Training for Translators

Classes for translators and interpreters

Links


Corinne McKay

Because I don't talk enough as it is…

I was recently interviewed for two posts on fellow bloggers’ websites; I’m sharing these links not for self-promotional purposes, but in case any readers have an interest in the topics that the interviews cover:

The home-based work gurus over at Rat Race Rebellion (Don’t you love that name? Their main site is here)  interviewed me about the basics of starting a home-based translation business. RRR has a subscription-based weekly bulletin of home-based jobs, and they also work in interesting areas such as training military spouses to launch and run home-based businesses that can move with them as their spouses change locations. This isn’t a link exchange, I just think that the RRR folks and their programs are very interesting!

Freelance technology and business writer/blogger Michelle V. Rafter interviewed me about self-publishing using print-on-demand, and the interview focuses on the process of publishing my book How to Succeed as a Freelance Translator. Michelle and I had been virtual friends up until now; I started reading her blog a number of months ago, then we connected on LinkedIn, so it was a lot of fun to have an hour on the phone with her!


Corinne McKay

New and interesting on the web

If you’re looking for some coffee-break reading today, you might want to click on over to:

Masked Translator’s post Freaking out about the economy, which made me laugh out loud and is a nice complement to Get Rich Slowly’s The national economy versus your personal economy. These posts both drive home an important point (backed up in the comments on MT’s post as well): the world’s economy might be in free-fall, but if your work volume is holding steady, resist the urge to panic and keep running your business the way you always have. Kevin Lossner’s comment on MT’s post makes a great point: if anything, now is the time to cherry-pick your work and focus on clients who require high-quality translations.

Over at About Translation, Riccardo Schiaffino posted a link to a great resource, the E.U.’s “Summary of Legislation” site in 11 languages. It’s particularly appealing that when you switch the language selection, you get the same page in your newly selected language (rather than being redirected to that language’s home page), so looks like quite a useful site for translators.

Lastly (and admittedly OT), Get Rich Slowly featured a link to a fascinating article on Amish geeks and the Amish attitude toward technology in general. Make sure to read at least to the part where the Amish gentleman sums up the digital culture by saying “you got messages rather than conversations.”


Corinne McKay

Link: an interesting take on translation quality

Ryan Ginstrom has a really interesting post (that links to yet another post) on translation quality. Besides learning the helpful term “chokuyaku” (apparently Japanese for “literal translation”), you can find out about one translator’s novel take on the “you get what you pay for” issue; this translator spends as much time on the project as the client has paid for.  If it’s a low-paying client, he works as fast as he can and accepts that the quality is not great. I agree with Ryan that personally I could never do this, but it’s an interesting thought.


Corinne McKay

A great blog about OpenOffice.org

If you use OpenOffice.org, click on over to Solveig Haugland’s blog OpenOffice.org Training, Tips and Ideas. She’s the author of the OpenOffice.org 2.0 guidebook and her blog is full of tutorials on OO.o’s features. I use OO.o almost exclusively and really enjoy it, but some features that I used to find pretty intuitive in MS Word (for example making labels, a feature that Solveig’s blog recently covered) are less so in OO.o. Definitely worth a look!


Corinne McKay

Speaking of Translation: a new podcast

A few months ago, my colleague and friend Eve Bodeux (of Adventure Translators and Bodeux International) had the idea to start a podcast focusing on translation and the translation industry. Eve asked me to co-host the podcast with her, and we’re excited to present the first episode of Speaking of Translation, which may be the first and only podcast dedicated to our industry. In this episode, we give a preview of the upcoming American Translators Association conference and talk about the positive economic news for U.S.-based translators.

Have a listen, and feel free to send us your suggestions for future episodes!