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…
Death by a Thousand Cuts
By Juan Lizama Reblogged from the Oregon Society of Translators and Interpreters blog with permission from the author It is not the complex syntax, long sentences or technical passages that dash the hopes of most candidates seeking to pass the American Translators Association (ATA) certification exam. According to ATA exam graders Holly Mikkelson and Paul Coltrin, it is the many…
What to ask your client before starting a translation
By Oleg Semerikov (@TranslatFamily) Reblogged from the Translators Family blog with permission from the author (incl. the image) Every translation job is different – that goes without saying. Every client has their own set of requirements, and every job presents its own unique challenges. What can translators do to ensure a project goes smoothly from start to finish? Well, one of…
The Routledge Handbook of Interpreting: A Multifaceted Resource
By Helen Eby One of my resources is The Routledge Handbook of Interpreting, edited by Holly Mikkelson and Renée Jourdenais. Its twenty-seven chapters cover a remarkably broad spectrum of topics relating to interpreting, with the following sections: historical perspectives, modes of interpreting, interpreting settings, and issues and debates. Each chapter is written by an expert in the field, sometimes two,…
Entering the Big Game
How I started out only working for direct clients in my target language country, Sweden Background I decided to study to be a translator because I wanted the freedom of being self-employed along with the opportunity to do work I am passionate about. I also enjoy helping people from different cultures and backgrounds communicate with each other, so working with…
Multilingual profiles on LinkedIn
By Catherine Christaki (@LinguaGreca) LinkedIn was launched in 2003 and is currently the third most popular social network in terms of unique monthly visitors, right behind Facebook and Twitter. LinkedIn is the world’s largest online professional network with more than 400 million members in over 200 countries and territories. More than half of all B2B companies are finding customers through…
Review of the ALC 2015 Industry Survey©
By Helen Eby Reblogged from the ATA Interpreters Division blog with permission from the author (incl. the image) Founded in 2002, the Association of Language Companies (ALC) is a US-based trade association representing businesses that provide translation, interpretation, localization, and other language services. Its goal is to deliver timely information to its members to generate more sales, increase profits, and raise awareness…
Analyzing the Message: Eugene Nida on Language and Culture
By Helen and Cynthia Eby Both translators and interpreters take a message across from one language and culture to another. They must communicate the message accurately, in order to produce the same effect in the target language as in the source language. But how can we know if a translation is good? According to the ILR Skill Level Description for…
Networking at a Conference: Chris Durban on and off stage
By Cynthia Eby & Bianca Dasso This April, I attended the VI Congreso Latinoamericano de Traducción e Interpretación: El traductor después del mañana (6th Latin American Translation and Interpreting Congress: Translator after tomorrow) in Buenos Aires. I was there watching and learning as I often have this year in my job as an administrative assistant for my mom, Helen Eby,…
6-Step Strategy to Translators Visibility
By Carlos Djomo (@carlosdjomo) Reblogged from the Adventures in Technical Translation blog with permission from the author (incl. the image) Many budding translators usually struggle to get into the professional world. They always admit that the transition from school to the field is far from being easy, although they believe they may have mastered the art of translation. Maybe it is…
Book Review: The Money Book
By Jamie Hartz The Money Book by Joseph D’Agnese and Denise Kiernan had been on my reading list since I received it as a gift last year, and I’m excited to share with you what I learned—and what I will do differently—as a result of reading it. The book is not geared specifically towards freelance linguists or translators (I am…