Interviews

May 16 2018
Corinne McKay

What to do if your business stagnates: interview with Translators on Air

Things have been hopping here at the Thoughts on Translation world headquarters (also known as my desk in the co-working office…); I’m deep in a couple of large but enjoyable translation projects, my first translation skills class (Translation Workshop: French to English) is humming along in its fourth week with a wonderful crew of instructors, and this morning I was the guest on the weekly talk show Translators on Air. Hosts Dmitry Kornyukhov and Elena Tereshchenkova broadcast their show live every week (!), and for this episode they sent me a question from one of their viewers, asking what to do if your freelance business stagnates. The audience submitted a lot of other really interesting questions and we covered a range of topics, including:

-What does stagnation mean? Not enough work? Enough work, but not enough money? Feeling sick of the job?
-What about feeling guilty if you’re not working every second of the day?
-How worried should all of us be about MT and the increasing number of freelancers entering the translation market?
-How can we cope with factors we can’t control in our business?
-How can we take action toward our business goals, instead of just thinking about them?
-What role does networking play in a freelance business?
-How can a complete beginner market to agencies?

You can watch the whole episode here (warning: I talk a lot and it’s an hour and a half long…what can I say, people asked great questions!). Thanks to Dmitry and Elena for inviting me!

Mar 05 2015
Corinne McKay

Being a freelancer and being a mom: new podcast

Here’s a cross-post from Speaking of Translation, the podcast I co-host with Eve Bodeux:

Running a freelance business and raising a family can be a great fit, but combining those roles can result in a lot of stress, and requires planning, prioritizing, and of course flexibility and a good sense of humor! For this episode on being a freelancer and being a mom (stay tuned for our next episode on being a freelancer and being a dad!), Eve and I spoke with two moms who balance their significant family responsibilities with extremely active professional lives:

Elena Langdon is a Portuguese-English translator and interpreter and a former chair of the National Board of Certification for Medical Interpreters. She grew up in Brazil and now lives in Massachusetts with her husband and three children, ages 2, 4 and 7. Elena specializes in medical, legal and social science work and is an active interpreter and translator trainer.

Jennifer Nielsen is a Spanish-English translator and interpreter and the immediate past president of the Mexican Translators Association. She is originally from Colorado and now lives in Guadalajara, Mexico with her husband and her twin sons who are almost a year old. Jennifer works with Mexican businesses that are expanding into the US market, especially in the areas of law, marketing and academia.

We pulled Jennifer and Elena away from their extremely busy lives and asked them for their insights on:

Maternity leave: how long to take off and how to talk to your clients about it
Child care: what their child care situations are, and whether they try to work with their kids at home
Managing the uncertainty of freelancing with small kids: what happens when the kids are sick, or the babysitter is sick, or there’s a snow day?
Client relations: how much their clients know about their personal lives
The boiling point: how do they avoid being overwhelmed by stress and exhaustion, and what do they do when they are overwhelmed?

If you’re a freelancer and a mom, we think you’ll really enjoy this episode!

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Being a freelancer and being a mom

Aug 18 2014
Corinne McKay

New Speaking of Translation podcast

I’m back from vacation, and slowly easing back in to real life after a month-long break spent bicycling around the Dolomites in northern Italy (more to come about that!). Meanwhile, my hardworking colleague Eve Bodeux recorded a great new episode of Speaking of Translation, in which she interviewed French to English technical translator Stephanie Strobel, on the topic “Exploiting your subject matter expertise.” Stephanie is a highly specialized translator who works primarily with engineering documents, drawing on her experience as a mechanical engineer. Eve and Stephanie met up in Paris for this interview, so that adds an extra element of intrigue! Here it is, and happy listening!

Dec 18 2013
Corinne McKay

The work/life balance: a new Speaking of Translation podcast

Last night, Eve Bodeux and I hosted a Speaking of Translation conference call entitled “The freelance juggling act: balancing work, family and the rest of life.” We had the pleasure of interviewing three freelancers: Andy Bell (Scandinavian translator and dad of 3), Marianne Reiner (English to French translator and mom of 2) and Karen Tkaczyk (French to English translator and mom of 3), all of whom have thriving businesses, young families and significant non-work interests and commitments. We asked them three main questions: how they combat the fear of losing clients or not earning enough money if they take time off, how they set boundaries with their families and the outside world so that they can get enough work done, and what their tips and goals are for a better work/life balance in 2014. It was a very informative and enjoyable hour, and we’ve created a podcast recording of it. Here you go:

And if you’d like to listen to more Speaking of Translation podcasts (international payment methods, finding direct clients through industry conferences, and more!), hop on over to our recordings page. Thanks to Karen, Marianne and Andy for taking the time to talk to us!

Mar 23 2012
Corinne McKay

Recording of Jost Zetzsche interview is online!

This past Wednesday, I had the pleasure of interviewing translation technology guru Jost Zetzsche during a question and answer conference call. If you missed the live call, you can listen to the recording on the Speaking of Translation website (it streams from the conference call provider, so you don’t need to download anything unless you want to!). Lots of people submitted great questions for Jost to choose from, and on the recording you’ll hear his answers to:

Are TM tool developers paying more attention to the editing process and how to support it?
What’s the best terminology management tool for freelancers?
Are translation management, content management and machine translation systems becoming more integrated?
Does Déjà Vu support terminology blacklists?
What is the best quality assurance tool for freelancers?

We also learned that Jost has co-authored (with Nataly Kelly) a new book called “Found in Translation,” which includes 90 stories of how translators and translation affect almost every aspect of our daily lives. It’s forthcoming from a Penguin imprint in the fall and will be available at the ATA conference (can’t wait to get a copy!). Thanks to Jost for so generously donating his time, and if you don’t yet subscribe to his Tool Box technology newsletter for translators, you should!