ATA plans its 52nd annual conference

The American Translators Association (ATA) will host its 52nd Annual Conference in Boston, Massachusetts (October 26-29). This conference showcases diverse panel discussions, expert presentations, training workshops, and scholarly papers. Both general and language-specific sessions will be offered. The conference also offers language professionals one of the best opportunities to network with colleagues. Additional conference activities include a Job Marketplace, a vendor exhibit hall, and ATA certification testing. For conference information see http://www.atanet.org/conf/2011/

For questions, contact Maggie Rowe, Membership Services Manager.
Phone: +1-703- 683-6100, extension 3001
Email: Maggie@atanet.org

Imagine you are a translation graduate

“You are about to enter a giant, complex and dynamic organism – the translation industry. But how much do you really know about its internal structure, its individual parts and the way they interact? How much do you really know about its evolution and current trends? How much do you know about translation as a business process?” Read Joanna Gough’s insightful article (originally published by TAUS on January 21, 2011) for an interesting perspective on whether translation courses are preparing students for the business of translation.

Web becomes dictionary with Linguee

As professional translators, we know how essential it is to consider context when choosing the right translation for a given word or phrase. This is now easier thanks to Linguee, a free search service that retrieves sentence pairs from webpages that are available in multiple language versions.

First launched in 2008 in German and English by co-founders Gereon Frahling and Leo Fink, in September 2010 Linguee added Spanish, French and Portuguese comparisons with English. Frahling and Fink plan to add Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Russian and Italian later this year.

Co-founders Frahling and Fink manage Linguee at its head office in Cologne

Users report that Linguee's appeal lies in the context it provides. Search results are not limited to translations of single words or short phrases, as is usually the case with online dictionaries, glossaries and databases; instead, the service provides the entire sentence in which the item appears, as well as a link to the webpage on which it was found.

Not every result is reliable, but this is another way in which the context becomes useful: the sentences of dubious quality are easy to spot. Users have the option of voting a translation up or down, and can even edit an erroneous translation or suggest one of their own. Each change is verified by Linguee's editorial board and the community before being accepted.

Linguee is a free service supported by advertising. Users who create an account (free of charge) get their first 100 search queries free of advertising. And for each translation suggestion or change request they make, they  are rewarded with an additional 40 ad-free queries. Registered users can also join in discussions about the translations.

Free search plugins (for Firefox, Internet Explorer and Mac OS X) and a Mac dashboard widget are also available.

A Propos thanks Sheryl for sharing this on the list, and other list members for their feedback.

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Brassens in English

Georges Brassens (image: G. Bochenek)

"Translating his works into English is demanding — and it's discouraged quite a few singers. But now French-American composer Pierre de Gaillande has produced an album of Brassens' songs, titled Bad Reputation." Listen to Scott Simon's  National Public Radio music interview of December 18, 2010 to hear the results. A Propos thanks Joan for sharing this link!

Translation as Literary Ambassador

Photo: William P. O'Donnell
for The New York Times

"Hoping to increase their tiny share of the American book market, foreign governments and foundations are plunging into the publishing fray in the United States." Read Larry Rohter's full article (originally published in the New York Times on December 7, 2010) to learn more.

2010 ATA conference: FLD photo highlights

 

Adios FLD

Virginia Fox

Dear fellow members of the FLD,

Mylène and I are concluding two exciting and wonderful years as the administrators of the French Language Division. We have been very proud to serve our over 2,000 members for the last two years, and are particularly happy with the wonderful speakers we presented at the ATA conferences in New York and Denver. We are also very pleased with the dynamic new administration team elected during the Denver conference.

We wish to thank everyone who has helped make our tenure so successful, in particular:

Dominique Blachon, the discreet yet highly efficient moderator of our very useful and dynamic list

David Heath, our wonderful webmaster

Elisabeth Lyman, the former newsletter editor and now fantastic blog editor

Karen Tkaczyk (and the other members of the nominating committee) for finding such strong candidates this year to lead our organization over the next two years

And also a big thank you to those who made the Denver conference so special and successful. Firstly, the soul of the conference – our incredible speakers:

David Jemielity (this year's Division Distinguished Speaker or DDS, senior English translator and head of translations at Banque Cantonale Vaudoise in Lausanne, tenured faculty member at the University of Geneva's School of Translation and Interpretation, with special interest in target-text effectiveness in financial translation and translation process design and management), Grant Hamilton (former DDS, owner and manager of Anglocom, Inc., an agency located in Quebec mainly serving advertising agencies; Grant also teaches FR to EN translation for marketers and advertisers at New York University), Frédéric Houbert (former DDS, teaches legal translation at the University of Cergy-Pontoise in France; he is also the author of Dictionnaire des Difficultés de l'Anglais des Contrats and Guide Pratique de la Traduction Juridique), Betty Howell, Véronique Ponce, Bruce Popp, Karen Tkaczyk and Agnes Meilhac, and Marianne Reiner.

More detailed presenter bios can be found here, and abstracts of their sessions can be found here.

If you missed the conference, I highly recommend that you listen to the sessions on the conference CD that will soon be made available by the ATA.

And last but not least, we would like to thank Corinne McKay for organizing a delicious and very pleasant dinner at the Rodizio Grill. She kept her cool while accepting last-minute reservations and made sure everyone had a great time. It's amazing how much work is involved in planning a successful dinner; thanks Corinne!

Please help us welcome the new administrative team: Bruce Popp and Anne Goff.

Bruce Popp, our new administrator, has a PhD in astronomy from Harvard University. He is a US Patent and Trademark Office Registered Patent Agent, a freelance translator specialized in the translation of patents from FR to EN, and a former member of the board of directors of the New England Translators Association (NETA), based in Massachusetts, near Boston – the site of our next ATA conference!

Anne Goff, our new administrative assistant, has an MA in French translation from the University of Surrey in England. She is currently a freelance FR to EN translator specialized in marketing and human resources. She intends to increase the visibility of the FLD and expand the information provided to members via modern networking tools such as Twitter. She is based in Sacramento, California.

It is a great pleasure to be able to hand over the administrative duties to such a strong team, and we are looking forward to supporting them over the next two years.

Finally, thanks to all of you out there for your continuing and renewed support of our division. You are the heart of this organization, and your contributions are its true value. The administration provides the structure, but the members provide the content: we need your feedback, suggestions, conference reviews and impressions, blog entries and other contributions.

We know we're leaving the French Language Division in good hands. We wish you all the best.

À bientôt sur la liste et le blog !

Virginia Fox and Mylène Vialard

Outgoing administrators of the FLD

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