Training for Translators

Classes for translators and interpreters

Translation industry news


Corinne McKay

Upcoming professional development opportunities

If you’re looking to brush up your translation skills, here are a few upcoming opportunities to take a look at:

  • Right here in Colorado, the annual Colorado Translators Association mid-year conference is coming up on May 4 and 5. As in past years it will be held in the stunning setting of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, and the day is packed with sessions on a variety of topics. I’ll be presenting “Time Management for Freelancers” and also signing copies of my new book!
  • The summer conference for premium-market English<> French translators that Chris Durban launched in 2008 will continue this year at Translate in Quebec City. If you work with English and French and you’re looking to move up in the translation world, this conference is not to be missed: August 29-31 in Quebec City.
  • ASTTI, the Swiss translators association, will be hosting this year’s Financial Translation Summer School in Spiez, Switzerland. Last year’s edition was in Paris and I attended it and was very impressed. Although I do almost no financial translation, it was tremendously educational as the speakers were top-notch experts in their financial and economic fields. July 3-5, on the shores of Lake Thun!
  • And finally, the next session of my online course Getting Started as a Freelance Translator starts on May 8 and is open for registration. This is a four-week class for beginning translators who want to launch and run a successful freelance business, and experienced translators who want to improve their businesses are also welcome. Registration is $305, with a $50 discount for ATA members.


Corinne McKay

The software companies respond!

Ahead of last week’s ATA conference, I asked readers what you would like to tell your translation tool vendor. And with 27 comments (although some of those were me!), the post generated a lot of activity and excellent feedback. I then compiled those comments into a three-page document and presented the results at an informal lunch that the ATA Translators and Computers committee held for the software companies who were exhibiting at the conference. After giving the vendors your comments to peruse, I asked them three questions:

  • Do you really not offer these features that people are asking for, or do people not realize what you offer, or both?
  • What are your thoughts on training? (i.e. many translators commenting “I pay for the software, then I have to pay to learn to use it too”)
  • Over to you: what do you want to tell the freelancers who buy and use your software?

So first, let me say that the software company reps who attended this lunch were incredibly, incredibly forthcoming and constructive. Part of the problem is that when we freelancers rant and curse about translation software issues while we’re alone in our offices, the software companies cannot hear us. They cannot hear us unless we tell them what is wrong. So I think that this discussion was a good step in that direction. Second, let me say that in my opinion, the software companies get it. They do not think “Well, we’ve got your money, now leave us alone.” They realize that it is not good for business if people can’t learn to use their programs. And they had lots of good feedback for us. Here it is in a nutshell, from the software vendors’ point of view.

  • There are lots of training materials out there, and most freelancers don’t use them. The SDL rep commented that even when people purchase (yes, pay in advance for) an SDL premium pack that includes training, only about 10% of them follow through with the training.
  • There are training videos out there, and most people don’t watch them. The SDL Trados YouTube channel has over 100 free training videos on it. Wordfast has a YouTube channel also, and memoQ has tons of free training materials on their website. The companies are frustrated that more of their customers don’t make use of what’s already there. A couple of the reps estimated that their marketing teams spend almost half of their time developing training, and that training goes largely unused even if it’s free.
  • People want something that’s cheap, feature-rich and requires no training to learn, and that’s hard to produce. One attendee gave the example that most professional photographers and graphic designers accept that they cannot work without Photoshop and/or InDesign. The list price of those programs is about $700 each and they aren’t programs that you master in 10 minutes. Translation environment tools are the same: if you want all of those features, the software is going to be expensive and it’s going to take time to learn to use.
  • When the software companies try to attract freelancers to in-person training events such as road shows, very few people attend even if the training sessions are free, and most comment that they can’t afford to take the time off work.
  • Interestingly, many of the tools vendors commented that translation agencies put too much of the technological burden on freelancers. They feel that agencies are sending out unprepared files, then expecting the translator to return a TM (sometimes in several different formats), a clean file and bilingual Word files, and generally “expect things that translators shouldn’t have to know how to do; if the agency is earning half the money on the job, it needs to take on some of these tasks.” Interesting!
  • Some tools (like Wordfast Pro) already offer a version that can run natively on Mac. But don’t hold your breath for many of the other big guys to produce a Mac version. They don’t have plans to do this because “the large user base isn’t there and it wouldn’t be profitable.”
  • Many attendees felt that freelancers should consider the option of hiring a “personal trainer” to help them learn the software. For the record, this is what I (Corinne) did when I bought Trados Studio 2011, and I felt it was a great investment. The vendors feel that it’s important to know your own capabilities and limitations; know whether you are someone who learns best from a manual, or from another person.
  • As far as interoperability, the software companies feel that they could use more “real-world perspective,” for example having some translators on the XLIFF committee, because apparently there are none right now.

So there you have it. I found this discussion to be incredibly educational and productive. Feel free to comment further, and hopefully we can find a way to keep the discussion going! Thanks to everyone who commented on my original post as well.


Corinne McKay

Court interpreting featured on The World

This afternoon I was driving home from having lunch with a colleague when I turned on Colorado Public Radio. Public Radio International’s The World was on, with a lead-in to a segment on the recent decrease in pay for court interpreters in Nevada. And at that moment I just knew I’d be hearing the voice of my friend and colleague Judy Jenner…and I was right! The piece features very well-done interviews with Judy, her colleague Álvaro Degives-Más and Nataly Kelly of Common Sense Advisory. All three of them sounded great and gave some compelling reasons why saving money on interpreting can end up increasing costs to taxpayers in the end. You can listen to the segment or read a transcript of it here, on The World’s website.


Corinne McKay

ATA on NPR

The translation industry scored a very nice mention on All Things Considered tonight, thanks to the sharp ears of Judy Jenner, who is both a translator and interpreter (this becomes important to the story!). Although I love (OK…worship) nearly all things NPR, their reporters have the somewhat aggravating habit of consistently using the expression, “speaking through a translator.” And as those of us in the industry know, part of what we translators love about our jobs is that we don’t have to talk while we’re working, and we leave the speaking to interpreters.

An All Things Considered segment that aired yesterday featured NPR’s national political correspondent Mara Liasson using the aforementioned “speaking through a translator” in reference to visiting Chinese leader Hu Jintao. Our ever-vigilant colleague Judy had had enough, and fired off an e-mail to NPR, pointing out that translators write and interpreters speak, and noting that she, as both a translator and an interpreter, surely knows the difference between the two. This afternoon my phone rang and it was NPR (not an everyday occasion here in my world headquarters!), looking for a quote on the topic and noting that especially because NPR CEO Vivian Schiller is a former Russian interpreter, they really wanted to get this right. It was exciting to be interviewed and I think it’s a good indication for the industry in general…at least the major media outlets want to keep their translators and interpreters straight! Huge thanks to Judy for alerting NPR to this issue in the first place, and to NPR for following up!