Cracow Translation Days 2013

The Cracow Translation Days will be held from 6–8 September 2013.

The Cracow Translation Days are an international conference for professional translators that offers more than just plain vanilla. With a focus on professional education, networking and intercultural exchange, this is not just another conference in an impersonal convention centre, where the goal seems to be to attend as many talks as possible in as little time as possible. The Cracow Translation Days give priority to quality, not to quantity.

The organisers have chosen a special location for a special conference, the Benedictine abbey of Tyniec, 13 km southwest of Cracow, and put together an extensive social programme in and around Cracow.

Registration for this non-profit conference is now open. Abstracts for talks, workshops or roundtables are being accepted until 31 May 2013.

For more information, please visit the conference website.

(GxP Language Services is not affiliated with the organizers nor is organizing or helping to organize this event. We will just be attending it.)

TriKonf 2013 – “Professionalization & Interoperability in the Translation Industry”

GxP Language Services announced the first Tri-National Translation Conference (“TriKonf 2013″) to be held on October 19th and 20th, 2013 in Freiburg im Breisgau (Germany), under the motto “Professionalization & Interoperability in the Translation Industry”.

“In recent times the media have constantly featured reports about so-called universal translators or what wonderful things machine translation can now do for us”, explains Siegfried Armbruster, owner of GxP Language Services. ”This hype is spread by groups who want to convince potential sponsors to attract even more investment in their projects. What is overlooked again and again is the fact that qualified human translators and interpreters are still the only guarantee that linguistic content is adapted correctly and understandably into another language. With this conference, we aim to provide translators and interpreters with a platform that not just makes them familiar with the latest developments, but which also facilitates joint discussion in order to prevent too many customers being impressed by these surrealistic fantasies. When used correctly, technology can accelerate the translation process and improve its quality. Exaggerated and irresponsible use of translation technology however leads to unusable results. As long as the alleged cost reductions in the translation process have to be paid for by quality reductions in the final result, every customer should ask themselves whether they can really afford cheap(er) translations.”

For more information, visit the conference website (available in English, German and French): http://trikonf.com
Join the official Facebook Page
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TriKonf2013, the Tri-national Translation Conference

The GxP Language Sevices team is very proud to announce the first Tri-national Translation conference!

It will be held on October 19th and 20th, 2013 in the beautiful and historical German city of Freiburg im Breisgau, capital of the Black Forest. Right at the heart of the “Dreiländereck” where Germany, France and Switzerland meet.  The conference will be held in German and in French for German, Swiss and French translators, but also in English to make sure all international participants feel welcome! For this reason, the event will be completely trilingual and will feature one room for each language.

The conference itself will be held on Saturday, October 19th and Sunday, October 20th, 2013. A workshop day will be held the day before, on Friday 18th.

©FWTM/Scherer

We chose one of Freiburg’s most famous historical monuments as the venue for this exceptional event…  the Historical Merchants Hall (Historisches Kaufhaus), right in front of the cathedral, at the heart of the historic city centre. Built around 1520-1521, the historical Merchants Hall, with its magnificent red facade, is a true architectural and historical gem and therefore one of the most extraordinary conference venues in the region.

Full programme and registration are not available yet as we are still working on the planning, but the conference already has its Facebook Page where all the news will be posted.

For more information, visit the conference website (available in English, German and French): http://trikonf.com

We look forward to welcoming you in Freiburg in October!

The Translation and Localization Conference 2013

The 2013 Translation and Localization Conference in Warsaw is on!
Jointly organized by Localize.pl and TexteM, this event is one of the most important international events in Poland and Eastern Europe. With attendees and speakers from all around the world, as well as a variety of cutting-edge topics, the conference will take place March 23rd and 24th.

GxP Language Services will be attending and presenting again in 2013 (read Anne’s report about the 2012 event here) – Siegfried will present “Medical translations – What is the difference with other specialty fields and what is required to achieve top quality?” and Anne will present a case study on Social Search engine optimization.

We are very much looking forward to attending again, meet potential translators to collaborate with and see our Polish friends again!

Complete info and registration on the confernce website: www.conference.localization.pl

Registration open for the 2013 IMIA Conference

Registration Opens for the January 2013 International Medical Interpreting Conference: Guadalupe Pacheco, from the Office of Minority Health, USHHS is Keynote Speaker

The International Medical Interpreters Association is happy to announce that Guadalupe Pacheco, Senior Health Advisor to the Director Office of Minority Health Office of the Secretary, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is the keynote speaker and will speak on the revised National Standards on Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services (CLAS) as well as the National Stakeholder Strategy for Achieving Health Equity. “The 2013 IMIA Conference will provide a forum to hear national and international perspectives on the emerging practices of providing quality interpretation services to a growing global village,” said Guadalupe Pacheco.

Medical interpreters have been benefiting from an annual conference since 1996. The field of medical interpreting has grown in ways that few could have predicted. Innovative approaches have evolved into common practices that are being widely disseminated and adapted. Several standards and language access policies have been adopted at the state, national and international levels, spreading awareness about the importance of accurate communication and interpreting services to reduce health care disparities due to language access.

Registration just opened, and for the first time the IMIA has added a super early bird rate that expires July 15th, 2012. IMIA is encouraging early registration, which helps interpreters and other stakeholders better budget their trips. IMIA recommends the following to attendees: register first, book a hotel second, and buy the tickets last, as rates are not always cheaper earlier.

This IMIA led 3-day event has expanded and in just seven months will take place in Miami Beach Florida. “It was important to take the conference out of Boston to bring it to interpreters in other areas”, said Izabel Arocha, M.Ed., CMISpanish, and Executive Director of IMIA, “and Miami Beach seems like a great place to start”. The theme of the conference is Specialized Interpreting-Getting Beyond the Basics: Exploring Quality Interpreting for Multiple Specialtiesreflects on the in-depth level of skills and knowledge asked for by interpreters, and shared at the event.

It will take place in sunny Florida on January 18 – 20, 2013 at the Miami Beach Convention Center. “Florida is a state that is in constant motion and is more diverse than people think due to international tourism, medical tourism, and new residents from all over the world. There is a need for medical interpreters in many more languages, in addition to Spanish. We are happy to work in collaboration with IMIA to make this event a success”, said Gio Lester, President of the Association of Translators and Interpreters of Florida (ATIF). Panels and forums offer interactive discussion on relevant topics of the day, as well as over sixty very interesting workshops for interpreters, from Demystify Simultaneous Interpreting to New Trends in the Provision of VRI Services. To learn more about the conference, and to register, please visit the IMIA website .

About IMIA

The International Medical Interpreters Association (IMIA) is an umbrella association that promotes all standards and best practices in the field of medical interpreting. As an international non-profit organization of medical interpreters, it represents over 2,000 practicing medical interpreters as the ultimate experts in medical interpreting and as the best option for equitable care for minority language patients around the world. It promotes language access as a human right. The IMIA contains the only free international registry of medical interpreters, where they can be found by language, state, or country.

About ATIF

The Association of Translators and Interpreters of Florida-ATIF, a Chapter of the American Translators Association, is a 501(c)6 non-profit professional association incorporated in the State of Florida. Our association was established to provide support to professionals, students and end users of translation and interpreting services. ATIF is dedicated to promoting professional recognition and growth opportunities through educational and training initiatives targeting T&I professionals in the State of Florida. Website: http://atifonline.org

Source: IMIA – imiaweb.org
Photo: IMIA
Event schedule: http://www.imiaweb.org/uploads/pages/682..pdf

The Translation and Localization conference 2012, Warsaw, Poland

After a rich week in Berlin at conhIT 2012, off to Warsaw for the weekend where I was a guest speaker at the Translation and Localization Conference 2012 (“Konferencja Tłumaczy”- don’t ask me to pronounce it in Polish! ;))

It has been around a year and half since my last Translation industry event and it was truly a pleasure to see familiar faces again and meet new ones.  The event had the good idea of offering bilingual tracks: throughout the weekend, we had one room with English presentations only, while the other room featured only Polish contents. Given my non-existent Polish, this was very welcome!

The general subject areas of the conference were Computer-Aided Translation (how far can we stretch CATs, how do we manage CAT resources, segmentation, data formats, consistence and cohesion, virtualisation, dictation instead of typing and other pivotal issues in the area of computer-aided translation),  audio-visual translation and localization (computer games, dubbing, subtitling, copyright and related rights, going rates, audio-description, accessibility of films and theatrical performances and other cutting-edge developments on the audio-visual translation market), legal and specialist translation  (from fascinating case studies to popular debates on certified translation (and sworn translators): new strategies, food for thought and the big picture,  the business of translation and interpretation (hard data on freelancing, VAT and flat rate tax, as well as translation and localisation agencies. Expert insights on marketing translation services. (Down-to-earth, tried and true advice and fresh perspectives).

I made some interesting contacts and above all, we had very interesting discussions around a cup of coffee at breaks – discussions about the Polish market but also about the way the industry is going, particularly about machine translation (MT). The overall  shared opinion was the fact that MT was now inevitable and that it could be a translator’s best tool in terms of quality and productivity – when used wisely and with a strict quality-control procedure as well as the need to implement confidentiality measures. In short, the consensus was that MT was not completely mature yet – but will be very soon and that the industry should get ready to embrace it.

Entitled “Social Media Marketing for Translators: a must or a should?”, my presentation took place on Sunday morning with a small and lively group of translators with a broad background. There were many “young translators” (beginning in the industry) and experienced ones, curious about finding out whether this new marketing trend could apply to them and could work for them.  I hope that the colleagues who attended left the conference room with their own answer “Yes, Social Media marketing may be something for me, I want to know more” or “Nope, not for me.” At least that was the goal of this presentation, my aim was to give them some keys to help them decide. At the end of the day, as I specified many times during that hour with them, every translator is unique, every business is unique, and they all should see this presentation as a buffet where they just pick up what suits them, their needs and their goals. The presentation went well, there were quite a few questions and I had some very good feedback, so I guess the buffet formula worked for those colleagues!

It was also a fantastic opportunity to discover Warsaw and its gorgeous Old Town – a very enjoyable tour with two locals who know the history of their city by heart.

It was an excellent weekend, informational, interesting, fun (and incredibly hot, 30°C in Warsaw!) – thank you Agenor and Jacek of Localize.pl ;) , Maria Szpor and Anna Konieczna-Purchała of TexteM and their teams for organizing this great conference!

Visit the conference website and the Facebook Page with the photos and feedback – and hopefully see you next year for the 2013 Conference! :)