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.
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…
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鈥檒l have more capacity and you鈥檒l 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
听Reblogged from听The ATA Chronicle with permission from the author In today鈥檚 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 鈥渃orpus linguistics鈥 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鈥檚 a familiar story: you鈥檝e come to the end of a lengthy translation and there are a couple of points you鈥檙e 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鈥 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…
Read MoreWhy Pairing up Is a Good Idea, Especially for Freelance Translators!
鈥淚鈥檓 a freelancer, so other freelancers are my competitors. Especially in my language pair. I should avoid them at all cost!鈥 As a small business owner (because that鈥檚 what you are as a freelancer!), it鈥檚 very easy to fall into this trap. It does make sense, doesn鈥檛 it? Professionals who offer exactly the same services as you are direct competitors…
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