By Ruth Gámez & Fernando Cuñado (Traducción Jurídica)
The ATA annual conference is an event that all translators and interpreters should attend at least once in their lifetime.
We say this not only because it is the largest gathering of translators and interpreters in the world, but also for all the reasons we share with you below.
In this post, we will share our very personal impressions of our experience at the most recent ATA annual conference in Los Angeles.
Reasons to attend
The ATA Annual Conference is the best translation conference known to us. We realized this when attending our first annual conference in New York in 2009. That is why we always recommend it.
This event is not organized by any public or private institution that might be driven by its own interests but by an association of translators and interpreters whose sole objective is to serve as a focal meeting point to bring together all of us who work in this industry.
Nor is this a dull academic convention at which researchers will talk about their latest findings. It is much more than that.
The American Translators Association (ATA) convenes and organizes this conference in October every year, and you will find it to be the largest gathering of translators and interpreters you have ever seen. This year there were about 1,100 attendees, but at times, there have been more than 2,000 of us.
There are other translators’ associations in the world that organize great conferences, but a meeting of this size and variety rarely comes along.
The atmosphere of the meeting
This year’s annual conference was held in Los Angeles, California, from October 12 to 15. Los Angeles is a magnificent city with excellent connections and fine weather.
But it is quite far, yes, especially when flying from Spain. It was a long and tiring journey, and to top it off, we all had a cold. Thankfully, it soon passed.
As if this were not enough, we decided to travel with our two children and make this our first family trip to the United States together. They had to give up a week of school and swap it for a trip to Los Angeles and a visit to Disneyland, so as you can imagine, they weren’t exactly in tears.
The hotel was great, a little outdated, but very comfortable and with many amenities. Our only “but” is the location, which is not in the best area of the city. We would have liked to be closer to the beach or somewhere more touristy.
The organization was impeccable. Everything at ATA is very well done so that you feel comfortable and get the most out of the conference.
From the moment you arrive at the hotel and register, you meet colleagues in the lobby and the corridors with similar name badges. Conversations arise easily and spontaneously.
The organizing committee for this year’s conference consisted of ATA’s President-Elect, Veronika Demichelis, whom we met at the welcome reception, the President, Madalena S. Zampaulo, and a great many volunteers from the association.
To organize a meeting like this is a grueling task, and we must say that it went off without a hitch. We can only imagine how hard the organizers must have worked to ensure everything was perfect. We would like to thank Adrian L. Aleckna, who took great care of all the speakers and helped make our lives so much easier.
Colleagues and friends
Everything at the conference is designed to make it easy to get to know people, even when one is shy and attends alone, which is quite often the case. The organizers are aware of this, so networking is a very well-thought-out (and coordinated) part of the event.
One of the first things we did (after being in the swimming pool with our kids) was to attend the Welcome Celebration. While the children stayed in the room playing with their tablets, we decided to go downstairs and join the party. It was held on a terrace next to the pool where we had been earlier, with spectacular views of downtown Los Angeles.
While it took us a while to spot people we knew amid the big crowd, once we got started, it was non-stop greeting and taking pictures with colleagues and friends. We had not seen some of them for quite a while and were delighted to meet others in person for the first time, such as our dear Nora and Judy.
We were also fortunate enough to meet and greet for the first time several members of the Club de los Grandes Traductores, such as Katja, Marco, Mercedes, Ricardo and Erika, which was the highlight of our evening.
Dinners, breakfasts, lunches and drinks
One of the best aspects of conferences is the many opportunities to meet interesting people, especially when staying at same the hotel where the conference is hosted, which is highly recommended.
Having breakfast, lunch, dinner or a beer in the lobby coffee shop provides an excellent opportunity to get to know people. It is quite easy to approach your colleagues and initiate a conversation, as the atmosphere is relaxed and welcoming.
Though we are not sure why, those of us who speak Spanish are easily spotted, and tables are often pushed together to accommodate everyone who wishes to join in.
Fortunately, we were able to enjoy several dinners, lunches and breakfasts, both in the hotel and elsewhere, in the company of colleagues we already knew and others with whom we connected, such as Analia Bogdan, Paula Arturo, Tony Rosado, Nora Díaz and César, the sisters Judy and Dagmar Jenner, Corinne McKay, Tom West, Andy Benzo, Aída Carrazco and family, Edna Santizo and our dear friend Pablo Mugüerza, as well as many other colleagues to whom we apologize for not mentioning their names individually.
The various ATA divisions also organize networking dinners or lunches. We attended the Law Division lunch, superbly organized by its Division Administrator, Liz Herron-Sweet, which we thoroughly enjoyed as we were able to “talk shop,” discussing peculiarities of legal translation as we shared our table with two members of the Club.
The following day we attended the Spanish Division dinner. This was one of the most fun events of the conference, organized by Edna Santizo and Gabriela Escarrá. If at some point you follow our advice and attend an ATA annual conference, make sure you don’t miss this dinner!
Our presentation
You may now think that we only attended to wine, dine and have fun with our professional colleagues. But that is not so. We were also able to visit Disneyland, Universal Studios, Santa Monica and the Getty Villa in Malibu.
Indeed, networking and fun were important aspects of the conference, but we also attended to learn and to make a presentation. We heard four very interesting talks and, on Friday 14th in the afternoon, we delivered our presentation entitled “Tecnicismos, jerga jurídica y esas frasecitas que nos vuelven locos a los traductores jurídicos” (“Technicalities, legal jargon and little phrases that drive us, legal translators, up the wall”).
We will summarize the content of our presentation in a future post if you are interested. Today we wanted to focus on the personal side of the conference to bring you an insider’s view of the experience of attending an event such as this.
Speaking of which, we must confess that we were quite anxious about how our presentation would go. We knew the subject matter very well, we had rehearsed it, but that was not enough to put us at ease.
About 50 to 60 people attended, which is a large number considering that about ten presentations are being delivered simultaneously every hour and, thankfully, everything went well. Yet, only the attendees can tell if they learned something new.
Traveling with children
When planning to attend ATA63 in Los Angeles, we knew it would have to be a family trip, as we didn’t want to leave our children alone for a whole week. It was also a good opportunity to go together to visit the United States, a country we cherish. However, we also had some reservations about the trip. It was the first time we would be on such a long journey, and the children would have to spend time with people they didn’t know.
We were uncertain about whether they would have a good time or be bored amid so many translators. They are still young, as Nicolas is thirteen and Sofia, the youngest, is only eight. But, in the end, they really enjoyed the trip.
We must also recognize that they behaved like two champs and did not grumble (too much) for all they had to endure. They had their moments of fun, of course, as we did some sightseeing with them, but they also joined us for most of the lunches and dinners we attended.
On the day of our presentation, they had more fun than we did, that’s for sure, because they spent the whole day with two of our best American friends, Jay and Martina, who came from San Francisco and St. Louis to see us. The children already knew Jay, as we had met up only a few months ago in Lisbon. Martina and Jay were wonderful hosts, taking the children to all the fun places in the city they still had to see.
Conclusion
As we always say, you should attend an ATA annual conference at least once in your lifetime. It is, of course, a significant investment of time and money, especially if traveling from another continent or with the whole family, as we did, but it is well worth it.
This post has turned out rather long, but we had lots to share with you. We hope you have found it helpful.
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Ruth Gámez and Fernando Cuñado work together as a legal translation team for direct clients like Spanish law firms and law departments of international companies. They also work as external translators for several international organizations. They teach legal translation at Universidad de Comillas (Madrid) and have published a book called Introducción al Common Law (An Introduction to Common Law).
You can find us at:
https://traduccionjuridica.es/blog/
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