Today I attended the ATA Translation Company Division conference in Denver. Despite the fact that I'm not a translation company, this conference has been well worth attending due to the quality of the presenters and the opportunity to get some perspectives on the industry from the agency … [Read more...] about Wordfast: seeing other platforms
Is Wordfast divorcing Microsoft Word?
During a recent visit to the website of Wordfast, I noticed that Wordfast 6.0 ("Coming Soon!") promises to be a "Standalone, platform independent translation environment." There are a few things that pique one's curiosity here. 1) "Standalone": does this mean no more having to use Wordfast from … [Read more...] about Is Wordfast divorcing Microsoft Word?
Some thoughts on translation specializations
One of the issues with which beginning translators most frequently struggle is specializing: what to specialize in, how to decide what to specialize in, what the most/least requested specializations are, how important it is to specialize, etc. While there aren't too many hard and fast rules when it … [Read more...] about Some thoughts on translation specializations
The basics of cold contacting
For beginning and experienced translators alike, there is often no way around the need to cold contact potential clients. Beginners need to find those crucial first few clients, and those of us who are established in the industry may want to look for better-paying work, work with direct clients or … [Read more...] about The basics of cold contacting
A little bit of this, a little bit of that
Gabe Bokor's blog post "Specialist or Generalist" gives some excellent insights into the fact that translators need to be both specialists and generalists. Gabe gives the example of a medical translator who also needs to be familiar with electronic instrumentation, or an environmental translation … [Read more...] about A little bit of this, a little bit of that