In modern times, there are many different tools at translators’ disposal that can be used to speed up translation and even make it faster. Of course, what tools you will end up prefer working with will depend on you as a translator and how you like to work. For example, if you prefer just working with a word processor like Microsoft Word, there are certain tricks that you can use to speed up your work and make even the longest and most monotonous translations easy.

In Word, there are many different functions that can be used to speed up translations. Macros, for example, are a great way of simplifying and standardizing repetitive phrases or formatting. Macros take some knowledge to implement, but they are very useful for all translators. For instance, if there is a specific phrase that is continuously used over the document, then you can create a macro so that you can just press a button every time you need to insert that word or phrase. Imagine the amount of time you can save by instead of typing out a full word every time, you just press a button and the entire word or phrase comes out.

Some translators also prefer to use voice to text programs to do their translations. The advantage of voice to text is that it is overall faster than typing. If you have a long document, you can get through it faster than if you were typing. Voice to text does come with some disadvantages though. You will need to make sure that you have a good microphone so that it can clearly pick up on your voice. You will also need to make sure that you speak clearly so that it does not mistake any of your words. You will also have to get used to the voice controls and customize it so that it fits your work habits. However, there are some programs that you can use to help fine tune the listening so that it captures exactly what you’re saying even if you aren’t speaking clearly.

In terms of programs that can be used, if you are not looking to spend too much money, there are free options like Google Docs that have a decent voice recognition system. Microsoft Word also has a dictate function that its users can use to type out their translations with their voices. Then there are more premium options such as DRAG0N which have built in AI that can learn from your voice patterns, or can learn from your direct input. Many translators who use voice dictation and get used to it tend to not go back to just typing out their translations.

For Asian languages such as Japanese, there are also programs such as ATOK that can automatically convert the text you are writing into the appropriate characters. Instead of manually having to sift through characters, the program will learn and recognize when certain characters should be used rather than others and then enter them for you. It can save a lot of time for translators not having to take the time to look for the appropriate character every time they translate.

For interpreters, there are many skills that they need to develop outside their language skills. To be a successful interpreter, you need to be able to remember what is being said and be able to translate that in your head and output it in the target language in a way that stays close in meaning and tone to what was originally said. This can be especially tricky for consecutive interpreters who are sometimes made to listen to someone talk for a lengthy period before they are given a break to interpret in. Leaving everything up to memory is unreliable and a sure way to put unnecessary stress on you and make you forget details of what was said. This is where note taking comes into play. With note taking, interpreters can jot down certain points, words, or ideas that will help them piece together what was originally said and translate it. But it is not always as simple as just writing down what you hear.

The first thing you can do to improve your note taking for interpretation is simple—practice. You can listen to anything you want, ideally something in your industry, and then practice taking notes on what the speaker is saying. This might feel like an awkward exercise when you are interpreting for no one, but it is a very reliable way to improve your note taking skills because you are essentially simulating an interpreting job where you are listening to a speaker and then translating for an audience.

The next thing you can do is while practicing, think about symbols or shorter ways to write some words. This is especially important for medical contexts where words can be extremely lengthy and complicated. It is overall faster to quickly draw a symbol than it is to write out something really long like pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. Of course, it might be a little impossible to have a specific symbol for every single diagnosis or word out there. So that is where the next idea comes to play.

You can try to figure out abbreviations for words. With the previous example, pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis was mentioned. How can this be shortened and abbreviated that it will be easy to write it quickly and recall what it is when you read it again later? Look at the word and try to split up. So for this, you could maybe do pne-mon-tr-mics-ilico-volc-niosis. The word has been shortened down by more than half and it is not that hard to recall when re-reading it. The way words will be abbreviated may vary between people, so just try to abbreviate words the way you feel you will remember them.

The next tip is to write out the words in a logical order for the language that you are interpreting to. If you are interpreting into English, try keeping everything in subject, verb, noun order. This will help to keep everything organized and make sure that you can keep track of how the sentence is structured. It will also help to make the interpreting a little faster because you will already have the sentence in the right order.

Interpreting is a very mentally taxing job that is not easily accomplished but tricks like note taking can really help to make the job a little easier to handle and less daunting a task. However, even note taking needs practice before it can be a completely reliable tool to assist interpretation. But following these tips will help you improve your note taking and really take you to the next level of interpreting.

When starting a professional career as a translator or interpreter, there is a very important choice you need to make regarding how you would like to work. The choice might depend on your current situation or job availability, but it also depends on how you want your work life to be structured. If you do not want to necessarily be bound to a contract or to rates that you can’t set yourself, then you would probably lean towards working as a freelancer. However, if you like more structure and having a contract, then you would most likely prefer working in-house. If you are still undecided or wondering about what the benefits are of working either as a freelancer or an in-house interpreter, then read on to find out what you can expect at each role.

Let’s start with freelancers. Why would someone want to work as a freelancer rather than an in-house translator? One of the main attractions to being a freelancer is the ability to be your own boss. You can decline the jobs that you don’t like while accepting the ones you do. You are able to set your own rates and your own hours. You have more flexibility to arrange your schedule around your needs versus regular employees who are expected to work a scheduled amount of time each day. In general, freelancers have the potential to make more money than in-house translators as well, so it is a very attractive path for many.

So why would someone not want to be a freelancer? The freedom sounds like it would be enough, not to mention the potential amount of money that you can make. One of the main reasons that some people prefer working in-house over freelance is because of the variance in the work. The frequency of work that you receive is not always guaranteed even if you have repeat clients. You are reliant on people offering you work rather than just having a steady stream of guaranteed work. Also, you need to be able to market yourself and compete with other freelancers for work. If you are unable to set yourself apart from the other translators out there, then you will have difficulty finding work because you will just be blending in and not showing off your skills.

What makes working in-house so great then? One of the biggest draws to working in-house is having structure. If you are hired as a translator or interpreter for a company, you will only have to worry about the work that they give you. You will have a schedule for your work hours, you will have a team to work with, you will have a steady salary, and you will have company benefits. You might even receive training that will help you improve your skills or work better in the company. There will also be opportunities to use new technology or receive benefits that you would have otherwise have had to pay for on your own if you were a freelancer.

The downside of working in-house though is the fact that you are working for a company and have to play by their rules. You have to make sure that you conform to their company culture and values, so that could mean that you lose a lot of your individuality and uniqueness. The translation or interpretation styles that you had in the past might not work at the company anymore. You also have no ability to choose the work you do. If your employer gives you the same kind of work over and over again, then you have no choice but to do it.

Are you working as a transcriptionist? Even if you aren’t, as a translator or an interpreter, there may be times that you are asked to do transcription. As you might find out while doing transcription work, it can be very time consuming if you aren’t very experienced and know ways to make things easier. But there are a few simple things to make sure that you are making the most of your time without sacrificing quality.

First, this might seem very obvious, but make sure to use good headphones. You don’t have to splurge on headphones that people in the music industry might use, but a good pair of headphones can make all the difference even if you are not an audiophile. The types of audio files you will receive from your client will differ in quality. Sometimes they will be pristine quality, but sometimes you will have trouble hearing what some people are saying. This is where having a good pair of headphones will come in handy. The extra money you pay for headphones can be the difference between you trying to listen to a part over and over again and make out what is being said.

Next, make sure that you are in a comfortable environment where you will not be easily distracted or hear any kind of extra sounds. If you buy a pair of noise cancelling headphones, you might not have to worry about extra sounds bothering you, but it is still advisable to work in a place where you will not be disturbed.

You can also try to automate the job. While in the past, this might have not been a viable option, in the present day, there are a variety of tools out there that you can use to automatically catch the words for you and write them down. Of course, these kinds of programs are not without their flaws. There are tools like Zoom that can automatically transcribe meetings as long as you tell it to while the meeting is happening and other tools like Express Scribe that help you to ensure that the job gets done with integrated controls that help you control the recording while still typing.

Also be sure to sample the audio before you begin. This will help you figure out what you are dealing with as well as let you gauge how easy or difficult it will be to get through the audio. If you have to tweak the audio on your side so that you can make out what people are saying, then be sure to let the client know that it will take you about 1 hour to transcribe fifteen minutes. Both you and your client will be grateful if you take the time to go through the audio and make sure that you have an accurate assessment of how long it will take.

Overall, transcription can be a lengthy job that takes specific skills to do well. But this doesn’t mean that you will not be able to do the job well. As long as you have the right equipment and the enthusiasm, you will be able to get transcription done to a level that will be satisfactory to both you and your client.

When you’re a translator, if you are constantly receiving jobs and if sometimes you feel pressured and that causes you to be a little less vigilant in your checks for quality. What most modern translators do to check their work is using technology. But having the technology is just one part of the solution. Knowing what to do with it and how to use it effectively is the next step to improving quality assurance. So, what are some good ways to use technology effectively for your work?

One way is automating it. Some of the simplest mistakes that translators make involve mixing up numbers, conversions, or names. The easiest way to make sure that you have correctly reflected every instance mentioned in the source in the translation is to use a text compare. Of course, your translation will be flagged as being vastly different from the source, but it will let you know if the numbers, company names, and other words or numbers that have to be the same in the target as they are in the source are the same or not. It also takes virtually no time too. All you have to do is copy and paste then press a button. It shouldn’t take you more than five minutes to go through everything depending on the length of your project.

Another way is to make it hard to make any mistakes from the very start. If you are translating into a new, blank document, instead try translating into the target document itself. You could even enter the strings into a machine translation so that you can see the translation and the source side by side. Doing this makes it much harder for you to make any typing errors when copying whatever needs to be the same in the target as in the source. If the document you have is not easily copied such as a pdf, you can use OCR to help make the text selectable and then copy it into a word document.

The next tip is the simplest and possibly the most obvious solution. Whenever you see something that has to stay the same between the source and target, just copy it from the source to the target. So for example, if you have a number like 1,000,231, then just copy it into the target. If you want to take this a step further, then you should highlight every instance of numbers or text that need to be the same between the two files and then you will be able to quickly identify the places that need to be checked before delivery.

Quality Assurance is a necessary part of the translation process but often not something that is effectively done due to time constraints or other factors. Hopefully with this post, you have learned a few tips about how you can make the process shorter, but without sacrificing any quality. If you are able to submit a translation that avoids minor mistakes can really help your reputation and make you stand out as a translator who can be relied on.

When you’re working as an interpreter or a translator, it is inevitable that you have to work with other people especially clients. Regardless of whether you are a freelancer or working in-house, you will have to interact with your clients to find out the scope of work, their expectations, and to negotiate with them to ensure that both your needs are met. Usually, these talks go very smoothly, but there are times where your client will not be so kind or maybe even the people you work with won’t be so kind or easy to work with. The question is, what is the best way to deal with the situation so that you can avoid making the environment worse and spiral into an unsalvageable situation. Here are some tips to make sure that you are able to deal with these kinds of difficult people.
First, try to focus on yourself and calm down. This might be one of the more difficult tips in this post, but it is one of the most important ones. If you can stay calm, you can control the situation. For example, if a client begins requesting unreasonable things from you such as shorter turnaround times, a reduced cost, or are constantly arguing with you about how to translate certain things despite not being an authority on the language or subject, it is easy for you to become heated. You might feel as if your professionalism and your skills are being attacked, that they don’t respect you, or even that they are trying to cheat you. The best thing to do in this situation is to step back, take a deep breath, and calm down. If you can calm down, you will be able to not give into emotion, give calm answers, and stay in a position where you are able to effectively negotiate with the difficult person and come out on top.
Next, when you are talking with the difficult person, it is important that you try to understand things from their perspective. Really try to understand why they might be acting the way that they are. Of course, some people might just be difficult for the sake of being difficult, but the majority of the time, there is always some kind of underlying reason. Try and ask questions that are not too aggressive, and instead ask questions that won’t allow them to answer in an aggressive way and instead lead them to a more friendly answer that only has the necessary facts in it.
In addition, when you do try to talk to them, try only stating the facts instead of talking about your feelings or opinions. If they have the facts laid out in front of them, it will be difficult for them to try and dispute whatever you talk about. It will also help you to stay calm and not make them feel as if you are attacking them. It will also make for an easier conversation where you do not have to think about how to phrase your questions. By sticking to the facts, you make for a quicker, more structure conversation that will be hard to derail without the other person looking like they are intentionally being difficult. For example, if there is a dispute about a specific translation, and your reviewer says that your translation is wrong despite there being a style guide where it says how the client wants a specific phrase translated, then be sure to cite that when talking to them.
There are many more things you can do to make sure that you are able to effectively communicate with a difficult person and to diffuse the situation, but one of the most important things is to just remain calm and stick to the facts. This could be considered the most basic of the tips for dealing with difficult people, and is a great way to start. Remember, you cannot control how other people act, but you can always control how you act.

If you are a freelance translator or interpreter, you have received your fair share of emails requesting your services. While the scope and details of the project can vary, the objective for you as a translator or interpreter always remains the same—to provide your expert services and get paid for them. In an ideal world, every request you receive is perfectly legitimate and are genuinely asking for your assistance, but that is unfortunately not always the case. In this day and age, where it is increasingly encouraged for all of us to be connected via the internet, it is very easy to try and connect with someone even if you have never met them before.

This is both a blessing and a curse. Though you may be able to connect with someone who needs your services, you may also attract someone who is just trying to scam you into giving them access to your personal information so that they can make some easy money. Fortunately, there are ways to try and stop scams before they get too far, and make sure that you are able to continue working without having to worry about whether or not a potential client is just someone looking to scam you. In the beginning, they might appear to just be normal customers, but if something sounds suspicious to you during your communication with them, then you should stop communication and then they will stop as well.

First, some of the most recognizable scams are those that list illogical arguments or deals that are too good to be true. Either way, you should always be cautious of any suspicious links or files that are sent to you. If you are suspicious of something, do not open it. This is easier sometimes in the more recognizable scams. For example, if someone contacts you with an offer for translation services, but they need your bank account number so that they can directly deposit the payment, and they send you a link so that you can do so, then that should already be sounding off alarm bells in your head. If anyone asks for personal information, then you should begin to be weary of them. You should either just not respond at all or say that you are not available for their assignment, and move on.

If something sound too good to be true, you should also be cautious of whether or not it is a scam. While a juicy offer of maybe $.50 per word might make you reluctant to turn you down, if they start showing signs of asking for any kind of personal information that they don’t need to, then you should turn them down immediately and cease all contact.

Next, some scams are a little harder to detect because they seem like they are real people trying to actually enlist your services. They might have a real document for you to translate, a backstory where they say they need it for a specific event, and even give you their full name, company name, and phone number. Up to this point, everything seems normal and there is no reason to have any suspicion. However, remember that scammers are always after ways to get money. So when the conversation changes to payment, this is where you should start to look extra carefully at what they are saying. There are scammers who will agree to your price and then send a check to your address for maybe double what they said. They will say that it is a “mistake” and ask that you transfer the money to their account because they need the money for some kind of personal, family emergency. This is where you should step back, tell them that you are no longer able to work with them, and then block their email address.

There are also resources that you can access if you feel that you need more education or assistance with dealing with scams. For this, ATA has a wealth of resources that you can utilize, such as an alert page: https://www.atanet.org/membership/internet_scams.php. They also help to keep everyone more aware of scam attempts through their articles in the The ATA Chronicle, which is published monthly.

Phishing: How to Avoid Being Reeled In
The ABCs of Cyber Security: Spam—It Isn’t Just for Breakfast Any More
A Little Paranoia Can Go a Long Way

You can also report fraudulent businesses and/or activity to www.fraud.org. That information will be transmitted to the appropriate law enforcement agencies.

There are a lot of ways for scammers to try and get you to give them what they want, but the important thing is always to just cease all communication as soon as possible. Scams are possible to be avoided, and through our collective cooperation, we will be able to give each other the tools and knowledge to prevent us from having to go through the horrible ordeal of being scammed. Hopefully this post helps you to avoid scams in the future.

Working in the language industry as either an interpreter or translator means that you have to make yourself stand out one way or the other in the field. Just by promoting yourself as someone who can deliver high quality work in a timely fashion is not enough. Everyone can say that, so there is no way to distinguish yourself from other people in your field if you are all guaranteeing the same thing. This post is meant to point to several directions that you can follow to hopefully help you move up to a successful career in translation and interpretation.

First, it’s good to have a presence on major professional websites or social media. When hiring someone, it is common for managers or recruiters to look at the potential candidate online. It’s a way to get a preliminary look at a candidate and really get to know them better before deciding on whether or not to proceed with the hiring process.

Next, it is good to keep yourself familiar with a variety of different skills. If you have many different skills and are adept at all of them, then you can market yourself as someone who can work in a lot of different fields. However, it’s important if you could commit everything to one field and then promote yourself that way, as someone who is highly experienced in the specific field. Sometimes, recruiters look for people who have the most experience in the field, so if you show that you have more experience than other people in the field, you will be more attractive as a prospective translator or interpreter.

Also, it is important to maintain good connections with the people you work with. Make sure to be as courteous as possible and project yourself as a professional translator or interpreter. Also be sure to make friends in the industry. If you have a network of colleagues, then you can help each other find work. There are a lot of times when translators or interpreters might be too busy with an assignment they are currently working on to take any new client requests. In this situation, they try to refer a colleague, and you might be able to be that colleague that they refer. If that happens, you will establish a connection with a new client, and maybe be able to connect with even more clients afterwards.

Growing your presence as an interpreter or translator is not something that you can just do overnight, it takes time and effort. But if you are able to grow your presence, then it will benefit you in ways that you might not expect. You will reach many new clients, and build your own network of clients that know who you are and would love to work with you on future assignments.

The pandemic has posed a number of challenges for everyone, especially for people that have jobs require them to be on-site. Of course, in order to stay safe and healthy during the pandemic, it has been recommended that everyone stay inside as much as possible. However, there is still a need and demand for interpreters who can be on-site. The need for on-site interpreters mostly comes from patients in hospital or for meetings where privacy and security are necessary. So what can you as an interpreter do to make sure that you are as safe as possible while being on-site besides wearing a mask?

Most work environments that need to be on-site have taken precautions to make sure that they make as safe an environment as possible. Most of the times, they will take your temperature, have an interpreter fill out a COVID-19 form in advance, supply hand sanitizer, indicators for safe distance, and sometimes even gloves that you can use. Even so, it is up to you to make sure that you stay safe. Here are some small tips to remind everyone.

First, keep in mind that anyone and everyone could be a potential carrier of the virus. This is not to say that you should be completely paranoid, but if you keep that mind, then that will help you to exercise caution and not let your guard down. This means that you will remember to avoid shaking hands, keep a safe distance from everyone around you, and carrying around hand sanitizer gel. However, this does not mean that you should treat people poorly just because you are scared of infection. They are most certainly just as worried as you. Remember, we are all in this together, so treat each other with compassion, respect, and kindness.

Next, though it is common courtesy to shake hands of the people you are working with, it is not advisable to shake hands during the pandemic since the virus could possibly be transferred to your hand and infect you if you accidentally touch your eyes, mouth, or nose. Instead of shaking hands, you can just wave your hand and greet them warmly.

When you can, make sure you wash your hands. Though hand sanitizer can do the trick of quickly cleaning your hands, it will not completely keep you safe from the virus. Put simply, the water will neutralize and wash away the virus while the hand sanitizer will only neutralize it. While hand sanitizer is a good way to quickly clean your hands, it is not the best way to stay completely safe.

Also be sure to avoid touching surfaces in general. The virus can survive on surfaces, and then be transmitted to you if you touch your face. So try to be extra careful about what you touch in the area that you are working. Alternatively, you could also bring gloves so that you avoid having to touch anything with your hands altogether. Or you could carry around a bottle of hand sanitizer so that you can clean your hands whenever you touch something.

Speaking of bottles, you should avoid bringing bottles of water or food to assignments. Whenever you put them down, they have a chance to pick up the virus, so it is better to just eat your food and drink how much ever water or liquid you want in your car and leave it there so that you don’t accidentally get infected.

Finally the best way to avoid being infected is to boost your own immune system, meaning to take care of both your health. For example, consider going on walks every day to stay active. The walks can be as short as half an hour. The important part is just to take time to move around and get your heart rate up. Next, make sure you have a balanced diet. Eating out and ordering delivery has become much more prevalent during the pandemic, but cooking for yourself or ordering healthier options is a great way to give your body the proper nutrition it needs. Having a healthy balance is important to make sure that you keep yourself in a good condition and avoid any problems that might arise from the new pandemic lifestyle.

Whether you’re a translator, a translation reviewer, or any other part of the translation team, odds are you have interacted with a translation project manager. Project managers are the glue that help to keep all the moving parts in localization and translation cohesive and together. But how does one become a project manager? Whereas a translator needs knowledge and experience with the language pair and area that they are translating, the knowledge and experience that a project manager requires is much different. A project manager can be considered a jack-of-all-trades, and they come from many different types of backgrounds. In this post, we will talk about what one can expect from the project manager role as well as the career path, and other aspects.

First, how does one become a project manager? There is no specific major or degree that clearly would put you on a path to become a project manager. What is necessary is mostly experience. But what kind of experience, you might ask. Project managers come from a variety of different backgrounds, but the majority of them have some kind of management experience or knowledge of the different moving parts in the translation process. To become a skilled project manager however, takes plenty of time and honing of skills such as attention to detail, organization, great communication, and assertiveness (willingness to take control of situations).

To become a good project manager, it is important to have many different kinds of skills, but one of the most important ones are communication and a passion for the job. With good communication, it will be easier to effectively coordinate with your team so that there are no misunderstandings during work. In addition, with good communication, you are able to effectively converse with the client so that they feel valued and heard. Then, with a passion for the project manager job, it will be much easier to be careful with details, organized, and move things forward. If the project manager is passionate about their job, they will no doubt treat it with a good amount of care and effort.

So what does a project manager do specifically? Project managers are a jack-of-all-trades and help to manage projects from start to end with highest quality and as little issue as possible. Project managers work with clients to clarify project scope and details, so there would be no surprise to any part of the project as it is progressing. By doing this, the project manager promotes transparency and a level of trust that could not be gained without them. The project manager also helps create a single talking point for the client so that communication is simplified.

Project managers also help to oversee all moving parts in projects and make sure that they are operating with the best team within the allotted budget while staying on schedule. This means that the project manager has to have a clear picture of what is happening with each part of the team as well as their capabilities. Without a clear picture of the entire project, it is not realistic to expect that the project will be handled well. To have a quality plan is a key to project success.

Being a project manager can be a very busy and demanding job, but it is rewarding in the sense that you get to work with every part of the process and have control of the final product. With successful planning, the potential downside to a project can usually be avoided. But even if issues or problems did happen, an experienced project manager knows how to solve problems and makes everyone happy or understand. Being a project manager is an exciting experience that is rife with new challenges and people. If you stick to this career path, you will become confident with yourself, your work, and life ahead of you.