The Savvy Linguist serves a worldwide community of translators and interpreters who are looking for practical solutions to everyday problems, ideas for growing their business, and support as they achieve their career goals. With high-quality, peer-reviewed content, you will find the answers to the questions you face as an innovative language professional.
… in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes Ben Franklin, in a letter written in 1789 How can we prepare to get through the storms of life? My mother-in-law, my husband and my mom died in the last six years. While I was deeply saddened by this, I still had to take care of most administrative issues for them and keep looking to the future. I wanted to have work and clients after this was over. As freelancers, our clients disappear when we disappear. How did I keep clients through these crises? Years…
ATA launched its new Back to Business Basics webinar series in September 2020. These webinars focus on a small, practical piece of business advice for translators and interpreters at different stages of their careers. The series quickly became popular: there are usually a few hundred people attending each live session. Members can access these webinars free of charge, and non-members…
Getting Real with Translation & Interpreting
This post originally appeared on the Language Magazine blog and it is republished with permission. Caitilin Walsh suggests 11 resources to bring Translation and Interpreting to life in your online classroom In an educational landscape so dominated by talk of STEM—purportedly to prepare our students for technologically-influenced jobs—world language teachers are under constant pressure to defend their departments. This sits…
How are research papers reviewed in other fields, and how can we apply those practices to the interpreting and translation field? As we observe the publicity surrounding vaccination efforts, we notice that developers are called to follow established procedures in their research. These research procedures are documented and can be reviewed by others. Their reports are checked for conflicts of…
This post originally appeared on The Detail Woman blog and it is republished with permission. There are two main things I want to do on this page: first, I want to say a few things to people considering entering the translation profession. Mostly I want to clear up some misconceptions, but there are also some things I just plain think…
What are ATA’s Mastermind Groups?
Preview blog post for Next Level: The ATA Business Practices Blog The following post is a preview of a new blogging venture by the ATA Business Practices Education Committee. Next Level: The ATA Business Practices Blog will provide helpful information about business practices for established translators and interpreters (those with five or more years of experience). If you have moved…
On Translators
This post originally appeared on Kevin L. Hull’s blog and it is republished with permission. This post is an assignment I did in English 101 in the summer of 2017, and I would like to share it with the world. The assignment was to do a paper on careers, and I did mine on translators. I hope that those of…
EIDL and PPP2: 2021 Edition, Part II
Disclaimer: This article does not constitute professional financial, tax, or legal advice, and neither the author nor the American Translators Association (ATA) assumes any warranty, implied or expressed, for the accuracy or applicability of any information contained therein. It should not be relied on to make financial or other decisions affecting your business or personal situation. Before taking any financial,…
Here at The Savvy Newcomer we understand that it can be intimidating to talk about money. It’s often a sticky subject, but we feel it’s the first order of business for small business owners. One major component of succeeding as a freelance translator or interpreter is managing your finances well. If you don’t master your money, your translation career won’t…
EIDL and PPP2: 2021 Edition, Part I
Disclaimer: This article does not constitute professional financial, tax, or legal advice, and neither the author nor the American Translators Association (ATA) assumes any warranty, implied or expressed, for the accuracy or applicability of any information contained therein. It should not be relied on to make financial or other decisions affecting your business or personal situation. Before taking any financial,…
This post originally appeared on the Freelancers Union blog and it is republished with permission. Before COVID-19, I had the opportunity to switch my environment every time I needed to boost my creativity. Cozy cafes and beach bars were my go-to place of work. This helped me set clear boundaries between work time and personal time, which consequently helped me balance…