lingocode.com - The Translator's Teacup by Rose Newell

21/02/2022

I was interviewed for the current issue of peer-reviewed translation journal, Cultus. The theme of the issue is "Translation plus: The added value of the translator."

I talk about serving the premium market, how I would define it in translation, how easy (or not) it is to access, and what translators can do to better secure their necessity in the world of machine translation and post-editing.

Here you'll find a blog post summarising the interview and why I think the whole journal is a worthwhile read.

My interview with Prof. David Katan for issue 14 of translation journal Cultus. All about "Translation

28/08/2020

Since a lot of people here like to learn languages for fun as well as "just" work, I thought this Humble Bundle offer may be of interest.

Humble Bundle is trustworthy. I've bought games from there on bundles in the past. You usually get a code which you unlock, so theoretically you could give away codes you don't need if it works this way this time.

The money also goes to charity.

Currently, depending how much you want to pay, you get access to a learning programme of up to one year on the top tier.

At the bottom tier, for less than a euro, you get 3 months' access to the Transparent Language programmes for all of the following:
Korean, Portuguese and Arabic
Plus e-books with 17 world recipes and something about making time for language learning.

At the middle tier, which you currently unlock by paying around €15.60, you get six months' access to the Transparent Language programmes for all of the following:
Chinese, German, French, Arabic, Portuguese, Korean
Plus six months' access to the Kidspeak language programmes for:
French, German, and Chinese.
Plus beginner's guides e-books for German and Brazilian Portuguese, plus a book on tactics for learning foreign languages.

At the top tier, which you currently unlock by paying just over 21 euros, you get a year's access to the Transparent Language programmes for all of the following:
Chinese, Spanish, French, Italian, Russian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, German, Swahili, Arabic, and Hebrew
Plus a year's access to the Kidspeak language programmes for:
French, Spanish, German, Italian and Chinese.
Plus beginner's guides e-books for Spanish, French, and Mandarin Chinese, plus a book on 15 habits for learning foreign languages and a book on raising globally minded children.

No idea about the quality of these - just sharing details because I thought people might be interested.

https://www.humblebundle.com/software/learn-a-new-language-for-kids-and-adults-software?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=languagekidsadults_ann&utm_content=en

18/11/2019

We now adjourn for a non-party-political broadcast:

GET OUT AND VOTE, BRITS!

Seriously, I'd really appreciate it Brits and non-Brits alike read and share the below with any British friends or family members living outside the UK (especially if they've been away less than 15 years).

And obviously I'd like the Brits to take action. ;)

Simultaneously, you can remind any UK-resident Irish or qualifying Commonwealth citizens that they can register to vote in the UK general election.

---
BRITS ABROAD: Are you registered to vote? Got your proxy arranged? Or lost in the maze that is British bureaucracy?

This is a project I've worked on to help Brits abroad to get their chance to vote in the upcoming general election.

It's not yet too late!
BUT we don't have much time!
We have until 26 Nov to register!

And ~26 Nov to amend a proxy and ~4 Dec to register a new proxy, but some areas may ask you to submit the form by post.

Postal votes are NOT recommended!

The quiz will help you find exactly the right information and dates that apply to you, along with the relevant notes of caution that have come through our networks.

There is a Twitter link, a WhatsApp cascade to automatically inform selected contacts, a Facebook share link, and even POSTERS and FLYERS for you to print out and share where Brits abroad might see them.

Please share this post/the link in any relevant groups you can think of, too!

Thanks in advance for your support!

Simplifying the complicated: a quiz-like guide to help Brits abroad register and nominate a proxy in time for the General Election 2019 .

21/10/2019

ACT NOW: Rights of self-employed EU, Swiss, and Turkish citizens under threat Are you based in the UK? Are you a UK citizen? If so, I’m writing this quick blog post today to ask you to take action to protect your rights and/or the rights of your colleagues. Researched by charitable foundation The ...

11/04/2019

Hi all,
I finally got around to publishing a blog post to share a couple of spreadsheets I created.
There are two available.
The first compares different pricing methods. This is the one I use every day to work out how to price things for clients, taking a range of factors and pricing methods into account.
The second allows easy examination of an agency's proposed match discount table for any given project. I haven't used this one myself, but a friend found it really helpful when an agency's proposed fee didn't seem to 'match' their match discount table.
This post hasn't been edited, so is bound to contain errors. Better a few typos than never published at all, though...

As some of you may know, I have quite a bee in my bonnet about proper pricing and strategic positioning when it comes to freelance translation. Pricing is

29/01/2019

Here is a shorter post (by my standards) on bait-and-switch tactics in the translation profession.
I've written about the standard tactics before, these being:
1) impressing them with the starter: hiring good translators for the first couple of important jobs before switching to cheaper translators for the main course
2) CV switch-a-roo: using the CVs of more qualified translators to impress clients or win tenders, then switching to cheaper translators for the actual work
However, here I talk about a third:
3) window-dressing:
a. hiring professional native editors to edit the agency's website, even if the actual work will not receive that much attention
b. attempting to hire more expensive, better translators to translate the website than the agency hires for its day-to-day client work
The post includes my response to an apparent attempt at 3.b. I'm curious how others deal with such conflicts of interest, what tricks agencies otherwise unknown to you have tried to pull on you, and other experiences of bait-and-switch tactics.

Most of us are familiar with the main forms of bait-and-switch that are commonplace in the translation profession. Most are usually a variation on the following: 1. Impress them with the starter The client hires a translation agency for the first time, or perhaps the agency is responding to a call f...

24/07/2018

Punctuation matters!

For most people, a stray comma isn’t the end of the world. But in some cases, the exact placement of a punctuation mark can cost huge sums of money.

22/06/2018

After hearing about the inclusion of WordPress WPML filters in more recent versions of memoQ and some other great things tipped for the coming months, I decided to take advantage of an offer to purchase a few more years on my license and start using the latest version.

For people new to memoQ, now is a good time with a 30% discount on until the 29th June. That makes it €434 / $539 instead of €620 / $770.

That's quite a deal and worth doing if your memoQ is four or more years out of date or you've never bought a professional CAT tool before.

I'd recommend it even for creative texts without repetitions, as it's easy to combine segments, ignore suggested matches, and add comments which can then be exported along with the document. It also allows you to forget a little about formatting and focus on the text itself (nothing to stop you keeping the original doc open in another window, or adjusting minor details when you're done).

NB: This is not an affiliate or personal link but a general offer, with a better discount than Kilgray's referral programme.

26/05/2018

I blogged again! I know, I know, it's been a while.

This time I decided to share my thoughts on collaborative revision - the only stable path up to the nice safe places where the sun is shining, and MT and globalisation can't get you.

24/05/2018

GDPR and WordPress
Quick plugin solutions for compliant cookie notices and contact forms*

* assuming you have SSL (i.e. https:// ...) set up.
----

Here's something to help anyone stressing about GDPR compliance on a WordPress site.

**

COOKIE NOTICE - non-essential cookies and Google Analytics

Install this free plugin:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/cookie-notice/

It's the one recommended by eRecht24, and I now have it on all my websites.

Use this to create a compliant cookie banner, like the one on my blog website at https://www.lingocode.com.

It's very easy to use and I've shown the correct settings in the images below. *The default settings are not compliant.*

The ones highlighted in yellow in the second screenshots are the settings that don't matter in terms of compliance.

Note that I've also included the option to outright reject cookies - this has the same effect as when someone simply ignores the cookie banner, except that the cookie banner disappears until that non-harmful local cookie (just one to stop the banner appearing again) expires. This option is not currently required, and simply best practice. It WILL become mandatory next year.

Talking of, you can choose when that local cookie will expire, too, but it's not harmful and simply a true/false flag on whether other cookies are allowed.

There's a box in this screenshot. This is important! This is where you put all the code that should only run ***AFTER*** the person has given consent. In other words, ALL code/scripts pertaining to third-party non-essential cookies belongs in here.

I will include the code that you need to insert if you use Google Analytics in the comments. Do NOT generate your own code on Google unless you know what you're doing, as you may accidentally not disable all the things you need to disable. The template in the comments is ready-to-go, although you will need to enter your own Google Analytics tracking ID (this starts UA-......) in two places.

Remember to remove the Google Analytics code from any plugins or areas of your theme where it might otherwise be included!

**

CONTACT FORMS - just-in-time/privacy notice/consent

You need to ensure people have indicated their understanding of the implications of sending you a message via the contact form. From what I've read, merely linking to the privacy statement is not enough, nor are pre-checked boxes okay.

Good news: all this is easy to implement using this plugin:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/contact-form-7/
Make sure there is a required check box with that text next to it. See the third screenshot for how to implement this.

**

COMMENT SECTIONS AND CONTACT FORMS - SSL

If any data (including just people's names and email addresses, or anything people choose to write) can be submitted to you via your website (think: contact forms, comments sections), you will also - according to the common German interpretation and my own interpretation of GDPR itself - need to install an SSL certificate, i.e. enabling an encrypted connection to your site. It will then be accessed via https:// .... Your web host should be able to offer SSL certificate installation for an additional annual fee.

**

OTHER GENERAL WEBSITE THINGS
Website-wise, you will also need to look at privacy statements (which cannot be boilerplate and need to be tailored to what's actually on your site), and, where applicable, a legal information (Impressum/colofon) page (which also can't be boilerplate etc.), or registration with the authorities (check - n/a in Germany but this is the case in the UK). Your privacy statement will need to include information on third-party cookies, your contact form, comments, and more. You may also need to sign data processing agreements with any third parties that can process your data and that of your clients/prospects/colleagues/any website visitors (web host, email host, Google Analytics, WordPress, etc.). In Germany, this is compulsory, and I'm not sure how this is elsewhere.

**

This list is in no way exhaustive, just these two plugins and the instructions here will deal with two of the biggest GDPR issues very easily (three if you include the simple "get SSL" instruction). It's up to you to implement, ensure this is sufficient for your own jurisdiction and its implementation of GDPR, and check you've done everything else.

Good luck!