Training for Translators

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Professional certification


Corinne McKay

Why do so many people fail translation and interpreting certification exams?

One of my online course alumni recently asked, “What are the main reasons for the low pass rate on the ATA certification exam?” (currently about 20%, although results vary by language). And in general, why do so many people fail translation and interpreting certification exams? Various sources quote even lower pass rates, perhaps even down into the single digits, for the Federal Court Interpreter Certification Exam; so….what’s going on?

Here’s my analysis, having taken:

By no means does this indicate that I’m the world’s best translator or interpreter. I’m not, but I have a good track record of preparing for and taking certification tests. Personally, I think that:

  • Just as I’ve said, over, and over, that most freelancers’ primary marketing problem is simply not doing enough (of any kind of marketing), most people just don’t prepare enough. I started studying a year and a half ahead of time for the Colorado court interpreter exams, and I did about 400 hours of direct preparation for the exam, plus at least that many hours, if not more, working on my French speaking and auditory comprehension. By contrast, I talked to a lot of people who basically winged it. Like, maybe they practiced an hour or two during the week before the exam, but that was about it. So, most importantly, practice!
  • Many people don’t take advantage of the preparation resources that exist. For the ATA exam, in most language combinations, you can take up to three practice tests. These are retired exams that are graded by the actual graders of the real exam. This is a huge/almost unheard-of resource…which most people don’t take advantage of. There are reasons: you have to pay for the practice test; it takes a long time to get your results, which then slows down your whole exam-taking process. But still, the practice test is, hands-down, the best way to predict how you’re going to do on the real test. Same thing with court interpreter exams: I talked to people who (are you sitting down…) had failed the state court interpreter exam more than once, and had never heard of, or bothered to look for, the practice tests that you can order from the entity that creates the exam.  Same thing with preparation groups: anecdotally, I think that a number of the ATA divisions have certification exam practice and preparation groups, which seem to result in much higher pass rates. However, most people who take the exams don’t participate in these groups, even though they’re free.
  • The exams are hard. Let’s be honest about that. They’re designed to make sure that you can translate or interpret at a professional level, which is not an easy thing to do, especially if you’re self-taught.
  • It’s hard to find good prep materials for interpreting exams in languages other than Spanish. A major advantage of the ATA exam is that there are practice tests for every language combination in which the exam is offered. This is not true of interpreting exams. For Spanish, you’re in luck. But if you’re LOTS (languages other than Spanish), you’re kind of on your own. This was a major obstacle when I took the French court interpreter exam: there is no French version of The Interpreter’s Edge (the main home study course for the state and federal court interpreter exams), nor does the National Center for State Courts have any French practice materials (although they do link to legal glossaries in multiple languages), and I think that the court systems in other French-speaking countries are so different that any practice materials from there would be minimally helpful. This makes it particularly hard to practice for court or medical consecutive exams, which are dialogues (as opposed to interpreting an entire speech for a conference interpreting exam), and you don’t know what language the speaker is going to be using until they start talking.
  • People don’t adequately research the exam specifications. This sounds crazy, but it’s true. I’ve talked to people who didn’t know all kinds of things about the exam they were taking. They didn’t know what websites are and aren’t allowed on the ATA exam; they didn’t know that you typically can’t use headphones on the consecutive portion of an in-person court interpreting exam (because the tester has to hear the dialogue) and that you typically get to ask for two segments to be repeated; they didn’t know that there is typically a time limit on the consecutive portion of an interpreting exam. These are the worst reasons to fail an exam. You want to control absolutely everything that you can control: do your ATA practice test using the exact same computer setup that the real exam will use; practice consecutive interpreting without headphones; anything you can do to simulate the conditions of the real test.
  • People practice in a scattershot way. “Analysis paralysis” is a huge issue when you’re preparing for an exam. What to practice, when to practice, how to practice, who to ask for feedback, just all of it. Instead, you need a simple, repeatable routine: translate one ATA exam-style practice passage every two weeks, and find another translator in your language combination who would like to exchange feedback; come up with an interpreting practice routine that you do in the same way every day. Mine: warm up for 10-15 minutes by shadowing or listening to the French news; practice for 10-15 minutes with Numerizer; interpret one consecutive speech and one simultaneous speech, alternating language directions each day.
  • Exam-day nerves only add to the stress. Whether you take an exam at home or at a testing center, there are major points of anxiety. If you’re at home, you have to worry about the technology; if something goes wrong during the exam, you may fail because of something that really isn’t your fault. If you’re at a testing center, you have all of the variables that go along with that: finding the place, bringing everything you need, using their equipment. When I took the state court exam in person at a courthouse in Denver, the tester (see above: so that she could hear when to play the segments for the consecutive) was sitting close enough that she could have touched me, which was necessary but also very nerve-racking. Particularly in interpreting exams, this can lead to the snowball effect, where you are well-prepared in general, but you make a mistake, get flustered, and then everything spirals downhill. One main recommendation here: for interpreting exams, you have to practice with materials that are above your level, so that you develop strategies for dense material, fast speakers, reformulating around words you don’t know, etc.

I hope that if you’re preparing for an interpreting exam, you will find these tips helpful!

Corinne McKay (classes@trainingfortranslators.com) is the founder of Training for Translators, and has been a full-time freelancer since 2002. An ATA-certified French to English translator and Colorado court-certified interpreter, she also holds a Master of Conference Interpreting from Glendon College. For more tips and insights, join the Training for Translators mailing list!


Corinne McKay

Preparing for the state-level court interpreter certification exam

Eve Bodeux and I already recorded an episode of Speaking of Translation on this topic, but a few readers have asked me for a written post, so here you go! It’s long, but I hope it will be helpful to other people who want to take the state-level court interpreter certification exam, especially if you work in a language other than Spanish.

Executive Summary

After a year and a half of studying, I passed the Colorado court interpreter certification exam for French, in June. It was really challenging, but I passed on the first try after a lot of preparation. How much preparation? About 400 hours of direct studying for the oral exam (plus about 20 hours for the written), using the Acebo home study course The Interpreter’s Edge (they don’t have a language-specific version for French, so I used the Generic Edition), private coaching with interpreter trainer Athena Matilsky, and finally the practice test from the National Center for State Courts (again, no language-specific version for French, so I used the English version). On top of those 400 hours, I did an additional 100ish hours of “other” practice: French shadowing, doing flash cards of legal terms, etc. etc.

Many people fail the court interpreter certification exams, because

  • the test is hard
  • many people underestimate the test and don’t prepare adequately
  • if you do a language other than Spanish (LOTS), there are very few language-specific prep materials available

However it is possible to prepare so that you have a reasonable chance of passing on the first try. I’m now one of two court-certified French interpreters in Colorado, so there is a fair bit of work available; not enough that I am planning to immediately cut back on my translation work, but a fair bit. My next goal is to perhaps prepare for the Department of State interpreting exams, once I decompress from the end of my term on the ATA Board!

If that’s all you wanted to know, you’re good–you can stop here. If you want the details, read on!

In the beginning

When I started freelancing in the early aughts, I did a bit of community interpreting and loved it. However at a certain point, scheduling around my daughter’s part-time preschool schedule got too complicated. So I stopped, and did only written translation from about 2004 on. But I always missed interpreting, and thought (and thought and thought and thought, without taking any action…stop me if this sounds familiar) about getting back into it.

At the 2017 ATA conference, I went to Athena Matilsky’s presentation on consecutive interpreting, and something within me snapped. I thought, “You never have to pursue interpreting, but if you want to, it needs to be now.” So I did. I first paid Athena for a consulting session to tell me if this idea was totally nuts (her take: maybe a little nuts, but doable), and then I sought her advice on how to proceed. We jointly decided that I should pursue the state-level court interpreter exam, because there is a language-specific exam for French, and because–at least in Colorado–you do not have to pass all of the exam’s three sections (sight translation, consecutive interpreting, simultaneous interpreting) in one shot. Within a certain period of time, you can re-take only the section that you failed. I also surmised that there might be a reasonable local market for French interpreting since there was, at that time, only one court-certified French interpreter in the whole state.

I dusted off my long-dormant copy of The Interpreter’s Edge and got to work, trying to practice for about 30-60 minutes, five times a week. I then met with Athena about twice a month to do live interpreting practice sessions with her critiquing my performance. Operation Interpreter was rolling.

The orientation and written exam

I’ll give a huge shoutout to the Colorado Judicial Branch for the organization of their interpreter recruitment and training system. The process is very straightforward:
-Attend a full-day orientation
-Take the written exam
-If you pass the written exam, take the oral exam
The orientation is simply a matter of attending; as long as you are there for the full day (the cost varies, but I think mine was $150), you are then eligible for the written exam. The orientation covers the requirements for working in the Colorado courts, interpreter ethics, and the qualification or certification process, plus specific information on preparing for each component of the exam.

The written exam is–depending on where you were educated and your level of knowledge of the legal system–either not that big of a deal, or really hard. As an educated native English speaker with some knowledge of the US legal system, I didn’t find it extremely challenging; I passed with a score in the 90s after preparing for about 20 hours. Mostly, I studied flashcards of all of the legal terms in the guide that Colorado Judicial provided. However, if I had to take a corresponding test on the French or Swiss legal systems, the test would have been extremely challenging. I think that how much you need to prepare really depends on your baseline language skills and knowledge of the US legal system.

The major challenge: the oral exam

After passing the written exam, the next step was the oral, which was by far my biggest challenge in the whole process. If you live in a state that uses the National Center for State Courts’ exam, the test consists of:
-sight translation in both directions (from and into English)
-a consecutive interpreting dialog where you interpret in both directions (i.e. one actor plays a court official who speaks English and the other plays a witness or defendant who doesn’t speak English, and you interpret for both)
-a simultaneous interpreting passage where you interpret from English into your other language

As I mentioned above, I used The Interpreter’s Edge for all of my English into French preparation. The major challenge was finding materials for French into English. If you do a LOTS language, I would highly recommend working with a trainer for your language if you can find someone. Trainers often have some of their own materials that they’ve paid to develop, or they know where to point you to find resources for your language. To be honest, I was never able to find a good source of English<>French consecutive interpreting dialogues where you have speakers of both languages in the same passage. So I mostly used things like French Canadian court videos on YouTube, French court documents, etc. to practice going into English.

Pro tips for preparing for the oral

Here’s a lightning round of my top tips for preparing for the oral:

–Do every passage in The Interpreter’s edge multiple times. As Athena told me, continue working on each passage until either it’s perfect or you’re ready to throw the book out the window. This really helped me: rather than thinking, “Well, that was awful!” (which most of my renditions were when I first started out), I would record myself, listen to the recording, and analyze what I did wrong, then repeat the passage until it got better.
–Know all of the boilerplate legal stuff like the back of your hand. When you go to the exam, you are dealing with a lot of unknowns. Mostly, you have no idea what will be the subject matter of the case that you are interpreting. It could be anything from armed robbery to traffic court to attempted murder. However you can be sure that certain boilerplate legal language appears in every case: words like judge, jury, verdict, plea. Phrases like “ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” “raise your right hand to be sworn in.” And even whole utterances like, “Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God.” You do not want to be racking your brain for the French word for “witness stand” (la barre des témoins), when there’s a 90% chance that the term “witness stand” will appear somewhere on the test. Make flashcards of as many of those types of terms as you can think of, and go over them again, and again, and again. I actually kept my flashcards in a little Ziploc bag so that I could study them at breakfast, on the bus, while waiting on a conference call, etc. etc. Knowing those terms inside and out really helped my confidence level when I went to the exam.

–When you make a mistake in simultaneous, don’t let it derail you. I think that many people fail the simultaneous section because they get rattled by a word that they know they got wrong. But instead of missing just that one word, they pause to think about it (oh no…the number was 70 and I said 17) , and miss the rest of the sentence, resulting in multiple error points. It’s really, really, really hard to do, but when you miss a word in simultaneous, just let it float away like a balloon, and keep on interpreting.

–Use your two consecutive repetitions, but use them judiciously. Consecutive is by far my weakest mode (working on it still…), so I really wanted to take advantage of the option to have two of the consecutive segments repeated. I think most states offer this; you just tell the tester “repeat that please,” and they’ll play the segment again, and you can request that for two segments. On the exam, I got very lucky in that I selected the two longest segments for my repetitions, but that is a hard call when you’re very nervous: you don’t want to waste your repetitions on short, easy segments, but you also don’t want to leave a repetition unused.

–Focus on passing the test, not on being perfect. This is a really hard one if you–like 99% of language professionals–are a perfectionist. To pass the exam in Colorado, I had to get a 70% on all three sections. But I didn’t want to get a 70; I wanted to get a 100. It took time to accept that that wasn’t going to happen, and that I needed to focus on the requirements for passing, not on perfection. It can also be somewhat terrifying to realize that–as difficult as the exam is–interpreting in the real world is even harder. For example the simultaneous passage on the exam is 125 words per minute. And in real life, very few people talk that slowly. People also do not politely pause at the end of a thought while you take notes. In a real court hearing, you don’t get two repetitions. Just keep reminding yourself that right at this moment, you don’t need to worry about that. The simultaneous passage is 125 words a minute, and you get pauses and repetitions during the consecutive, and your goal is to pass the exam.

The big moment: exam day

Before registering for the oral exam, I took the NCSC practice exam and scored above an 80% on all sections, and I was going only from English into French (my weaker direction), so I figured (hoped/prayed) that I had a good chance of getting above a 70 on the real test even with the nervousness factor, so I registered for the April sitting in Denver.
Athena gave me great advice for the final tune-up: finish on a high note. Two to three days before the exam, do a passage very well, then stop. Don’t be preparing until the 11th hour–you won’t improve, you’ll just make yourself more nervous. So that’s what I did: I picked a fast simultaneous passage from The Interpreter’s Edge that I had actually cried over (no exaggeration) the first time I tried to interpret it (as in “I’ll never be able to do this”), did it solidly, and put the prep materials on the shelf.

The day of the exam, I arrived an hour early to the testing location so that I wouldn’t be stressed out about the time, and then I listened to French music on my phone while I waited. This helped to get my French-language juices flowing without the pressure of having to interpret.

The court staff member who administered my exam was great. She was very calm and confident about administering the test, which really helped. At least for the Colorado version of the exam, you should be prepared that:
–The tester sits at the same table as you, almost close enough to touch you. So you might want to practice with another person (your spouse, a friend, etc.) sitting at the table with you while you interpret, so that you’re used to that.
–There is a time limit for the sight and consecutive sections, so make sure that you’ve practiced doing those modes efficiently (not pausing for too long) so that you’ll finish within the time limit.
–You can use headphones for the simultaneous but not for the consecutive. Again, I would practice this at home so that you’re used to it.

After my exam, I felt that it went about how I expected. That sounds kind of anticlimactic, but I also felt that it was a sign that I had prepared thoroughly. As I expected, sight translation was my highest score, then simultaneous, then (the dreaded) consecutive, but I passed all three sections on the first try, which I was excited about.

Parting thoughts

If you’re interested in taking the state-level court exam, I would definitely encourage you to go for it, but be realistic about the amount of preparation it requires and what skills you need to practice in order to pass.

Since passing the exam, I’ve seen a number of benefits: court interpreting work of course, plus, oddly enough, I’ve gotten a lot more translation work from law firms, who want someone who is certified for both court interpreting and translation. I’m not sure I see the logic there, but if it’s a business advantage, great. Passing the exam has also given me the motivation to start preparing for the Department of State interpreting exams. Finally, I wanted to give a huge shoutout to the people who encouraged me and cheered me on during the looooong time it took me to study for the exam: my trainer Athena of course, and Judy Jenner, Cris Silva, and Melinda Gonzalez-Hibner. Their advice was really, really helpful and gave me the confidence to follow through on this big goal!

Readers, what questions do you have about preparing for the state court interpreter exam? Let me know in the comments!


Corinne McKay

Translation credentials: what are they and do you need them?

Here’s a very common question from my beginning translation students: “Do I need a…(Bachelor’s degree, Master’s degree, translation certificate, translator certification, etc.)” with corollaries such as “Am I better off getting a foreign language MA or a translation certificate?” “If I don’t have a Bachelor’s degree but I’m ATA-certified, is that OK?” and so on.

I can answer all of these questions with two words: it depends. There you go! That’s somewhat tongue in cheek, but it does really depend on your background, your goals, who you work for and what you do. And in this post, I’m talking about the norm, not the exception; I know a couple of self-taught conference interpreters who have tons of work, people without Bachelor’s degrees who are doing fine, and lots of people who are not ATA-certified and still make a squadrillion dollars a year. But here I’m talking in general, and I apologize in advance if this gets long!

Also, there are some very notable exceptions to these observations. For example let’s say that you want to be a court interpreter at the state level. In many U.S. states, the only pre-requisite to take the court interpreter exam is that you have to be 18 and legally eligible to work in the US. In theory, even a smart and motivated high school student could study for and pass the exam. And once you’re certified, everyone generally is paid the same rate. So in that case, and for that specific job, there may be absolutely no advantage to having a Bachelor’s degree.

Do you need a Bachelor’s degree? Yes, in most cases, I really think that you do. As with the court interpreter scenario above, of course there are exceptions. But at least in the US, I think that if you don’t have a Bachelor’s degree, you are seen as A Person Who Did Not Go to College; whereas whether you have a BA, MA, PhD, law degree, whatever, you are A Person Who Went to College. Corollary: if you’re not 18 and your parents aren’t going to fund this educational endeavor, is a Bachelor’s from an online university better than, say, a high school degree or an Associate’s, plus a certificate from a reputable translation certificate program? Honestly, I don’t really know. First, you’d need to find a reputable translation certificate program to accept you without an undergraduate degree, but that might be doable if your language skills are strong.

Are translation/interpreting MA programs worth the investment? You had to ask a tough one, didn’t you… Here’s my opinion: before you undertake a graduate degree, ask yourself, “What do I want to do, that I cannot do now, that I can do if I earn this degree?” If your answer is that you want a job as a staff translator or interpreter at a high-level entity such as the U.N., Department of State, European Union, etc. then yes, I think that a translation/interpreting MA, preferably from the top program in your country, is probably a good investment. If you are completely convinced that you want to do conference interpreting, ditto: go for the interpreting-specific MA if possible.

On the other hand, consider this: in the US, tuition, fees, meals and housing at a private university will run you about $50,000 a year; an MA will generally last two years. Schools in Europe generally charge less in tuition, but the cost of living in the European capitals will bump the total cost up significantly. And you also have to consider the issue of lost income, especially if your other option is to simply start freelancing right away. Statistics tell us that the average full-time freelance translator/interpreter in the US earns about $75,000 per year. So during those two years, you’ll forgo some $150,000 in income, giving you a total investment of about $250,000 in your degree. That’s a pretty big number by anyone’s standards, but it’s probably worth it if your heart is set on a staff position at a major international organization; hopefully you’ll get an outstanding education, you’ll be taught by highly experienced professors, you’ll make great contacts, you’ll probably have a leg up in terms of internships, and so on.

However, in my opinion, and I apologize if this verges on “rant” territory, most translation/interpreting MA programs do not offer nearly enough education in business and entrepreneurship, given the career paths that a lot of their students will take. Will some of their students work on staff at places like the UN for their entire careers? Sure. Are there enough of those jobs open every year to employ the majority of graduates? I would say not. So, realistically, a lot of people with translation/interpreting MAs, even from top-tier schools, will become freelancers.  A lot of people who earn translation/interpreting MAs want to be freelancers, whether in-house jobs are available or not. And if I invested a quarter of a million dollars in that type of degree, in an industry that is highly freelance-oriented, I would expect a top-tier education in language entrepreneurship in addition to my language skills education. Here’s an example: several top-tier music schools in the US have music entrepreneurship centers. The University of Colorado here in Boulder has one. So does Manhattan School of Music, with the lead-in, “In today’s marketplace, musicians need more than artistic excellence: they need the added edge of entrepreneurial skills to create opportunities and build successful, sustainable careers.” Substitute “linguistic” for “artistic” and I think you’ve got the idea of what our industry needs; and to my knowledge, none of the major translation MA programs in the US or Europe are really addressing this. (End of rant!)

How about certification? Being certified, by ATA or any other national translators association, will never be a negative. Compensation surveys tell us that ATA-certified translators earn more than non-certified translators.  I have also heard from several translation companies with government contracts that they are under more pressure to use ATA-certified translators whenever possible. If a client is browsing the ATA online directory, they will probably contact the certified people first. So I think that the ATA exam is absolutely worth attempting if it’s in your budget. However, translator certification, in any country, is not like the bar exam for lawyers or the CPA exam for accountants. Lots of people make lots of money without ever becoming certified. I would consider certification a definite plus, but not a must.

Translation certificate programs? Translation certificate programs are great, because they teach you how to actually translate. They’ll help you avoid the litany of mistakes that I, and lots of other beginning translators, committed early in our careers. They’re also a good deal less expensive and less time-consuming than graduate degree programs. Most translation certificate programs are taught by practicing translators and interpreters who teach in their areas of specialization, so you’ll get real-world feedback from the instructors. Caveats: expect to pay $700-$1,500 per class, and don’t assume that completing a translation certificate program will enable you to pass the ATA certification exam.

What about subject-area degrees or training? I think this is the cutting edge in terms of credentials in our industry. Subject-area knowledge has always been important, but I think it’s becoming more so. For example, translation now seems to be a popular option for career-changing lawyers: possibly because lawyers have some of the lowest job satisfaction rates and some of the highest rates of substance abuse and depression of any white-collar profession. Whatever the case, if you’re already established in the profession and want to take your credentials up a notch, subject-area training would be my pick. Whether you do free, online courses through an entity like Coursera or enroll in a full-on graduate program in your specialization, I think it would be energy well spent.


Corinne McKay

Some thoughts on ATA certification

On the Colorado Translators Association e-mail list, we recently had a lively discussion about ATA certification, which got me thinking about some of the pros, cons and issues associated with the ATA certification exams. In the spirit of disclosure, I am both ATA-certified (failed the practice test, passed the real exam) and an active volunteer for ATA so I’m not entirely impartial, but I’ll try to give a balanced view of the topic.

For those unfamiliar with the ATA certification process, here are some of the roots of the controversy

    • ATA certification exams are still handwritten and no electronic reference materials are allowed. Candidates have to bring their own (paper) dictionaries and reference books; when I took the exam, the woman next to me brought a rolling suitcase full of dictionaries.
    • The only feedback that you receive from the ATA exam is a letter notifying you whether you passed or failed; you don’t receive your marked-up exam unless you pay a separate review fee.
    • In order to refer to yourself as ATA-certified and to use the CT designation, you must remain a member of ATA. Technically, your certification lapses if you don’t renew your ATA membership, and ATA could require you to retake the certification exam.
    • ATA does not release pass/fail rates for specific language combinations, only an approximate overall pass rate of “less than 20%.”

To open the discussion, here are some gripes about the exam that I disagree with:

      • “It’s too expensive.” At $300, the exam certainly isn’t cheap. But ATA actually loses money on the certification program; and when you consider that the $300 fee includes the exam sitting plus having your exam graded by at least two reviewers (and a third reviewer comes in if the first two disagree on your result), I actually think it’s amazing that ATA doesn’t need to charge more.
      • “The grading process is unfair.” I agree that the grading process is a little opaque (we’ll get to that later…), but if you fail, it means that at least two reviewers agree that you failed. You can never fail the ATA exam based on only one person’s review.
      • “The passing rate is ridiculously low.” The passing rate on the ATA exam is, according to all of the published statistics I could find, roughly equivalent to the passing rate on the Federal Court Interpreter written exam, and *much higher* than the 4-5% pass rate on the Federal Court Interpreter exam as a whole.
      • “No one cares if you’re certified anyway.” I think that certification is not a must, but it’s certainly a plus. I do a brisk business translating official documents for individuals, and most of that work requires a certified translator. If a client is blindly searching the ATA directory, I think that they’re likely to contact the certified people first. And I think that clients in general feel safer when they use certified translators because they feel that there’s some guarantee of competence there.

Moving on, here are some gripes about the exam that I believe have at least a shred of merit:

    • The whole handwritten exam/paper dictionary situation. I can sympathize with the reasons behind this (exam security, expense, finding appropriate testing centers, dealing with non-Roman-alphabet languages, etc.) but it’s still a major deterrent for many translators. When I took the exam in 2002, I don’t think I had spent three hours handwriting anything since I was in college in the early 90s. If I were to take the exam today, I would have to purchase or borrow paper dictionaries just for that purpose since I’ve converted to electronic resources almost exclusively. This format just doesn’t mesh with the way most translators work in 2012.
    • The lack of prep materials. At present, the only official prep materials that ATA offers are practice exams which cost $50.00 each. Considering that you do receive your marked-up practice exam, I think the cost is very reasonable. However, I think ATA should offer more prep materials than this in order to make the grading standards more transparent. How about a book of old exams for each language combination with sample translations, including the error markings for each one? How about language-specific prep courses led by graders and including practice exam sessions with feedback? Right now, I think that if you fail the practice test it’s hard to know what you need to work on in order to pass. More prep materials could help remedy this.
    • The opacity surrounding the exam grading and release of results, which ties into the cost of the exam. To my knowledge, ATA does not publish the names of the exam graders. Many people do identify themselves as exam graders, for example on their websites or LinkedIn profiles, but ATA itself does not identify them. I think it would contribute to the legitimacy of the exam if ATA made a concerted effort to recruit graders who are seen as the top translators in their language combinations. Undoubtedly, some or even most graders already meet this criterion, but ATA could benefit from publishing their names on its website. In addition, I think that ATA should pay its graders more (in order to recruit and retain the most respected translators in each language combination), even if this leads to an increase in the exam fee. I also think that ATA should release specific pass/fail figures each year and for each language combination. Right now ATA publishes the names of newly certified members in the Chronicle, but I think it would contribute to the exam’s legitimacy if ATA published the number of people who took each language combination and the number who passed and failed.

In sum, I think that ATA does a good job of administering the certification program with the resources that it has. With a budget of $300 per candidate spread over renting an exam room, paying an exam proctor, paying at least two graders and dealing with the administrative aspects of the exam, I think that ATA does pretty admirably. However, I think that increasing the exam fee in order to finally get the exam computerized, plus offering more prep materials and possibly prep courses would help make the exam process more transparent and legitimate in the eyes of ATA members.


Corinne McKay

Obtaining your Certified Translator seal

At the beginning of August, Portuguese translator/interpreter Cris Silva wrote about her newly-obtained ATA-certified translator seal. This is an exciting development for all of us CTs (as ATA-certified translators can now call themselves!): a great addition to a certified translator’s marketing materials and official document translations.

Call me technologically disabled, but I had a hard time figuring out how to actually order my seal. Maybe you’re struggling in silence with this issue too, so let me help you! ATA has set up a very cool electronic verification system for the Certified Translator credential. If a client goes to atanet.org/verify, they can type in your certification number (included on your Certified Translator seal) and verify that you are actually certified. If you scroll down to the very bottom of that page, you’ll see some text that begins “If you are an ATA-certified member who would like to get your unique certification number…” and that’s what you want. First, make sure that you’re logged in as an ATA member using your member number and password and then click where it says “click here” (I told you I was going to help…). The system will recognize you and auto-generate your certification number and seal right there. You can then download the seal for your own use; just make sure to abide by the rules for use, including leaving the “Verify at www.atanet.org/verify” text below the seal image. A local translator who is certified in two language combinations told me that you receive a different certification number and seal for each language combination in which you are certified.