an archive of content from ≈ 2005 - 2015, relating to international business, translation, freelancing, and working online.
Debates on appropriate education levels for translators and interpreters are common in Australia, and heated discussions on the value of professional development regularly pop up on association egroups and forums. A recent exchange reminded me of a session I attended at the 2008 AUSIT Biennial Conference, which gives – I think – some context the situation in this country. [Read more…]
Amy Williams is a freelance translator working from French and Italian into English, and a director of Eggplant Translations. She specialises in marketing and advertising, and the arts, media and music in particular. In the early stages of my freelance career, Amy was kind enough to give me some great advice on setting up a website. Here I ask her for more tips about marketing, her areas of specialisation and why she has chosen to pursue further studies in psychology. [Read more…]
Hello to translators and interpreters surfing by following my recent Chartered Institute of Linguists (CIOL) webinar. I intend to blog about this in more detail later this week, but until then, here are some resources you might find useful:
Thanks again to everyone for tuning in and for their questions. I plan to pull together a summary of some to the key issues raised as part of my write-up, but in the meantime, feel free to post your questions in the comment section below. I’m not promising I know the answer but I’ll certainly be able to point you in the right direction.
* 14 October: correction – it’s a half-hour presentation, not a one-hour one… Thanks Kimmo.
Karen Stokes has been providing French to English translation services through KES_Translate since 2002. In 2008 she was awarded Chartered Linguist (Translator) status, one of the first five translators in the UK to be awarded this distinction. Read on for more about Karen’s background, her approach to marketing and the Chartered Linguist application process. [Read more…]
I like projects so I’m going to start a new one. I think it will be fun, and I’m hoping it will catch on.
Starting tomorrow, I’m planning to post a series of screencasts to demonstrate how I use various web 2.0 and social media tools. They’ll be no more than 5 minutes each, aimed at fellow language professionals, and pretty rough and ready in format (suffice it to say you won’t find it hard to believe I’m a translator, instead of a movie producer). My aim is simply to share things that I find interesting, or that have worked for me as I’ve built up my freelance practice over the past 5 years or more. [Read more…]
This is a round-up of my experiences of the ITI International Conference in London this year.
This year was only the second since 2003 that I did not attend the conference in person. I did seriously consider arranging a trip back to Europe based around the conference, but last year decided to focus my resources on events around the Asia-Pacific region instead. Then late last year, Philippa and I were invited by the organising committee to present a paper on social media, based on our own experiences of applying these tools to our everyday business activities. The idea was that we could also demonstrate some of the possibilities of web 2.0 by working together and ultimately, presenting, with me based in Brisbane and Philippa in London. It was an exciting idea and Philippa and I got to work. [Read more…]
I’m trying a little experiment*. If it works, then we should gain some interesting insights from a number of luminaries in and around the world of translation. If it doesn’t work, well, we might just learn something from that too.
My plan is to interview 15 interesting people in the 15 days leading up to the ITI International Conference on 16th and 17th May. Why? Well, [Read more…]
How important is it to you to speak another language? How is ‘being multilingual’ viewed in your country? How closely do you identify with the translation profession? These were just some of the questions asked by Floriana Badalotti, a PhD candidate from Monash University, in a session titled Considerations on the Cultural Identity of Interpreters and Translators at the 2008 AUSIT Biennial National Conference in Brisbane. [Read more…]
Check out Philippa Hammond’s write-up of the Translator as Strategic Partner Conference over at Blogging Translator. Philippa was micro-blogging live over the conference weekend and has used her updates as a basis for her post. A fantastic example of how to use Twitter in a professional context.
More than that though, her post contains some really useful nuggets of inspiration. Try this on for size:
Jost Zetzsche, of Toolkit fame, spoke about our age-old idealisation of the patron saint of translators, St. Jerome. We risk being constrained by this idealisation of a translator who, let’s face it, innovative as he was at the time, was born c. 347. Instead, we need to roll with the times and think about the true purpose of our texts…
Great write-up, Philippa!
The last eight months have been a real roller-coaster ride professionally speaking, as I’ve tried to settle into life on the Other Side of the World. On the one hand, despite my best efforts to stay connected virtually, at times I’ve felt isolated and demotivated without the face-to-face contact that I enjoyed with my peers in London. On the other, I’ve had a stronger sense than ever of the wealth of opportunity and choice that translation as a career can offer me – if only I could get myself focussed enough to tap into it.
Thankfully last weekend’s 2008 AUSIT Biennial National Conference in Brisbane delivered just the shot of enthusiasm I needed to top up my motivation levels. My one and only aim in attending was to gain an overview of translation in Australia. What I got was a lesson on how the oldest profession in the world is forging its place in country with needs far different to those I’d ever considered before.
Yes, this is where I live now. And yes, this is the frankly breathtaking mode of transport I used to commute to the AUSIT conference last weekend 🙂