Here’s a post from the blog of Canadian communications consultant Deborah Zanke, dealing with poorly done translations at 5-star resorts in Cuba (which are understandably popular with Canadians at this time of year). She poses the question of whether these translations should be criticized if the resort staff’s spoken English is excellent, and also highlights efforts to ban “Chinglish” ahead of the Beijing Olympics.
Nubbin
Blogging about my book; Google alerts
Freelance Translators From Scratch is running a number of interesting posts about my book
How to Succeed as a Freelance Translator. Although the book has been out for about a year and a half (and I’m brainstorming about the second edition!) it seems to have gathered a lot of momentum lately; maybe everyone who’s in love with someone bilingual is buying it for Valentine’s Day? Yesterday was actually its highest Amazon sales rank ever, in the 14,000s, meaning that it was the 14,000th most popular book out of the several million on Amazon, and #80 in its category, Job Hunting and Career Guides. At any rate, thanks to the Freelance Translators From Scratch for these articles!
A tip to go along with this: I found out about these posts because I have a Google Alert on my name. Someone in the local freelancers’ group I’m in turned me on to Google Alerts, which she called “a clipping service for the Web, but it’s free!” Of course, unless you add some additional identifiers to your name, such as “Corinne McKay translator” or “Corinne McKay book” (in my case I also have an Alert on my book title) you get alerted to the electronic goings-on of everyone else with your name. Personally I enjoy keeping tabs on the world’s other Corinne McKays as they go about their business selling real estate in Massachusetts or coaching volleyball teams in the Yukon (no, really!); but maybe that’s just me!
A helpful post on text-to-speech (TTS) tools
Naomi de Moraes just posted some excellent introductory information on text-to-speech (TTS) tools on the blog of the ATA Language Technology Division. Most translators are familiar with speech-to-text tools such as Dragon Naturally Speaking, which allow you to dictate your translations. Text-to-speech tools are the opposite; software that reads text to you. Naomi’s post has some interesting ways that translators (and other people too!) could use these tools.
Upcoming session of "Getting Started as a Freelance Translator"
The next session of my online course “Getting Started as a Freelance Translator” starts on March 3, and registration is open at the link above. I’ve been teaching this course for about two years, and it’s always fun to see who signs up, what their goals are and what they end up doing with the information. The course is intended for people who are already bilingual but want to learn the business and marketing aspects of running a successful freelance translation business. I’m always impressed with the “go-getter” spirit of many of the students in this class; I need to do a comprehensive survey of the course “alumni,” but I keep tabs on a few of them in cyberspace, including Marianne Reiner (English>French), Yvrose Charles-Sasovetz (English>French and Haitian Creole) John Bunch (German>English) and Petra Schweitzer(English>German).