatively tech-savvy, asking us to do formatting, OCR, etc. may work out in the end but it will often slow the project down and take our time and energy away from the job we are really good at…translating. Likewise, pushing your translators to work longer, faster, etc. for more than a  few days at a time will likely backfire, especially if the translator is not compensated accordingly.


Corinne McKay

End of year gifts for clients and colleagues

It’s that time again… the gift basket catalogs are arriving by the armload, reminding us that it’s time to thank our clients and colleagues for their business and support over the past year. What’s the best way to do this? Better to go traditional or creative? High-end or fairly basic? The answer depends on your budget and who your clients and colleagues are, but here are some tips to get the discussion started.

  • If you can’t afford or don’t want to send a gift, a really well-composed note is a good substitute. Personally I like to send at least a modest gift to my main clients, but I think it’s equally meaningful to write a holiday card to a client or colleague and really say something nice about why you enjoy working with them. Often, good clients don’t realize what sets them apart from the crowd and will really appreciate something like “I always look forward to working with you because your projects are interesting, your instructions are clear and I know that I can always count on you to provide me with the reference materials I need to produce a good translation” or “You are one of my most valuable colleagues because your eagle-eyed editing makes me look great; I know that when you’ve gone over one of my translations, it’s absolutely publication-ready.” I think that many clients and colleagues would appreciate a note like this more than a token generic gift.
  • If you want to give a tasteful but not bank-breaking gift, think about locally made products. Especially if your clients are agencies, they probably receive many “mass market” gifts from big retailers. It can be a nice touch to send something from the region where you live, and it reminds your client about you as well. Your local food and gift companies may also have factory stores where you can purchase their products at a discount. For example here in Colorado we have the Celestial Seasonings tea factory, Chocolove candy bars and Allegro coffee, and some local specialty food stores even sell “Made in Colorado” gift boxes.
  • If you want to go higher-end, do something creative. Post-it notes, calendars, paperweights and the like are useful but a little tired as a gift idea. After the ATA conference, Judy Jenner at Translation Times featured this post about two Dutch<>English translators whose premium client gift is a USB stick embedded in a tiny Dutch wooden shoe. Judy later reported that these cost 12 euros each if you order 50; a fairly hefty up-front investment but definitely classier and more memorable than a ballpoint pen.
  • When you are giving a gift to a company, whether it’s an agency or a direct client, it’s worth considering whether to give a group gift to the whole team or individual gifts to the people you work with closely. On the one hand, it’s nice to recognize the people who send you a lot of work; on the other hand, you don’t want to look as if you’re bribing the individual in question. I would advise making gifts to individuals small and accompanying them with a personalized note; no iPod, Tiffany key ring or extravagant restaurant gift certificate. However, I do give individual gifts when I really only work with one or two people within a company and it would seem a little odd to send a gift to the whole department.

    • Other thoughts on end of year thank-yous?


Corinne McKay

Post-holiday links

Hello and a belated Happy Thanksgiving from Thoughts on Translation! While I get back on track after taking last week off, we’ll let some other bloggers do the talking…these are some links to posts I enjoyed reading this morning, in no particular order. Have fun with them; Thoughts on Translation will be back with some new posts later this week!

  • Blogging with Beth on backing up your blog. I’ll chime in and say that although (as the spouse of a sysadmin) I obsessively back up everything on my computers, it had never occurred to me to back up my blog until I talked to someone who lost a year’s worth of posts because of a snafu at her ISP. Back it up!
  • Get Rich Slowly on the positive aspects of failure
  • WordCount on why you should obsess over your blog statistics
  • OK, this one is not at all translation-related, but if you’re an avid home gardener here’s Homegrown Evolution on how to make basil ice cubes for cooking in the winter. This one is going in my garden file for next year so that we’re not eating pesto three times a week in August…
  • There’s Something About Translation on international payment methods. Excellent advice, and you can also listen to the most recent episode of Speaking of Translation for more tips on the same topic.
  • Translation Times on free screencast software from Screenr which sounds interesting for embedding screencasts in your tweets.

    • Happy reading and have a great day!


Corinne McKay

Managing your time as a freelancer

Time management is always an important issue for freelancers, and especially so at this time of year. It always seems that November and December are a triple whammy of the winter holidays, clients realizing that they need to squeeze in the last few projects of the year, and trying to finish up all of our own goals that we set back in January, so things get out of control very quickly.

When you think about how to manage your time, I think it’s important to first look at the utilitarian viewpoint: in what ways is your current time management strategy working and not working? Are you habitually scrambling to meet your deadlines (or worse yet, habitually missing deadlines)? Not sleeping enough? Having to cancel social engagements or feeling as if you have no life outside of work? Or are things mostly working for you? What are the objective restrictions on your time; do you have many commitments to other people or is your time primarily your own?

In addition, think about what sort of time management personality you have. Do rules and guidelines make you feel confident or constrained? Do you work better in a free-form environment or in a regimented one?

Looking over my own time management strategies, I feel that I am doing fairly well from the utilitarian standpoint. I’ve never missed a deadline, I sleep at least seven hours a night, exercise for about an hour most days and I rarely work in the after-school time slot in order to spend time with my daughter, so things could be worse. On the other hand, I feel like I could be doing better on projects that don’t have an imminent deadline: I want to do more direct client marketing, finish the second edition of my book and do a good job in my new role on the ATA Public Relations committee, and I feel that better time management could really help with these.

Here are a few time management strategies that work well for me, and I would be interested to hear what works for other people:

  • Use a prioritized to-do list. I rank my to-do items in high, medium and low categories so that I’m not tempted to focus on the fun but not urgent items (i.e. designing a marketing postcard, picking a new header image for my blog) rather than on the excruciating but urgent items (i.e. quarterly payroll taxes, entering receipts into my accounting software).
  • Put a leash on e-mail. Unless I’m waiting for a particularly urgent message, I check e-mail only on the hour and the half hour. Then, I respond immediately to any e-mail that requires only a really short response so that I don’t have a big stack to deal with at the end of the day. Also, I have all of my e-mail list subscriptions set to the daily digest mode so that I receive only one e-mail per day from them.
  • Break rules as needed. You know the “never eat at the computer” rule? I have to admit that I eat at the computer a lot, because it allows me to take exercise breaks in the morning or at lunch. I know some people think that eating at the computer is totally uncivilized and horrible (and I don’t do it all the time) but I’d rather run or do yoga at lunch time for half an hour and then eat a peanut butter sandwich while checking my e-mail when I get back. I think that the point here is to take the “always do this…never do that” rules that other people espouse and bend them to fit what works for you.
  • Work during the work day. This seems like an obvious one, but when you work at home, it’s sometimes hard to ignore the phone, friends wanting to get together, and all of the myriad other things you could be doing instead of working. My policies are: no answering the home phone during the work day (people who would be calling in an actual emergency have my work and cell numbers too); only one non-work commitment (school volunteering, etc.) per day, and the commitment has to last an hour or less, and no socializing during the work day unless I can combine it with another priority item such as exercising.
  • Set an overall limit on how much you are going to work. Know yourself and your capabilities; although I might really push myself for a couple of days in a row to finish a big project or do a good client a favor, I know that if I translate more than 10,000-12,000 words a week, I get tired and sloppy. So, I force myself to manage my time so that after the big push, I get at least a day off to recover and rejuvenate.

    • Now, over to the readers!


Corinne McKay

Coffee break links

Here are a couple of interesting links for your coffee break reading:

  • Get Rich Slowly on How much house do you need?. As a small house dweller (we have our family of three and my office in an 1,150 square foot ranch with no plans to move or expand) and an envier of Tumbleweed Tiny Houses, I really enjoyed this post.
  • White House Notebook on Language skills on display. Whatever your political views, I think it’s impressive that President Obama has placed so much emphasis on language skills during his current China trip. He went to the trouble of greeting his town hall attendees in the local dialect, had the U.S. Ambassador introduce him “in polished Chinese” and even acknowledged his own linguistic disadvantage by telling the audience, “I’m very sorry that my Chinese is not as good as your English, but I am looking forward to this chance to have a dialogue.”

    • Happy reading!