Speaking of Translation

Download the audio file for this episode from Google Drive, here.

In this episode, Eve and Corinne discuss a favorite topic among translators: books, and what we’re reading: what genres we enjoy, how we make time for reading, how we choose new books, what formats we enjoy and don’t enjoy reading or listening to, how we track what we read, and book recommendations for our listeners!

Websites mentioned in this episode:

• Eve’s Global Reads book club
• Real Simple magazine’s best books of 2020, and 2021
• Letterfolk’s Book Passport (“another book in the books”)
• Boulder Book Store (our local, independent bookstore!)
• Librairie Gourmande, an all-cookbook bookstore in Paris
• Peppercorn, a cooking store that sells cookbooks in Boulder, Colorado
• The Tattered Cover, a large independent bookstore in Denver, Colorado
• The Read Queen bookstore and cafe in Lafayette, Colorado
• Articles on the closing of the iconic Paris bookstore Gibert Jeune, in English and in French

Our book recommendations (we are deliberately not including links, so that you can purchase them from the outlet of your choice!)

• Transformations: Harriet and Helena Scott, Colonial Sydney’s Finest Natural History Painters by Vanessa Finney
• Memorial Drive: A Daughter’s Memoir by Natasha Trethewey
• Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
• My Life in France by Julia Child
• Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols, and Other Typographical Marks by Keith Houston
• This Close to Okay: A Novel by Leesa Cross-Smith
• It Would be Night in Caracas by Karina Sainz Borgo
• French Like Moi: A Midwesterner in Paris by Scott Dominic Carpenter
• Ultralearning: Master Hard Skills, Outsmart the Competition, and Accelerate Your Career by Scott H. Young
• Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
• Humans, by Brandon Stanton
• The Translator, by Nina Schuyler
• Say Nothing, by Patrick Radden Keefe
• L’Arabe du futur/The Arab of the Future, by Riad Sattouf
• Wolf Hall, Bring Up the Bodies, and The Mirror and the Light (Henry VIII trilogy) by Hilary Mantel
• A Place of Greater Safety, by Hilary Mantel
• Icebound, by Andrea Pitzer
• Good Words Fast, by Oliver Dirs
• Pancakes in Paris, by Craig Carlson
• All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr

Download the audio file for this episode from Google Drive, here.

As the coronavirus pandemic drags on, self-care and mental health are increasingly important to us as freelancers, moms, partners, and friends. In this episode, Eve and Corinne discuss:

-what self-care means, and why it’s not selfish
-tools and strategies we’ve used to stay safe and stay sane during the pandemic
-self-care and mental health maintenance techniques we’d recommend to our listeners
-what to do if you or someone you care about needs professional mental health help

Links mentioned in this episode:
-Eve’s Global Reads book club
-The fitness tracker apps Corinne uses: Fitbod and My Fitness Pal
-A couple of guided meditations to try: Tess Whitehurst’s meditation to clear limiting beliefs, Jeannine McGlade’s Five minute meditations podcast, and Yoga with Adriene’s Seven-minute meditation to start the day
-If you or someone you love is having a mental health crisis, you can call (in English or Spanish) the SAMHSA national helpline 24 hours a day:1-800-662-4357

Download the audio file for this episode from Google Drive, here.

Thanks to our friends Veronika Demichelis and Madalena Sanchez Zampaulo at Smart Habits for Translators, for asking us to record another joint episode!

Our topic this time around is boundaries and sticky situations:

• How to handle non-paying clients, especially if you know them personally
• What to do when a dream client wants to work with you…but can only pay a fraction of your normal rate
• How to respond to rude/unprofessional feedback from an editor
• What to do when you pour your heart and soul into a translation test…and you fail it
• How to handle drama and misunderstandings when you volunteer for a professional association
• How to set boundaries so that stress and negativity don’t affect your self-esteem or your personal life

Download the audio file for this episode from Google Drive, here.

Thanks to our awesome friends and colleagues Veronika Demichelis and Madalena Sanchez Zampaulo over at Smart Habits for Translators for this very fun joint episode on handling the holidays as a freelancer! We discuss topics such as:
-How we all handle vacations over the winter holidays; and how this very atypical year is the same or different
-How to decide whether to work or not work over the holidays
-How to take a real vacation without losing clients
-How to use the holidays to your advantage, especially if you’re actively looking for work
-How to use post-holiday marketing techniques to remind clients you’re back in the office in January
-And the dreaded topic: what to give colleagues and clients as a gift!

Download the audio file for this episode from Google Drive, here.

Eve and Corinne discuss how to make the most of LinkedIn as a freelance translator or interpreter, including:

• Tips for optimizing your profile (specifically for our industry)
• How we use LinkedIn in our own businesses
• Eve’s ongoing use of LinkedIn Premium
• Corinne’s recent experiment with the LinkedIn Premium free trial

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Eve’s Global Reads book club
• Eve interviewed by Isabella Massardo for her blog and #SmartReads newsletter
• See your LI profile as others see it and modify what they see (if you are logged in)
• Customize your LinkedIn profile URL
• Miriam Hurley’s article on LinkedIn profiles for translators
• Madalena Sánchez Zampaulo’s articles on LinkedIn profiles for translators
• 7 Ways to Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile and Gain More Leads
• These Simple Tweaks to Your LinkedIn Settings Could Help You Get More Translation or Interpreting Work
• 4 Things You Didn’t Know LinkedIn Could Do for Your T&I Business
• Article comparing LinkedIn plans
• Maeva Cifuentes’ article on LinkedIn for freelance translators
• Canva’s LinkedIn banner templates
• Corinne’s blog post on the free trial month of LinkedIn Premium

Download the audio file for this episode from Google Drive, here.

Eve, Corinne, freelance translator Karen Tkaczyk, and freelance conference interpreter Alex Gansmeier discuss life as a freelancer during the COVID pandemic, including:
-How the pandemic initially affected their businesses in March through May of 2020
-How things are looking now
-Is anything going better during the pandemic? Any silver linings?
-How to maintain your sanity and your work volume as the pandemic continues over the long term

Links mentioned in this episode:
-Karen’s professional website
-Karen on Twitter
-Alex’s professional website
-Alex on Twitter
–Troublesome Terps, the excellent podcast that Alex co-hosts

Download the audio file for this episode from Google Drive, here.

In this episode, Eve and Corinne address the topic of tools; not necessarily CAT tools, but tools of all kinds that help us work more productively and keep us happy. We talk about tool categories such as editing and proofreading, images and image manipulation, incorporating, hiring service providers to work with you, and listening to music (important during a quarantine!).

Links mentioned in this episode:

Dragon Fly Editorial Copy Editing Checklist: PDF for download at the end of the article

PerfectIt editing software

ACES (the Society for Editing) Webinars –(free for non-members too, through July 31, 2020)

How to set up the Speak feature for Microsoft Office

To access Microsoft Read Aloud from Review > Read Aloud on the toolbar in Word or type READ ALOUD in the Search button at the top of the Word interface.

TextAloud text to speech tool

https://pixabay.comm – royalty free image site

https://unsplash.com/ – royalty free image site

https://www.pexels.com/ – royalty free image site

https://stocksnap.io/ – royalty free image site

https://www.canva.com/ – to create your own graphic designs

Marion Rhodes’ article on AB5 and company structures

http://asana.com – project management tool

https://basecamp.com/ – project management tool

https://todoist.com/ – power to do list and pm tool

https://plan.toggl.com/ – project management tool

Wonderboom – Eve’s favorite portable, bluetooth speaker

AirShokz bone-conducting headphones–Corinne’s new favorite thing for phone interpreting

Download the audio file for this episode from Google Drive, here.

In this episode, Eve and Corinne address the topic of translation technique, and how to actually do a translation. Thanks very much to our listener Mireille for suggesting the topic for this episode! She e-mailed us and asked, “My question is how to improve your translation in order to make it flowing, instead of literal, where to stick to the text and where to take some liberty? What tips would you give?”

We address issues such as:

• What steps to include in your translation process
• The tension between staying faithful to the source and wanting the translation to not sound like a translation
• How to identify typical “sounds like a translation” constructions in your source language
• Examples of translation technique issues we’ve struggled with
• How to align your translation technique with the purpose of the translation