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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.

Cultivating Connection: 8 Tips for Interpreters and Translators to Tackle Loneliness

By The Savvy Newcomer | February 6, 2024
Cultivating Connection: 8 Tips for Interpreters and Translators to Tackle Loneliness

This post was originally published on听KGH Interpretation. It is reposted with permission.听 In 2022 I facilitated a session of the Language Access Caf茅 at the NCIHC Annual Membership Meeting and was asked to speak about interpreter self-care. Prior to the meeting, I decided to do an informal survey of medical interpreters asking them some questions about their mental health. I wanted to have a little bit of data that would clue me in on some of the issues interpreters were facing. While most of the results I shared during the AMM focused on stressors and supports, I also briefly shared…

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ATA鈥檚 Back to Business Basics: Effective and Pitch-Perfect Marketing during and after COVID-19

By The Savvy Newcomer | March 30, 2021

Marketing is a task that even experienced translators and interpreters dread, and it can feel especially daunting during difficult times, like the current pandemic and financial crisis. Should you still be marketing your services to clients? And if so, how can you do that without coming off as salesy and opportunistic? What if your clients are in an industry that…

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Untranslatable Text: Myth, Reality, or Something Else? A Translator鈥檚 Reflections on Translation and 鈥淯ntranslatability鈥

By The Savvy Newcomer | March 26, 2021

This post originally appeared on The ATA Chronicle and it is republished with permission. There inevitably comes a time in a translator鈥檚 life when he or she starts to challenge translation/translatability as a concept. More often than not, this occurs as a result of finding oneself confronted with a term that is deemed untranslatable and questioning not only the meaning…

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Remote Interpreting (RI): Professional Standards and Self-Care for Interpreters

By The Savvy Newcomer | March 23, 2021

This post originally appeared on ATA TCD News (Newsletter of the Translation Company Division of the 兔子先生), Volume 2 | Issue 7 | Winter 2021, and it is republished with permission. In this article we will focus on the importance of following professional standards even in remote interpreting settings, self-care for remote interpreters and interpreters at large, and…

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Savvy Diversification Series 鈥 Multilingual SEO: A booming niche for tech-savvy translators

By The Savvy Newcomer | March 16, 2021

The Savvy Newcomer team has been taking stock of the past year and finding that one key priority for many freelance translators and interpreters has been diversification. Offering multiple services in different sectors or to different clients can help steady us when storms come. Diversification can help us hedge against hard times. With this in mind, we鈥檝e invited a series…

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Untranslatable Text: Myth, Reality, or Something Else? A Translator鈥檚 Reflections on Translation and 鈥淯ntranslatability鈥

By The Savvy Newcomer | March 9, 2021

This post originally appeared on The ATA Chronicle and it is republished with permission. There inevitably comes a time in a translator鈥檚 life when he or she starts to challenge translation/translatability as a concept. More often than not, this occurs as a result of finding oneself confronted with a term that is deemed untranslatable and questioning not only the meaning…

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ATA鈥檚 Back to Business Basics 鈥 Diversification: A Tool for Thriving in Uncertain Times

By The Savvy Newcomer | March 2, 2021

ATA launched its new Back to Business Basics webinar series in September 2020. These webinars focus on a small, practical piece of business advice for translators and interpreters at different stages of their careers. The series quickly became popular: there are usually a few hundred people attending each live session. Members can access these webinars free of charge, and non-members…

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Getting Real with Translation & Interpreting

By The Savvy Newcomer | February 23, 2021

This post originally appeared on the Language Magazine blog and it is republished with permission. Caitilin Walsh suggests 11 resources to bring Translation and Interpreting to life in your online classroom In an educational landscape so dominated by talk of STEM鈥攑urportedly to prepare our students for technologically-influenced jobs鈥攚orld language teachers are under constant pressure to defend their departments. This sits…

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Public Review of Published Reports

By The Savvy Newcomer | February 16, 2021

How are research papers reviewed in other fields, and how can we apply those practices to the interpreting and translation field? As we observe the publicity surrounding vaccination efforts, we notice that developers are called to follow established procedures in their research. These research procedures are documented and can be reviewed by others. Their reports are checked for conflicts of…

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So, You Want To Be A Translator?

By The Savvy Newcomer | February 9, 2021

This post originally appeared on The Detail Woman blog and it is republished with permission. There are two main things I want to do on this page: first, I want to say a few things to people considering entering the translation profession. Mostly I want to clear up some misconceptions, but there are also some things I just plain think…

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What are ATA’s Mastermind Groups?

By The Savvy Newcomer | January 29, 2021

Preview blog post for Next Level: The ATA Business Practices Blog 听The following post is a preview of a new blogging venture by the ATA Business Practices Education Committee. Next Level: The ATA Business Practices Blog will provide helpful information about business practices for established translators and interpreters (those with five or more years of experience). If you have moved…

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