The Voice of Interpreters and Translators THE ATA Nov/Dec 2015 Volume XLIV Number 9 CHRONICLE TRANSLATORS WITHOUT BORDERS A Community Translating To Save Lives

PEMT Yourself!

Don't Leave Money You're Owed on the Table!

Beyond Post-Editing: Advances in Interactive Environments

Switching from a Laptop to a Tablet: An Interpreter’s Experience

A Publication of the American Translators Association CAREERS at the NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY inspiredTHINKING When in the office, NSA language analysts develop new perspectives NSA has a critical need for individuals with the on the dialect and nuance of foreign language, on the context and following language capabilities: cultural overtones of language translation. • • Chinese We draw our inspiration from our work, our colleagues and our lives. • Farsi During downtime we create music and paintings. We run marathons • Korean and climb mountains, read academic journals and top 10 fiction. • Russian • Spanish Each of us expands our horizons in our own unique way and makes • And other less commonly taught languages connections between things never connected before. APPLY TODAY At the National Security Agency, we are inspired to create, inspired to invent, inspired to protect.

U.S. citizenship is required for all applicants. NSA is an Equal Opportunity Employer and abides by applicable employment laws and regulations. All applicants for employment are considered without regard to age, color, disability, genetic information, national origin, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, or status as a parent.

Search NSA to Download WHERE INTELLIGENCE GOES TO WORK®

14CNS-10_8.5x11(live_8x10.5).indd 1 9/16/15 10:44 AM Nov/Dec 2015 Volume XLIV CONTENTS Number 9

FEATURES 19 Beyond Post-Editing: Advances in Interactive 9 Translation Environments Translators without Borders: Post-editing was never meant A Community Translating to be the future of machine to Save Lives translation. Neither was When communication brings aid, translation memory. translation matters.

23 13 Switching from a Laptop PEMT Yourself! to a Tablet: An Interpreter’s Getting ahead of machine Experience translation will help put your If you’re an interpreter thinking of career in the lead. how nice it would be not to have to carry that heavy laptop around to each assignment, you’ll be glad to learn that there’s very little that can’t be done efficiently on a tablet.

19 16

COLUMNS 16 4 From the President Don’t Leave Money You’re Owed 5 Letters to the Editor on the Table! Even if you’re not quite ready to 6 From the President-Elect retire, you should still be familiar 7 From the Executive Director with the procedure for claiming Social Security from other 8 Outreach Report countries while living in the U.S. 26 The Entrepreneurial Linguist 27 Interpreters Forum ON THE COVER: Translators without Borders chair Andrew 29 TechTalk Bredenkamp and program 23 31 Resource Review director Rebecca Petras in Kibera, Kenya (April 2012). 34 Member News

www.facebook.com/ www.atanet.org  Connect AmericanTranslatorsAssociation with ATA www.twitter.com/atanet www.linkedin.com

American Translators Association 225 Reinekers Lane, Suite 590 Alexandria, VA 22314 USA Tel: +1.703.683.6100 Fax: +1.703.683.6122 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.atanet.org FROM THE PRESIDENT CAITILIN WALSH Editorial Board [email protected] Corinne McKay (chair) Jeff Alfonso Chris Durban Geoffrey Koby Of Oatmeal and Legacies Michael Wahlster

often start my columns with a few simplified access to voting, as well as the Publisher/Executive Director personal notes, and this last column CI—credentialed interpreter—marker of Walter Bacak, CAE I as your president is no exception. professionalism in our online directory. [email protected] The past year has been an exercise in letting go, with personal and professional It is not a platitude to say that I am Editor milestones and passages being marked at Jeff Sanfacon an alarming rate. In each instance, I take incredibly grateful to have had the [email protected] time to remind myself that it is a process, not a moment. opportunity to serve this Association Proofreader One vital step in the process is alongside such remarkable colleagues. Cathy Lada taking stock. When I stood before the membership four short years ago, I shared Advertising an admittedly ambitious vision: ATA as an Lauren Mendell umbrella organization that embraces the Along the way, it became clear that [email protected] diversity inherent in our industry, and a some things were not as important as I Tel: +1.703.683.6100, ext. 3001 place where a culture of professionalism imagined, and other issues emerged that Fax: +1.703.683.6122 pervades everything we do. My ambition were clearly higher priority. I had shared Design & Production was to make my legacy more than just a vision of international recognition of Blue House Design oatmeal on the breakfast buffet. our Certification Program, but the Board www.bluehouse.us I envisioned a certification exam that quite rightly felt that there was more candidates completed in their own offices. benefit to diverting our resources and The ATA Chronicle (ISSN 1078-6457) is published We are not there—yet—but the wheels energies into re-establishing a sustainable six times per year by the American Translators are in motion, with the Board authorizing public relations program, revamping our Association, 225 Reinekers Lane, Suite 590, testing of a secure online system that flagship publication, and systematically Alexandria, VA 22314 USA. Periodicals postage shows great promise. adjusting budgetary structures to poise paid at Alexandria, Virginia, and additional I pictured an association that welcomes ATA for its next round of growth. mailing offices.POSTMASTER: Send address all, and spent a great deal of time learning Volunteer-driven initiatives quite rightly changes to The ATA Chronicle, 225 Reinekers about and connecting with our interpreter drive much of the agenda. Lane, Suite 590, Alexandria, VA 22314 USA. colleagues in particular. I have emerged It is not a platitude to say that I am more convinced than ever that we can incredibly grateful to have had the The American Translators Association (ATA) both benefit a great deal from each other, opportunity to serve this Association was established in 1959 as a not-for-profit and am encouraged by the progress alongside such remarkable colleagues, professional society to foster and support the we have made to welcome and provide and have no doubt that future Boards will professional development of translators and professional parity to our “speaking” build on the tradition of advancing our interpreters and to promote the translation and colleagues in terms of providing profession in a dynamic fashion.  interpreting professions. The subscription rate for a member is $49 (included in the dues payment). The U.S. subscription rate for a nonmember is $65. ADVERTISING DIRECTORY Subscribers in Canada and Mexico add $25; 8 Across Systems GmbH...... www.across.net 12 InterpreterEd.....www.InterpreterEd.com/professional all other non-U.S. subscribers add $45. 24 Cross-Cultural Communications, LLC...... 2 NSA (CACI)...... www.NSA.gov/Careers Single copies are available for $7 per issue. www.cultureandlanguage.net 40 SDL...... www.sdl.com 18 Kilgray...... www.kilgray.com 35 Translate.com...... www.translate.com/ata ©2015 American Translators Association 14 Landmark Audio Technologies...... 5 University of Illinois...... http://www.landmarkfm.com http://ma.translationandinterpreting.illinois.edu Reprint Permission 15 Lighthouse .... www.lighthouseonline.com Requests for permission to reprint articles should be sent to the editor of The ATA Chronicle

4 The ATA Chronicle | Nov/Dec 2015 at [email protected]. THE CENTER FOR ATA SOCIAL MEDIA FROM OUR MEMBERS translation studies FACEBOOK20,663 LIKES 8,945 3,725 FACEBOOK FANS TWITTER FOLLOWERS LINKEDIN MEMBERS MA in FEATURED POST TOP TWEETS Translation

It’s the words, stupid. and American Translators Understanding the Kremlin— Association or why we need to teach Russian in Interpreting October 26 at 5:15 AM schools. http://gu.com/p/4dhv8/stw Specialization Tracks: Reasons to Avoid Cheap #xl8 #1nt Translation http://wordsboutique. OCT 26 / @ATANET • Translation for the Professions com/cheap-translation/ #xl8 • Literary and Applied #translation Common International Payment Literary Translation Options for #Translators @atanet • Conference and http://skribo-agency.blogspot.com/ Community Interpreting 2015/10/international-payment- options-for.html #xl8 #1nt online OR OCT 27 / @ATANET LETTERS TO THE EDITOR ON CAMPUS The program can support students working CHARGING BY THE HOUR? THE IMPORTANCE OF KEEPING MEMBERS INFORMED from any of the 37 languages currently Judy Jenner’s suggestion in her September-October I was very interested to read Ted Wozniak and Evelyn taught at the University of Illinois at column that we charge by the hour appears to me to Yang Garland’s report in the July-August issue on the Urbana-Champaign School of , be premature at this point. financial considerations behind decisions made by Cultures and Linguistics. Text translation In addition to the fact that only experienced the Board (“Money Matters: The Story Behind Numbers students will work from their second translators can estimate the time it will take to and Board Decisions,” page 7). I was also glad to language into English. Interpreting complete a job (and sometimes not even we can read Jeff Alfonso and Corinne McKay’s description students will work bidirectionally between do that accurately), there’s another problem. An of the Chronicle Task Force’s work over the past year experienced translator working quickly might earn (“Behind the Scenes with The ATA Chronicle Task their second and first languages. $100 or more an hour. But clients who wouldn’t flinch Force,” page 12). Applications for Fall 2016 will be at paying a lawyer several hundred dollars per hour It’s essential that members be kept informed about considered from August 15, 2015 wouldn’t accept that rate for translators. I never quote how ATA is being run and the decisions being made hourly rates for that reason. on their behalf. The Chronicle is both the natural and until May 1, 2016. Until we are perceived by clients (and more best means of disseminating this information. I hope For more information, please contact importantly by ourselves) as professionals whose time to read more about the behind-the-scenes work in is worth as much as that of other professionals, we future issues. (A “From the Boardroom” column would the School of Literatures, Cultures, and are better off sticking to our by-the-word rates. be a great start!) Linguistics Graduate Student Services Office at [email protected] or the Eve E. Hecht I Elizabeth, NJ May Fung Danis I Guadeloupe, France Center for Translation Studies Office at [email protected]. RESPONSE FROM JUDY JENNER We’re Waiting to Yes, those are precisely the potential downsides to the MA.TRANSLATIONAND hourly pricing approach that I detailed in my column. All Hear from You! INTERPRETING.ILLINOIS.EDU pricing strategies have pros and cons, so every linguist must decide for themselves what works for them. Do you have a comment about a particular article or column? We’re always interested in hearing what you UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS have to say. Submit your letters today AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN to [email protected]. School of Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics College of Liberal Arts and Sciences www.atanet.org American Translators Association 5 FROM THE PRESIDENT-ELECT DAVID RUMSEY Now What? Making the Most of the [email protected] Post-Conference Period

y the time you read this, the no better time to get involved than memories of ATA’s 56th Annual the present. We’re a volunteer-driven BConference in Miami will be fading association, so we rely on the energy and as fast as the tan line on your shoulder enthusiasm of our members to keep the that you developed while sitting outside organization growing. on the hotel patio. Below are a few tips for making the most of the conference Apply yourself and new skills. The same experience once you get back to the office. applies to all of the new demo CDs and limited-offer discounts you received Don’t let things pile up. It’s so easy just to from various vendors and technology dump all the business cards and brochures companies. If you wait too long to start you collected at the conference into a exploring your options, the company blank file folder and file it under “LOL” offer may expire or they may move on to (Look Over Later). Usually, that’s 370 another upgrade, and you won’t be able days later, when you dump the file in to take advantage of improvements in the recycle bin after returning from the efficiency that are out there. If you have next conference. The key to avoiding multiple offers, rank them and try them having a backlog of brochures is not to out over time. The same applies to any procrastinate in the first place. Before you new skills or tips you may have picked get back into the regular routine at the up at the conference. Make a list of all the office, schedule an hour as soon as you key suggestions from the conference (or get back from the conference to review the review the conference program to jog your material you’ve collected. The memory of memory) and make a point to try out at why you picked up the brochure in the would like to work, your enthusiasm least one new suggestion for a week or first place or what the background was of will surely be noted. However, don’t be two at a time. Small tips can easily reap the person who gave you their card will surprised if you get a rather impersonal be fresh in your mind. If you wrote a note reply from the agency’s vendor manager big rewards. asking you to enter your information in on their business card or brochure it will Chart a new course. Schedule an be even easier. It won’t take long to create their database, even when you gave them appointment with yourself about one two piles: 1) for immediate follow-up, and your résumé. Send a quick note to the month after the conference. Write a list of 2) for information purposes. project manager you spoke with and let the tips or technology you thought were them know that you registered in their ultimately beneficial to you, and think Reach out to someone. When going through database and look forward to working about the areas where you still need to the immediate follow-up pile, make sure with them in the future. It keeps your learn more. Review your conference notes you do it sooner rather than later. That name fresh. way the conversation you had with the and the conference program one more contact will still be fresh in your mind— It’s never too late to get involved. If a contact time. Perhaps there was a session or a and in theirs. This is particularly true you made at the conference is from a speaker that you might consider next year. if you are reaching out to a new friend local chapter or division, one of the best Even better, perhaps you have developed or professional colleague with whom ways to maintain that connection is to get some knowledge that you would like to you connected at the conference. The involved. Even if it’s just a few hours a share with you colleagues. If so, make a conversation can continue from where you month working on a division newsletter note when session proposals are due for left off. or helping promote a chapter event, seize ATA’s 57th ATA Annual Conference in If you’re following up with a project the momentum from the conference and San Francisco. We hope to see you again manager from an agency for which you raise your hand to volunteer. There’s next year! 

6 The ATA Chronicle | Nov/Dec 2015 www.atanet.org FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR WALTER BACAK, CAE [email protected] Thanks and End of Year To-Dos

THANK YOU TO ATA’S OUTGOING BOARD MEMBERS! Sanctioned Member Director Odile Legeay: Mohamad Anwar was sanctioned recently Odile has completed for misrepresenting his credentials her second and final (specifically his claim of having a Ph.D.). three-year term as His action violated the third tenet in the director. Odile was American Translators Association Code a part of the teams of Ethics and Professional Practice: “to that were instrumental in creating the represent our qualifications, capabilities, guidelines for translation and interpreting and responsibilities honestly and to work agreements as well as adapting CalPro— always within them.” This type of violation an online business valuation program is subject to disciplinary action pursuant for independent contractors—for U.S. to the ATA Bylaws, Article III, Section translators and interpreters. As this is the last issue for 2015, 6.a.3: “Fraud or misrepresentation in the Secretary Boris please note some end-of-year items for application for or maintenance of ATA Silversteyn: Boris has your attention. membership, professional certification, or completed his second and other professional recognition or credential.” Overall Event Survey: For those who final two-year term as He is prohibited from being an ATA member attended ATA’s Annual Conference in secretary. Prior to serving until September 15, 2020. as secretary, Boris held Miami, please be sure to complete your According to the ATA Bylaws, Article two terms as a director. Boris’ keen eye for Overall Event Survey. Your feedback III, Section 6.b. Disciplinary Actions, “All detail, his experience with processes (from really makes a difference. The conference his earlier life as an engineer), and his planning team—president, president- disciplinary actions are taken pursuant to wisdom conveyed through colorful stories elect, ATA Meetings Manager Teresa Kelly, procedures adopted by the Board from time will be missed. and I—review the compiled results as to time, which procedures may be amended well as all the comments and use them to only by a two-thirds vote of the Board.” The President Caitilin Walsh: shape future conferences. The survey can procedures are addressed in the ATA Policy on Caitilin has served two be accessed via the app. Ethics Procedures (www.atanet.org/docs/p_ years as president, two years as president-elect, The ATA Chronicle Microsite: Please dm_ethics.pdf). The sanctions applied to and one term as director. be sure to check out the new Chronicle- these individuals are in accordance with the Caitilin has led ATA Online (www.atanet.org/chronicle-online). ATA Policy on Ethics Procedures, Section V. through some challenging issues, from This site’s dynamic programming provides revamping the magazine to making tough readability on mobile devices and full choices regarding the Association’s indexing of past issues. Besides current finances. In addition, she has worked and past issues, the site also features bonus successfully to make sure interpreters and material not found in the print magazine, interpreting issues remain an integral part including the Translation Inquirer and the of the Association. Humor and Translation columns. Membership renewal: The 2016 membership renewal notices will be sent in early December. Thank you for being an ATA member in 2015. Please be sure to renew for 2016.  www.atanet.org American Translators Association 7 OUTREACH REPORT BY MEGHAN MCCALLUM Molly Yurick Wins 2014–2015 School Outreach Contest

Molly Yurick (left) with students at the Instituto de Educación Secundaria Cuenca del Nalón in Asturias, Spain.

TA member Molly Yurick, a Spanish>English translator The 2015–2016 School Outreach Contest A based in Oviedo, Spain, won a is now open! The winner will receive a free registration to ATA’s 56th Annual free registration to ATA’s 57th Annual Conference in Miami, Florida. Conference in San Francisco, California, Molly won the contest for the photo November 2–5, 2016. For more information, taken during her visit to the Instituto de visit www.atanet.org/ata_school/school_ Educación Secundaria Cuenca del Nalón outreach_contest.php. in Asturias, Spain, to speak to students in the English/Spanish bilingual program. translated “My name is …” into their “The specific class I visited had students native language and wrote the translation from all over the world,” Molly said. onto a colorful speech balloon. The Molly engaged the students in a multilingual speech balloons seen in discussion of the risks of using free online Molly’s photo include Spanish, Asturian, translation platforms (such as Google Romanian, French, Arabic, and Russian. Translate) and the importance of using Molly is thrilled to be attending ATA’s human translators. “At the end of the 56th Annual Conference. “Miami will be class, one student confessed that he was my first conference, and this will make now thinking of becoming a translator. the experience even more memorable,” That was a great feeling!” she said.  Molly’s winning photograph was captured after a hands-on translation activity with the students. With assistance Meghan McCallum is the coordinator of ATA’s from Molly and the teacher, each student School Outreach Program.

8 The ATA Chronicle | Nov/Dec 2015 www.atanet.org FEATURE BY LORI THICKE

Borders, which would go on to win the Nobel Peace Prize) asked my French translation company, Lexcelera, to provide a price estimate for one of their projects. Instead of giving them a quote, I told them we would do the work for free—as long as they used the money they saved to help more people. This was the beginning of Traducteurs sans frontières, which I founded with my partner, Ros Smith-Thomas. Over the next 17 years, Lexcelera provided pro bono project management to support a community of professional translators around the world who assisted humanitarian organizations—including Medecins sans frontières, Action Against Hunger, Ashoka, and Handicap International—through the donation of around a million words annually. When the earthquake struck Haiti in 2010, so much translation was needed that a million words suddenly seemed like a drop in the bucket. Not only could Translators without Borders chair Andrew Bredenkamp we not cope with the volume, but the and program director Rebecca Petras in Kibera, Kenya (April 2012) requests for translation came in so quickly that we were unable to respond in the near real-time that was needed. Over a thousand translators contacted us each week, wanting to help alleviate Haiti’s Translators without Borders: misery by donating their skills, but we just didn’t have the capacity to take that A Community Translating many volunteers all at once. to Save Lives WHEN COMMUNICATION IS AID, TRANSLATION MATTERS Translators without Borders is more than a nonprofit: it’s a community. In a crisis, information is aid. How do I protect myself and my family? Where is Learn how over 3,000 volunteers use their language skills to help in it safe for us to go? Where can we find humanitarian work, as well as how you can get involved! food, water, and shelter? Haiti taught us that what people need most in a ome translation humor was making work and how often it is that “no one disaster can be the one thing that is in the rounds of the Internet a while thinks about it.” shortest supply: information in their own back. Underneath a picture of an language. In the words of Rebecca Petras, S program director for Translators without empty roll of toilet paper was the caption, FOUNDING TRANSLATORS Borders: “Following a crisis, one of the “Translation is like toilet paper. No one WITHOUT BORDERS most immediate priorities for both relief thinks about it until they need it.” I can’t say that I founded Translators workers and victims is disseminating and Being invisible is not just a problem without Borders to raise awareness of receiving information, yet language barriers for our profession, however. It’s also a the need for translation. I founded it to frequently complicate response efforts.” problem in virtually every international support humanitarian work. Before Haiti, humanitarian translation humanitarian crisis. Worst of all, it’s a It started with Traducteurs sans in a crisis was barely on the radar. That’s problem that costs lives. As the founder of frontières, a much smaller French charity because in many cases there were few the language charity Translators without that was the precursor to Translators opportunities to communicate directly Borders, I have seen first-hand how without Borders. In Paris in 1993, with the affected population. At best, aid critical translation is to humanitarian Medecins sans frontières (Doctors without organizations would communicate with www.atanet.org American Translators Association 9 TRANSLATORS WITHOUT BORDERS continued

if we were going to be of any use in a crisis. We needed to scale up with more volunteers offering more languages. (Until

EBOLA then, we had only been translating to and ME CE ITA? TA YAYA TA KE BAZUWA? from a handful of European languages.) We also needed to speed the process by • Ƙwayar cuta ke haifar da Ebola. • Ta na haifar da rashin lafiya mai tsanani tare da zubar automating project management. jinni • Zuwa yanzu babu allura, kuma babu magani na wannan cuta – AMMA neman magani • Tana da saurin yaɗuwa; za ta iya kama mutane da yawa To prepare ourselves to be better able DA WURI a Cibiyoyin Lura da Cutar • Zuwa kashi chasa’in daga cikin zasu mutu to respond the next time a crisis hit, I Ebola na iya taimakawa wajen warkewa • Marasa lafiya na iya baza cutar ga sauran jama’a founded a new organization, Translators Matattu na iya yaɗa cutar. A LURA. (A binne cikin lura. A kau da jiki) without Borders, as a registered U.S.- • KA DA a wanke, taɓa ko kuma sumbantar mamaci based charity, and I assembled a board of • KA DA a wanke hannu a bokiti guda da wanda ya taɓa directors of translation industry experts mamaci to help. (We maintained our focus on Mutanen da suka yi hulɗa da masu cutar sun fi zama cikin haɗari: translation, though there’s certainly an • Dangin mara lafiya equal need for interpreters.) • Ma’aikatan jiyya ALAMOMIN I have seen first-hand how critical Kan iya faraway kwanaki 2 21 daga lokacin da aka yi hulɗa da mai cutar ko jikinsa

‐ translation is to humanitarian ALAMOMIN KAMUWA ALAMOMIN DA ZA SU BIYO BAYA work and how often it is that “no one thinks about it.”

The first two goals of the new ZAZZAƁI TASHIN CIWON KAI GAJIYA AMAI GUDAWA TARI ZUBAR JINI organization—to raise awareness of the ZUCIYA Zai iya Zai iya Zai iya (daga hanci, baki, haɗawa da jini haɗawa da jini haɗawa da jini fata) importance of translation and to support KARIYA ME ZA KA YI idan ka sami rashin lafiya humanitarian work through the donation of translation services—were achievable • ZA KA IYA KAMUWA DA EBOLA DAGA • Kirawo asibitinku kuma ka shaida WANDA KE DA CUTAR KO MAMACI musu yanayin cutar with the infrastructure we set up. The • WANKE HANNUNKA AKAI-AKAI – Yi amfani • Saurari shawararsu. third goal—to increase access to critical da SABULU (Idan ba’a sami damar wankewa • Za’a iya turaka asibiti na musamman ba ayi amfani da man wanke hannu) knowledge by breaking down language • Rabu da sauran mutane sabo da • Ka da ka taɓa wanda ya kamu ko ruwan da ya kada su kamu barriers worldwide—is more of a long- fita daga jikinsa JINI, AMAI, BAYAN-GARI KO • Yi hankali da amanka da kuma GUDAWA, FITSARI term “moon shot” goal. gudawa • Akwai EBOLA a jikin dabbobi da jemagu. KA One of the first actions of Translators DA a taɓa ko kuma cin "naman farauta” ko Koda ya ke babu maganin cutar, neman jemagu magani DA WURI a Cibiyoyin Lura da Cutar without Borders was to team up with Ebola na iya taimakawa wajen warkewa. ProZ.com, which donated a project

Wannan bayani an yi shi ne domin faɗakarwa kawai, kuma ya dace da lokacin da aka wallafa shi. Bai zama madadin shawarar ƙwararre a kan harkar lafiya ba. Idan akwai wata tambaya ko damuwa a kan abin da aka ambata, a management platform and a full-time hanzarta a tuntuɓi ƙwararre kan harkar lafiya. © 2014 AEA International Holdings Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Unauthorised copy or distribution prohibited. project manager, Enrique Cavalitto. 07 October 2014 HAUSA For more information: www.internationalsos.com/ebola This allowed us to scale up our efforts almost immediately. The community of translators grew, and they were able to local nonprofits—always in the hope that call number set up to coordinate aid. donate their time to help many more there was a common language between Survivors texted for help to dig others out organizations. This number has grown them—and, in turn, those nonprofits of the rubble, to ask for food and water, to 490 charities today, including Partners would communicate with the local people. and to find loved ones. in Health, Kiva, Zafèn, Good Planet, and Mobile technology changed all that, The messages were in the language Oxfam, all of which are supported by with even the very poor more likely than mostly spoken by the poor—Haitian Kreyol. more than 3,000 Translation without Borders volunteers. not to have access to a mobile phone. In Unfortunately, this was not a language Haiti the cellphone towers were restored understood by most of the rescuers. early on, so cellphones were used en Haiti was the first crisis that made me READY FOR THE NEXT masse to seek help. During the first six aware that communication had to happen NATURAL DISASTER weeks following the earthquake, 40,000 in the local languages. Haiti showed me Three years after Haiti, the United messages were received at a national that I had to change the organization Nations Office for the Coordination of

10 The ATA Chronicle | Nov/Dec 2015 www.atanet.org Humanitarian Affairs activated Translators without Borders to help in the aftermath of Super Typhoon Haiyan. This time Translators without Borders was ready. The devastation wrought by the typhoon in November 2013 was exacerbated by the erroneous belief that “everyone speaks English.” Fully 90% of Filipinos speak one of the Philippines’ 175 indigenous languages, yet when Typhoon Haiyan was barreling toward the islands, warnings about a “storm surge” were issued in English. And those very words failed to prepare the Cebuano and Waray-Waray speakers for 50-foot-high waves. It was primarily the poor who perished in their coastal homes because they were the ones least likely to speak English. Screenshot from “Translation Matters: The Story of Our Work in Kenya.” Once the recovery effort began, Watch the video at: http://bit.ly/TWB-Kenya. Translators without Borders was able to work through partners like StandbyTask of young men who raided a quarantined Force and Humanity Road to translate Haiti taught us that what people clinic in Monrovia last August, stealing the critical messages from survivors. In need most in a disaster can be the blood-stained mattresses and sending 20 one case, a mother in a shelter gave a infected patients into the community. hand-written note in Tagalog with the one thing that is in shortest supply: During the Ebola crisis, Translators whereabouts of her children. In the past without Borders worked to raise that message might have been discarded information in their own language. awareness that, without translation, because the rescue team wouldn’t have crucial information was not being been able to understand it, but this time, communicated, thus prolonging the Noemi, a volunteer, was able to translate a key strategy to halting the epidemic. misery and increasing the number of it. The two children were rescued and The problem was that, unbelievable as it reunited with their mother. deaths. When we felt that it was taking may seem, most information about how too long for the aid community to More recently, Translators without to prevent the spread of Ebola was not Borders was called in to help in the react, we started translating posters and available in the languages understood by videos and short message service (SMS) aftermath of the April 25th earthquake in the people at risk. Nepal. The rapid response team, composed announcements into the leading local In Sierra Leone, the use of English is languages, including Krio, Temne, Hausa, of more than 25 professional translators, limited to the educated minority. Similarly, worked to ensure that local people affected and Swahili. in Liberia, despite the fact that it was As Claudia Evers, Médecins Sans by the disaster were able to access accurate founded by freed American slaves, only and understandable information. Frontières’ Ebola emergency coordinator 20% of the population speaks English. in Guinea, said: “In the first nine months, Untranslated posters, flyers, banners, and if people had been given proper messages, EBOLA: A CRISIS OF TRANSLATION billboards aimed at educating the public all this could have been prevented.” While Nepal, Haiti, and the Philippines were, in fact, educating the minority elite, experienced natural disasters where human the ones who spoke English. For the vast suffering was exacerbated by language majority of West Africans, information TRANSLATORS WITHOUT barriers, the Ebola epidemic of 2014 was a provided in English was of no more use BORDERS TODAY man-made disaster exponentially worsened than French would have been in the U.S. Our volunteer community has grown because language barriers weren’t given Clearly, the message didn’t get through tremendously since our early days as proper consideration. to the people most likely to be infected Traducteurs sans frontières. We have The key takeaway from last year’s Ebola and to become, in turn, carriers of Ebola. around 3,000 active volunteers who crisis was that ignorance about the virus Making sure information was in the translate professionally yet still find time was as fatal as bodily contact with an culturally appropriate language would to donate their services. We’ve expanded infected person. People at risk needed to also have helped build trust. Messages to 104 language pairs and now support know how to prevent infection and what in English that “Ebola is real” didn’t over 490 nonprofits, including Oxfam, to do if someone around them caught dissuade people from believing that it Kiva, and Save the Children. Thanks to it. Communicating this information was was a government plot, including a group ProZ.com, we’ve been able to automate the www.atanet.org American Translators Association 11 The Professional Interpreter TRANSLATORS WITHOUT BORDERS continued project assignment, which has increased Steps to Becoming a 2016 - Los Angeles, CA our speed and responsiveness dramatically. Besides our core work in European Volunteer Translator January 9/10, 16/17 & 23 languages, we now take on projects To be selected as a volunteer, you must be ranging from subtitling health videos or a professional translator with a minimum February 22-26 in dozens of Indian languages to pre- translating disaster messages in Swahili of four years of professional translation and Somali. To increase capacity in local experience, or two years of professional A special training languages, we have piloted a training translation experience and a university degree center in Nairobi, Kenya, where we in translation or a related subject. We are program for professional currently train local translators. currently recruiting Arabic, , Farsi/Dari, linguists seeking The result of this is that, as I write this, and Greek speakers to help us in our rapid CHI or CMI the Translators without Borders website response to the European refugee crisis. donation counter has reached 27,538,057 interpreter certification 1. Complete the translator application form: words. That’s over 27 million words http://translatorswithoutborders.org/ donated to global aid organizations since volunteers/translator-app. 2011. This includes over four million ™ Add to your professional words of health articles for Wikipedia into 2. Indicate if you are ATA-certified (provide portfolio of services European, African, and Asian languages ATA number), a Proz.com PRO, or a (our “moon shot” goal of increasing access Lionbridge translator. These qualifications ™ Position yourself for to knowledge). will fast track your application. If you profitable assignments qualify to be on the fast track, you’ll In a crisis, information is aid. receive credentials for joining the Translators without Borders Workspace, ™ Ensure your where you can receive work directly from understanding of our nonprofit partners. proper protocols If you would like to volunteer, either 3. You’ll be notified within 30 days whether or as a translator or in another capacity, not you have been accepted as a volunteer. ™ Meets the training you can visit the volunteer section of requirement for CCHI www.translatorswithoutborders.org. For more information on other volunteer opportunities, please visit: and for NBCMI. If you are an ATA-certified translator, mention this and you will not need to http://translatorswithoutborders.org/ complete the exam. Once you have been Volunteer-Opportunities ™ Optimized for linguists accepted as a volunteer, projects in your who already provide language pairs may be proposed. Needs fortunate on a pro bono basis is the norm. professional translating for certain languages are very strong, The thousands of Translators without or interpreting services such as French<>English and any African Borders volunteers just might say that languages. Generally the requests are for giving their professional skills rather 1–10 pages, and turning down projects than their money (or in addition to their you don’t have the time or specialty to Visit us online at: money) just feels better.  www.InterpreterEd.com/ take on is perfectly acceptable. The system professional is semi-automated, so you can specify whether you want to continue receiving Lori Thicke has worked in or schedule a discussion information about projects in your languages for over 20 years. with a senior advisor languages. (Please see the sidebar at right She founded Lexcelera, a for more information.) translation company, in 1986. at (800) 673-6923. Translators without Borders also In 1993, she co-founded needs people to fill other positions, such Traducteurs sans frontières to as project managers and editors, and provide pro bono translations to support global just about any other role you would find aid work. In 2010, she founded Translators in a nonprofit. without Borders, now the world’s largest Of course, many people prefer to community of humanitarian translators. donate money to charity, and that’s She is a frequent speaker and blogger on the important too. However, Translators issue of fighting poverty with information in without Borders is built on a model the right language. She has an MFA from the similar to that of the legal profession, University of British Columbia. Contact: where sharing your skills with the less [email protected].

12 The ATA Chronicle | Nov/Dec 2015 www.atanet.org FEATURE BY WILLIAM CASSEMIRO

It’s really just human nature to fear or resist change. You could even say that this state is a historical truth. For example, such resistance happened back in the 19th century, when automatic power looms were destroyed by Luddites. Despite this extreme reaction, looms were ultimately implemented by the textile industry. Workers who were able to adapt to this new industrial advancement took advantage of the situation and became more successful. So, what does this mean for us?

We must take action to make the most of what innovation has to offer.

WILL FORCE US TO BECOME PROOFREADERS? During our careers, we should expect requests to work with machine translation (MT) to increase. That’s why we need to learn as much as possible to turn such requests into opportunities. Before I graduated with a degree in PEMT Yourself! languages and and became a professional translator, my primary activity was inherently a technological Technology is always offering new ways to increase the profitability of every one: electronics. This is most likely industry. The translation community should not see technology as a threat, the reason why I’ve always embraced innovation. I view hardware and software but as an opportunity. as partners, not as competitors, and certainly not as enemies. I believe far t’s very common to hear translators of field or activity, who will never be superior results can be achieved when complain about having to work on affected by technology. This idea sounds man and machine work as a team, as projects involving post-editing machine frightening, but technological advances I opposed to two men working alone or translation (PEMT), which tend to pay a represent excellent opportunities that two machines working together. A man- lower per-word rate compared to human must be seized. machine symbiosis always seems to be translation. I have some bad news for superior in both quantity and quality. those people: we’ve reached a point of no IT’S HUMAN NATURE TO FEAR Machines take care of repetitive, merely return. This kind of service will become THE UNKNOWN mechanical tasks that don’t require more common as companies—as well as Why would things be any different in creativity or cognizance—two areas in translators—look for ways to cut costs the translation industry? I had not even which humans overpower computers. and increase profits. Adapting to this begun working as a translator when Despite developments in artificial emerging reality is a matter of survival computer-assisted translation (CAT) tools intelligence, computers still cannot now, and complaining about it won’t were introduced, but more experienced think for themselves or act cognitively. negate this situation. colleagues tell me many opposed them at Computers operate based on algorithms, Considering how quickly technology first. Such a reaction to new technology is which by definition do not allow them to advances, and the fact that most people hardly unique. Looking back, there even make the same simple associations that work for about 40 years, it’s impossible seems to have been some resistance to the human brain is able to process. Our to conceive of a single worker, regardless using typewriters! immense ability to be creative and make

www.atanet.org American Translators Association 13 PEMT YOURSELF continued associations, deductions, and decisions allows us to fine-tune our work.

COMPLEMENTARY PARTNERS Computers can only do what humans teach them to do in a logical and sequential manner. Therefore, when it comes to MT, translators must tell the computer what it did wrong and how mistakes can be corrected. With this feedback and much-needed human intervention, example-based machine translation (EBMT) and statistical machine translation (SMT) are able to “learn” how to improve the text. Reputable translation agencies that work with MT use feedback from their translators to improve their systems. , among others, uses this strategy when it asks you to suggest a better translation for a given sentence. Engineers analyze millions of suggestions. Once they are validated, they are implemented in later software updates.

I believe far superior results can be achieved when man and machine Simultaneous Interpretation work as a team, as opposed to two men working alone or two Equipment machines working together. Transmitters We would be naive to think that translation memory has to offer, I use Receivers computers will one day have all the correct rule-based MT software to leverage the FM options available and be able to translate glossaries and rules I’ve created. Even Sales & Rentals everything perfectly. There are several factors though this software may sometimes offer involved in the translation process, mostly inferior results compared to something Affordable Pricing of a cognitive nature. This takes us back Google Translate might suggest, this Superior Sound to the fact that machines are still unable to technique yields two great benefits: 5 YEAR WARRANTY think cognitively, and will not be able to 1. My client’s material, which is protected 30 DAY MONEY BACK do so in the foreseeable future. Because of by a non-disclosure agreement, is not GUARANTEE! this, there is close to zero chance that MT submitted to any server or website. will prove to be an efficient replacement 2. I get to decide how the translation will for human translators when there is a need be done. for high-quality output. What I do see is an opportunity to work side-by-side with MT The computer is responsible for the software to increase our productivity and mechanical tasks. It applies glossaries, offer top-quality results. grammatical rules, and style options, over (888) 677-4387 which I have full control. As a result, we have a pre-translated text that will be (518) 426-0171 YOU’RE THE TEACHER edited by me before it reaches the client in When I’m not working with PEMT—that a ready-to-publish format. FM is, when I receive a translation request— Are the results I achieve using this Systems my workflow includes pre-translation method always better and quicker than with a client-specific translation memory. translating it the so-called traditional way? www.LandmarkFm.com After making the most of what the No, not always. I mean, it will be, but not

14 The ATA Chronicle | Nov/Dec 2015 www.atanet.org right away, and not without some effort on and then translate the text again. With my part to train the software to do better. time, you’ll notice fewer errors and you’ll Using a stand-alone MT system installed spend less time editing these translations. on your computer requires you to invest In addition to reviewing your material some time before it yields rewarding more quickly, you’ll also be developing results. First, you must create glossary and a new ability as you train the software: fine-tuning rules, as well as rethink your PEMT. That’s definitely one more skill you workflow. Additionally, not all types of can add to your résumé. texts are suitable for software translation. Material that demands more creativity, Computers can only do what such as literature or marketing material, and texts that encompass cultural and humans teach them to do in a interpretive aspects, are usually not good logical and sequential manner. candidates for MT. Technical texts are the ones that yield better results. People who have been working for some time with a specific type of text and, consequently, have specialized in a RESISTANCE IS FUTILE given field and compiled a well-structured When it comes to innovation, our industry glossary, still need to adapt the way terms is passionate about making changes and have been entered into that glossary. becoming more competitive. This same Translators who are used to working with passion must be applied to technology. We CAT tools may have grown accustomed must take action to make the most of what to adding glossary terms without many innovation has to offer. We are a creative restrictions. However, when working species, and we are not easily replaceable. with MT, things tend to operate quite According to John Kelly, senior vice- differently. For example, in Portuguese president of Solutions Portfolio & Research nouns must be added to a glossary in at IBM, “The machines will be more their male, singular form. Verbs must be rational and analytic. People will provide recorded in the infinitive form. Failure judgment, intuition, empathy, a moral to observe these rules will result in a less compass, and…human creativity.”1 than useful text, which will demand more Change is going to happen. More from the translator. companies will try to find people who are Other rules must be set clearly, such as better prepared to deal with innovation. whether the software should use an article PEMT will certainly be yet another before a possessive noun, or if a verb tense innovation you’ll experience in your will change according to the context. How career. Instead of bemoaning it, try to get about the names of buttons on a user ahead of it!  interface? Should they be translated or kept in the original language, perhaps with a NOTES 1 translation in parenthesis? Isaacson, Walter. The Innovators (Simon & You might think, “Well, if I’m going to Schuster, 2014), 486, https://goo.gl/HPWiwN. waste my time micromanaging all that, it’s not worth it!” Well, it is worth it. As William Cassemiro began anything else in life, you must invest time his career as a translator of to achieve good results. technical manuals while still Do you remember a few paragraphs back working at Xerox of Brazil. Prior to when I mentioned that computers can only this, he worked in the electronics do what humans teach them to do? Well, industry for more than 20 years. this means you have to constantly train the After receiving his degree in English>Portuguese software to help it produce results that are literature, with an emphasis on translation, from acceptable. This requires you to start early the University of São Paulo (USP), he attended and remain vigilant. courses in translation specialization at USP and It may sound complicated, but what you the Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo. basically need to do is create a glossary, He serves on the board of directors of the Brazilian translate a text, see what needs to be Translators and Interpreters Association. Contact: adjusted in the glossary and list of rules, [email protected]. www.atanet.org American Translators Association 15 FEATURE BY RUTH GENTES KRAWCZYK

U.S. Social Security program with the comparable programs of other countries. Such agreements are known as totalization agreements. The U.S. currently has agreements with 25 countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Agreements with Hungary and Mexico are pending.1 Totalization agreements improve benefit protection for workers who have divided their careers between the U.S. and other countries. They also eliminate the need for dual Social Security coverage and taxes for multinational companies and expatriate workers. This means that if you work in a country that has an agreement with the U.S., your Social Security coverage will be assigned to either the U.S. or the foreign country, so you and your employer do not have to pay taxes to both.2 Under the terms of these agreements, even if you haven’t lived in the U.S. long enough to accumulate 40 work credits (also referred to as calendar quarters), you may still be eligible for Don’t Leave Money You’re Owed benefit payments from the U.S. system. If you have worked long enough in the on the Table! U.S. to receive payments, don’t forget to mention the other countries where you’ve If you’ve worked in numerous countries and paid into their Social Security systems, lived, worked, and paid into the system when applying for retirement benefits. make sure you get back what you’re entitled to when it comes time to retire. If you’ve paid into the system of one or more of the countries listed above, the f, like me, you’ve worked in a number (10 years) under the U.S. Social Security U.S. system will actually make the initial of countries other than the U.S. and system, I assumed he would only be benefits application for you. If, however, Ipaid into their social security systems, eligible for Medicare (which everybody your country is not one of those listed, then you need to be aware that you may pays into), but not for Social Security you’ll need to pay into both systems if be eligible for retirement benefits from payments. Surprise! We learned that you hope to have the time count in both those countries. Since they won’t seek when the number of years he worked in countries. Then you’ll have to apply to you out, it’s your responsibility to file Germany and the U.K. was combined the appropriate authority of each country a claim for retirement benefits at any with the years he worked in the U.S., when the time comes to retire. Social Security office in the U.S. or the this brought him up to 10 years paying Since my husband and I worked in applicable foreign country. into federal programs, so he qualified for Germany, Switzerland, the U.K., and the A few years ago, it was time for my Social Security benefits in the U.S.! His U.S., I’ll be focusing on these systems. husband to retire from his college job. eligibility was made possible through a However, more than likely, the method He’s British and had worked in the U.K. as totalization agreement. we used to secure our benefits from these a teenager and in Germany (where I met countries will have similarities for other him) as an adult. Plus he had worked in TOTALIZATION AGREEMENTS countries with totalization agreements, the U.S., although mostly under a state- Since the late 1970s, the U.S. has and quite possibly some similarities with sponsored retirement system. Because established a network of bilateral Social those not having totalization agreements he had never collected 40 work credits Security agreements that coordinate the with the U.S.

16 The ATA Chronicle | Nov/Dec 2015 www.atanet.org HOW DOES IT WORK? quarters, or 10 years. Without the time Basically, when you’re eligible to receive he had worked in Germany, he wouldn’t benefits in the U.S., go to your local have qualified for any U.S. benefits other Social Security office and ask to complete than Medicare. But with the totalization a totalization application. Explain to the agreement, the time he worked in clerk that you’ve worked in countries that Germany was added to the time in the have a totalization agreement with the U.S., so it amounted to over 40 quarters. U.S. and would like to take advantage of In my case, I do not have enough years that. They’ll be able to help you fill out in the German system, but I should reach the application. When it comes time to the 60-month requirement easily when include the information about the other my U.S. quarters are applied. countries in which you’ve worked, you’ll What happens after you’ve submitted be asked questions about the specifics of your application under a totalization that work. So, the more information you agreement? Usually, once the U.S. have, the better! application has been submitted, the information will be passed on to the Information on Applying for Totalization agreements improve other countries, and they in turn will get in touch with you to determine your Social Security Benefits benefit protection for workers who eligibility. If you’ve already established Here are some online resources for more your eligibility, this step will go relatively have divided their careers between detailed information on international quickly and you’ll start receiving benefits retirement benefits. the U.S. and other countries. paid into your U.S. bank account before you know it. By this I mean that each “How International Agreements Can Help You” country pays its own liabilities, so it www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10180.pdf does not all end up in the hands of the Social Security International Programs U.S. Social Security Administration. For If you have the equivalent of your and Resources instance, my husband receives three Social Security number for the other www.socialsecurity.gov/international/index.html different payments, two of which fluctuate country’s system, that will be helpful, Social Security Payments Outside depending on the exchange rate. but it’s not absolutely mandatory. Many the United States countries will help you find the number. www.socialsecurity.gov/international/ If, however, you’re living outside the U.S. CAUTION: ONE POTENTIAL payments.html at the time of retirement, go to the office STUMBLING BLOCK U.S. International Social Security Agreements responsible for Social Security benefits The Windfall Elimination Provision www.ssa.gov/international/agreements_ there and they’ll apply for the U.S. Social (WEP) is a provision in U.S. law that overview.html Security benefits you’re owed while also changes the way your U.S. Social Security applying for Social Security in the country benefits are calculated. WEP can reduce Windfall Elimination Provision you’re in. The other country can also use your U.S. retirement or disability benefits www.socialsecurity.gov/pubs/EN-05-10045.pdf your U.S. credits to help you meet the if you receive a pension based on work eligibility requirements for foreign Social for which you did not pay U.S. Social Security benefits. 3 Security taxes on those earnings. This information in this regard. Here are a One of the advantages of totalization may be work for a U.S. government few examples: agreements is that most countries have a agency (as in my husband’s case) or an minimum time you must have paid into employer in another country. Any pension ƒƒ Germany maintains a website for their system in order to receive benefits. you get based on that work may reduce those living outside the country: www. As an example, I can cite my husband’s your Social Security benefits. The Social deutsche-rentenversicherung-bund.de. case as well as my own. If it were not for Security Administration uses a modified ƒƒ In Switzerland it’s www.ch.ch/en/ahv. the totalization agreements, my husband formula to calculate your benefit amount, The general website for those living would only have qualified for benefits resulting in a lower Social Security benefit outside Switzerland is http://bit.ly/Ch- from Germany, as it was only there that than you would receive otherwise. Compensation. Both sites provide a form he had fulfilled the time requirement of for determining the potential benefit in 60 months. (He actually paid into the advance. This can be completed online system for 61 months!) In the U.S., due to HOW TO ESTABLISH ELIGIBILITY and submitted, or you can print it out my husband’s work for a state-sponsored IN ADVANCE and mail it in. retirement system, he had only paid into Each country differs in terms of how you the federal system for just over six years. establish retirement eligibility, but I’ve ƒƒ The website for the U.K. is http://bit.ly/ However, the U.S. requires 40 calendar found the Internet is a treasure trove of pension-retire-abroad. You can also get www.atanet.org American Translators Association 17 DON’T LEAVE MONEY YOU’RE OWED ON THE TABLE! continued

a state pension statement by going to are not the only countries postponing www.gov.uk/state-pension-statement. full retirement age and thus entitlements. Assuming you’re fluent in the language Many countries are also changing laws to make retirement age the same for both memoQ.com of the country where you lived, you should have no problem determining men and women, whereas before women which form applies to you. often could retire earlier. One of the bits of information most governments will want is your old ONE LAST TIP identification number. As our years abroad Many countries believe in a three-pillar were decades ago, this turned out to be the system for retirement. Basically, your hardest part for my husband and me. In Social Security is your first pillar (securing Germany, our health insurance companies a minimum standard of living), and is memoQ 2015 is like driving were able to tell us that number. In the not meant to be your sole income upon ‘‘ your car with a GPS: U.K., there was an online form available retirement. The second pillar is usually you can drive even without it, for investigating one’s National Insurance provided by an employer—a 401(k) or but why would you make your number. To my relief, I actually still had occupational pension. This may be true in life more difficult? ‚‚ my identification card from Switzerland other countries in which you’ve worked that included my number. as well, so don’t forget to enquire about Ágnes Varga, PhD Another interesting distinction between it. (It seems that employer pensions are memoQ Developer countries is the legal retirement age. becoming increasingly uncommon, at For instance, if I was a woman living least in the U.S.) The third pillar (private in Switzerland, I would be eligible to pension) would be something like an retire at 64, while here in the U.S. full annuity or individual retirement account retirement age for me would be 66. That you may have started. You get tax benefits means if I don’t want to miss out on while you’re working for adding funds some of my benefits, I’ll need to apply to these accounts and then later draw on to Switzerland before I apply here in them for the final piece of the retirement the U.S., unless I choose to take early puzzle. If you started something like this retirement. You’re allowed to postpone in another country, you’ll have to check retirement in Switzerland, but you have with the provider to find out how and to let the proper authority know that’s when you can start drawing on that pillar. your intention, or they’ll assume you don’t The bottom line in maximizing your want your money. You won’t be able to retirement benefits is to do your research. receive retroactive benefits. Just don’t leave any of it on the table!  Switzerland has an online calculator for determining your eventual benefit, NOTES but it does require quite a bit of specific 1 www.socialsecurity.gov/international/status.html information. I was able to get that 2 “How International Agreements Can Help information from my former employer, You,” www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10180.pdf. so the calculation was accurate. I also 3 submitted a query by mail, and it Windfall Elimination Provision, www. returned the same result as the online socialsecurity.gov/pubs/EN-05-10045.pdf. calculator. Another curious difference about Switzerland is that it has now ruled Ruth Gentes Krawczyk that Americans who have worked in the has been a professional country for at least one full year do not German>English translator for require credits from the U.S. system to about 20 years. She received her qualify for benefits. Before the system MA in German translation from used to require five years, but now it’s Kent State University in 2000. only one, so this makes applying for She served as both the assistant administrator retirement at the age of 64 possible. and administrator of ATA’s It should be noted that the governments Division (a total of six years). She lived in Germany of the world are in a when it comes and Switzerland for about seven years in the to determining full retirement age. It’s 1980s while polishing her German skills. Her first changing in the U.S., the U.K., Germany, translated work of fiction is due out in January and even in Switzerland. I’m sure these 2016. Contact: [email protected].

18 The ATA Chronicle | Nov/Dec 2015 www.atanet.org DON’T LEAVE MONEY YOU’RE OWED ON THE TABLE! continued FEATURE BY SPENCE GREEN

range of content. For example, the Journal of Experimental Physics of the USSR alone had expanded from 1,500 to 4,500 pages per year during NSF’s program. Beyer enumerated possibilities for handling this information deluge, including MT. He provided an anecdotal evaluation of the latest MT technology, calling the experience a “slave’s eye view”: It seemed like a good idea ... [but] I must confess that the results were most unhappy. I found that I spent at least as much time in editing as if I had carried out the entire translation from the start. Even at that, I doubt if the edited translation reads as smoothly as one which I would have started from scratch ... Someday, perhaps, the machines will make it, but I as a translator do not yet believe that I must throw my monkey wrench into the machinery in order to prevent my technological unemployment.1 It turned out that “someday” was not to come any time soon. In 1966, federal Beyond Post-Editing: Advances in funding for MT research was reduced dramatically, resulting in an “MT winter” Interactive Translation Environments that lasted about 20 years.

Here are a few new approaches regarding the future of machine translation 1990s: DO STATISTICS IMPROVE that go beyond post-editing, along with some practical tools in interactive and POST-EDITING? In 1993, Ken Church and Ed Hovy, then adaptive translation technology. at AT&T Bell Labs, wrote a widely cited paper with the provocative title “Good ost-editing was never meant to be Brown University, described his experience Applications for Crummy Machine the future of machine translation post-editing a scientific paper from Translation.”2 Statistical MT had been (MT). For researchers seeking fully P Russian into English. He was participating invented in the late 1980s, superseding automatic translation, post-editing is in a National Science Foundation the rule-based systems of the 1960s. considered more of a failure mode. For (NSF) program started in 1955 for the Commercial MT systems had been human translators, it often forces the user purpose of translating Soviet physics successful in narrow domains such as to correct erroneous output. But translation journals. Ten years later, the program translating weather forecasts (e.g., the memory (TM), which is essentially a was generating 15,000 pages annually at METEO system used at Environment deterministic MT system augmented a cost of $500,000, which was covered Canada from 1982 until 2001), but the with heuristics, is not the future either. through subscriptions. It was a popular state-of-the-art was still “crummy.” So what should we expect? Is the current and necessary program. For example, Instead of continuing the interminable post-editing technology our best hope? Beyer observed that Sputnik was not an quest for general-purpose MT, Church To help answer these questions, let’s begin instantaneous achievement, but it had been and Hovy argued, why not identify more with a short history of post-editing before “foreshadowed in their [Russian] literature, “high-payoff” niche applications for MT? delving into more recent developments in but this was largely unknown in the West.” A good niche application would have machine-assisted translation technology. Beyer noted that a language barrier, as even several characteristics, among them the tourist knows, is an effective way of attractiveness to intended users. 1960s: FIRST EXPERIENCES discussing secrets in plain view. Church and Hovy stated that post- WITH POST-EDITING The problem was how to broaden NSF’s editing “would appear to be a natural way In the January 1965 issue of Physics Today, program to other languages and other to get value out of a state-of-the-art MT Robert Beyer, a professor of physics at academic fields to cover an ever-growing system … unfortunately, the application

www.atanet.org American Translators Association 19 BEYOND POST-EDITING continued fails to meet most of the desiderata” for a to undo the suggestion. Also, most MT commercialized as MateCat, is probably niche application. They explained that MT systems do not learn, so mistakes are known to the professional translation had also failed “to gain much acceptance repeated. Translation memories (TM), community. The major innovations among the intended target audience of despite being an antiquated technology, illustrated by these systems are: professional translators because post- do not make these mistakes, perhaps ƒƒ Predictive typing for dynamic completions editing turns out to be an extremely explaining their continued popularity. of partial translations as the user types. boring, tedious, and unrewarding chore.” Church and Hovy suggested that post- TRANSLATION AS HUMAN-MACHINE ƒƒ Model adaptation, in which the MT editing could be more attractive “if the INTERACTION system adds words and phrases for user interface were made more flexible confirmed translations. The shortcomings of post-editing were and user-friendly.” However, the best recognized as early as the late 1960s, ƒƒ Confidence measures for suggested applications for MT would be those in when Martin Kay, the pioneering words and phrases. which quality could be traded for speed, computational linguist, began to envision convenience, or cost. This turned out to ƒƒ Advanced interaction with and interactive translation systems. In his be a prescient suggestion, considering that visualization of source-target word landmark 1980 position paper, Kay the highest-impact application of Google alignments, translation alternatives, and suggested the following approach to Translate and Translator is fast source coverage. machine-assisted translation: and free cross-lingual web browsing. I want to advocate a view of the TransType problem in which machines are PRESENT DAY: POST-EDITING TransType (and its successor TransType2) gradually, almost imperceptibly, was the first interactive system based INTEGRATED INTO CAT TOOLS allowed to take over certain functions 6 In the 22 years since Church and Hovy in the overall translation process. on modern statistical MT. Funded by made their suggestions, MT systems First they will take over functions not the Natural Sciences and Engineering have been integrated into every major essentially related to translation. Then, Research Council of Canada in 1997, the computer-assisted translation (CAT) tool. little by little, they will approach development of TransType was motivated However, the basic experience remains as translation itself. The keynote will by the need for faster translation of unimaginative as ever: users are presented be modesty. At each stage, we will Canadian government proceedings, which with a pre-populated, mutable text box. do only what we know we can do by law had to be published in French Are translators more receptive to MT reliably. Little steps for little feet!4 and English. The principal innovation today? A 2015 paper by Joss Moorkens was a dynamic autocomplete box that In Kay’s scheme, the machine always and Sharon O’Brien, both researchers defers to the human. The human remains appeared in the text editor. (See Figure 1 at the Center for Next-Generation in control; the machine is subservient. on page 21.) Since the machine based its Localization at Dublin City University, Standard post-editing interfaces err suggestions on human input, this mode compared professional and novice by inverting these roles, strongly came to be called human-centered MT. translators’ use of post-editing along encouraging the human to correct the The autocomplete box could display three dimensions: throughput, number mistakes created by the machine. both character-level and word-level of edits, and attitude.3 They found that Interactive MT has historically been completions. TransType presaged Trados professionals tended to be faster at post- a peripheral research topic—the MT AutoSuggest, which appeared in Studio editing even with more edits per segment. community is more interested in fully 2009, by a decade. Nevertheless, Moorkens and O’Brien were automatic translation—but there has The implementation details of the pessimistic about the results of their study. been a surge of recent interest. Now that autocomplete feature are significant. Users Only one of nine professionals surveyed even basic post-editing has been shown of Google Translate might not know that rated the experience positively (three were to increase throughput, researchers are MT systems can generate very long lists neutral and five negative). The reasons attempting to integrate MT more deeply given for the lackluster rating were “lack of alternative translations that include into CAT environments.5 The research of creativity, tediousness of the task, [and] differences in vocabulary, word order, prototypes that have been built will likely limited opportunity to create quality.” and length. After TransType filtered its list predict the future of commercial CAT tools. Fifty years of MT technology according to the user’s partial translation, development has not made a plenty of alternatives often remained. fundamentally tedious task less tedious. RECENT PROTOTYPE INTERACTIVE Contrast this design with modern CAT One reason may be that the standard MT SYSTEMS tools, which cull a few alternatives from post-editing interface violates several basic Three significant interactive MT TM matches or single-best translations precepts of human-computer interaction systems have been built over the past from Google Translate. This diminishes (HCI) design. For example, if the MT decade: TransType, CasmaCat, and the value of autocomplete, as the system proposes a bad translation, the Predictive Translation Memory (PTM). translator is likely to diverge from this standard interface requires the translator Only CasmaCat, which has been short list of alternatives.

20 The ATA Chronicle | Nov/Dec 2015 www.atanet.org phrases, and statistics from the new sentence pair. The system can then provide exact and even sub-segment matches for future input.

Predictive Translation Memory/Lilt Predictive Translation Memory (PTM) was an interactive MT system developed at Stanford University in 2012.9 The system was organized according to the principles of mixed-initiative design, an HCI term for collaborative human-machine interfaces. The shortcomings of post- editing, such as “graceful degradation” and “learning by observing,” were addressed explicitly in the design of both the interface and the statistical MT system that provided suggestions. PTM demonstrated several new interface concepts, among them minimizing the distance between source and target segments (via an interleaved layout), reordering of target words and phrases via FIGURE 1: The TransType2 interface. The autocomplete box provides variable length suggestions that are keyboard interaction, and dynamic shading selected based on a model of user utility. of translated source words. These functions were supported by a statistical MT backend CasmaCat/MateCat largely invisible to the human user. The system that could regenerate suggestions CasmaCat was developed by a consortium system generates very long lists of at typing speed based on the user’s of European universities starting in 2011.7 alternatives so that the autocomplete partial translation. PTM was evaluated The research program was designed to predictions are more robust for user for English>German and French>English improve upon TransType, which had editing. Moreover, when the user confirms translation by 32 professional translators. yielded disappointing productivity results a segment by pressing the “Translated” It was the first interactive MT system in user studies. In addition, a central goal button, the MT system extracts words, to show a measurable throughput of CasmaCat was to develop adaptive MT so that the system could improve with use. Repeat mistakes after human correction were a common criticism of TransType.8 Figure 2 shows the CasmaCat interface, which should be familiar to users of MateCat, the commercial counterpart. Documents are arranged in a two-column view similar to TransType. For the current segment, the source text appears on the left and the target text entry box on the right. As shown in Figure 2, the user has partially entered a translation (black text), and an MT system (in this case, Moses) has predicted a completion. Color encodes a confidence score for each suggested word. Suggestions from additional sources, such as TM and Google Translate, are shown below the main editing area. The considerable MT innovations FIGURE 2: The CasmaCat system, which uses the same basic user interface as MateCat, but with advanced supporting the CasmaCat interface are interaction and visualization features. www.atanet.org American Translators Association 21 BEYOND POST-EDITING continued

4 Kay, Martin. “The Proper Place of Men and Machines in Language Translation,” Technical Report CSL-80-11 (Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, 1980), bit.ly/Kay-Martin. 5 Guerberof, Ana. “Productivity and Quality in the Post-Editing of Outputs from Translation Memories and Machine Translation,” International Journal of Localization (volume 7, 2009), 11–21, bit.ly/Guerberof. See also: Plitt, Mirko, and François Masselot. “A Productivity Test of Statistical Machine Translation Post-Editing in a Typical Localization Context,” The Prague Bulletin of Mathematical Linguistics (January 2010), 7–16, bit.ly/Plitt-Masselot. 6 Casacuberta, Francisco, Jorge Civera, Elsa Cubel, Antonio Lagarda, Guy Lapalme, Elliott Macklovitch, and Enrique Vidal. “Human Interaction for High-Quality Machine Translation,” Communications of the ACM (Association for Computing Machinery, October 2009), 135–138, bit.ly/ACM-machine. 7 Sanchis-Trilles, Germán, Vicent Alabau, FIGURE 3: The Lilt translation editor, which is based on the Predictive Translation Memory prototype Christian Buck, Michael Carl, Francisco developed at Stanford University. Casacuberta, Mercedes García-Martínez, et al. “Interactive Translation Prediction versus improvement relative to both post-edit implementing it have only begun to appear Conventional Post-Editing in Practice: and scratch translation. recently. SDL has announced an adaptive A Study with the CasMaCat Workbench,” Machine Translation (November 2014), The next version of PTM is a MT product—XTM—that will likely bring 1–19, bit.ly/Sanchis-Trilles. commercial product called Lilt. Figure a deeper level of MT integration to Trados. 8 3 shows the interface, which features The interactive extensions of CasmaCat Macklovitch, Elliott. “TransType2: interleaved layout, predictive typing might soon appear in its commercial The Last Word,” Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Languages with suggestions from both MT and counterpart, MateCat. Lilt is building a Resources and Evaluation (May 2006), subsegment-level TM, and system commercial version of PTM that will be bit.ly/Macklovitch. adaptation. In the text area shown in available by the time you read this article. 9 Green, Spence, Jason Chuang, Jeffrey Figure 3, the user’s partial translation is in Perhaps now is the time for translators Heer, and Christopher D. Manning. who were put off by past experiences black, and the system’s best prediction is “Predictive Translation Memory: A Mixed- with MT to consider giving the more just below the text area. At the right is a Initiative System for Human-Language dictionary/concordance that exposes the interactive integrations of the technology Translation” (Association for Computing millions of sentence pairs used to train another look.  Machinery Symposium on User Interface the MT system. The user can interactively Software and Technology, 2014), explore the parallel entries from which NOTES bit.ly/Green-predictive. 1 Beyer, Robert T. “Hurdling the Language both MT and TM derive their suggestions. 10 Zetzsche, Jost. “Where Are We Headed?” Barrier,” Physics Today (volume 18, 1965), The ATA Chronicle (July 2015), 32, 46-52, bit.ly/Beyer-1965. http://bit.ly/GeekSpeak-July. WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? 2 Church, K. W., and E. Hovy. “Good Applications Neither post-editing nor TM are the future for Crummy Machine Translation,” Machine of machine-assisted translation. In his July Translation (volume 8, 1993), 239–258, Spence Green is a co-founder “Geekspeak” column in this magazine, Jost bit.ly/Church-machine. of Lilt, a provider of interactive Zetzsche called for “deeper and different 3 Moorkens, Joss, and Sharon O’Brien. translation systems. He has a integration of machine translation into “Post-Editing Evaluations: Tradeoffs PhD in computer science from 10 our translation environments.” We have between Novice and Professional Stanford University and a BS in seen that this proposal dates to at least Participants” (Dublin City University, computer engineering from the the late 1960s, but commercial systems 2015), http://bit.ly/moorkens. University of Virginia. Contact: [email protected].

22 The ATA Chronicle | Nov/Dec 2015 www.atanet.org FEATURE BY ALEXANDER C. GANSMEIER

peripheral, it would have made the job indefinitely more arduous. As it worked out, I was typing away in no time using a nifty bluetooth keyboard, which barely added any heft to the already thin tablet. In terms of software, you have many great choices available. Not only does Google provide excellent Office programs such as Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides, but Microsoft offers its entire MS Office suite as free apps. (In my case, this helped make the transition less jarring than I feared.) Add to that the fact that I am using an Android smartphone, and I’ve got myself a system that really gels and just works.

ACCESSIBILITY For interpreters, one of the upsides to tablets versus traditional laptops is that they have excellent battery life and no boot-up time. What I like most about working with a tablet, however, is how small, light, and portable it is. I just pop it into my bag and I’m good to go. Necessary accessories like the charger and USB cables can stay in my bag without being a hassle, since they are the size of a regular phone charger. Frankly, the tablet Switching from a Laptop to a Tablet: and the peripherals are so light that I have started bringing them everywhere and only take them out at home to charge my An Interpreter’s Experience tablet or transfer files. Of course, the best device wouldn’t be Replacing your laptop with a tablet might seem like a daunting prospect for any good if you couldn’t use or access the files you need. Luckily, there are many many interpreters. Here’s how it can work and what it can do for you! ways to get the necessary documents onto your Android tablet. From Cloud n a fateful day in April 2015, my formatting, write invoices, draft quotes, services to Bluetooth file transfers, regular trusty Windows laptop of two years or when I had a full day of interpreting downloads, or USB On The Go (USB-otg), Odecided to end our relationship with in the booth. With my laptop out of the getting that PowerPoint or the agenda a clean break—it literally broke apart. picture and no replacement in sight, I was for your next conference on your device With my laptop away for repair, which my finally ready to make the jump and go “all couldn’t be easier. (I use Google Drive service provider informed me would take tablet, all the time.” since it integrates with the rest of my roughly one and a half months, I wondered workflow seamlessly.) how I would go about my daily business. GETTING STARTED What I enjoyed quite a bit once I really Luckily, I had my Nexus 9 Android I discovered quickly that having a proper started working with the tablet full- tablet handy and thought that this would physical keyboard for the tablet was time was that it drove me to think more be a good chance to do something I’d essential if I wanted to use it as my daily “mobile.” The use of Cloud technology been considering for a while: switching driver. Things might not have gone so made my work life that much more daily operations, as well as my “booth smoothly if all I had was the nine-inch flexible, and having my files available companion,” over to a tablet. touch screen on which to type. While at all times proved to be handy in many I had already used the tablet for the hacking away at articles (the one you’re instances. Drafting a conference quote occasional odd job, but I would always reading included), answering e-mail, while I’m out at a café? No problem. schlepp my Ultrabook with me whenever creating quotes, or prepping my glossaries Resending that invoice from last week? I had to do some heavy document is certainly possible without the keyboard Absolutely. How about sharing some

www.atanet.org American Translators Association 23 SWITCHING FROM A LAPTOP TO A TABLET continued notes from that workshop the other day? on it together was a breeze. Once we add the translation to your glossary— In a heartbeat. received material from our client, I simply again, visible in real time. sent an invitation link to a shared Cloud 3. Since all of the terms are already STREAMLINING THE WORKFLOW folder to our colleagues, which gave in your glossary, you only need to Whether I’m jotting down thoughts for everyone instant access to the conference delete the notes you no longer need articles and presentations on Evernote documents. The shared folder updated from the glossary post-conference and sharing them with colleagues, automatically every time we uploaded a and you’ll have a perfect glossary attending webinars for my professional new file, which was definitely an added with information straight from “the development on GoToMeeting, or benefit. Using a file sharing system meant trenches” all set to go for the next managing my travel plans automatically that it was no longer necessary to send assignment. Your colleague also has an e-mail notification every time we on TripIt, there’s very little that can’t be access to the same glossary, which received a new presentation. This feature done efficiently on a tablet. ensures terminological consistency the is especially pleasant, considering the It's also easier than ever to coordinate next time you work for this client. It’s barrage of e-mail we all seem to receive all and collaborate with colleagues. For no longer necessary to send separate day, every day. instance, when a colleague and I organized glossaries back and forth and piece a large conference recently that required them together after every job. four booths, we used ToDoist to set up and For interpreters, one of the upsides Granted, there are many other apps manage the project, distribute tasks, set and programs available for terminology deadlines, and log our progress. The app to tablets versus traditional management, both on PC, Mac, and mobile features automatic updates, so it was easy laptops is that they have excellent devices. From InterpreterBank to Interplex to keep track of what needed to be done. HD, Interpreter’s Help, and many more, Creating a shared glossary to ensure battery life and no boot-up time. there’s no shortage of viable candidates. improved terminological consistency However, I have yet to find one solution across all languages in Sheets and working that works well across all platforms and operating systems while also enabling real- Finally, a couple of days before the time glossary teamwork. For this reason, conference we all just popped into a I’m sticking with Google Sheets as my go- Google Hangouts video conference and to glossary solution—for now. GROW. ENGAGE. had a quick last-minute pre-conference The best part about this approach— group pow-wow to go over the final besides added flexibility and streamlined TRANSFORM. details and iron out any last kinks. workflow—is that the majority of these apps or programs are also available for Your goals: our passion. and work seamlessly on mobile devices, MANAGING YOUR TERMINOLOGY as dedicated desktop applications, web Once in the booth, my partner and I apps, or browser extensions. Intrigued? To continued using our glossary in Sheets. find out how easy these apps are to use, This approach has three distinctive simply pick up your device of choice and Training and Resources for advantages: try them out on whatever system you’re THE PROFESSIONAL INTERPRETER. 1. When taking notes to support your using. The entry barrier is very low. booth partner, typing is easier, much It was, however, only my move to Medical, community and “tablet only” that got me into the habit general interpreting faster, and infinitely more legible than writing notes by hand, particularly of using apps more heavily and really COMMIT TO EXCELLENCE. if you have handwriting like mine. integrating them into my workflow. In We’ll get you there. When a speaker rattled off a list of turn, many colleagues who have worked attendees or provided an overview of with me and observed my methods have “converted” to using some of these apps a new product portfolio, the person and programs themselves. None of them not interpreting would take notes in have looked back since. our shared document, which would be Of course, I can’t write an article about visible to each of us in real time. the use of Cloud technology without 2. Sheets also helps when you just can’t mentioning data privacy and security. think of that one pesky term that’s been This is exactly why file encryption is escaping you for the past five minutes. something that absolutely needs to be In this case, you simply type the taken into consideration when working Tel: +1 410-312-5599 www.thecommunityinterpreter.com word you don’t know into the shared with sensitive data. And, it should go document and your colleague can without saying that backing up your data

24 The ATA Chronicle | Nov/Dec 2015 www.atanet.org regularly is an absolute must. (See the list at the end of this article for information APPS AND SOFTWARE BACKUP AND ENCRYPTION on storage an encryption options.) Evernote Acronis Backup & Recovery https://evernote.com www.acronis.com/enterprise DO WHAT WORKS FOR YOU When my laptop eventually came back Google Drive EMC Retrospect from the shop, at first I didn’t even really www.google.com/drive www.retrospect.com know what to do with it anymore. Now I’ve gotten so used to operating only with Google Hangouts Encryption GPG4Win my tablet that virtually the only things https://hangouts.google.com (PGP for Windows) I do on my laptop are really heavy-duty www.gpg4win.org document formatting, my taxes, and the Google Sheets odd translation. http://bit.ly/Google-sheets Mozy http://mozy.com/home InterpreterBank The use of Cloud technology www.interpretbank.de Norton Ghost www.symantec.com/norton/ghost made my work life that much Interpreter’s Help more flexible, and having my files https://interpretershelp.com/boothmate PGP for Mac http://macgpg.sourceforge.net available at all times proved to Online (Free Apps) www.office.com Remote Backup Carbonite be handy in many instances. www.carbonite.com ToDoist https://en.todoist.com CLOUD-BASED APPLICATIONS For those who are thinking of switching USB On The Go AND SERVICES to a tablet full-time, I’ll just say that using (what it is and how to use it) new technology is like being on social http://bit.ly/USB-OTG Box media. It might be for you, it might not, (USB OTG is a standard that enables devices www.box.com but either way you should only do what to talk to one another. For example, instead of Dropbox feels comfortable and enhances and connecting to a PC to transfer files, USB OTG www.dropbox.com improves your work, instead of being enables devices to connect directly and swap work itself. Bringing new technology files. For example, instead of sending your Google Drive into your life just for the sake of it rarely photos to your printer via your PC, you can use https://drive.google.com presents a benefit. If you’ve been toying USB-OTG to connect directly to the printer.) with the idea of replacing your laptop iCloud with something more portable, now might www.icloud.com be the time to take the plunge to see if working exclusively on a tablet is right for SkyDrive you. I promise you won’t regret it!  https://skydrive.live.com

SugarSync Alexander C. Gansmeier is a www.sugarsync.com freelance German<>English conference interpreter in Wordbee Munich, Germany. He has a www.wordbee.com master’s degree in conference interpreting from the University XTM Cloud of Central Lancashire (U.K.). He serves on the www.xtm-intl.com/xtmcloud board of various professional organizations, including the German Association of Conference Interpreters and the U.K.’s Institute of Translation and Interpreting. His specializations include dermatology, automotive technology, software, and information technology, as well as smartphone, tablet, and computer technology. Contact: [email protected]. www.atanet.org American Translators Association 25 THE ENTREPRENEURIAL LINGUIST BY JUDY JENNER Mistake of the Year

ecause few things are as fun as poking fun at myself, I wanted to share my Bmost horrifying interpreting error of the year, which actually had nothing to do with interpreting, and everything to do with protocol. Just like all translators and interpreters do, I make mistakes, but I do try to go to great lengths to avoid making the same one twice. I am quite certain I won’t be making this one again. A few months ago, Dagmar, my twin sister and business partner, had the unique opportunity to interpret at the meeting of a large international organization, and I was to be the backup interpreter. Even though I would only be interpreting briefly, I was very excited about the possibility, as this was to be the most prestigious event at which I had ever worked. The setting in Vienna’s regal Imperial Palace (Hofburg) was amazing, and the permanent booths were top-notch. They even included extra seating, a foyer, and plenty of space to spread out. As a U.S.-based interpreter, I’m usually very delighted to see us. I thought—don’t ask This is when I realized my error and was impressed by anything resembling a me why—that this lovely gentleman was completely mortified. permanent booth. the colleague from the Spanish booth, However, the ambassador didn’t miss a We checked out the other booths, since no one else ever ventures up to the beat, didn’t take offense, and just chatted which were located on the third floor high floor where the booths are located. away. I did recover enough to apologize, above the stage, to meet our colleagues I immediately started in with some very to thank him for coming upstairs and from the Spanish and Russian booths, casual small talk, and yes, I addressed for hiring us (yes, he hired us!), and to but no one was there, so we reviewed him informally. As if I knew him. As if we exchange some other pleasantries. So yes, our material and got ready for the big were colleagues. As opposed to English, I committed a pretty big faux pas at a high moment. I was a bit nervous, but that’s in Spanish we have two pronouns, the diplomatic level, and I lived to tell about to be expected. I think it was tennis great formal usted and the informal tú (which I it. It’s a nice reminder that people at the John McEnroe (known for his skills, not used). Among colleagues, we usually use top can be very kind and forgiving, and his even temper) who said that not being the latter. In case you’re wondering, here’s I’m grateful for it. My lesson for next time at least a little bit nervous means you what I said, verbatim: “¿Cómo estás? Me da probably don’t care enough, which is a is when in doubt, err on the side of being mil gusto conocerte.” (Basically the Spanish good point. However, we both felt quite too formal.  equivalent of “Hi! How’s it going?”) Ouch, ready and prepared, as we’d spent a lot ouch, ouch. of time reviewing pertinent material and is a court-certified The problem here was that this Judy Jenner preparing for the tricky subject matter. Spanish interpreter and a Spanish gentleman wasn’t a fellow interpreter, but Showtime was just about 15 minutes and German translator based in away, and we were ready to go. The water the ambassador to Austria from a South Las Vegas, Nevada, where she had been poured into our glasses, the American country. Dagmar had the good runs Twin Translations with her pencils had been sharpened, the audio fortune of getting a glimpse of his badge, twin sister. She is a past president had been tested, and we had done our which had been facing away from me, of the Nevada Interpreters and Translators Association. warm-up vocal exercises. and recognized the name. (Research pays She hosts the translation blog, Translation Times After we sat down, a distinguished off, as the badge didn’t say “ambassador.”) (www.translationtimes.blogspot.com). You can also looking gentleman walked in, extended She immediately greeted the ambassador find her at www.entrepreneuriallinguist.com. Contact: his hand (without introducing himself), with something appropriate along the [email protected] or judy.jenner@ smiled, and said (in Spanish) that he was lines of “Good morning, Your Excellency.” entrepreneuriallinguist.com.

26 The ATA Chronicle | Nov/Dec 2015 www.atanet.org INTERPRETERS FORUM BY EWANDRO MAGALHÃES Transcending the Legacy of Jerome

erome, the illustrious theologian and parameters, fuels a peculiar and vicious linguist we celebrate as the patron cycle where interpreters often gauge their Jsaint of translators, may have been performance relative to that of their booth canonized after his death, but while he mates. In such circumstances, criticism trudged the earth his temper was rather becomes the tool of choice for an instant unsaintly. His knack for languages was ego boost. Pushing others down is the rivaled only by a talent for attracting quickest way to feel good about ourselves, trouble and making adversaries, often creating an easy platform on which to going several rounds with them regarding stand tall. religious and linguistic issues. It doesn’t help when one considers His story is documented in the prolific that the noble craft of simultaneous correspondence he maintained with interpreting came to the fore in the other elite thinkers of his time. Among wake of World War II, on a continent the recipients of his missives were devastated by the banalization of violence. Saint Augustine, Popes Damasus and So widespread and unprecedented had Epiphanius, and Jerome’s longtime friend, been the nature and reach of the atrocities the Roman Senator Pammachius. perpetrated that a new word had to be To the latter he addressed one particular minted to qualify them: genocide. epistle that would be eternalized as the Despite the mounting empirical Magna Carta for translators.1 In the evidence and the unflattering historical text, Jerome defends himself from the roots for such belligerent disposition, affronts of another reputable translator, the animosity experienced and spread Tyrannius Rufinus, who accused him of by Jerome, and the ripples it might have infidelity in rendering into Latin a letter St. Jerome in His Study (1480), sent across time, need not be replicated from Pope Epiphanius to Bishop John. by Domenico Ghirlandaio. ad infinitum in our stuffy glassy booths or Given the Pope’s reputation and the purity among our peers. Peace can and should of his style, that letter was “wanted in Sixteen centuries later, not be restored. In fact, it is long overdue. all of Palestine, by the ignorant and the Now, talking about peace is tricky, educated alike.”2 everything has changed. and it doesn’t take much to come off The translation in question had been Criticism and translation as righteous, pompous, or silly. It all commissioned by Eusebio de Cremona, sounds grand and out of reach. Yet, the “a man of no small estimation,” yet continue to walk hand in hand. type of peace we’re aiming for here— unacquainted with the . collegiality—is easy enough to reinstate. At his special request, Jerome acquiesced All it takes is an iota of self-awareness and to “simplifying the argument” to make it an extra vigilant disposition. To try and more readily intelligible, and delivered and style. It is the ultimate affirmation of make it less abstract, here are five small the translation with the disclaimer that Jerome’s erudition and competence as a steps you can take to start transcending it be kept private. A year and a half later, translator and a vehement defense of good Jerome’s toxic legacy: Jerome’s detractors, allegedly incited by translating, which, he argues, must “render 1. Focus on the positive. Look for and Rufinus, managed to usurp the text and sense for sense, not word for word.” It also praise the types of behavior you’d like publicize it as a display of the translator’s sheds light on the ubiquitous criticism, to see more of. What we concentrate neglect or mischief. spite, resentment, and other inimical on grows. The Letter to Senator Pammachius feelings shared by Jerome’s peers, which he was a passionate legal defense. An irate seldom failed to reciprocate. 2. Pay it forward. Pave the way for more Jerome distills his anger through a series Sixteen centuries later, not everything positivity by being the first to offer of examples to emphasize that even the has changed. Criticism and translation encouragement and compliments. Do prophets and evangelists did at times continue to walk hand in hand. Online so unconditionally as well as sincerely. detach from a literal interpretation of and off, within the interpreting booth 3. Make no excuses. We all have the scriptures. This allowed for stylistic or beyond its confines, critics abound bad days. Own your occasional adaptations that, although foreign, never and supporters are hard to come by. In shortcomings. Offer no justification compromised or belittled the sincerity of interpreting, particularly, this chronic and don’t look for consolation in their purpose. The Letter to Pammachius lack of constructive feedback, coupled somebody else’s actual or projected stands out for the richness of its content with an absence of objective assessment poor performance. Review the www.atanet.org American Translators Association 27 INTERPRETERS FORUM continued

Peace can and should be restored. through way before us. As to anything else, don’t get involved. Leave it for Jerome and In fact, it is long overdue. Rufinus to settle in eternity. 

NOTES 1 “To Pammachius on the Best Method of experience honestly in search of Translating,” http://bit.ly/Pammachius. pointers as to what might have tripped 2 you up. Then fix those errors. “From Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis, in Cyprus, to John, Bishop of Jerusalem,” 4. Shrug it off. If a frustrated colleague http://bit.ly/1VvkWc9. finds fault with you or criticizes your performance, take the high road. If there is any truth to what they’re Ewandro Magalhães is an saying, consider Step 3 above, and experienced conference thank him or her. interpreter and interpreter trainer. He has a master’s degree in 5. Cut yourself some slack. Interpreting is, Detail of a painting of Senator Pammachius above conference interpretation from by design, an imprecise exercise. In our a side altar in the Basilica of Saints John and Paul, the Middlebury Institute of business, perfection is not only elusive Rome. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia Commons. International Studies at Monterey. He is the head of but outright unattainable. Do your best conference management service, and former chief and forget the rest. By acknowledging certainly warrant you a better experience interpreter, at the International Telecommunication and accepting your own limitations you in the here-and-now. Union in Geneva, Switzerland. He is the author of become more tolerant toward others. As for Jerome, learn to love him for his Sua Majestade, o Intérprete—o fascinante mundo Adhering to the steps above will not invaluable contribution to our craft and da tradução simultânea (Parábola Editorial). make you a saint in the afterlife, but it will for thinking some of the hard problems You can read his blog at ewandro.com.

Statement of Ownership, Management, and Circulation Date of filing: September 30, 2015 D. Free or Nominal Rate Distribution (By Mail and Outside the Mail) *C1 **C2 Title of Publication: The ATA Chronicle 1. Free or Nominal Rate Outside-County Copies Included 0 0 Frequency of Issues: Bimonthly on PS Form 3541 No. of Issues Published Annually: 6 issues 2. Free or Nominal Rate In-County Copies Included on PS Form 3541 0 0 Annual Subscription Price: $65 3. Free or Nominal Rate Copies Mailed at Other Classes 64 38 Through the USPS (e.g., First-Class Mail) Location and Office of Publication: American Translators Association 4. Free or Nominal Rate Distribution Outside the Mail 147 55 225 Reinekers Lane, Suite 590, Alexandria, VA 22314 (Carriers or Other Means) Complete Mailing Address of Headquarters: Same as above E. Total Free or Nominal Rate Distribution [Sum of 15d (1), (2), (3), and (4)] 211 93 Names and Address of Editor and Publisher: F. Total Distribution (Sum of 15c and 15e) 7,002 6,556 Editor—Jeff Sanfacon, address same as above Publisher—Walter Bacak, address same as above G. Copies Not Distributed 188 344 Known bondholders, mortgages, and other security holders H. Total (Sum of 15f and g) 7,190 6,900 owning 1 percent or more of total amount of bonds, mortgages, I. Percent Paid (15c divided by 15f times 100) 97.0% 98.6% or other securities: N/A 16. A. Paid Electronic Copies 3,134 3,671 Issue Date for Circulation Data Below: September 23, 2015 B. Total Paid Print Copies (Line 15c) + Publication Name: The ATA Chronicle Paid Electronic Copies (Line 16a) 9,925 10,134 15. Extent and Nature of Circulation *C1 **C2 C. Total Print Distribution (Line 15f) + A. Total No. of Copies (Net press run) 7,190 6,900 Paid Electronic Copies (Line 16a) 10,136 10,227 B. Paid Circulation (By Mail and Outside the Mail) D. Percent Paid (Both Print & Electronic Copies) (16b divided by 16c x 100) 97.9% 99.1% 1. Mailed Outside-County Paid Subscriptions Stated on PS Form 3541 (Include paid distribution above nominal rate, I certify that 50% of all my distributed copies (electronic and print) are paid above a advertiser’s proof copies, and exchange copies) 6,113 5,919 nominal price. 2. Mailed In-County Paid Subscriptions Stated on I certify that all information furnished on this form is true and complete. PS Form 3541 (Include paid distribution above (Signed) Walter Bacak, Publisher and Executive Director nominal rate, advertiser’s proof, and exchange copies) 0 0 3. Paid Distribution Outside the Mail Including Sales Through Dealers and Carriers, Street Vendors, Counter Sales, and Other Paid Distribution Outside USPS® 678 544 *C1: Average No. of Copies Each Issue During Preceding 12 Months 4. Paid Distribution by Other Classes of Mail Through the USPS **C2: Second Column: No. of Copies of Single Issue Published Nearest to Filing Date (e.g., First-Class Mail®) 0 0 C. Total Paid Distribution [Sum of 15b (1), (2), (3), and (4)] 6,791 6,463

28 The ATA Chronicle | Nov/Dec 2015 www.atanet.org INTERPRETERS FORUM continued TECHTALK BY KEVIN LOSSNER Speech Recognition to Go

epetitive stress injuries have a correctly and may even sound plausible in long history in medical literature. the context in which they appear, careful RThe first known report of this attention to source-text correspondence condition appeared more than 300 years is often necessary during final review. In ago, written by Bernardino Ramazzini, English, the speech recognition engine an Italian physician who described the I use has an annoying tendency to suffering of clerks and industrial workers.1 confuse definite and indefinite articles. Today, these cumulative trauma conditions Recognition quality is generally best if account for about a third of workers’ you speak entire phrases, clauses, or even compensation cases in the United States.2 sentences. I find that casting a relaxed eye Many translators, writers, and editors are on the phrase or sentence immediately all too familiar with the consequences of after it is transcribed is the most effective long sessions with keyboards and devices way to catch my “dictos” (some of which such as trackballs and computer mice. can be quite entertaining). In the past two decades, speech Claims of improved working speed are recognition technology, which originated at real. (I know colleagues who produce Bell Labs in the early 1950s with a system in excess of 10,000 words per day of for single-speaker digit recognition, has reasonable translation work with the evolved into a technology that helps people help of speech recognition.) I’ve also avoid such injuries. Speech recognition relied on speech recognition when facing also offers significant working advantages tight deadlines. However, the real value to those who spend much of their time for me is that I can work with greater composing on computers. The following The real action for speech recognition concentration, consider what I want to say offers an overview of developments in this with less distraction, and produce a better area, including some of the most popular now is with mobile devices. text. Given the improved quality of my software options. texts composed with the help of speech recognition, using it would be worthwhile WHAT’S AVAILABLE? even if it slowed me down a bit, but iOS, and Swype + Dragon Dictation for fortunately that has not been the case. In my opinion, Nuance3 provides some Android. These offer many possibilities for of the highest quality, best known translators and interpreters. commercial speech recognition solutions ARE THERE OTHER OPTIONS BESIDES currently available. These solutions have DRAGON NATURALLYSPEAKING? BUT DOES IT REALLY WORK? formed the basis for voicemail recognition After I moved to Portugal two years ago, Although I suffer from painful carpal applications from Cisco, Apple’s Siri, and I saw the disadvantage of colleagues other popular platforms. The solution tunnel syndrome for which speech working into Portuguese without the best known to desktop computer users recognition technology offers relief, I speech recognition solutions I enjoy is Dragon NaturallySpeaking (DNS), became a “true believer” only after I for English and German. Initially, which is currently available for seven discovered how much more relaxed I am we thought that there weren’t any languages in DNS version 13. But the when I “write” by speaking and have my commercial options for Portuguese real action for speech recognition is now hands free to touch my computer screen available. But early this year, when with mobile devices. For these, Nuance and use my fingers to mark points of David Hardisty at the Universidade Nova offers high-quality speech recognition for reference for untangling particularly long, in Lisbon shared his experience with more than 40 languages, including Arabic, nasty German patent claim sentences. speech recognition using the Macintosh Chinese, and Russian. The application The quality of my draft text also tends Yosemite operating system, we learned programming interfaces for these to be better, although identifying “dictos” of a small treasure trove of options for solutions are available to developers, in (transcription errors from automated those working in languages not served by some cases at no cost.4 speech recognition) can be tricky. These Dragon NaturallySpeaking. Among the most popular mobile speech errors can’t always be found through I discovered the free app Dragon recognition solutions are Apple’s integrated a spell check, so different methods are Dictation for iOS and began to test novel iOS recognition for , iPads, and needed for effective post-editing. Since dictation workflows for writing blog posts iPods, the free Dragon Dictation app for “dictos” will usually always be spelled and translating. I developed a three-stage

TechTalk presents discussions concerning technology pertinent to translators and interpreters. It will alternate in this space with the “GeekSpeak” column.

www.atanet.org American Translators Association 29 TECHTALK continued integrated translation workflow while We are nearing the point where those who need to write text on a using this app: computer in any common language will be able to work comfortably Phase 1: I dictate the draft text on my iPhone (advancing the cursor in my in most software applications using voice recognition integrations favorite CAT tool to access the reference through mobile applications, web browsers, or other means. information) and e-mail it to my desktop PC. to maintain, or possibly increase, their Phase 2: As a first review, I align the A LEVEL PLAYING FIELD, work volume. It’s also possible that such e-mailed text with the source text. NEW POSSIBILITIES We’re nearing the point where those who technology leads to better writing as a Phase 3: As a second review, I translate need to compose text on a computer result of more focused, relaxed work. the source text from the alignment, with in any common language will be able Though these benefits are anecdotal subsequent correction, tagging, and to work comfortably in most software and will vary among individuals, they automated quality assurance. applications using voice recognition are often cited by happy users of speech Many of those with whom I shared this integrations through mobile applications, recognition. As one of my colleagues solution prefer to have the transcribed web browsers, or other means. The noted, “It’s harder to speak a stupid-  text written directly into their working mobile methods generally require an sounding sentence than to type one.” translation environment, whether that be Internet connection, but the cost of these NOTES a word processor or tools like Kilgray’s solutions (free or just a few dollars) is lower than the stand-alone PC software 1 Ramazzini, Berbardino. De Morbis memoQ or SDL Trados Studio. solution Dragon NaturallySpeaking. Even Artificum Diatriba [Diseases of Workers] The first mobile solution we found for better, smartphone users are literally (Modena Italy, 1700), http://bit.ly/ this was myEcho for iOS, which uses the Ramazzini. just a few finger taps away from testing secure remote Nuance servers and allows the benefits for themselves. As for data 2 Bierma, Paige. “Repetitive Stress Injury text dictation from an iPhone or iPad at security and privacy, at memoQ Fest (RSI),” HealthDay (March 11, 2015), the cursor location of any connected PC 2015, representatives from Nuance http://bit.ly/Bierma. 5 running Windows. revealed that their online servers meet the 3 www.nuance.com At memoQ Fest 2015, Jim Wardell spoke highest security standards and are trusted 4 www.nuance.com/for-developers/index.htm about the Swype6 virtual keyboard (another by the U.S. government and companies Nuance app) for Android, which includes like IBM.8 5 http://myechoapp.com an Android version of Dragon Dictation. It Nuance also announced recently that 6 www.swype.com Dragon Anywhere will be released this allows an entire text to be dictated into an 7 Jim Wardell’s presentation of speech year.9 This subscription mobile device app e-mail message for subsequent alignment. recognition and Swype at memoQ Fest Other tools, such as Google’s Chrome will bring full voice-controlled editing to 2015 is available at https://youtu.be/ Remote Desktop, can be used for direct smartphones and tablets and integrate icKcrs4CAls. with the company’s speech recognition dictation from the Android mobile device 8 Ibid. into an application such as tools for desktop and laptop computers. Custom vocabulary and other features will 9 Lossner, Kevin. “Enter the Dragon, or a translation environment tool running be synchronized among all devices. It’s not Anywhere!” Translation Tribulations under Windows. yet known whether this new app will offer (August 18, 2015), http://bit.ly/dragon- The various free or inexpensive mobile speech recognition for every language anywhere. apps for speech recognition as well as the available for Dragon Dictation or Swype, integrated speech recognition in the Mac or whether the possibilities will be more operating system can also be improved limited, as with the current generation of Kevin Lossner is a certified for translation or other writing work by Nuance recognition software for Mac and memoQ trainer with three adding customized vocabularies. Although Windows operating systems. decades of experience the mobile solutions do not offer all of teaching the use of software tools for practical work and the editing functions available in Dragon IMPROVED OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH problem solving. A former NaturallySpeaking for Windows or Regardless of the software you use, the research chemist, information technology Dragon Dictate for MacOS, their accuracy health benefits of getting your hands off systems developer, and consultant, he now may be higher. The greater number of the keyboard and mouse are clear. The use devotes his time to translating patents, languages available with these mobile of speech recognition in schools, at home, technical marketing, and other specialized texts apps make the proven benefits of speech and in the workplace can help reduce the from German into English. You can find his recognition accessible to an estimated two appalling incidences of repetitive stress blog at translationtribulations.com. Contact: billion users around the world.7 injuries. At the same time, it allows users [email protected].

30 The ATA Chronicle | Nov/Dec 2015 www.atanet.org RESOURCE REVIEW REVIEWS COMPILED BY PETER A. GERGAY ([email protected])

UZBEK PRACTICAL DICTIONARY: he Uzbek Practical Dictionary, which FOR TOURISTS OR TRANSLATORS? UZBEK-ENGLISH/ENGLISH-UZBEK was released by Hippocrene this year, These alphabet problems are things a T goes a long way toward expanding professional translator or linguist can the short list of English<>Uzbek handle, but they might prove baffling dictionaries currently available. for the casual business traveler, tourist, Unfortunately, however, this quantitative or student. Judging from the content of improvement has not resulted in much the dictionary, though, I have trouble of a qualitative improvement in current determining who exactly the intended Uzbek<>English reference sources. users of this book are: people who know The dictionary is nicely printed and nothing about Uzbek and just need a bound in a softcover format. It opens phrasebook, or people who already know with a short phonetic guide to Uzbek enough to navigate both languages well pronunciation and a brief overview of on their own? the history of the language, formalities of address, and regional dialects. There The dictionary is nicely printed Reviewed by: is also a listing of the most popular and bound in a softcover format. Shelley Fairweather-Vega historical sites in Uzbekistan, and the last Author: few pages offer translations of common It opens with a short phonetic Aleksey Radjabov conversational phrases in both languages. guide to Uzbek pronunciation and Publisher: Hippocrene Books ALPHABETICAL DISORDER a brief overview of the history The bulk of the dictionary consists of Publication Date: of the language, formalities of 2015 single-word entries in two sections: first Uzbek>English, and then English>Uzbek. address, and regional dialects. ISBN: One great advantage to this compilation 978-0781813259 is that all Uzbek entries, in both sections, Price: are listed in both the old Cyrillic and On the one hand, the dictionary has $29.95 the newer Latin Uzbek alphabets. Most several features that travelers would find previous print dictionaries have chosen Number of pages: useful, including some of the sections 498 pages either one alphabet or the other. Here, the listed above. It’s billed as a “practical” Latin-alphabet rendering of each word is Available from: dictionary, and it does include practical listed first, followed immediately by the www.hippocrenebooks.com entries, from “men’s room” to “emergency Cyrillic-alphabet version. room.” There are also plenty of entries To many people the name Uzbekistan The alphabetization system in this for words that are essentially identical conjures up earthquake-ravaged countries dictionary means that all Uzbek words in the two languages and that might be like Haiti, Japan, and, recently, Nepal. starting with sh are listed near the end considered to needlessly take up space. Indeed, among the first responders to of the alphabet, where the equivalent Scanning one page in the Uzbek>English natural catastrophes like earthquakes have Cyrillic letter ш is found, instead of being section reveals entries for reaktor, “realist,” been Doctors without Borders, a Nobel filed where other Latin-alphabet users “regional,” resurs, and “robot.” No plurals Peace Prize-winning non-governmental might expect to find them, between words are given for nouns and no pronunciation organization (NGO), and members of starting with se and words starting with information is provided. This would seem another nonprofit NGO called Translators si. Meanwhile, all Uzbek words with a to indicate that the imagined users of this without Borders. Efforts to provide and dictionary are English speakers who might Latin-alphabet spelling starting with y are satisfy humanitarian needs in the early need to quickly come up with one word grouped together, regardless of whether stages following a disaster is of paramount at a time to muddle through some routine their Cyrillic spellings start with й, я, е, importance. The need for effective social interaction, where precision, style, , or . communication in disaster situations cannot ё ю and even grammar are unimportant. be overemphasized, especially most often This may be a perfectly legitimate If these casual users do care about between doctors and the population. For those approach to the problem of grammar, this dictionary would leave who are interested in the Uzbek language, between Uzbek systems, and choices them disappointed. As a Turkic language, here is a review of their dictionary by Shelley do have to be made. However, no Uzbek is agglutinative, so a phrase like Fairweather-Vega, an illustrious ATA- explanation is given in the dictionary “in my opinion” is rendered by the single certified translator. itself, so the user has to be clever enough word fikrimcha, built from the elements fikr —Peter Gergay to figure it out without help. (opinion) + im (my) + cha (“according to”). www.atanet.org American Translators Association 31 RESOURCE REVIEW continued

This dictionary has entries for fikr in the Uzbek legal phrases rendered in English ENGLISH-SERBIAN MEDICAL DICTIONARY Uzbek portion and “opinion” in the English as “venue,” “injunction,” and “jury.” But (SERBIAN TITLE: ENGLESKO-SRPSKI portion. However, no clues are provided to this list also lacks some fundamentals. the uninitiated regarding how to either get For instance, the Uzbek entry sud protsessi MEDICINSKI RE NIK) to the phrase “in my opinion” or to dissect lists the English equivalents “lawsuit” Reviewed by: the word fikrimcha. There are no entries and “litigation,” but not the more general Rudolf Vedo in the Uzbek portion for grammatical terms “hearing,” “trial,” or “proceedings.” Author: elements showing possession (as in –im) or The English>Uzbek entries for the words S.P. Djordjevic other postpositions (like –cha). “hearing,” “trial,” and “proceeding” do not Likewise, the Uzbek>English portion offer any Uzbek equivalents of those terms Publisher: offers no help for verbal affixes that in a legal context. Jordana Publishing probably deserve their own entries, such Publication Date: as –adigan, or for Uzbek compound verbs The dictionary makes no claims 2014, first edition (though some are listed). Most bilingual reference texts cover these important at specialization, and is actually ISBN: elements of syntax with a guide to 978-0-9764480-4-4 grammar, sentence structure, and word too short to cover the vocabulary Price: order that lists postpositions, verb endings in any particular field very well. $139.95 (CD-ROM) that indicate tense and voice, and so on. Number of Entries: This book does not. These grammatical Over 58,000 main terms black holes would seem to indicate that 37,182 main entries the dictionary would best serve someone The dictionary makes no claims at 31,047 subentries who already knows all about Uzbek and specialization, and is actually too short to 4,897 abbreviations English syntax: not a tourist, and not a cover the vocabulary in any particular field 2,207 eponyms beginning language learner. very well. It leaves out vulgarities altogether, But for more in-depth work, which is which is disappointing for anyone tasked Available from: the kind a translator would be engaged in with understanding and translating modern www.jordanapublishing.com most often, this dictionary also falls short. literature or colloquial speech. It makes For the fifth time in seven years, we are The definitions given are minimalist, a good attempt at including up-to-date publishing a review of a medical dictionary. with each entry offering only a part of computer terminology, including terms One may wonder why this emphasis on speech, sometimes a field of use (e.g., like “toolbar” and “authorization code” medical dictionaries. For one thing—as any legal, religious, and technical), and most in both languages, but other simple, member of ATA's Medical Division can tell often a single-word equivalent in the related terms are skipped. For instance, you—medical dictionaries are much needed other language. No additional contextual there is no Uzbek given for the noun specialized dictionaries for which there are information is offered, and neither are or verb “code” as it relates to computer no substitutes. Another reason is that medical alternative spellings. (For example, programming, and no indication as to vocabulary is evolving constantly. This not the English section lists “aesthetic” but whether the Uzbek word for “cloud” can only due to advances in medical science, but not “esthetic,” and no regional spelling be used in the sense of cloud computing. also because of the fact that spelling may differences were found for Uzbek words.) change—in countries which are part of the Verbs in both languages are provided only OVERALL EVALUATION British Commonwealth more than in the in the infinitive. Synonyms are in short The Uzbek Practical Dictionary is best United States. (This is one reason why it is supply in entries in both languages, so the for non-professional use in a low-stakes important to know if the customer/recipient dictionary cannot serve as a thesaurus. environment by a reader who either of the translation is British or American.) A larger problem is that alternative does not need or does not care about the The following is a review of an English- meanings are given short shrift. For details. It provides enough information to Serbian medical dictionary. example, what follows is the entire entry do some good for the casual user, but not —Peter Gergay for the English word “court”: nearly enough to serve as an authoritative ƒƒ court n. leg. суд / sud, судя / sudya source for the professional translator. he English-Serbian Medical Dictionary Two related Uzbek words are offered is a CD-ROM with linked PDF files for “court of law” and “judge,” but no Shelley Fairweather-Vega is an ATA-certified T that can be read with Adobe Acrobat other definitions of “court” in English Russian>English translator and an enthusiastic Reader. The Autorun file will call up an are explained (e.g., no tennis courts, no Uzbek>English translator, living and working in index, or the user can navigate directly to courting by a romantic suitor). Seattle, Washington. Specializing in both legal the Lexicon folder containing individual Looking up “sud” in the Uzbek>English and creative texts, she translates mainly for PDF files organized according to the section helpfully yields several noun authors, attorneys, activists, and academics. starting letter of the headword. Opening phrases starting with that word, including Contact: [email protected]. any of the lettered Lexicon files will open

32 The ATA Chronicle | Nov/Dec 2015 www.atanet.org the PDF file for that letter and enable the Pronunciation notes are not used, nor The Serbian names/spellings of user to either scroll to the desired point are indications of obsolete terminology common generic drugs are also included, in the file or search for a particular term (e.g., idiocy/idiotizam). However, such as warfarin (varfarin), clopidogrel using the search box. The search option Djordjevic points out that this is (klopidogrel), and clonazepam (klonazepam). allows you to search the entire dictionary, intentional, since there is no standard For the term “osteopathy,” which is but faster results will be obtained if the in English medical literature by which given as osteopatija, it would help to search is narrowed to a specific letter. it could be known whether a term is clarify the fact that this usage applies The standard PDF search options (match obsolete or not. Djordjevic also notes only to a European context (as alternative case, stemming, all words) are available. that the various standard monolingual medicine). In the U.S., the term If you don’t want the annoyance English medical dictionaries (Dorland’s, “osteopathy” is no longer permitted to of having to insert the CD into the Stedman’s, and Taber’s Cyclopedic) do not describe a scope of practice. The term computer, workarounds are possible have a uniform approach to the issues of “osteopathic medicine” is used, but by copying the contents of the Lexicon obsolete terminology. folder to a fixed or removable drive, or refers to training and practices that are creating a disk image and mounting it to largely equivalent to those of allopathic CONTENT physicians. Since the use of the Serbian run with a virtual player. In general, the content is oriented term osteopat for a U.S. osteopathic toward clinical medicine. There are a physician would be inaccurate, and DESIGN few entries relating to clinical trials and Serbian has no separate term for the latter, Because the dictionary is searchable the regulatory context. Terms such as a note about the difference in usage would electronically, it’s theoretically possible “investigator,” “Good Clinical Practice to also use it in the reverse direction (GCP),” “Investigational [Medicinal] be helpful to the reader. (Serbian>English), although a search will Product (IMP),” “Ethics Committee,” and I also noted that “QL” is described as the hit on any reference to a Serbian word “Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP)” abbreviation for “Quality of Life.” However, found throughout the entries, not only are not included. “Protocol” is included as “QoL” is at least as common, but is not in the headwords, so it will be necessary protokol, although the Serbian term has at offered as a headword or cross-reference. to weed through some of the results. least two other meanings outside a clinical If your primary need is for the into- trial context. Overall, the omissions are OVERALL EVALUATION English direction, Djordjevic’s Croatian curious considering that many medical Aside from the issues listed above, this and Serbian to English Medical Dictionary translators spend a significant portion dictionary is extremely comprehensive, is a more practical solution. However, it’s of their time on clinical trials and other with exhaustive coverage of anatomical certainly possible to envision situations regulatory documentation. To be fair, the and clinical terminology, with listings for where a (normally) into-English linguist work is not marketed specifically as a all of the nerves, muscles, blood vessels, would make use of this dictionary. (For pharmaceutical dictionary, but this would diseases, procedures, and anatomical example, an interpreter preparing for seem to be a largely artificial distinction. a medical interpreting assignment, or While terms such as “medical/ formations that I queried as a sample. someone who needs to have a source for medicinal” are included on their own, However, as previously mentioned, I hope double-checking their translation choices common collocations such as “medical that future editions will include more as a form of back-translation.) Still, the device” (medicinsko sredstvo) and regulatory terminology and terminology dictionary is primarily aimed at into- “medicinal product” (lek) are missing. related to clinical trials. In addition, Serbian linguists, since they will be able Some terms are included with the although Djordjevic stated his reasons to obtain the most functionality from the abbreviations, but not as individual for not identifying obsolete or dated dictionary, especially given its structure headwords. For example, the term “stem terminology, I still believe that such and technical setup. cell” appears as part of the abbreviation identifiers would be helpful for preventing The graphical layout is pleasing, with SCB (Stem Cell Bank), but does not accidental misuse. headwords in brown/bold type and entries appear under its own headword. Still, these minor quibbles do not in normal type. Compound headwords can Surgical techniques often present detract from the overall usefulness of the be found under the main headword. For translation challenges. This is because dictionary, which is both comprehensive in example, the various types of biopsies are surgical reports are not among the most its primary, clinical focus as well as easy to listed under “Biopsy.” For those who prefer commonly translated documents and the use. It would make an excellent addition to browsing for an entry rather than using names of many techniques are often not of the professional translator’s library.  the search function, the headword index familiar Latin origin, or else the translations of each PDF file includes the second and are not otherwise easily deducible. sometimes third letter of the headword, Fortunately, Djordjevic helpfully provides Rudolf Vedo is an ATA-certified Croatian>English making it easy to scroll through the index translations for an entire list of suturing translator who works from Croatian, Bosnian, and arrive in close proximity to the term techniques, including interrupted, Serbian, and German into English. Contact: for which you are looking. continuous, harmonic, and dentate. [email protected]. www.atanet.org American Translators Association 33 MEMBER NEWS

NEW CERTIFIED MEMBERS Congratulations! The following people have successfully passed ATA’s certification exam: English into German Esther A. Pugh Wadsworth, OH English into Portuguese Rafael P de Carvalho Vienna, Austria English into Spanish Mariana Campos Atlanta, GA Idalia M. Martin Austin, TX Arabic into English Hossam A. Elsherbiny Chicago, IL French into English Enrica J. Ardemagni, the director Brendan Riley’s translation Geoffrey R. Blomerth of Graduate Studies and the of The : Living Dialogue Malden, MA Certificate in Translation Studies (American Bible Society, Denise S. Fainberg Program at Indiana University- 2015), a series of interfaith Bend, OR Purdue University Indianapolis, discussions between Cardinal received a Certificate of Jorge Bergoglio (Pope Brian J. Meyer Congressional Recognition at the Mapping Francis), Rabbi Abraham Skorka, and Chicago, IL Education Towards Achievement 2015 Dr. Marcelo Figueroa was published Samantha A. Mowry Conference for her “indelible impact” on in Philadelphia on September 26, on Chicago, IL thousands of students. Enrica also serves the occasion of the Pope’s U.S. visit. Italian into English as the president of the National Council on In addition, Brendan’s translation of Kristin M. Kamm Interpreting in Health Care. Argentine novelist Juan Filloy’s 1937 epic Brooklyn, NY satire Caterva was recently published by Rhoda Miller’s translation Robert Ottogalli, III Dalkey Archive Press. of Francois Godement’s Bayville, NJ Contemporary China: Between Carolyn Yohn was added to Spanish into English Mao and Market (originally the list of translators agrées Nick Dauster published in France as (approved) by the Consulate Austin, TX Que Veut la Chine? De Mao General of France in San Brian E. Kendall au Capitalisme) has been published by Francisco. Translators on Minneapolis, MN Rowman & Littlefield. The translation this list are qualified to David L. Lauman was made possible with a subsidy from provide translations from French for Denver, CO France’s Centre National du Livre. official consulate use. In addition, Carol’s translation from French of Daniel Scott Otteman Rafa Lombardino’s Tools and Washington, DC Technology in Translation—The Vaugelade’s Comments on the North Ella Rich Profile of Beginning Language American Travels of La Rochefoucauld- McLean, VA Professionals in the Digital Liancourt, 1794–1798 will soon be Age celebrated its one-year published by Commonwealth Books Zel R. Saccani anniversary in October. It of Virginia. Brownsville, TX was published in 2014 to complement the material taught at the 10-week online class by the same name, which has been offered We’d Love to Hear from You! since 2010 as part of the professional Certificate in English/Spanish Translation Did you receive a promotion or start a new job? Were you published? Why not let your and Interpretation at the University of colleagues know about your achievements and adventures? Submit your Member News California San Diego Extension. today! Just send 100 words or less to [email protected].

34 The ATA Chronicle | Nov/Dec 2015 www.atanet.org  SIGN UP.  COPY EDIT.  GET PAID. Become a paid translator at .

Translate.com Professional Translators Translate.com has a thriving community of professional paid translators that provide highly accurate human translations. As an ATA member, you get immediate access to paid tasks in our translation portal!

THE BENEFITS

Work any place, any time Be your own boss  Log in to our translation portal wherever  Work as much as you like. Translate all and whenever to start translating. day or in your down time.

Everyday translations No bidding for work  Translate blog articles, social media  Every task is first come, first serve. No posts, support tickets, and more! more bidding or waiting for translations.

Make good money Cash out anytime Translate.com offers competitive  Cash out your earnings anytime, directly  ® compensation, paid by the word. to your Paypal account.

Sign up today! translate.com/ata

Are you a Language Service Provider? Visit translate.com/lsp Increase Capacity • Expand Margins • Integrate PEMT Into Your Process