2020 has thrown us quite a few curveballs already, forcing us to be more flexible than we perhaps ever thought possible.Not having any or less work or not being able to work is one of them. Working as a self-employed translator and interpreter means that the regular, government-based support (at least in Germany) in case of unforeseen events is not available. So you have to prepare for yourself. Besides …
interpretation
Have you ever wished there was a way to avoid sending inquiries to translators and interpreters who for whatever reason are not available when you need them? Wouldn’t it be nice to see in a simple overview the dates someone is not available to interpret or out of the office (and thus unable to work on translations)? Well, guess what? On my website, there is such an overview. Yes, …
I recently decided to replace the netbook I had been using in the booth with a tablet computer. Actually, this was long overdue, as the netbook – not the fastest to begin with – had been getting slower and slower, taking somewhere around 5 minutes just to start up and deciding to freeze up at the most inopportune moments because its little RAM was simply not up to the task …
The news is not new in itself (the post is from February), but it was new to me – even though the content of it wasn’t. (Have I confused you yet?) What am I talking about? The fact that the interpreters of the European Parliament have asked its Members to speak slowly and use their mother tongue when saying something (read the article here). Anyone who has ever interpreted knows …
Last week, I came across this very interesting essay in the Wall Street Journal about the future of translation and interpretation – via machines?! Anyone who knows anything about proper language use, knows how flawed machine translation a la Google or Bing is. Yes, it works (most of the time) to get the basic message across, but that’s about it. Being able to carry on a meaningful conversation using these …
I’m sure by now everyone has heard of the South African sign language interpreter who was on stage with and supposed to interpret among others the speech by President Obama during the memorial for Nelson Mandela this week. It even made the evening news here in Germany! (Here is one of many articles detailing what happened.) I don’t know sign language (except for “Thank you”), but even I could …
Since I started teaching interpretation, I have had to think a lot about what it means to be an interpreter, what knowledge, skills and also talent are required, and how to teach this to or, in the case of the talent, how to find out if they have it and then coax it out of the students and help them develop it. I have found some books on techniques …
I was on an interpreting assignment yesterday afternoon, relieving a colleague who had been working the morning shift at a conference organized by the city of N. Having worked for them before under less-than-perfect conditions (that’ll be the topic of another post), I was curious what the setup would be like. When I got there, the booth sat in nice view of the stage and screen, the technician was …
I debated with myself whether to write this post or not. To ‘fess up or not to ‘fess up… Is it professional or not to talk about this? Will this hurt the way (potential) clients see me? Might it maybe even help? And finally: Don’t most freelancers have these times at some point in their careers? In the end I decided to do it: I confess. I confess that …
I was out of town the last two days, interpreting for that new customer from Switzerland who had asked me to make them offers including technology (I wrote about this here). Everything went really well, both the customer and the guests I interpreted for were full of praise and thanked me repeatedly for my excellent interpretation, and the setup with microphone and headphones, sitting behind a partition worked surprisingly …
Agencies – for many translators and interpreters, it almost seems to be a dirty word, probably because of the bad experiences they had with them. I know there are many different types of agencies out there, and so far I’ve had the great fortune to work with mostly those that are worth the name, not what I call “re-bagers” (“Umtüter” in German), meaning someone who simply passes a job …
Reading Nataly Kelly’s article “The Words We Use to Describe Ourselves” published in the October issue of the ATA Chronicle, I came across the neologism “interpretator“, a hybrid of the words translator and interpreter. I think it should become the new word for those of us who both translate and interpret. I do, so from now on I will refer to myself as interpretator… Who’s with me? 😉 …
I apologize beforehand, but this is going to be a bit of a rant… Comments and differing views are of course welcome! 😉 Source: Wikipedia I was watching the movie “The 13th Warrior” the other day. Not wanting to evaluate the movie or the story, there are some things I just have to say, because it’s just so… impossible not to say anything about them as a language professional. …
Excellent article about one of the interpreters during the Nuremberg Trials
A friend sent this to me, and it is such a good example of what a really poorly done interpretation is like, I just had to share it:
This is an interesting video about interpreting and a good brief explanation of how simultaneous interpretation works and what is required. To be sure, there are a variety of other ways and situations for interpreting, but this is one, if not the most demanding and exhausting form of interpretation. You can find more information on the different forms of interpretation here.
