The Savvy Newcomer aims to serve newcomers to the translation and interpreting professions by publishing high-quality, peer-reviewed content on a weekly basis. We strive to provide you with the answers to the many questions you face as a new or aspiring translator or interpreter.
Many language professionals start out doing their work “on the side” of whatever else they are doing in life. When people find out you are bilingual, you may be asked to do some volunteer interpreting to help out a friend, family member, or someone in need, or you may agree or be expected to do the occasional translation—and maybe even get paid for it. Volunteering and doing small side jobs are great ways to gain experience and improve your skills as a translator or interpreter. But in order to be a professional—whether you plan on doing this work part-time or…
Read MoreThe Certification Toolbox: Get Ready!
Reblogged from The ATA Chronicle, with permission Late fall and early winter are traditionally a slow time for ATA’s Certification Program, since no exam sittings are scheduled between ATA’s Annual Conference and the beginning of the new exam year in March. Certification graders take advantage of this respite to select new exam passages, fine-tune grading standards, and tend to other…
Read MoreThe Seven Virtues of the New Translation Era
Building on the Rubble of the Shattered “Poverty Cult” This article was first published in 1997 on the NCTA (Northern California Translators Association) website in the earliest days of the web. It’s a window into the translation industry as it existed more than 20 years ago, but the advice is more important than ever in today’s supercharged technology and business…
Read MoreChapter Conferences: A Great Place to Start
For me, fall means conference season. There’s the American Translators Association (ATA) conference in late October or early November, but even before that is the conference organized by my local ATA chapter, the Midwest Association of Translators and Interpreters (MATI). I started attending MATI’s annual conferences when I was a graduate student, and I’ve been a regular attendee ever since.…
Read MoreOnline Training Resources for Translators
Reblogged from The ATA Chronicle, with permission As chair of ATA’s Translation and Interpreting Resources Committee, my goal is to gather information on resources of all kinds, including those related to professional development. The following discusses short-duration online training that does not lead to a certificate or university credit. Webinars Webinars are online seminars—a sort of mini-class on a specific…
Read More6 Reasons Why New Translators Should Specialize
When you’re starting out in the translation industry, you hear a lot about specialization. People tell you to find your niche and become a specialist, not a generalist. Why? This article will give you six reasons why new translators should consider developing their specialist fields. Becoming a specialist isn’t an overnight process. There’s nothing wrong with being more of a…
Read MoreCognitive strategies for the resolution of translation problems
Reblogged from the EU’s Terminology Coordination Unit blog, with permission from the author (incl. the images) The objective of the papers is to draw a panorama of the study of cognitive strategies for the resolution of translation problems, as well as to draw the perspectives of the research. We consider that translation strategies can be of internal support (cognitive type) and…
Read MoreLinguist in the Spotlight: An Interview with Izumi Suzuki
The five interviewees featured so far in our Linguist in the Spotlight series possess a collective 100-plus years of experience. This week’s interviewee boasts nearly half that on her own. Izumi Suzuki, who has worked an impressive 40 years as a translator and interpreter, is an ATA-certified translator in Japanese<>English (both directions!), as well as a certified court interpreter. Of…
Read MoreBuddies Welcome Newbies 2018
This year Buddies Welcome Newbies will be celebrating its sixth year of welcoming newcomers to the American Translators Association annual conference! After its debut in San Antonio in 2013, Buddies Welcome Newbies has grown to become a well-known event right before the Welcome Celebration of the ATA conference. Designed as an icebreaker for those attending the conference for the first…
Read MoreBook Review: Revising and Editing for Translators
Reblogged from Amper Translation Service blog, with permission, incl. the image Recently I came across a reference to a book on editing that caught my attention, partly because I hadn’t encountered many comprehensive guides on editing at that point and partly because this one was specifically aimed at translators. It turned out that the work had been around since 2001…
Read MoreInternational Translation Day 2018 – Go out, tell the world, be bold!
Have you heard? ATA is encouraging translators and interpreters to celebrate International Translation Day (ITD) in a BIG way this year! A new United Nations resolution passed in 2017 celebrates the work of translators and interpreters, and to celebrate this huge step in gaining recognition for our profession, ATA is hosting a social media blitz on September 28, 2018. We…
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