Language Learners as Translators?
The recent newsletter of the American Translators Society contained a summary of an article published by New Scientist (Great Britain) about a free language learning website called Duolingo (Learn a...
View ArticleWill Controlled English Take Over Technical Communication?
The Society for Technical Communication organizes regular web seminars (webinars) on a variety of communications-related topics. I attended last night's webinar on "Controlled Language", presented by...
View ArticleA Translator's Education Never Ends
I had a couple of very interesting meetings with translator colleagues -- some of whom also function as very small translation agencies -- here in Vienna. Our e-mail communications are usually limited...
View ArticleLessons Learned From a Long Trip
My trip to Vienna was fun, but despite regularly checking my e-mail while I was away, there is quite a bit that still needs to be addressed. Plus, clients were already e-mailing me about new projects...
View ArticleHyperpolyglots or Unscrupulous Translators?
Last week, the New York Times profiled a New York high school student whose hobby was to learn a large number of different languages. The student, Timothy Doner, now creates You Tube videos of himself...
View ArticleFinding Time for Marketing
Sorry for posting so late in the week. The last couple of weeks have been really busy, plus I had contractors at my house renovating a bathroom. A one-week project that turned into two weeks and...
View ArticleTracking Data to Create a Business Plan
Most Mondays find me paying last week's bills, invoicing the work I did the previous week and generally inputting financial data into Quickbooks Pro. A few weeks ago I added another step to my weekly...
View ArticleErgonomics and My Home Office
With more projects come more hours at the computer, which translates into aching shoulders and back pain. I do have a pull-out keyboard and mouse tray, height-adjustable monitors, an adjustable...
View ArticleInterruptions -- Our Daily Lot
The other day I received an e-mail from a current client requesting a reply ASAP on whether I could take this project. The catch? It was 4:30 am in New York. Since I am usually in bed at that time, I...
View ArticleThe Techno-Marketing Hybrid
Back in February I promised to write about the relationship between technical information and marketing tactics (Will Controlled English Take Over Technical Communication?). I just translated a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
2 Blogs: 1 for Colleagues, 1 for Clients
In Everything You've Been Told is Wrong - The Truth about Marketing Your Freelance Business with a Blog Michael Martine writes about freelance bloggers who achieve a decent number of followers for...
View ArticleReferrals Are (Sometimes) Great
I was recently referred by someone I know from one of the groups to which I belong to a potential client. That's wonderful, isn't it? Well, it turns out the potential client needed languages in which I...
View ArticlePreparing for the STC Conference
The annual Society for Technical Communication Summit in Chicago is a little more than 2 weeks away. So my preparations are in full swing. I wrote my presentation based on average words/minute for...
View ArticleClient Acquisition and Relationship Management
No, not that kind of relationship. I am talking about keeping track of clients and potential clients, not managing my personal life. Back in the Fall I bought Sage ACT! to track potential clients and...
View ArticleBack From Chicago With Lessons Learned
After an interesting, but also exhausting STC Summit and reinstalling everything on my desktop (starting with the operating system), I'm back to more regular work. A few lessons learned from this...
View ArticleSTC Summit Chicago - Summary of Sessions I
So I'm finally getting around to writing about the actual content of the Society for Technical Communication (STC) Summit -- i.e., the sessions I attended. Eight Summit sessions were related to...
View ArticleSTC Summit Chicago - Summary of Sessions II
This is the second in a series of three posts about sessions I attended at the recent Society for Technical Communication (STC) Summit. In Part I of this series I reviewed presentations by David...
View ArticleSTC Summit Chicago - Summary of Sessions III
This is the third in a series of three posts about sessions I attended at the recent Society for Technical Communication (STC) Summit. In Part I of this series I reviewed presentations by David Sommer,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
STC Summit Chicago - Writing for Global Audiences
As promised, here is the text of my presentation, "Writing for Global Audiences", at the recent Society for Technical Communication (STC) Summit in Chicago. In Part I, Part II and Part III of this...
View ArticleWhat Summer Slump?
Now that summer has not only officially arrived, but school vacations have started across most of the U.S. and Europe, I was expecting the same drop in projects I had experienced the last few summers....
View ArticleShould I Become an Agency?
Last week I wrote about suddenly hitting a feast period in terms of workload when I had expected the usual Summer famine. That trend seems to be continuing. I am working on a large project that will...
View ArticleUS Translators and UK English Requests - Accept or Refuse?
I just read an interesting post about US versus UK English by Jill Sommer (@bonnjill on her blog Musings from an overworked translator. Jill explains why she declines requests to translate into UK...
View ArticleBack to School?
This time of year when I see my teacher daughter setting up her classroom and my student son-in-law buying textbooks I get a little nostalgic for my own college days. Since then I have taken a couple...
View ArticlePresenting at tekom & What I Learned
The tekom conference is over and I am on the overnight train to Vienna, in a sleeper car where they just served us breakfast - a nice bonus. My presentation went better than I expected, but in the...
View ArticleThis Blog Moved
This blog has been moved to www.reliable-translations.com/blog/ and is now running on a Wordpress platform. I will no longer update this version of the blog. Please visit my new blog location for more...
View Article
