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 MoreSummary of the ATA Translation and Interpreting Services Survey
Reblogged from The ATA Chronicle with permission, incl. the image The fifth edition of the ATA Translation and Interpreting Services Survey serves as a practical tool, revealing general trends in the translation and interpreting industry. The recently released fifth edition of the ATA Translation and Interpreting Services Survey is an invaluable benchmarking tool for nearly everyone in or affiliated with the…
Read More9 Things You Can Do Today to Get the Most out of ATA58
This October, some 2,000 language professionals will swarm the Hilton in Washington DC for the 58th Annual ATA Conference. They will push through crowds of people to find the next packed presentation room, will sit in a sea of unfamiliar faces, will spend their entire waking day taking in new information and trying desperately to remember the name of the…
Read MoreWhy Pairing up Is a Good Idea for Freelance Translators! Part 2
In part 1 of this post, I explained three major benefits of working together with other translators. Quick recap: you need two people to produce the quality customers require, you’ll have more capacity and you’ll be able to offer more services. That is only half the story though: there are three other major benefits: Two Professionals Are Much More…
Read MoreQuestions to Ask Before You Accept a Translation Project
It is impossible to anticipate every issue or question that may arise during the course of a translation project, but one thing you can do to be prepared before you get started is ask a lot of questions. Below are a number of questions you should keep in mind each time you receive a new project request (especially from a…
Read MoreBranding Yourself – Create a Professional Portfolio
Reblogged from The ATA Chronicle with permission from the author In today’s business world, it is becoming increasingly difficult to make yourself competitive, especially as a translator. More and more freelancers are being added to the market, so what can you do to make yourself stand out in a sea of many? A great place to start your differentiating process is…
Read MoreCorpus analysis: The Ugly Duckling of Translation
Not long ago, hearing the term “corpus linguistics” made me shriek; after all, it was something that only linguists in academia did, right? So, when I signed up for a course, I was not fully convinced that I would learn something that I could truly put into practice. However, by the end of the course, I had concluded that corpus…
Read MoreTo Ask or Not to Ask: That Is the Question
Reblogged from the blog ClaireCoxTranslations ~ Lines from a linguist, incl. the image, with permission from the author It’s a familiar story: you’ve come to the end of a lengthy translation and there are a couple of points you’re not quite sure about. It might be in-house jargon, or indecipherable acronyms. Or then again the source text might not be…
Read MoreSo You Want to be a Freelance Translator or Interpreter: How is the T&I Industry Laid Out?
How is the T&I industry laid out? As a preface, I can think of numerous times since I began working as a translator that friends and family have come to me with questions about my work. Do I actually have a job? Do people pay me to do it? Who do I work for? The questions are not always this…
Read MoreFive Steps to Make your Freelance Translator CV Stand Out
During the last three months, I have reviewed hundreds of CVs (or resumes) from freelance translators for a new language group we are targeting at our translation agency, TranslationPartner. Some CVs caught my attention, and others were rejected within 10-20 seconds. To help you out, I have written down some of my notes about why some translators’ CVs were shortlisted…
Read MoreHow Does the ATA Nomination Process Work?
By the ATA Nominating and Leadership Development Committee in February 2015: Dorothee Racette, Connie Prener, Tony Guerra, Susanne van Eyl, Karen Tkaczyk Reblogged from The ATA Chronicle, February 2015, with permission from Dorothee Racette Who creates that slate of candidates that we see every year? How does the nomination process work? May I nominate myself? What are the criteria used…
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