Training for Translators

Classes for translators and interpreters

Announcements


Corinne McKay

Upcoming Speaking of Translation call: international payment methods

On Tuesday, September 24 at 12:00 noon New York time, Eve Bodeux and I will host the next in our series of free Speaking of Translation conference calls. This edition’s topic is International payments: an overview, and if you send or receive payments across borders, you should definitely listen in! The call will last 30-45 minutes, it’s totally free other than any phone call charges (and no sales pitches for any of our services), and you can even submit questions for Eve to answer. Here’s the full description:

Call description: It costs money to make money, but in this call we’ll help you figure out how to spend as little as possible on international payments while keeping as much as possible in your pocket. Eve Bodeux, a frequent speaker on the topic of international payments, discussed this with Speaking of Translation back in 2009 and there have been some (good and bad) changes since then. She will fill us in on the pros and cons of current options including ACH, wire transfers, foreign bank accounts, checks, international currency transfer services and PayPal. She’ll also discuss some considerations related to exchange rates and taxes. If time allows, we’ll take questions from the audience.

As an added bonus, Eve and Corinne will preview the upcoming American Translators Association annual conference, which will be held from November 6-9 in San Antonio, Texas.

To join the call: A few minutes before 12:00 noon New York time, dial 209-647-1600, then enter access code 178865 and press pound (#). If you live outside the U.S. or if you pay by the minute for long-distance calling, the least expensive option is probably to purchase Skype credits and use the Skype “Call Phones” function. This should cost less than 3 US cents per minute.

In addition, you can listen to the archives of our Speaking of Translation podcast and conference calls for free at any time. No charge, no sales pitches, just fun discussions about translation industry topics!


Corinne McKay

Getting Started as a Freelance Translator- starts September 18

The next session of my online course Getting Started as a Freelance Translator starts on September 18. I’ve been teaching this course for about five years and it’s always a lot of fun: a small group of translators (maximum 10 people) who want to launch and run a successful freelance business, or experienced translators who need a nudge to achieve their business goals.

The group spends four weeks together working on four targeted assignments: resume and cover letter, marketing plan, rates and billable hours sheet and online presence. Each week we also do a one-hour question and answer conference call, and everyone receives individualized feedback from me on every assignment, plus a copy of my book How to Succeed as a Freelance Translator. The class fee is $305, with a $50 discount for ATA members.

Some recent graduates of the course have commented:
Before I took this course, essential professional development tasks such as updating my resume were constantly pushed to the bottom of my To Do lists. The conference calls were fantastic and a true highlight because I benefited greatly from the other students’ ideas and perspectives. They either asked questions I hadn’t yet thought of myself or hadn’t yet had the chance to ask.

I appreciated the constant support and presence of Corinne, who is a skilled and passionate professional. I think one of the most valuable elements of the course was the expertise she shared with us. I loved to listen to her suggestions and she gave me positive encouragement to never stop working on what I love the most.

Starting a business is a scary thing to me and this course gave me the confidence and the knowledge to feel comfortable getting started. It was great to have someone answer my questions and sort of hold my hand as I went through each step. Thank you!!!!

To read the full course description or to register, please visit my website.


Corinne McKay

Some blog posts you should read!

It’s been a busy couple of weeks here at the Thoughts on Translation wordface, with the end of school, the start of summer and a couple of very large (and interesting!) projects. Since I’ve been short on time and creative energy, here are some blog posts that I highly recommend:

  • Lisa Carter of Intralingo on Advice on how to price a book translation. This is a tricky topic even for experienced translators, and Lisa does a great job of mixing the business mindset (actually needing/wanting to make money from translation) with other factors, such as wanting to get a publication credit, and even the fact that literary translators don’t generally produce 2,000 or 3,000 words per day. Lisa also reports that she discusses compensation issues at length in her online course Next Steps in Literary Translation.
  • Judy and Dagmar Jenner of Translation Times on The 50% success rate, or how to make your peace with not winning all the projects you quote on. This post includes some excellent insights on the work that goes into quoting on projects at the high end of the market.
  • Walt Kania of The Freelancery on No more self-inflicted discounts, or how to stop negotiating on behalf of your clients, rather than on your own behalf. We’ve all been there: somewhere deep inside, we feel that our rates are too high, so we’re offering discounts, comps and freebies before the client even asks for them. Also make sure to read the comments for more excellent tips, such as bidding high on projects you aren’t very interested in.
  • Riccardo Schiaffino of About Translation on Simple regular expressions for Trados Studio filters. Riccardo is a translation technology guru and is great at simplifying seemingly complex topics; in addition, I’m the poster child for “people who just don’t get regular expressions,” so I loved this post.  Riccardo includes a great example of a regular expression used to find segments that contain “topcoat” “top-coat” and “top coat” with one search. Great tip!

Happy translating to everyone!


Corinne McKay

Thoughts on Translation: now on Kindle!

The Kindle edition of my new book Thoughts on Translation is now available on Amazon! Thanks to the services of BookBaby, it will also soon be available for your iPad, Sony Reader, Kobo, Nook and various other electronic devices. Some of those platforms can take up to six weeks to approve new titles, but it’s in the pipeline. Now on to the next book that’s been brewing in my head while this one went to press!


Corinne McKay

Getting Started as a Freelance Translator-starts next week

The next session of my four-week online course Getting Started as a Freelance Translator starts on Wednesday, May 8, and I have about three spots left (depending on who registers today!). This class is for new translators who want to launch and run a successful freelance business, and for experienced translators who need a nudge to reach their business goals.

We do four targeted assignments: your resume and cover letter, marketing plan, rates and billable hours sheet and online presence, and everyone gets individual feedback from me on all of those. Then, we do four question and answer conference calls where you can ask about anything related to freelance translation. If you can’t make the live calls, you can send your questions by e-mail and listen to a recording afterward. You don’t need to be online at any specific time for the course, and it’s open to translators in any location and language combination, as long as you are planning to work in the US market.

Registration is $305, with a $50 discount for ATA members and includes a copy of the second edition of my book, How to Succeed as a Freelance Translator. You can read the full course description and/or register on my website.