May 1st, 2009 | Business Tools, Continuing Ed., Reports | No Comments
A Bay Area Trados guru travels to the Indian subcontinent to spread the word, sample local cuisine, and experience a fascinating culture. BY TUOMAS KOSTIAINEN
It was too cool to pass up – you can’t be a real “Trados guru” unless you go to India to teach Trados, and if that wasn’t enough there was always a chance you might meet some of those beautiful Bollywood dancers. Or at least there would be plenty of good Indian food every day. So considering all of this, I said “yes” and agreed to teach three two-day Trados workshops in India last September. That was before I realized that it takes about 24 hours to fly there from San Francisco and I would need to subject myself to substantial needle poking by the Kaiser travel health nurse. Oh, well. There was also the less selfish point of view, and that was to spread the “happy Trados message” around the world… → continue reading
May 1st, 2009 | Interpretation, Interviews, NCTA Events, Reports | No Comments
At the NCTA February meeting, Iraqi interpreter Haitham Jasim was interviewed by Steven Goldstein and shared some of his experiences working for U.S. Forces in Iraq. BY SARAH LLEWLLYN
Haitham Jasim answers Steven Goldstein's questions.
The first meeting of 2009, held February 7th, began with a presentation by NCTA President Tuomas Kostiainen of current Association data and was followed by the announcement of the results of the 2009 Board elections. Re-elected to the Board were Tuomas Kostiainen as President, Yves Avérous as Vice President, and Raffaella Buschiazzo and Sonia Wichmann as Directors. J. Mónica Pérez was newly elected as Director.
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May 1st, 2009 | Reports | No Comments
An English to Spanish translator, system engineer, and teacher takes on the challenge of living and working in a new country. BY GABRIEL AREVALO, EDITED BY NINA BOGDAN
One day, on a beautiful, motivating, rainy morning, I was contacted by a stranger with a proposal about doing business in China. It surprised me, but, as I had been working for several years in my country, Colombia, as a teacher and translator, I decided to explore a new world full of diversity, uncertainty and challenges (using my chief asset: persistence or, as I like to call it, “useful stubbornness”). → continue reading
May 1st, 2009 | ATA, Continuing Ed., Perspective | No Comments
In this first part of a two-part series we look at how certification fits into the language provider’s business plan. BY NINA BOGDAN
In the eight years since 9/11, analysis of events, policy debates, and proposals for change have steadily continued in one venue or another. The one conclusion that seems irrefutable is that we, as a nation, were woefully unprepared when it comes to the application of translation and interpreting skills. There were many references to a purported backlog of Arabic language material left untranslated at such a critical time. This led to revelations of our lack of qualified linguists in other “critical” languages such as Urdu, Punjabi and Farsi. → continue reading
May 1st, 2009 | NCTA Events | No Comments
BY DAGMAR DOLATSCHKO
Left to right: Elisa Rossi, Dagmar Dolatschko, Stafford Hemmer.
Agency Member Peritus Precision Translations, Inc. hosted the first Peninsula NCTA Happy Hour at its office at the Port of Redwood City on a brisk February 4, 2009.
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May 1st, 2009 | Voiceover | No Comments
Do you like the sound of your own voice? Perhaps you are a hidden voice “Talent.” An exploration of the voice-over industry in two parts. BY INGEBORG WEINMANN WHITE
I was hired for my first voice-over job 17 years ago—about the same time I started working as a freelance translator. With my background in theater, voice-over seemed a natural and enjoyable way to increase my income.
That first script consisted of a few dry paragraphs about laser printers. I met the client at a San Francisco recording studio and spoke the text into a microphone in my best stage German. The client and the recording engineer told me that my voice was very well suited for voice-over work. I was surprised and flattered .Up to that point I had always cringed whenever I heard a recording of my speaking voice. But this is normal; the more you hear your recorded voice the more you get used to it.
Over the years I have worked on many German voice-over projects both as voice talent and director, including narration for corporate and industrial videos, ad campaigns, audio tours and video games. → continue reading
May 1st, 2009 | ATA, Business Tools, Continuing Ed., Reports | 2 Comments
An ATA-sponsored translation tools seminar in San Francisco provided information about ways to increase professional productivity. BY RON TISCHLER
The translation tools seminar held on March 14, 2009 at the Westin Market Street in San Francisco was divided into morning and afternoon sessions, plus there were exhibitors, a networking session, and a parade! The parade down Market Street, which seemed to have something to do with the color green, could be watched (until you got too cold) during the lunch break. The morning session, given by Rosalie Wells was titled “Productivity Tools for the Professional Translator.” The afternoon session, given by Dierk Seeburg of IcoText, was titled “Computer-Assisted Translation (CAT) Tools, from Term Extraction to Integrated Translation Environments.” There were about 100 attendees and four exhibitors: Across, Payment Practices, Total Recall (product named Snowball), and Wordfast.
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May 1st, 2009 | Business Tools | No Comments
The Tool Kit is an online newsletter that comes to its subscribers’ mailboxes twice a month. In Translorial, we offer a quarterly digest of Jost’s most helpful tips from the past season. BY JOST ZETZSCHE © 2008 INTERNATIONAL WRITERS’ GROUP, COMPILED BY YVES AVÉROUS
INFORMATION SUPER-STORAGE
With the content-centric Web 3.0 in the making, storage, retrieval, and interpretation of content is front and center to many technologies. But many of these technologies are concerned with large databases and are just a bit beyond the scope of the regular user, who’s just looking for good ways to store and retrieve data efficiently. I recently looked at a number of tools designed to help with that, and I liked none quite as much as Evernote. → continue reading
May 1st, 2009 | Business Tools | No Comments
BY YVES AVÉROUS
A recent switcher and user group member recently asked me if he should install some kind of security software on his new MacBook. I held off on my answer until I read about the Pwn2Own contest, part of the CanSecWest digital security conference held in March in Vancouver. Contestants chose a platform, Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and most smartphones, and demonstrated a winning attack. Charlie Miller, a security expert, won $5,000 and a MacBook. AppleInsider found an interview of Miller and beautifully summarized the facts. → continue reading
