What is TED Talks?

If you are new to TED Talks, watch this video. Notice that they've already created captions in Spanish (from Mexico, was that you Ailin?), Portuguese, Polish and English. They've been done via the Open Translation Project. Have you joined yet?

Translators' Web Presence

Tomorrow we are going to work on blogs as the last activity for the course. While I was looking at my twitter, I came across this video by Ian Emmet. It is a very simple way of advertising what his translation company does.



Via twitter, Ian Emmet has sent me a couple more videos. The one below shows some of  his hospitality and tourism translations.


You can achieve something similar with one of the many open source movie making/slide sites (animoto, stupeflix, even slideshare, smile box, etc).

You could easily create a similar little video with photostory or movie maker. Then you upload it onto your blog or onto youtube or vimeo to give it more air play.
Social media marketing for transaltors is becoming more topical by the minute.There are even webminars taking place. Just explore the net to get ideas and learn form what is going on out there!

Note-taking Revisited

248/365 one of those days

In a previous post, Note Taking for Consecutive Interpreting , we watched some videos on note-taking techniques. Today you can check this site, Interpreter Training Resources. Even though it is aimed at a French audience, the skills described are transferable, and often they use English examples, like;
The rule of thumb is that unless a word is short (4-5 letters) the interpreter should note it in an abbreviated form.

Check the whole file here

You can find the example above in the document,  Rozan - The 7 Principles of Note-taking.
Spanish students, check this out: Los pequeños detalles que marcan la gran diferencia en interpretación consecutiva, por Judith de dos palabras.
Happy practising!

Interpreters & Translators: Same or different? Two in one?

Bootheando has published a great post on being an interpreter and a translator at the same time. Spanish students will be able to read the post here.

The rest of you can watch this video by Lourdes AIB. Translating students, why don't you write a transcript in your LOTE?

For a very good description of  the differences between both occupations, read the US Department of Labor entry on Interpreters and Translators. It has not only descriptions of the jobs and the skills needed to do them, but also additional points on how to get trained,etc. the pity is that it is information about the USA. For Australian information, you'll have to visit AUSIT and NAATI.