Serdar Yegulaip wrote an interesting post entitled “Talk to Me, Openly” that is up on InformationWeek’s site, dealing with open source machine translation. While there are a number of very active open source translation memory projects out there, with OmegaT being one of the most popular among freelancers, open source machine translation hasn’t sparked the [...]
Archive for February, 2008
An interesting post on open source machine translation
Posted in Links, Technology on February 28, 2008 | 3 Comments »
Euro vs euros: why translators need each other
Posted in Freelancing, Nubbin on February 27, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Every once in a while, I get a glimpse of some of the ways in which translators (and probably other obsessive “word people” too!) are different from the rest of the population, and thus why we need to stick together. Earlier this week, a French translation listserve that I belong to engaged in a lively [...]
Using objective data to set your translation rates
Posted in Freelancing, Marketing on February 27, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Possibly the most anxiety-provoking aspect of launching or running your translation business is deciding how much to charge. Charge too much and you’ll be priced out of the market; charge too little and you’ll be working overtime just to make ends meet. The easiest way to remove the anxiety from this decision is to gather [...]
Dear Client…
Posted in Freelancing, Marketing on February 25, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Interestingly enough, I’ve been asked more than once, “How does a freelance translator fire a client?” Although “part ways with” might be a better term than “fire,” this phenomenon definitely exists, and is a customer relations issue that translators have to deal with. I think that there are a few reasons for this: the supply [...]
This blog’s banner photo
Posted in Announcements, Nubbin on February 24, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I’ve received several e-mails from people asking about the banner photo on this blog. I purchased it from iStockphoto, and the photographer is Hanoded Photography. Those of you who have traveled in the Himalaya will recognize this as a Buddhist Mani stone, bearing the inscription “Om mani padme hum,” often translated as “Hail to the [...]
The new ATA compensation survey: some interesting statistics
Posted in Freelancing, Translation industry news on February 23, 2008 | 4 Comments »
The current issue of the American Translators Association‘s Chronicle includes an article on the results of the most recent ATA compensation survey, which uses data gathered for the year 2006. The survey is interesting enough that I’m thinking of purchasing the full report ($45 for ATA members, $65 for nonmembers), but even the summary that [...]
Happy International Mother Language Day
Posted in Links, Nubbin on February 21, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Today’s post in Global Watchtower, one of my favorite translation-industry blogs, is entitled “Language Death and Why it Matters.” The article presents some very interesting insights into the importance of linguistic diversity and some of the reasons behind “language death,” which occurs when the last living speakers of small-diffusion languages die.
Getting things done
Posted in Freelancing on February 21, 2008 | 1 Comment »
When asked why they failed at freelancing, many former freelancers say that they simply couldn’t deal with the unstructured nature of the freelance day and ended up working out/watching TV/cleaning the closets etc. instead of working. Succeeding as a freelancer (translator or any other freelance job) requires that you be able to meet tight deadlines [...]
IBM’s new English>Arabic translation device
Posted in Links, Nubbin on February 20, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Here is an interesting article from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on IBM’s new English>Arabic translation software and hardware, with an interesting comment from ATA public relations guru Kevin Hendzel. I actually found the most disturbing part of the article to be the statistic that of 1,000 employees at the newly constructed U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, only [...]
It’s not just Facebook…
Posted in Links, Nubbin on February 18, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Here’s a post from the blog of Canadian communications consultant Deborah Zanke, dealing with poorly done translations at 5-star resorts in Cuba (which are understandably popular with Canadians at this time of year). She poses the question of whether these translations should be criticized if the resort staff’s spoken English is excellent, and also highlights [...]
-
Recent Posts
Welcome to Thoughts on Translation!
Categories
