Merry Christmas to you and very best wishes for a healthy, peaceful and happy new year!
As a minimalist, I have made a donation to UNICEF UK in lieu of sending Christmas cards this year. More information is available on the UNICEF website.
Friday 18 December 2015
Christmas 2015
Dear blog readers,
Merry Christmas to you and very best wishes for a healthy, peaceful and happy new year!
As a minimalist, I have made a donation to UNICEF UK in lieu of sending Christmas cards this year. More information is available on the UNICEF website.
Merry Christmas to you and very best wishes for a healthy, peaceful and happy new year!
As a minimalist, I have made a donation to UNICEF UK in lieu of sending Christmas cards this year. More information is available on the UNICEF website.
Monday 30 November 2015
ITI German network Christmas party 2015
With the festive season fast approaching, around 25 members of the ITI’s German network gathered at the Kipferl Kneipe and Kitchen in London on 28th November 2015 for Gernet's annual Christmas get-together. The Kipferl is an Austrian coffeehouse in North Kensington, slightly tucked away in a side street off Portobello Road. It has gained a fine reputation for its excellent food and Viennese coffee varieties, served in a contemporary Austrian setting.
 |
| Kipferl Kneipe and Kitchen in North Kensington, London |
It had been decided, after many years of meeting at the Barley Mow pub on Horseferry Road for this occasion, to try a new venue for this year’s event. Personally, I think the Kipferl was a great choice: the (German-speaking) staff were welcoming and friendly; the food was delicious; and the surroundings were both comfortable and stylish. Good company and conversations made for an enjoyable afternoon, with conversation topics ranging from the challenges involved in translating a novel via cycling in London to the availability of real Advent wreaths in the UK. And since we had the whole restaurant to ourselves, it was (relatively) easy to mingle and circulate around the room.
 |
| Vanillekipferl |
Given that most of
us work in isolation, this get-together provided another wonderful opportunity
to connect with fellow professionals in person and exchange work-related or
other experiences. There was ample time to share tips on working habits,
compare notes and talk in a relaxed social atmosphere. And I even met a couple
of translators whom I had previously only known as Twitter names!
It’s true that quite
a lot of us translators – due to our natural temperaments – tend to prefer
smaller “doses” of socialising; so events of this kind can be energy-sapping.
I, for one, am certainly not used to chatting for many hours. However, I
definitely think it was worthwhile making my way into the capital for this
meeting: it was a convivial afternoon that offered a chance to spend quality
time with like-minded people.
Sadly, the afternoon
drew to a close quite quickly, and at around 5 o’clock it was time for us to
leave – after the 5 hours had just flown by. I love walking through London and
enjoyed my walk back to Paddington Station afterwards to catch the train back home
to Bristol. The experience of meeting at the Kipferl was enhanced by Twitter interaction as it allowed us to
stay in communication for a while longer even as we were making our way back
home.
 |
| Walking back to Paddington Station |
By the way, you can
keep up to date with the latest news and stories from the ITI’s German network
by following @ITIGerNet on
Twitter or by liking GerNet on Facebook. Do join us there!
Saturday 6 June 2015
ITI WRG IT & CAT Tools Day
I've just returned from the ITI WRG's IT & CAT Tools Day, which was held at the Watershed on the harbourside in Bristol. I would like to take this opportunity to extend a huge thank you to Sandra Mouton for organising this workshop with such superb efficiency and good humour!
In the morning, Kevin Flanagan gave a presentation on sub-segment recall in translation memories, the theme of his PhD research. Based on this research, Kevin has developed a new functionality called "Lift", which will be incorporated into SDL products in the future. For more information check out the demo video here.
In the afternoon, five WRG members (including myself) demonstrated specific translation tools that they find useful in their work. These tools included MemoQ, Dragon Naturally Speaking, CafeTran, Trados, OmegaT with LibreOffice and LF Aligner. My demo was about IntelliWebSearch. There was also ample opportunity to share software-related ideas and best practices in a relaxed social setting.
As announced in my demonstration, here is the video on IntelliWebSearch that I found on YouTube this week. It is presented by Michael Farrell, who developed the application.
In the morning, Kevin Flanagan gave a presentation on sub-segment recall in translation memories, the theme of his PhD research. Based on this research, Kevin has developed a new functionality called "Lift", which will be incorporated into SDL products in the future. For more information check out the demo video here.
 |
| Four of the presenters: Elisabeth Hippe-Heisler, Mark Elliott, Sandra Mouton, Will Helton (from left to right) |
In the afternoon, five WRG members (including myself) demonstrated specific translation tools that they find useful in their work. These tools included MemoQ, Dragon Naturally Speaking, CafeTran, Trados, OmegaT with LibreOffice and LF Aligner. My demo was about IntelliWebSearch. There was also ample opportunity to share software-related ideas and best practices in a relaxed social setting.
As announced in my demonstration, here is the video on IntelliWebSearch that I found on YouTube this week. It is presented by Michael Farrell, who developed the application.
Monday 27 April 2015
ITI Conference 2015
The biennial ITI Conference, the biggest translation and interpreting event in the UK, was held at the Hilton Newcastle Gateshead from 23 to 25 April 2015. Once again, it attracted translation and interpreting professionals from all over the UK and beyond.
The buzz around this year’s event was enormous. Not only was it declared a complete sell-out weeks in advance, but the conference hashtag #iticonf15 on Twitter immediately became the no. 10 trending hashtag in the UK on Friday, the first day of the conference.
I had booked for Saturday only, but arrived on Friday just in time to join the impromptu ensemble, coordinated by Ben Jones. Thank you to local cellist Penny Callow for lending her cello to Kari Koonin and thanks, too, to Louisa Fox for collecting at such short notice the keyboard from Anne Greaves for me to use.
I should point out that we had never played together before, although we had had the opportunity to practise a little at home. Everyone who was involved in the music-making enjoyed it, and the people listening evidently enjoyed it too. Parts of our music experiment were actually not too bad!
I was especially interested in William Cassemiro’s talk on how a machine translation tool – he uses ProMT – can be integrated into CAT tools. I agree with William, who doesn’t view machine translation as an enemy, as many translators do, but rather as a mere tool.
The enthusiasm over his session was still palpable during our fringe dinner at Panis Café in the evening. I am always on the lookout for new ways of bringing more efficiency to my workflow, so I have made a mental note to definitely check out ProMT.
I would like to express a huge and heartfelt thank you to the conference organisers – and Anne de Freyman in particular – for making the ITI Conference 2015 such an efficiently organised, successful and memorable event!
Claire Cox, Jennifer Whiteley, Kim Sanderson, Oliver Lawrence, Ellen Worrell and YTI have also blogged about the conference:
- Claire Cox: Window on the Tyne – my view of the 2015 ITI Conference in Newcastle
- Jennifer Whiteley: Appreciating Bridges
- Kim Sanderson: When is a square not a square?
- Oliver Lawrence: Reflections on the 2015 ITI Conference
- Ellen Worrell: Review: ITI Conference 2015
- YTI: ITI Conference in Newcastle
Claire Cox has written another excellent conference blog post, which is entitled "An introvert's guide to avoiding conference overload". You can find it here.
Finally, you may also like to listen to this year's "Singing Translators".
 |
| View from the Gateshead Millenium Bridge in Newcastle-upon-Tyne |
The buzz around this year’s event was enormous. Not only was it declared a complete sell-out weeks in advance, but the conference hashtag #iticonf15 on Twitter immediately became the no. 10 trending hashtag in the UK on Friday, the first day of the conference.
I had booked for Saturday only, but arrived on Friday just in time to join the impromptu ensemble, coordinated by Ben Jones. Thank you to local cellist Penny Callow for lending her cello to Kari Koonin and thanks, too, to Louisa Fox for collecting at such short notice the keyboard from Anne Greaves for me to use.
I should point out that we had never played together before, although we had had the opportunity to practise a little at home. Everyone who was involved in the music-making enjoyed it, and the people listening evidently enjoyed it too. Parts of our music experiment were actually not too bad!
 |
| The impromptu ensemble |
Making music together ex tempore in the hotel lobby was certainly far less daunting than the thought of my upcoming appointment with photographer Jules Selmes for a professional photo shoot the next morning…
Jules Selmes was on site to take professional portraits of attendees for their online profiles. I am glad to report that this, in the end, was far easier than expected as Jules really put me at my ease. If you’re looking for a professional photographer, I highly recommend his services!
Conferences are a wonderful platform for the exchange of profession- and industry-related tips, experiences and knowledge, and the Hilton was the perfect venue. As always, I’ve tremendously enjoyed the company of other translators and interpreters, both new and familiar.
The event was marked by a relaxed social atmosphere, but at the same time had the usual polished, professional feel to it, which is typical of ITI conferences. Talks by high-profile speakers and encounters with other professionals made for a worthwhile and enjoyable event.
Jules Selmes was on site to take professional portraits of attendees for their online profiles. I am glad to report that this, in the end, was far easier than expected as Jules really put me at my ease. If you’re looking for a professional photographer, I highly recommend his services!
Conferences are a wonderful platform for the exchange of profession- and industry-related tips, experiences and knowledge, and the Hilton was the perfect venue. As always, I’ve tremendously enjoyed the company of other translators and interpreters, both new and familiar.
The event was marked by a relaxed social atmosphere, but at the same time had the usual polished, professional feel to it, which is typical of ITI conferences. Talks by high-profile speakers and encounters with other professionals made for a worthwhile and enjoyable event.
 |
| Photos in conference tweets |
I was especially interested in William Cassemiro’s talk on how a machine translation tool – he uses ProMT – can be integrated into CAT tools. I agree with William, who doesn’t view machine translation as an enemy, as many translators do, but rather as a mere tool.
The enthusiasm over his session was still palpable during our fringe dinner at Panis Café in the evening. I am always on the lookout for new ways of bringing more efficiency to my workflow, so I have made a mental note to definitely check out ProMT.
I would like to express a huge and heartfelt thank you to the conference organisers – and Anne de Freyman in particular – for making the ITI Conference 2015 such an efficiently organised, successful and memorable event!
Claire Cox, Jennifer Whiteley, Kim Sanderson, Oliver Lawrence, Ellen Worrell and YTI have also blogged about the conference:
- Claire Cox: Window on the Tyne – my view of the 2015 ITI Conference in Newcastle
- Jennifer Whiteley: Appreciating Bridges
- Kim Sanderson: When is a square not a square?
- Oliver Lawrence: Reflections on the 2015 ITI Conference
- Ellen Worrell: Review: ITI Conference 2015
- YTI: ITI Conference in Newcastle
Claire Cox has written another excellent conference blog post, which is entitled "An introvert's guide to avoiding conference overload". You can find it here.
Finally, you may also like to listen to this year's "Singing Translators".
Friday 6 March 2015
The art of Twitter
On 27 February 2015, 8 members of the ITI’s German network convened in Birmingham for a workshop on the art of Twitter and blogging. It was held by marketing expert Rachel Goodchild from Bristol. The surroundings at the Priory Rooms, our venue, were both intimate and sophisticated, and I enjoyed meeting other translators who I haven't met for some time.
I am so glad I attended the workshop, in particular as I’ve recently read a few articles which suggested the social media hype really has worn off now... Building up a Twitter followership seems to be getting more and more difficult these days. Facebook, according to one article, has run out of fashion and in the eyes of the younger generation is what only old people still do. And does it make sense to blog about something that has been blogged many times before?
However, I am delighted to report now that I’ve come away from the Birmingham workshop with fresh ideas, an enlightened perspective, as well as a renewed fascination with what social media have got to offer, if handled appropriately. Rachel has managed to dispel some common myths about Twitter and blogging, clarified a few things I’d never been sure about, and provided us all with a number of invaluable tips.
It is a fact that attention spans generally are getting shorter and shorter. So one of Rachel’s tips in regard to blogging was to keep posts as short and simple as possible. I’ve applied this tip in the current post in that I’m focusing on Twitter only and have left out the presentation on blogging and overall marketing strategy. Here are a few random take-aways from the workshop on the proper use of Twitter:
Engage and people will follow.
According to Rachel, the more you tweet, the more followers you will gain. This strategy ties in with the “new” style of so-called inbound marketing. Inbound marketing involves attracting people via the internet and earning their interest in this way, as opposed to outbound marketing in the old days, which involved interrupting people (e.g. by cold calls). Have you noticed that fewer trade fairs are held nowadays because of this development?
Favoriting does not correspond to “liking”.
Strictly speaking, favoriting does not equate to “liking” as on Facebook although it can, of course, be used in this way. Rachel recommended that favoriting be used sparingly. To interact with others, you can simply reply to a tweet instead. Favorites on your Twitter profile are often scrutinised by others to help them decide if they should follow you. We should therefore think carefully about what we really want to add to our favorites.
Setting up lists will help manage tweets better.
Ideally, we should categorise anyone who we start following and assign them to specific lists. I hadn’t been aware of this option before and have since created the following lists for a start: wrg-translators (translators from my area); emersons-green (tweets from the school, other parents etc., a private list); patents-and-law (news on patents, inventions, law CPD etc.); minimalism (tweets about minimalism as a lifestyle); excellent-bloggers (self-explanatory!).
Twitter does not need to dominate your life.
There is immense power in Twitter. 340 million tweets are posted every day, and the UK alone has over 10 million active Twitter users (which corresponds to 1 in 6 brits!). However, Twitter does not necessarily need to take over our lives. There is the option of reducing distractions via Twitter to a minimum by disabling notifications to all devices and only checking our notifications on the Twitter site after logging on – when we actually have the time or feel like doing this.
It is not necessary to have separate Twitter accounts.
I have one Twitter account for English and one for German and still think this is a good idea. Usually, however, having just one Twitter account should be sufficient to cater for your various interests. Rachel advocates the idea of packaging as the key to success, i.e. your brand should be built in the form of “you as a package”. As such, it is absolutely fine to also occasionally put up things that show you’re human – including that much talked about cat photo!
I’d like to extend a huge thank-you to Rachel Goodchild for delivering such an inspiring, upbeat and practical workshop and to Cherry Shelton-Mills for organising it.
 |
| Has the social media hype worn off? |
I am so glad I attended the workshop, in particular as I’ve recently read a few articles which suggested the social media hype really has worn off now... Building up a Twitter followership seems to be getting more and more difficult these days. Facebook, according to one article, has run out of fashion and in the eyes of the younger generation is what only old people still do. And does it make sense to blog about something that has been blogged many times before?
However, I am delighted to report now that I’ve come away from the Birmingham workshop with fresh ideas, an enlightened perspective, as well as a renewed fascination with what social media have got to offer, if handled appropriately. Rachel has managed to dispel some common myths about Twitter and blogging, clarified a few things I’d never been sure about, and provided us all with a number of invaluable tips.
It is a fact that attention spans generally are getting shorter and shorter. So one of Rachel’s tips in regard to blogging was to keep posts as short and simple as possible. I’ve applied this tip in the current post in that I’m focusing on Twitter only and have left out the presentation on blogging and overall marketing strategy. Here are a few random take-aways from the workshop on the proper use of Twitter:
Engage and people will follow.
According to Rachel, the more you tweet, the more followers you will gain. This strategy ties in with the “new” style of so-called inbound marketing. Inbound marketing involves attracting people via the internet and earning their interest in this way, as opposed to outbound marketing in the old days, which involved interrupting people (e.g. by cold calls). Have you noticed that fewer trade fairs are held nowadays because of this development?
Favoriting does not correspond to “liking”.
Strictly speaking, favoriting does not equate to “liking” as on Facebook although it can, of course, be used in this way. Rachel recommended that favoriting be used sparingly. To interact with others, you can simply reply to a tweet instead. Favorites on your Twitter profile are often scrutinised by others to help them decide if they should follow you. We should therefore think carefully about what we really want to add to our favorites.
Setting up lists will help manage tweets better.
Ideally, we should categorise anyone who we start following and assign them to specific lists. I hadn’t been aware of this option before and have since created the following lists for a start: wrg-translators (translators from my area); emersons-green (tweets from the school, other parents etc., a private list); patents-and-law (news on patents, inventions, law CPD etc.); minimalism (tweets about minimalism as a lifestyle); excellent-bloggers (self-explanatory!).
 |
| Manage your tweets better by setting up lists! |
Twitter does not need to dominate your life.
There is immense power in Twitter. 340 million tweets are posted every day, and the UK alone has over 10 million active Twitter users (which corresponds to 1 in 6 brits!). However, Twitter does not necessarily need to take over our lives. There is the option of reducing distractions via Twitter to a minimum by disabling notifications to all devices and only checking our notifications on the Twitter site after logging on – when we actually have the time or feel like doing this.
It is not necessary to have separate Twitter accounts.
I have one Twitter account for English and one for German and still think this is a good idea. Usually, however, having just one Twitter account should be sufficient to cater for your various interests. Rachel advocates the idea of packaging as the key to success, i.e. your brand should be built in the form of “you as a package”. As such, it is absolutely fine to also occasionally put up things that show you’re human – including that much talked about cat photo!
I’d like to extend a huge thank-you to Rachel Goodchild for delivering such an inspiring, upbeat and practical workshop and to Cherry Shelton-Mills for organising it.
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