There’s been a lot of buzz lately about machine translation, with translators and translation industry watchers either condemning machine translation as useless and damaging to the profession or touting it as the next big thing in the industry. ATA President Jiri Stejskal wrote his most recent column for the ATA Chronicle about MT, reader Polly-Vous [...]
Archive for January, 2009
Thoughts on machine translation
Posted in machine translation on January 29, 2009 | 24 Comments »
Link: a great post on e-mail security issues
Posted in Nubbin, Technology on January 22, 2009 | 1 Comment »
I apologize for all of these nubbins; there’s just too much going on on the web today! If you have any interest in computer security issues, make sure to read Michael Wahlster’s post Secrets on a Postcard, in which he argues (quite persuasively!) that sending confidential documents by standard (unsecure) e-mail is a major security [...]
Word clouds of inaugural addresses
Posted in Languages, Nubbin on January 22, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Thanks to reader Dierk Seeburg for sending the link to these word clouds that compare Obama’s inaugural speech to those of Bush, Clinton, Reagan and Lincoln. If you haven’t checked out Wordle, it’s a very cool language/art/geek tool that generates a word cloud that gives greater importance to frequently used words in your text. In [...]
Obama on bilingualism
Posted in Languages on January 22, 2009 | 3 Comments »
The inauguration of our 44th president promises to bring many changes to the U.S., and there’s reason to hope that better foreign language education will be among them. The statistics on foreign language proficiency in the U.S. are downright dismal; in 2005, the National Association for Bilingual Education reported that half of the European Union’s [...]
Improving the quality of your translations
Posted in Translation quality on January 15, 2009 | 3 Comments »
If one of your goals for 2009 is to market your translation services to a more discriminating client base, you’ll certainly want to step up your marketing efforts. At the same time, it’s important to focus on the quality of the product you’re offering; don’t try to sell a Yugo at Mercedes prices. The latest [...]
Is LinkedIn useful for translators?
Posted in Marketing, Nubbin on January 12, 2009 | 24 Comments »
Update to this post: Make sure to read the comments for some excellent tips on how to use LinkedIn effectively. This is just a brief request for input: is LinkedIn useful for translators? I set up a LinkedIn profile last year, around the time I started expanding my base of direct clients. Since then I’ve [...]
Avoiding beginner’s mistakes
Posted in Freelancing, Translation technique on January 12, 2009 | 16 Comments »
Update to this post: Make sure to read the comments for more excellent tips from experienced translators! Today is the first day of the winter session of the online course I teach for beginning translators. It’s an occasion that always prompts me to think of the first day I thought of myself as a translator, [...]
What do you want to accomplish this year?
Posted in Freelancing on January 7, 2009 | 8 Comments »
Like Glenn over at Yndigo, I’m not a huge fan of New Year’s resolutions. Mostly, I think that most of what we resolve (to lose weight, exercise more, swear off the snooze button, etc.) falls into the category of “shoulds”: things we think we need to do even though we don’t really want to. It’s [...]
Perspectives on 2009
Posted in Freelancing on January 2, 2009 | 3 Comments »
Thoughts on Translation is back from some computer-free vacation time (the skiing was fantastic, thanks for asking!) and looking forward to the possibilities that the new year always offers. It’s interesting to read and hear what other translators have to say about the current economic climate and its effect, if any, on our work. Just [...]
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