Training for Translators

Classes for translators and interpreters

Professional development


Corinne McKay

American Translators Association conference wrapup!

I spent most of last week at the 64th annual American Translators Association conference in Miami, Florida! TL:DR version: it was great! With 1,300 attendees, it really felt like “the beforetimes,” after a fully virtual conference in 2020, a hybrid conference in 2021, and a smaller in-person conference in 2022. It feels like the ATA conference is back!

Longer version: I posted some photos on LinkedIn, and here’s a wrapup of how things went:

  • I arrived in Miami on Tuesday evening and taught a three-hour AST (Advanced Skills and Training, which happens the day before the conference) session on Wednesday. The topic was, “How to prepare for (and pass!) an interpreting exam,” and I think it went well. I’ve taught this twice as a two-hour online class and twice as a one-hour conference presentation, so it was nice to have the extra time to go into more depth on some topics and actually practice the interpreting practice techniques that I talk about in the presentation.
  • The main conference ran from Thursday through Saturday, and I presented another session (Aiming for six figures as a freelancer), moderated the Presidents’ Panel (featuring the presidents of the other T&I associations represented at the conference), and participated in a panel with Jessie Liu, Rony Gao, and Robert Holloway, on getting started in T&I. I was happy with how all of these sessions went!
  • Then, amid the many opportunities to socialize with colleagues (some of whom I hadn’t seen in person since before COVID), I managed to attend a few sessions! I like to mix things up at ATA, because there is such a huge variety of topics. I went to a couple of interpreting sessions, and a couple of literary translation sessions (my back-burner idea for my third iteration as a language professional, after I someday retire from commercial translation and interpreting). My favorite was probably the panel on bidirectional interpreting (interpreting from and into your native language) featuring Robert Holloway, Laura Burian, and Celine Browning.

Other observations:

  • Miami is an excellent city for a conference. The hotel’s specific location (at the intersection of multiple busy streets) isn’t particularly scenic, but it backs directly to the Miami river, and you can easily walk to the more scenic waterfront, or to multiple hip neighborhoods with a lot going on. Miami is definitely a food town! I didn’t have a bad meal while I was there, including at the hotel restaurant!
  • As mentioned above, people really came out in force for this conference. Considering the lingering COVID situation, economic uncertainty, people’s fears about AI incursion into our work, etc., I think that 1,300 attendees was a great turnout. Huge kudos to conference organizer Veronika Demichelis, ATA President Madalena Sanchez Zampaulo, and the entire ATA team for all of their work to motivate people to come.
  • The ATA conference model may be changing. Personally, I’m almost always pro-change, or at least pro-innovation, so this issue (discussed at the Annual Meeting of all members) didn’t freak me out. That being said, it’s the case that while ATA conferences are usually planned around five years in advance (the timeline required by many large conference hotels), the only conferences currently on the schedule are Portland 2024 and Boston 2025. Current ATA Treasurer John Milan fielded a question about this at the Annual Meeting, and said that while the current conference model is successful, it’s also very expensive, and ATA (like probably all established professional associations) faces the issue of how to attract and retain new and younger members, who may not be as interested in a four-day conference at an expensive hotel. There’s no decision yet on what a different conference model might look like. Just in terms of data points, NAJIT does a hotel-based conference but it’s a lot shorter than ATA’s (preconference workshops on Friday, conference Saturday and Sunday); some of the European associations do conferences at a university in the summer, with no host hotel at all; or who knows what other options might be discussed. Point being, if you want to attend an ATA conference that uses the traditional model, make plans for Portland or Boston, because things may change after that!

I’m really glad I attended ATA64, and it was also great to see so many Training for Translators class participants there!!


Corinne McKay

Tips for maintaining your language skills

I’m working remotely from British Columbia this month, and Training for Translators classes are on summer break until September, but the weekly newsletter and blog posts will still come out during that time.

This week, let’s talk about maintaining your language skills as a freelance translator or interpreter! Many of us are tempted to say, I don’t need to work on my language skills, because I use them all the time. I would disagree with this, for a number of reasons:
-You use certain language skills all the time. For translators, this is mostly reading comprehension in your source language, for example. But other language skills are very useful, and for translators, I think that speaking well in your source language(s) can help inspire confidence in your clients, and can allow you to participate in client-side events in your source language(s).

-Even for interpreters who speak all of their languages, all the time, it’s important to keep your skills on point. Keeping my French up to date is a constant goal for me because I do not use French in my daily life, and I also recognize that I fall into interpreting ruts: if I’ve been doing mostly court interpreting, I’m interpreting the same things, all the time. So when a conference interpreting client calls with an assignment for a banking client, I’ve got some work to do.

What are the best ways to keep up, or improve your language skills?
-First, you should definitely own Eve Bodeux’s book Maintaining Your Second Language, and I say that not only because she and I are BFFs! This book has many, many suggestions for language skill maintenance and development, from lifestyle tips (change your phone interface to your non-native language) to things that are just fun (sing along with songs in your non-native language).

-My personal favorites are: shadowing, reading aloud, and using conversation teachers on italki. More on each of those below.

  1. Shadowing. If you have time for one activity to improve your non-native language skills, let this be it! Shadowing means repeating after the speaker, in the same language. It’s like simultaneous interpreting, without the interpreting (it’s sometimes also referred to as “parroting,” for that reason). Shadowing helps with all kinds of things: speaking speed, intonation, pronunciation, expression. When I first started working on my interpreting skills, a huge problem was my speaking speed in French: I spoke so slowly (in an effort to speak clearly) that I couldn’t even shadow native French speakers at full speed, much less interpret. Hundreds of hours of shadowing later, things got better. You can do all kinds of things with shadowing: just repeat after the speaker to practice; slow YouTube videos down if you can’t keep up; shadow particularly expressive speakers to help with your expression; shadow really boring speakers and add your own expression; shadow and paraphrase; shadow and try to stick as closely as possible to the speaker’s speed; shadow and try to stay as far behind the speaker as possible, without losing meaning. Shadowing gets a bad rap (“boring, baby skill”) but I personally love it and I think it’s the first place to start.
  2. Reading aloud is another great practice technique, because you can read something you want to read anyway (anything from the news to a novel) while practicing your speaking. I find that reading aloud helps with my speaking endurance, so that I don’t get too tired during a 20-30 minute interpreting shift.
  3. Finally, I highly recommend italki if you want to work with live conversation teachers. I learned about italki from Sara Maria Hasbun‘s presentation at the 2019 ATA conference, and I used it a lot when I was improving my French skills ahead of going to interpreting school. Italki has literally thousands of teachers at all price and experience levels, and the great thing is that (as opposed to a pre-planned class), you tell them what you want to work on, and you ask them to help with your particular issues. I worked with three different teachers, and asked them specifically: pick apart my accent and pronunciation; tell me what about my French sounds least like a native French speaker and let’s work on that. Italki is really great if you just don’t have a lot of opportunities to actively use your non-native language and want someone to practice with.

I hope these tips are helpful, and maybe you’ll have some time this summer to work on your language skills!

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

MCI semester one: done!

It feels like not that long ago that I wrote a blog post about my first month as a Master’s in conference interpreting student, and now we’re about to start our second semester. Definitely time for an update! If you missed the first installment, I’m currently a Year 2 student in the York University/Glendon College Master of Conference Interpreting Program, in the French language track.

Executive summary

If you’re interested in the 30-second version, I love the program and it’s going well, despite the all-online format this year. I am still working part-time, so it’s a lot to balance, but I actually feel like the shred of sanity I’ve held on to during the pandemic is because of the MCI program. Needing to take a shower, put on real clothes, and be somewhere at a specific time — even if “somewhere” is a Zoom room — are very helpful things during the pandemic. I’m really impressed with the quality of the Glendon program; both the instructors and the other students, and I’m really looking forward to semester two.

A day in the life…

In the French language group, this semester we had about 13 hours a week of live classes (the Glendon program really emphasizes the live aspect, which I like), plus our entire class year had an interpreting technology intensive in addition to our regular classes. I found this load manageable (most classes are two hours, and we had one day a week — Tuesdays — with no classes) and as the semester went on, I found a better balance between attending classes, doing my own practice sessions, and practicing with other people from the French group. I really try to attend every class (only missed one class, one time this semester!) and do at least one practice session a week with someone else in the French group, plus multiple practice sessions on my own.

I found that by putting in 10-12 hour days, things felt manageable. That sounds like a lot, but…there’s a pandemic on…so I also have a lot more time on my hands than I normally would. I typically get to my office around 7:45 AM because classes often start at 8, and I’ve gotten into a little routine of meditating for five minutes before the day starts. Another small but important sanity routine is that I love (like, really love) coffee and I hate chugging it quickly in the morning, so I take my coffee with me to my office. So pretty much five days a week, I first drink my coffee while looking out the very beautiful glass door in my office, then I meditate for five minutes, then I go straight through with classes and work until around 5 PM (taking a short break to run or do yoga at lunch), then I do maybe an hour or two more at home in the evening. It feels doable.

How is all of this working online?

Online school plus work can definitely get to be a lot of screen time. At one point, I was having major problems with eye strain, so I took a couple of weeks where I forced myself to do non-screen things (read a paper magazine or book, play music, exercise) in the evening. That helped a lot.

A big advantage of the York/Glendon program is that Year 1 of the MCI program (which I did not do, because I took the advanced entry exam to go directly into Year 2) has been online since the program’s inception almost ten years ago. It’s definitely an advantage to be in a program that has the online methods dialed in, even though this is their first time doing Year 2 online. It would definitely be great to be on campus: Glendon has an amazing interpreting lab, and I’d love to be working in person with the instructors and the other French students; but this isn’t a bad Plan B at all. As a bonus, we’re learning a lot about remote interpreting, which will undoubtedly be helpful in the future. Although I think we’re all hoping that in-person events come back sooner rather than later, I personally think that a) large-scale professional conferences requiring travel will probably be one of the last things to come back, because we’ve now seen that they can be transitioned online in at least some respects, and b) we’re likely to see more online meetings and conferences in general, even after the pandemic winds down. I would have loved to attend a full year of in-person classes, but I think that Glendon is making the most of the year, and I’m very glad I jumped in and took advantage of it.

What we actually do

I keep making this comparison, but getting better at interpreting is a lot like getting better at playing a musical instrument. There’s some theory, and there’s lots, and lots, and lots of practice. Practice on different types of subject matter: everything from colony collapse disorder to tension between France and Germany and how that affects the value of the euro. Practice on different types of speakers: people who talk fast, people who talk slowly, people with heavy accents, people with circuitous speaking styles. Practice with panel discussions and question and answer sessions. Just lots and lots of practice.

We also have the chance to interpret for lots of live events at York University, which is a ton of fun. Again, these could be anything: I’ve done two Town Hall meetings, one on the COVID situation and one on York’s new campus, I’ve done staff meetings, seminars for the Year 1 interpreting students, an information session for prospective students in the MCI program…lots of different stuff. The York staffers are always very appreciative of our work, and it’s a great opportunity to practice in a real-life situation.

When I practice on my own or with other people from the French group, we mostly use Speechpool, or the EU speech repository.

A few surprises

Someone asked me the other day whether anything about this program, or doing a Master’s in conference interpreting, has surprised me. Why yes, thanks for asking:

  • I never really believed that most of the magic behind interpreting is, sort of like the magic behind playing a musical instrument, just lots and lots of practice. It’s really more of a skill than a talent. People have more talent and less talent, but the first time Yo-Yo Ma picked up a cello, he didn’t sight read the Bach cello suites. The same is true of conference interpreting: no one is good at simultaneous interpreting without learning the techniques and practicing them for lots of hours. No one is good at taking notes on a long consecutive speech without learning the techniques and practicing them over and over again. But the beauty of this is that you definitely can become good at things that initially seem like magic powers. Case in point: back when I was still learning the very basics of interpreting to prepare for the Colorado French court interpreter exam, I overheard two very experienced conference interpreters talking about long consecutive interpreting. One said, “Once you’ve learned the techniques to do a 10-minute speech, you can easily do 20 minutes.” And the other replied, “Oh, definitely, no problem there.” And my reaction, as I struggled in the trenches of doing 30-second segments to prepare for the court interpreter exam, was something along the lines of “WHAAAAAAAAAAAT???” But guess what, now I actually agree completely. At the end of last semester, one of my classmates and I did a practice session with a 10-minute consecutive speech, and we agreed that it really wasn’t that bad. It wasn’t a super technical, or fast, or complex speech, but we took notes for 10 minutes and then interpreted it back, and it really went OK. That felt like progress. I’ve definitely gone from (literally) feeling my stomach churning when someone in a court hearing talks for more than a minute, to actually encouraging people to keep on talking so that I get more of the whole idea.
  • This is a little weird to say, but the acceptance of self-taught interpreters on the US market (where many, many interpreters have little to no formal training) used to not bother me at all. It still doesn’t actually bother me, because the reality is that we have huge interpreting needs but very few training programs, especially outside the most-spoken languages. But I do see now that trained interpreters really are much better at the job. That’s not earthshaking news, but I now see it with my own eyes, or rather hear it with my own ears. I’m not sure what the solution is, because there are so many issues: the US population speaks about 430 languages; many interpreters, especially at the community level, simply don’t earn enough money to make extensive training a viable option; many interpreting clients don’t see the value of a trained professional interpreter, etc. etc. But still this is worth noting: formal training makes a huge difference.

Our second semester starts today, and I’ll try to write another update as I progress further through the program.


Corinne McKay

ATA58 is open for registration!

Who’s in the mood for some good news out of Washington? Well, here you go: the American Translators Association’s 58th annual conference, October 25-28 in Washington, DC, is open for registration. This year, we reviewed over 425 proposals to come up with a 175-session program (thank you to everyone who submitted!). The Wednesday before the conference starts is even more packed than usual, with 15 Advanced Skills and Training Day courses, plus our new T&I Advocacy Day. Many of the Wednesday options have limited space (we have one bus for Advocacy Day, and the majority of last year’s AST courses sold out), so please book early if you’d like to attend those. We’re also anticipating that the room block at the Washington Hilton will sell out quickly, so put that on your to-do list as well.

Here’s an interesting factoid: during our preliminary visit to the Washington Hilton, we learned that Jimi Hendrix played the hotel’s International Ballroom in 1968. So, you could attend because–as an attendee commented last year–“You can’t download an experience like this.” Or, you could come because ATA58, like that Jimi Hendrix show, is going to rock! Either way, we’re expecting 1,800+ attendees and I’m excited to organize the conference once more, before my term as ATA President begins. Hope to see lots of you there!


Corinne McKay

Tips for ATA57 attendees

With the 57th annual ATA conference coming up next week, I’m excited to report that we expect over 1,800 attendees (this will probably be our second-largest conference ever, after the 50th anniversary conference in NYC), the exhibit hall is sold out, and many of our Advanced Skills and Training Day sessions are sold out as well. If you’re attending ATA57, here are a few resources and tips that might be helpful:

If you are attending your first ATA conference, definitely check out our first-time attendees page. There you’ll find three things you should take advantage of: Jill Sommer’s free webinar on how to make the most of your conference, information about the Buddies Welcome Newbies program, and the ATA Newbies listserve. I also recommend The Savvy Newcomer, ATA’s blog for newcomers to the profession. All of these resources should help you navigate the conference a little more successfully than I did as a newbie in 2004, when I knew so few people, and was so afraid to talk to anyone, that I spent one evening going to the movies alone. Don’t do that…get in there and make the most of your investment in attending the conference.

Also, remember this: the “for newbies” events don’t just save you from ending up in the wrong room at the wrong time at the conference. They allow you to connect with other first-timers, who may be great contacts for you. One question I get from tons of freelancers is, “How do I find a translation partner/editor/someone I really click with to share projects/someone who works in my specializations but in another language/someone who works in my language, but in different specializations?” Attending the newbies events at the conference can be a great way to do that.

Greek translator Catherine Christaki wrote a great blog post on learning from your mistakes to make each conference better. This post is from 2011, but it’s still a must-read for those attending the conference. Catherine is admirably honest about her newbie mistakes (bringing printed copies of her six-page resume, not following up with people she met at the conference), and offers some great suggestions for how to learn from your own mistakes as well.

To round things out, here’s an excellent post from The Muse, on how to make the most of professional conference in general. They offer some common sense but often-overlooked advice, like putting away your phone and actually talking to people, connecting with speakers on Twitter after the conference, and “paying it forward,” by sharing the knowledge you gained at the conference.

A few closing tips from me, based on 12 ATA conferences:

  • Bring plenty of business cards and don’t be afraid to hand them out. If you are actively looking for agency clients, make sure to attend the Job Fair on Thursday evening, bring paper resumes, and have a complete profile in the ATA57 app.
  • Do not work during the conference. You’re making a big investment of time and money to be there, and a lot of what you’re investing in is connections. If you just want information, there are lots of webinars you can take advantage of. You’re coming to an in-person conference to take advantage of the fact that it’s in person, so be there in person.
  • Please, please, please do your session evaluations in the ATA57 app. Even if you use the app *only* for that purpose, please use it for session evaluations. When you use the paper evaluation forms, an ATA staffer or temp has to enter every single one (including deciphering your handwriting…) into the evaluation database. It’s slow, and expensive, and there’s the potential for human error or indecipherable handwriting. The app avoids all of that, and your ratings are instantly populated into the database.
  • Remember that this year the sessions are not being recorded. Do not go to Alcatraz and plan on listening to the recording later. Be there! If you’re interested in multiple sessions during one time slot, pair up with someone, take notes and exchange them afterward.
  • Along the lines of “be there,” be mindful of your phone and social media habits while you’re at the conference. First, you’re making a big investment in being there, so be there. Second, respect the presenters’ intellectual property. Never photograph slides or record the presentation without the speaker’s permission; it’s fine to ask whether the speaker can make the slides available afterward (I’m planning to post mine on my blog), but some speakers will not, and that’s their prerogative. Then take really good notes.
  • Even big-name speakers really appreciate knowing that you loved their presentation. You may think, “they’ve heard it a million times,” but it still means a lot when someone takes the time to write an e-mail saying something specific about a presentation. I make a point of e-mailing at least three or four speakers whose presentations I particularly liked.
  • Lastly: shoes. You cannot network effectively with blisters. Bring at least two pairs of good shoes that allow you to be on your feet all day. I’m a big fan of Lifestride and Crocs (their dress shoes, not the rubber clogs for a conference…) because they’re cute, comfortable, and vegan, but whatever your shoe preference, just don’t risk limping around San Francisco in pain.

And with that, on to ATA57, and I’ll see you there!