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.

How to Prepare for a Professional Conference

By The Savvy Linguist | October 6, 2026

As language professionals, we have a duty to keep up with training and education in our languages and specializations; with technology, legislation, and other developments important to our field; and with other people, both colleagues and clients. Attending a professional conference is a great way to manage all of these obligations. But conferences, by their very nature, can be big, overwhelming, and difficult to navigate. Simply showing up and hoping for the best is a recipe for exhaustion, failure, and wasting all the money we invested to be there. To really make the most of the conference experience, it helps…

Ten Tips for Translators

By The Savvy Linguist | September 3, 2013

By Holly Mikkelson Whether you’ve had formal training as a translator or not, you may find these tips helpful for making your initial ventures into the profession a success. Before you begin translating a text, read it all the way through, without thinking about how to translate it into the target language, and get a general sense of what it’s all…

From ATA’s Divisions: The Spanish Division

By The Savvy Linguist | August 22, 2013

By Francesca Samuel ATA Spanish Division Administrator When I was asked to write an article for the newest ATA blog, I felt excited and honored to be asked to contribute to its maiden voyage. What would I write about? What would new members want to know? How could I engage them, if only for a few minutes? I thought about…

The story behind the blog

By The Savvy Linguist | July 23, 2013

This blog was born on a brainstormy day, drawing on suggestions from the ATA Newcomers listserv and the recently created Student Involvement Committee. But to understand the true nature of The Savvy Newcomer, we need to take a look at the role played by both groups and the people who have made this blog possible. When Helen Eby became Assistant…

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