Preconference Seminars
ATA's Preconference Seminars are in-depth educational opportunities provided by experts in their respective fields. All Preconference Seminars take place on Wednesday, October 26.

This symbol indicates which sessions are included in the ATA eConference.

Ticket required. See the Conference Registration Form

SEM-A Ramping Up Your Translation Business Marian S. Greenfield (Wednesday, 9:00am-12:00pm; Intermediate; Presented in: English) This seminar is intended to provide ideas on how to improve your freelance translation business. We will look at the skills required for running a top-of-the-market translation business. We will discuss keys to success, choosing verticals, deciding whether to continue to freelance or establish a language services company, and how to build your client base. Participants are requested to update their résumés and bring them to the seminar along with a draft business plan.

SEM-B Brazil and Portugal: Two Countries Separated by a Common Language Isabel Pinto Franco (Wednesday, 9:00am-12:00pm; All Levels; Presented in: English and Portuguese) This seminar will explore the cultural differences of two Portuguese-speaking groups and will illustrate the unique interpreting techniques required for each. The presenter will provide a brief overview of the people from the Azores and Minas Gerais. Attendees will learn how family roles, medical conditions, and level of education are vastly different in these two groups and can create interpreting challenges that go beyond different accents and cultures. The acculturation process and its impact on both groups will also be discussed. Audience participation is encouraged to uncover and explore the stereotypes, expectations, and misconceptions one has when facing a different culture. Other topics will include listening skills, fidelity, and de-verbalization.

SEM-C The Language of Clinical Research Protocols and Informed Consents Estela A. Chemen (Wednesday, 9:00am-12:00pm; Intermediate; Presented in: English and Spanish) This seminar will cover the terminology translators are likely to encounter when translating for multinational pharmaceutical companies. The presenter will discuss a wide range of documents, including clinical trial protocols, informed consent, investigators' brochures, charters, monitoring plans, clinical study reports, and package inserts. Topics will also include pharmacogenetic and pharmacogenomic components, an overview of a clinical trial, fixed expressions, formulas, and collocations. Participants will be provided with glossaries.

SEM-D Translating Administrative/Government French>English Grant Hamilton (Wednesday, 9:00am-12:00pm; All Levels; Presented in: English) This seminar will help participants identify the leading causes of poorly translated administrative French. Participants will learn to improve the flow and structure of their English translations, avoid common Gallicisms that obscure meaning, and make their texts more readily understandable to readers. This is a "hands-on" workshop, with numerous examples of poorly translated texts that participants will be asked to discuss and correct together, in teams and as a full group. It will provide a checklist of strategies and techniques for turning administrative French into idiomatic English that is both easy to understand and enjoyable to read.

SEM-E Contractual Law: Main Principles and Specific Terminology Graciela S. Souto (Wednesday, 9:00am-12:00pm; Advanced; Presented in: Spanish) Contractual law is an area that poses great challenges to translators due to continuous change. It is indispensable to have a thorough knowledge of the main features of contractual law, to understand its principles, and to know the specific vocabulary. This seminar will focus on the explanation and comparison of contractual principles and the translation of several contractual clauses to illustrate the main differences between the law of contracts in the Anglo-American system and "derecho contractual" in civil law countries.

SEM-F Building Blocks in Interpreter Training Barbara Moser-Mercer (Wednesday, 9:00am-12:00pm; Intermediate; Presented in: English) This seminar will explore skill acquisition in interpreting. The identification of sub-skills allows the trainer to develop didactic sequences that enable the learner to gradually develop expertise by building on previously mastered sub-skills. A distinction will be drawn between knowledge and procedural skills and the importance of the latter to be able to build on the former. Special emphasis will be placed on the development of adaptive expertise. This seminar will include two parts: the first part will lay the theoretical foundation, and the second part will provide participants with hands-on learning experience.

SEM-G Terminology Management for Translators Barbara Inge Karsch and Sue Ellen Wright (Wednesday, 9:00am-12:00pm; All Levels; Presented in: English) This seminar will discuss best practices for translation-oriented terminology management, emphasizing pragmatic solutions for working translators designed to ensure long-term viability of terminological data. Topics will include fundamental principles, basic data fields for term entries, strategies for establishing target equivalents, and the avoidance of future problems and data loss. The benefits of following best practices include increased translation efficiency and accuracy, better source-language documents, reduced quality assurance costs, and an overall improvement in translation workflow and quality.

SEM-H Maximizing Your Translation Business by Developing a Strong Brand Marcela Jenney (Wednesday, 2:00pm-5:00pm; Advanced; Presented in: English) Branding is more than a trend in the business world. A brand represents many intangible aspects of a product or service. A brand is a collection of feelings and perceptions about the quality, value, image, and condition of the product or service. Branding creates the idea that there is no product or service like yours. A brand offers the client a guarantee and sets out your value proposition. This workshop will show you how to create a solid and distinctive brand to communicate what makes your translation business unique and to develop a branding strategy that can be implemented right away.

SEM-I SOLD OUT: Line Editing Skills and Techniques Greer Lleuad (Wednesday, 2:00pm-5:00pm; All Levels; Presented in: English) This hands-on workshop will allow participants to practice applying advanced line editing techniques. These techniques help editors move beyond copyediting for correctness and consistency to line editing for clarity (creating a clear story), concision (less is more), cohesion (flow), and coherence (consistency of topics). Cheat sheets and a list of resources will be provided.

SEM-J Researching and Translating Financial Reports Based on International Financial Reporting Standards Robin Bonthrone (Wednesday, 2:00pm-5:00pm; All Levels; Presented in: English) Well over 100 countries now allow or require listed companies to use International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRSs), while others, including the U.S., plan to implement or converge with these IFRSs. IFRSs have been translated into over 40 languages, supporting their emergence as a truly global set of accounting standards, and the market for IFRS-related translations is growing steadily. This seminar (suitable for all language pairs) will introduce IFRSs and the principles that underlie them. It will give translators a framework for researching and translating IFRS-based financial reports, including insights into the link between aspects of translation theory and financial reporting principles.

SEM-K Translating German<>English in the Renewables Sector Craig Morris (Wednesday, 2:00pm-5:00pm; All Levels; Presented in: English) The renewables sector presents unique challenges and this hands-on workshop will enable translators to tackle them. Renewable technologies are being created daily, so terminology is developing constantly. The speaker will focus on specific text samples in the areas of solar, biomass, wind, and passive houses, using online resources for German and English. Renewables also rely heavily on government policy, so attendees will learn how to explain the differences in law. Finally, because the renewables sector is growing rapidly, the presenter will discuss suppliers-float glass, screen printing for solar panels, etc.-and how to acquire direct customers in this market.

SEM-L Advanced Spanish>English Legal Translation Thomas L. West III (Wednesday, 2:00pm-5:00pm; Advanced; Presented in: English) This workshop for advanced Spanish>English legal translators will focus on civil procedure and the language of pleadings, motions, and court decisions. We will pay particular attention to differences in terminology from country to country and to words and grammatical forms with unexpected meanings. If time permits, we will take a brief look at administrative law and procedure.

SEM-M Equal Access to Justice Requires Equal Language Access in the Courtroom Mike Murphy (Wednesday, 2:00pm-5:00pm; All Levels; Presented in: English) This presentation will focus on how to establish and maintain effective lines of communication with judges, court administrators, and other parties involved concerning the vital importance of facilitating adequate communication within the judicial system, ensuring due process in courts of law. Interpreters play a fundamental role by facilitating language access in the communication process. We will review case law from around the country that recognizes and mandates full compliance in policy and practice. We will discuss recommendations to avoid unnecessary negative outcomes, focus on collaborative efforts to communicate effectively, and provide equal access to justice. A question-answer segment will follow.

SEM-N Machine Translation in Practice Mike Dillinger (Wednesday, 2:00pm-5:00pm; All Levels; Presented in: English) Machine translation software continues to attract attention from clients, forcing translators to make a difficult decision: work with the technology or find a way to work around it. This presentation will help you decide. The presenter will sketch how language services providers and companies use machine translation and what the translator's role is in this new business model. In what situations does MT output work? What do post-editing assignments look like? What do clients expect? How can you price these assignments? How can you identify which ones to reject? How can you add value to a process that uses machine translation?