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.
We have published the ATA Savvy Newcomer since 2013 and ATA Next Level since 2021. Each blog has made unique and helpful contributions to our members. Savvy Newcomer was founded to help translators avoid the “school of hard knocks” that many of us went through. It has been helpful to new and experienced translators alike as we published articles on a variety of topics. Over the years, the blog team found that newcomers to the profession, our intended audience, were not necessarily a large majority of our readers. We were reaching a worldwide community of translators and interpreters who were…
Bad Business Practices for Freelancers
We often hear about what a good freelancer should be like. But somewhere in between good advice, we let a bad decision slip in. Having a clear idea of what not to do is just as important as knowing what you should do. Below is a list of bad choices taken from real-life scenarios of the freelance world. Accept too…
The Confidentiality Dilemma in the Language Profession
Where should interpreters and translators draw the line? Last month, Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee proposed to subpoena the American interpreter present at the private meeting between the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and President Trump on July 16, 2018. Although it sounds like a blow to the profession, it may actually be good news that Congress turned its attention…
Focus on: New Translators (Part 1)
Reblogged from Silver Tongue Translations blog, with permission You know, the title of this blog post is a bit misleading (arrrgh! I’m breaking my own rules!) I’ve aimed it at “new translators”, but really, these tips serve any translators, be they fresh as daisies or been-around-the-blockers, the only requirement is that they want to improve. (This is all of us,…
How Interpreting Principles Have Influenced My Translation Practices
As a translator, I find that the principles I have learned in interpreting serve me every day. I am a certified translator, a certified court interpreter, and a certified medical interpreter. These professions, in my opinion, have a lot in common. Practicing in both professions for over 30 years has broadened my perspective. Having applied the ethics of both professions…
Pursuing the Translation Dream: How to Keep the Phone Ringing
Have you been following our five-part series on how to assess your readiness to become a successful translator, inspired by ATA’s Self-Evaluation Questionnaire for Translators? If so, we hope your phone is ringing by now! Today we will discuss tips for how to keep the calls coming, based on section 3 of the aforementioned ATA checklist, titled “Professional Relationships (How to…
So You Want to be a Freelance Translator or Interpreter: Money Matters
In the first post in this series, I alluded to a question I’ve been asked several times since I began freelancing—sometimes more subtly than others: “Do people actually pay you to do that?” Some days it feels surreal that, yes, people really do pay me for this and I get to read in Spanish, write in English, and sometimes even…
ATA’s Certification Exam Preparation Workshop in Boston
Reblogged from The ATA Chronicle, with permission ATA’s Certification Exam Preparation Workshop presented opportunities for participants to learn how the Certification Program works, including the general characteristics of exam passages and how exams are evaluated and graded. ATA held a Certification Exam Preparation Workshop on January 20 at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Training has always been an important part…
What Exactly Is a Technical Freelance Translator?
by Jost Zetzsche I was asked some time back to write a book chapter about freelance translators and translation technology. Not surprisingly, I started by defining a “freelance translator” in this context. Here’s what I came up with: “According to Wikipedia, a ‘freelancer’ is ‘a person who is self-employed and is not necessarily committed to a particular employer long-term. (…)…
After 35 years as a translator, these two things I know: we translators love words, and we love a good meal. The more exotic the meal (or the words), the better. Need a good Burmese take-out in Oklahoma City? Ask a translator! A colleague and I recently had a discussion on the taxonomy of the world’s dumplings, from Russian pel’meni…
I had heard many people say Errors and Omissions (E&O) policies were not necessary for translators. I went along with that… until a direct client required it. In the medical field, it is common for direct clients to require a one million dollar E and policy limit. When I signed the policy, my insurance agent walked me through the do’s…