ATA Savvy Linguist

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.

Writing Your Public Profile

By The Savvy Linguist | July 28, 2026

In professional associations, you can often publish a public profile. Clients use this profile to decide who to work with. It should be brief, but it has to tell your story. However, sometimes our public profile is not visible. Go to your profile settings on the platform your association uses and verify that your profile is visible. You can generally select items from your profile to share publicly, such as your phone, address, email, and social media profiles. Be intentional about what you share. This information can be seen by the public. That means both your clients and other people…

The Savvy Translation Blogger—Blogging Frequency, Blog Content, and Reblogs

By The Savvy Linguist | August 25, 2015

By Catherine Christaki and David Friedman Here at the Savvy Newcomer, we often get questions from our blog readers about social media and blogging. We would like to share some answers and advice concerning some of these questions below and would like to encourage you to feel free to email us your questions anytime. Our topic of discussion today is…

Adaptation versus Translation

By The Savvy Linguist | August 18, 2015

By Brian Harris Reblogged from Unprofessional Translation blog with permission from the author (including the image) A book I’ve been delving into (see Sources) and an article I’m composing myself both use the terms translation and adaptation. This obliges me to consider what the differences are between the two terms. Amongst academics, the old study of translation has now been joined by a…

All work and no play? How to achieve balance between your freelance translation work and the rest of your life

By The Savvy Linguist | August 12, 2015

By Tess Whitty Long and irregular work hours seem to be the norm among freelancers, but it does not have to be this way. In fact, I am a living testament and firm believer that it should not be this way! Many highly successful freelance translators do not work long or irregular hours. Instead, they have learned to manage their…

The story of a U.S. Intern in France

By The Savvy Linguist | August 6, 2015

By Kimberley Hunt I’m Kimberley, currently living in Paris as an intern at a translation agency. I’m also a French translation student at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies. In Paris, I translate and proofread for the company’s finance division, which means I spend a lot of time reading annual reports and frantically searching glossaries for investment fund terminology with…

15 FREE Tools for Translators (and Not Only) that You Might Not Know You Need

By The Savvy Linguist | July 28, 2015

By Flo Bejgu Reblogged from Inbox Translation blog with permission from the author (including the images) The advancements in technology have made it possible for people of different languages, traditions and customs to come into contact. As was expected, translators and interpreters quickly became essential for society, because they are the only ones who can make conversations between foreign individuals possible. Every translator…

Take the Message and Jump!

By The Savvy Linguist | July 21, 2015

By Christiane Nord Abstract by Jamie Hartz and Cynthia Eby A common, but dangerous, tendency in translation is to adhere too closely to the source text and miss the mark in the target culture. In this article, Dr. Christiane Nord explains the concept of “taking the message and jumping” into the target linguaculture—which is a combination of culture and language which…

Revision and its Kin

By The Savvy Linguist | July 15, 2015

by Jonathan Hine If you have been translating professionally for a little while, a project manager (PM) has or will ask you to revise a text that someone has translated. The PM probably will not call it “revision.” This is part of our professional practice which has more misnomers than almost anything we do. What is revision? Why isn’t it…

Promoting Your Practice in 60 Seconds or Less: Mastering the Elevator Speech

By The Savvy Linguist | July 7, 2015

By Lillian Clementi Reblogged from ATA Chronicle with permission So I’ve made it to the networking event—I’ve even remembered to bring some business cards—and I’m starting to peek out from behind the potted plant when a friendly stranger makes eye contact and asks, “So what do you do?” Or I’ve settled into my seat at a business gathering and suddenly the moderator…

Promoting Your Practice in 60 Seconds or Less: Mastering the Elevator Speech

By The Savvy Linguist | July 7, 2015

By Lillian Clementi Reblogged from ATA Chronicle with permission So I’ve made it to the networking event—I’ve even remembered to bring some business cards—and I’m starting to peek out from behind the potted plant when a friendly stranger makes eye contact and asks, “So what do you do?” Or I’ve settled into my seat at a business gathering and suddenly the moderator…

My ATA Conference Experience

By The Savvy Linguist | June 30, 2015

by Veronica Sardon It has been more than a year since I acted on a very unlikely hunch and reserved a room at the 2014 ATA Conference hotel in Chicago. On the face of it, it did not make a lot of sense. Almost two years into my career as a freelance translator, which I was still doing on the…

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