#IAPTI2024 Call for presentation proposals for the conference in Bursa, Turkey

The 7th International Conference for the International Association of Translators and Interpreters (IAPTI) will be held on September 28-29, 2024, in Bursa, Türkiye. The Call for Papers is still open and we will continue with the proposals selection process until April 30, 2024.

Abstracts submitted should be a maximum of 200 words and be sent to the Organizing Committee at bursaconference@iapti.org. Priority will be given to new topics not presented before at other conferences. 

Please include a title and description, a short bio (up to 100 words) and a profile photo with your proposal. Speakers will have 45-50 minutes for their presentations and 10 minutes for Q&A. 

The Organizing Committee reserves the right to accept or reject proposals and will notify applicants accordingly. The conference fee is waived for speakers (1 per presentation) and no other monetary compensation or reimbursement is offered. 

For more information, please contact the Organizing Committee at the e-mail address above. We look forward to welcoming you at another outstanding IAPTI event. See you in September! 

Save the date: IAPTI2023, 11-12 November 2023 in Timișoara, Romania

After all the chaotic Covid-induced delays, it's finally happening this year from November 11th to 12th:

Registration is now open for #IAPTI2023 in Timisoara, Romania! Network with experienced #translators and #interpreters from around the world as they share their professional insights in this amazing city.

The International Association of Translators and Interpreters (IAPTI) promotes professional ethics and best practice on every continent and is noted for speaking out on "controversial" issues when human rights and the health and professional stability of individual language service providers are at stake. 

Since I became a member in 2014, I have always enjoyed the company of some of the finest colleagues in the translation and interpreting sectors and learned so many surprising and fascinating things about specialties I would otherwise never have known. IAPTI has very often been the first to support the development of professional organizations in developing countries and for disadvantaged populations. 

Join this year's gathering in one of Romania's most beautiful cities and get with the program....

All you need to know about this year's schedule, speakers and registration policies is here:

https://www.iapti.org/TMconference/

Note-taking for Remote Simultaneous Interpreting: webinar on 21 August 2021

 On Saturday, August 21st at 14:00 UTC, the International Association of Professional Translators and Interpreters (IAPTI) will present a special webinar on note-taking as a critical differentiation skill in the competitive field of remote simultaneous interpreting (RSI), a staple of international communication in our pandemic times and likely thereafter. The presentation is free for members, with a small fee for members of partner associations (€22) and non-members (€25). Send your registration request by e-mail to: info.request@iapti.org!

Technology for legal and financial translation: lecture video

memoQfest 2018, held this year in Budapest from May 31 to June 1, was a great event as I noted in my recent discussion of how Kilgray – or rather "memoQ" as the company is now called – is on track with changes to the product and additions to its development and support teams in the broadest sense. This year, I spoke on some of the benefits of technology in general and memoQ technology in particular for translating specialists for law and finance. This was, in part, an abbreviated and updated version of my talk last year at the translation program in Buenos Aires University's law faculty and it is of course simply an overview of possibilities with some examples. This is a subject which could easily make up a full course for a semester or year, and in less than an hour one can only discuss a few bones of the concept, much less the full skeleton or the vital and varied body of modern practice.

The recording of the talk was released recently on the memoQ YouTube channel, so here it is embedded for those who missed it and want to see what was said:


I'll be giving a similar talk at the end of this in Valencia, Spain at IAPTI's international conference this year, though from a little different perspective. I hope to meet some of you there.

IAPTI Brings the Translation Revolution to Spain on September 28-30, 2018!

The infamous Renato Beninatto once referred to them as the Taliban of the language services world because of their ardent refusal to endorse the worst practices in translation and interpreting with which unscrupulous people hope to transform those professions into an "industry" to grind out ever cheaper and less palatable linguistic sausage. Thus the term LSP ("Linguistic Sausage Purveyor") which the bottom-dwellers of the bulk market bog so proudly embrace and claim as their own.

I mean, what else can you say about an organization that counts Noam Chomsky as one of its honored and honorary members? The stated mission and objectives of the International Association of Translators and Interpreters (IAPTI) seem to many to be beyond the scope of your usual professional organization in the language sector. If its members were all black, I suppose the term uppity would be applied often in some corporate and political power centers. Like all of us, they do sometimes fall short of their lofty goals, but as one angel commented when God cheated and pulled back Faust's immortal soul from its deserved descent into Eternal Fire,

Wer immer strebend sich bemüht, Den können wir erlösen.

I wasn't quite sure what to make of IAPTI in its early days; the mention of its name tended to cause excess, foamy salivation among the more staunchly neoliberal of my professional acquaintances; the concepts of international solidarity and fairness seemed so out of place in the world I knew, where the BDÜ kept a sharp eye out for cross-border incursions from colleagues in France or Poland. There was an unsettling whiff of Marxist flatulence in the air at times, though I knew a number of the organization's most active members and they seemed like reasonable, personable sorts, though they did exhibit a disturbing lack of faith in the force majeure of the large international organizations who, reminiscent of a mafia extending its influence in the neighborhood, are increasingly taking the place of smaller translation firms who know and serve their local markets or specialized clientele well.

And—Heaven forefend!—they allow no corporate membership nor are they open to the influence, much less the control of interests promoting the reduction of professional work to the unergonomic slavery of corporate post-editing of machine pseudo-translation (PEMpT) unlike, for example, the American Translators Association which seems rather eager to bend (over) their planning to accommodate conference schedules with such interests. 

On September 29-30, 2018 IAPTI will hold its international language services conference in Europe once again, in the beautiful city of Valencia, Spain. A fitting venue, I think, in a country with a long history of struggle over basic questions of decency, dignity and centralization versus local control, questions which, as recent events in Catalonia have shown us, remain to be resolved.

I attended an IAPTI conference for the first time four years ago against the violent (!) opposition of some, and I was surprised to find that even the most "radical" of its members were actually rather sober folk who took the time to research important questions carefully and who believed that the complicated effort to find a fair balance for all parties involved with language services—translators, interpreters, facilitators and service consumers—is worthwhile. I joined, and from time to time I contribute my voice to the internal democratic debate on how best to serve a very diverse international community of colleagues and help them carry out their personal and professional missions in a better way.

So this year, once again, I will be one of a number presenting ideas for how to traverse our professional and political landscape in a secure, competent and ethical way. I'll be giving a fairly dry talk on reference management, teamwork and quality assurance in legal and financial translation—nerdy, sleep-inducing technical stuff for which attendees can leave their pitchforks at home—but there will be plenty for those who prefer verbal caffeine in the many other presentations from the many excellent speakers at this year's event.

Click the conference logo to go to IAPTI's conference information and registration site!

We’ll be celebrating International Translation Day together with talk on a range of relevant practical matters in translation and interpretation while exploring some of the profession’s hot topics and most urgent ethical questions.

On the Friday September 28 before the conference there are also some free workshops in English and Spanish for early registrants.

The literary translator Emily Wilson will be there as keynote speaker give us her perspective as the first woman to translate Homer's Odyssey into English. (It's a brilliant work - I'm reading it!) 

The author of the well-respected “red book” of medical terminology and cofounder of Cosnautas, Fernando Navarro, will be giving a workshop and a presentation in Spanish. 

And veteran linguistics sage David Crystal will also pay a virtual visit to share his latest thoughts.

I hope to see you at the Valencia conference and maybe share a taste of my sweet olives, a Greek delight reborn as a Portuguese culinary specialty. Have a look at what's ahead: https://www.iapti.org/SPconference/

CALL FOR PAPERS: IAPTI Fifth International Conference, September 2018 in Valencia, Spain

IAPTI is inviting all translators and interpreters to submit presentation proposals for its 5th International Conference from September 29-30, 2018 in the beautiful Mediterranean city of Valencia, Spain.

Here experienced colleagues will give practical, relevant talks and workshops on many facets of our profession and discuss current trends with peers from around the world on conference time and in accompanying activities of the social program.

IAPTI stands firmly for ethical, sustainable work in translation and interpreting, uniting language practitioners from more than 80 countries. If IAPTI's mission is in harmony with your professional vision, consider sharing your ideas and methods with the very diverse audience of attendees and receiving feedback from many cultures and perspectives in return. All topics related to translation, interpreting and terminology are welcome.

Abstracts should have a maximum of 200 words and be submitted to the organizing committee at spainconference@iapti.org by January 20, 2018. Please include a title and description, a short biography (up to 100 words) and a profile photo with your proposal. The time allotted for presentations is 45 to 50 minutes, with 10 minutes for Q&A.

Priority will be given to new topics not presented before at other conferences. The organizing committee reserves the right to accept or reject proposals and will notify applicants accordingly. The conference fee is waived for speakers (one per presentation) with no other compensation or reimbursement. For more information, contact the Organizing Committee at the email address above.

Save the date (International Translation Day!) and join colleagues from around the world for an outstanding event in one of the Europe's most attractive cities!

Details on the venue will be announced soon.

Translating Chicago Style with Carol Saller (webinar)

Twenty Years behind QA for The Chicago Manual of Style 

Carol Saller is best known in her role as an editor at the University of Chicago Press, where she was head copyeditor for the 16th edition of The Chicago Manual of Style, and as the author of her often hilarious and enormously helpful book, The Subversive Copyeditor. The book is an eminently cogent response to the thousands of questions that Ms. Saller reads each year from writers and copyeditors in her role as Editor for the Q&A page of The Chicago Manual of Style Online. Many of these writers and editors have reached a stand-off with each other over prickly and sometimes humorous questions of grammar and style. To wit, “My author wants his preface to come at the end of the book. This just seems ridiculous to me. I mean, it’s not a post-face.”

Carol Saller surprises a lot of hardline editors by stressing flexibility when it comes to supposedly hard and fast “rules.” The focus, she seems to feel, should be on clarity for the reader and on a good and useful working relationship between writers and editors… As well as translators and editors!

September 9, 2017 at 4 PM UTC – This webinar will be held in English

Speaker: Carol Saller

REGISTRATION:  info.request@iapti.org

https://register.gotowebinar.com/regist…/5395748143877880322

IAPTI members: FREE!
Partner associations: USD 22.00
Non-members: USD 25.00

"In termo qualitas" – IAPTI terminology talk

On June 17, 2017 Dr. Rodolfo Maslias, an expert terminologist with the European Parliament, will discuss the provision and improvement of terminology in today's challenging translation and communication environments. To register, send e-mail to info.request@iapti.org.

Webinar April 8th: Translating in Rhythm with Susan Bernofsky

Susan Bernofsky is my favorite German to English translator of literature. Mind you, I can't name a lot of them if asked. But my usual experience of reading literature translated from German to English is to rush to the original German text out of disgust at a result I could easily better. With Susan, the translation honors the original work and amplifies its best qualities. Her Metamorphosis is more readable, yet more Kafkaesque than Franz's laudable effort. Several years ago, I reviewed her terrifying translation of Gotthelf's Black Spider, which I enjoyed far more than the Swiss German original. Hers is a name worth knowing and remembering, and her work is a standard of excellence.

So when I heard some weeks ago that Ms. Bernofsky would be holding a talk about her education and experiences with her mentor, William Gass, I walked around for some hours with a very big smile on my face. The burdens of workload being what they were at the time, however, I completely forgot to register until this morning.

The registration page is here. If you are interested in literary translation and the philosophy behind it, why not join us for what promises to be a very interesting hour?

Countdown to IAPTI 2017 in Buenos Aires, April 22-23

This year shot itself out of a cannon in early January, and the trajectory promises to be a long one, allowing little time for frivolity and the usual conferences, as much as I might like to drop in on some. But there are two I would rather not miss. This one and METM2017 in late October.

Given some recent, loud public controversy regarding the organizational status of the International Association of Professional Translators and Interpreters, some might wonder that I am attending or even continuing my association with the group. But living in the somewhat magical Latin reality of Portugal myself, I had an instinct that the complications of final registration of the organization by the Argentine authorities might in fact be just another version of the oddities I sometimes experience in my own world, and the recent completion of that process showed that I was right.

In an age where too many of the "professional" translators' associations have turned themselves into amateur whores for corporate interests and the machine pseudo-translation lobby, it is refreshing to see the few groups like IAPTI, the German BDUE and MET who focus on and promote the professionalism of individual practitioners from a strong ethical foundation. Not always with perfect pitch, but it seems the ATA and ITI barely know the music and words to that tune any more, alas.

This year's program in Buenos Aires offers three parallel tracks, dense with professionally valid, valuable presentations for individual translators and interpreters at the top of their game or aspiring to be. This is not your ProZ wannabe event; it is serious business for serious professionals who are serious about the services they provide and who aspire to ever better practice in an often tumultuous international environment. And you can be sure that the corporate shills won't get past the door.

I'll be doing two talks myself at the event, one on terminology, another on collaboration with memoQ as a central resource. But given the promising talks scheduled, I am tempted to skip my own and sit in on the other sessions. Check out the event's professional rogues' gallery and you'll see why.

As for those rumors that the real reason I am going to IAPTI2017 is to play hookey and hit the bookstores, well... uh... no comment. I have a few days on the tail end for that, as I hear there are a lot of them.

The early bird rates for registration run until March 10th, but now or later, the event is an investment worth consideration. See you there?

Reminder: web search tutorial this Friday!

Time is running out to register for Michael Farrel's webinar this Friday on the basics of IntelliWebSearch, a scripting tool that runs under Windows and enables multiple, simultaneous web searches using text selected in any application.

I used to be rather sceptical of this sort of tool, but in the past several years (since a similar, less powerful feature was introduced in memoQ) I have found this to be among the greatest contributors to me research and translation productivity. This saves time and reduces my work fatigue over the course of a long day.

The online workshop is free to IAPTI members and very affordable to everyone else (USD 25 or a bit less if you are a member of a partner association.

There will be a more advanced presentation to follow in September, which does not require participation in this one, but which does assume that you know the basics of IWS.