The Savvy Newcomer aims to serve newcomers to the translation and interpreting professions by publishing high-quality, peer-reviewed content on a weekly basis. We strive to provide you with the answers to the many questions you face as a new or aspiring translator or interpreter.
This post was originally published on Ana Lis Salotti Translations. It is reposted with permission. Do you know what a CORPUS is? Have you ever used a corpus before in your translation career? Have you ever felt stuck with a simple phrase in your source language and can’t find an equivalent that runs as smoothly as your original? If you answer no to the first two questions, but yes to the third, read on! When your dictionaries, glossaries, google searches, and other terminological tools can’t help you get a seamlessly translated phrase, and when your brains are fogged up, you…
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I live in Oregon. In case you don’t already know, Oregon and the Northwest are overdue for a huge earthquake. A few times a year, the state runs preparedness campaigns. I feel very concerned when I am reminded of the earthquake by the local radio. But despite my sincerest intentions, the only thing I do is buy extra cans of…
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This post was originally published on Content Rules. It is reposted with permission. Usually, when someone tells you that your translations are poor, the first tendency is to blame the translators. Blaming the people doing the work might make sense. However, in my experience, the cause of poor translation is often not the person trying their best to translate the…
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New year, new goals. Each new year provides a blank slate for tackling personal and professional goals. Is studying for the ATA Certification Exam one of your goals for 2022? Preparing for an exam with a 20% pass rate can be daunting. The Certification tab on ATA’s website describes the exam as a “mid-career credential for experienced, professional translators or…
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This post was originally published on Integrated MarCom Translations blog. It is reposted with permission. No doubt you’ve heard it before: If you’re trying to increase your exposure, grow your network, and win more clients, you’ve got to work the social media scene. You may even have created your own Twitter account, grouped your Facebook contacts into relevant audiences for…
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The article “Defining Translation Quality” (Koby, Fields, Hague, Lommel, and Melby) is the third article in a series of articles. This particular article starts by referencing the first two articles. It mentions that the first article talked about the scope (how broadly one defines translation) and specifications (how explicitly requirements must be stated) concerning definitions of translation and that the…
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The Spoken Language Interpreter Job Description, authored by Norma Andrada, Heidi Cazes, Helen Eby, Julia Poger, and Rafael Treviño, might be called a job description, but I swear it’s one of the simplest and most straightforward ways to answer client and employer questions about what interpreters do. The variety of the authors’ backgrounds and locations definitely enrich this solid and…
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This post was originally published on Slate. It is reposted with permission. Ben Yagoda blogs about British words and phrases that have entered the American lexicon at www.notoneoffbritishisms.com. This summer, journalist Matthew Engel took to the BBC website to bemoan the corrupting influence of U.S. words on British English. Readers were invited to weigh in with their picks for the…
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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…
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This post was originally published on Madalena Sánchez Zampaulo’s blog. It is reposted with permission. More and more translators are seeing the need to diversify their freelance businesses these days. Entrepreneur defines diversification as “a risk-reduction strategy that involves adding product, services, location, customers and markets to your company’s portfolio.” For many translators, the idea of diversifying their business may…
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This post originally appeared on New Statesman, and it is republished with permission. I once met a French translator of Shakespeare. My immediate reaction on being introduced to him was odd: I felt a stab of envy. This French translator, I felt, could get really close to Shakespeare; I myself, being neither an actor nor a producer, could only read…
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