Podcasts

Sep 04 2018
Corinne McKay

New podcast: Translation memory tools and their use (or not)

Eve Bodeux and I just released a new episode of our podcast, Speaking of Translation. In this episode, we discuss computer-assisted translation tools. What are CAT tools? What are they useful for? When are they not useful? What flavors of CAT tools are out there for translators to choose from? How do TM tools differ from MT tools?

Links mentioned in this episode (note: none of these are affiliate links):

- - Polilingua’s fairly comprehensive list of CAT tools on the market
  - OmegaT, a free and open source TM tool
  - Wordfast
  - SDL Trados Studio
  - memoQ
  - Parallels (to run Windows software on a Mac)
  - Lilt (a so-called “machine-assisted translation” tool)
  - User review of Lilt (from Corinne’s blog)
  - XBench (external QA tool available as a CAT tool plugin)
  - PerfectIt (editing plugin for MS Word)
  http://traffic.libsyn.com/speakingoftranslation/SoT_TM.m4a
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  Translation memory tools

Apr 17 2018
Corinne McKay

New podcast: raising bilingual children

In this episode of Speaking of Translation, Eve, Corinne, and special guest Jennifer Bikkál Horne discuss strategies for raising your children bilingually–a topic that, while not directly related to translation, is of interest to lots of us in the language professions. Eve (mother of two tween/teen boys) and Jen (mother of two girls, ages 1 and 3) offer tips from their experiences as English-French bilingual moms, but these strategies are applicable to any language. Listen in to learn:

How they decided to raise their children bilingually
How they incorporate French into their kids’ lives in the US
How their kids have responded to the bilingual environment
How they find resources such as books, movies, music, TV shows, etc. to use with their kids
Their thoughts on raising bilingual children in your non-native language

Jen has some excellent insights on the early childhood end of the spectrum–how to expose babies and young children to another language and encourage them to speak, how to find resources that are appropriate for young children–while Eve has the perspective of 15+ years of bilingual parenting–the various phases of bilingual life as kids get older, and how her kids use French as their “secret weapon.” If you’re raising–or thinking about raising–your kids bilingually, we think this episode will be a great source of information.

Links mentioned in the episode:

The NERCh strategies that Jen uses with her daughters–especially applicable for babies and young children (download the PDF version):

Blogs:

Facebook:

French-speaking parents in the US

For other languages, use the Facebook search field to look for “bilingual kids” and ” bilingual children.”

Books:

Maintaining Your Second Language– Eve Bodeux

Maximize Your Child’s Bilingual Ability: Ideas and inspiration for even greater success and joy raising bilingual kids – Adam Beck

Bilingual – François Grosjean

The Bilingual Edge – Kendall King

Be Bilingual – Practical Ideas for Multilingual Families – Annika Bourgogne

Podcast:

Bilingual Avenue

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Raising bilingual children

Mar 20 2018
Corinne McKay

New podcast: Eve and Corinne’s favorite new tips and tricks

In this episode of Speaking of Translation, Eve and Corinne share some new tips and tricks to help you work more efficiently and learn new skills. Including:

- - Text-to-speech proofreading (having your computer read your translations out loud). Addendum: the text-to-speech engine in MS Word is available for Chinese, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Swedish.
  - Speech-to-text dictation in Excel (rather than retyping those tedious numbers)
  - Using a tablet as a second monitor
  - Kutools for Excel, an MS Office add-on that lets you–among other things–search across multiple Excel files
  - ORCIT, the European Union’s Online Resources for Conference Interpreter Training course (thanks to Tamara Muroiwa for the recommendation)
  - PayPal.Me, a money request that uses only a link
  - The Infinity USB digital foot pedal, for controlling video and audio on your computer using your foot instead of the keyboard
  - Alt-Shift-Control, for highlighting non-contiguous text in MS Word
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  Our favorite new tips and tricks

Jan 16 2018
Corinne McKay

New podcast: setting goals for your freelance business

In this new episode of Speaking of Translation, Eve and Corinne discuss how to set goals for your freelance business. If you enjoy this podcast, you might also enjoy Eve’s book Maintaining Your Second Language, or Corinne’s online courses for freelance translators.

At the start of the year, Eve and Corinne share some insights into setting goals for your freelance business, including:

-How to set goals in the first place: make sure you’re being specific enough
-How translators can apply SMART goals to their freelance businesses
-What types of goals are helpful for a freelancer?
-How “big crazy dreams” with more achievable sub-goals can be helpful
-Our own goals for 2018!

Click the audio player link to listen online

Jun 20 2017
Corinne McKay

Podcast: IT tips and tricks for translators

Eve Bodeux and I released a new episode of Speaking of Translation last week. With both of us having survived major IT disasters in the past couple of months, we thought that an IT-focused episode might be helpful to our listeners. Here it is for your listening pleasure!

Speaking of Translation: IT tips and tricks. In this episode, Eve and Corinne offer a variety of hardware and software tips and tricks for self-employed translators who manage their own computer systems. Including:

Our own hardware and software setups, with suggestions on our favorite items
How to prepare for and recover from a major computer crash
Backup systems and how to use them
Our favorite software tools
Computer “fads” that we just don’t get

We both recently survived major IT disasters, so this topic seemed timely and important! If you have other IT suggestions for fellow translators, let us know in the comments.

Links mentioned in this episode:

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