(Not Just) Another Translator

Some vacations are for networking

May 23

LaurentTout un métier 1 Comment

Reminder: this is only a recap of the French article. To read the full post, click on the French flag on the right.

As I was saying in a previous post, one of the main goals of these working vacations was to improve my professional network. So I managed to be in the right place at the right time: in Québec (city) on the 7th of May for a linguists afterwork organized by the ATAMESL and in Boston on the 22nd for the 14th Annual New England Translators Association Conference.

The ATAMESL is a French association from Quebec that intends to gather independent linguists to promote networking, training and information. This afterwork, in a micro-brewery in Quebec city, was organized by Valérie Bélanger (she writes a nice blog in French too) and represented a good opportunity to meet colleagues and discuss about our jobs across the world.

Other country, other atmosphere: NETA, the New England regional version of the ATA, allows its 150 members (and me) to be listed on their online directory and to have access to trainings and practical information. The NETA Annual Conference offered various sessions: Beginning as a translator, the literary translation of Joseph Perl, an introduction to localization (by a fellow French translator, Laurence Lollier), and the "Seven-figure translator" or how to translate 1,5 million words/year by Warren Smith. This Japanese to English semiconductor patent translator (no wonder he makes a good living)  developed his own successful translation process:

1. He first records his translation on a digital voice recorder
2. He then has it automatically transcribed by a voice recognition software (Dragon NaturallySpeaking)
3. Finally, he gets the cheap work (editing, reviewing) done by an intern... or his wife

Only drawback to all of this networking: only translators and interpreters attended these events, and very few potential clients (which is not the case at the ATA Annual Conference). I can just hope that the word of mouth will now spread!