ATA SLD

Slavic Languages Division (American Translators Association)

American Translators Association: The Voice of Interpreters and Translators

Division Roundup: June 2025

Natalia Postrigan, SLD Assistant Administrator

Registration for the ATA 66th Annual Conference in Boston, MA, is open now! Head to the conference website for updates on registration and the agenda for what promises to be an exceptional gathering of translation and interpretation professionals.

The conference kicks off on Wednesday, October 22nd with:

  • AST (Advanced Skills & Training) sessions
  • In-person certification exam
  • Welcome reception at 5:30 PM
  • Divisions & Special Interest Group (SIG) meet & greet, 7-8 PM

Over the following three days, attendees can enjoy multiple sessions alongside exciting networking opportunities including division events, a job fair, after-hours open mic café, book & resource fair, game night, and the annual ATA members meeting. The conference concludes on Saturday evening with a closing session (5:15-5:45 PM) followed by the legendary annual dance party.

SLD Annual Dinner: Our team is currently working on picking a restaurant. Stay tuned for updates! If you can recommend a great venue, please contact Natalia at divisionSLD@atanet.org.

Get Inspired: ATA65 Session Reviews

Need motivation to start planning for Boston? Read Conferences and Marketing on Stephen Rifkind’s blog for ideas on how to maximize the economic benefit of participating in a professional conference.

You can find reviews of sessions presented by SLD members in previous conferences on the SLD blog. For example, “On Interpreting for Russian-Speaking LGBTQ+ Individuals“ (presented by Olga Bogatova and reviewed by Julia LaVilla-Nossova).

Distinguished Speaker Announcement

We are thrilled to announce that our Distinguished Speaker will be Robert Chandler, a literary translator and poet with over 50 years of experience, including highly acclaimed translations of Vasily Grossman and Teffi.

Mr. Chandler began learning Russian at age 15 and spent a transformative year at 20 as a British Council Exchange scholar in Voronezh – the birthplace of Andrey Platonov and the city where Osip Mandelstam was exiled. It was there that he first discovered these writers and began his lifelong journey translating Russian poetry and prose. Currently based in London, he runs translation workshops and mentors emerging translators. We’re honored to welcome him from England and hope you’ll join us in Boston to celebrate his remarkable achievements.

Community Building Initiatives

Polish Certification Study Group

SLD member Katarzyna Kawalec is launching a peer practice group for the Polish<>English ATA certification exam. Inspired by Maria Guzenko and Eugenia Tietz-Sokolskaya’s primarily Russian-language study group of past years, Katarzyna is building a community for feedback exchange on practice texts and mutual support throughout the certification journey. If you’re planning to take the PL>EN or EN>PL exam, contact Katarzyna at kontakt@kawalec-tlumacz-przysiegly.pl.

Turkic Languages SIG

SLD members Shelley Fairweather-Vega and Jamila DelMistro are working on starting a Special Interest Group for Turkic languages within ATA. To learn more or volunteer as a moderator, contact Jamila (jamdmistro@gmail.com) or Shelley (translation@fairvega.com).

Continuing the conversation about AI in translation

The impact of AI on translation remains a hot topic. At ATA65 in Portland, Eugenia Tietz-Sokolskaya and John Riedl presented “I Can’t Place the Accent: Identifying the Characteristic Traits of Computer Translation,” which compared output from newer AI/LLM models to that of older machine translation and human translators. Read Christine Pawlowski’s review on the SLD blog, and access the presentation slides in our Slavic Languages Presentation Archive.

Coming Soon: Slovo podcast editor Halla Goins is preparing an interview with Eugenia and John. Catch up on previous Slovo episodes on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, and Spotify.

Share Your Voice

Want to contribute to our community discussions? Contact Halla about podcast opportunities or Eugenia about blog contributions and address any general questions and comments to SLD Administrator Steven McGrath and Assistant Administrator Natalia Postrigan by reaching out to divisionSLD@atanet.org.

Save the Date: Preparing Effectively for ATA’s Russian-to-English Certification Exam

Registration is now open for the upcoming webinar Preparing Effectively for ATA’s Russian-to-English Certification Exam on July 24 at 12:00 PM EDT. It will be presented by SLD member and certification exam grader Eugenia Tietz-Sokolskaya.

Interested in ATA certification but don’t know where to start? This webinar will help you prepare for the exam, using examples from actual Russian>English ATA exams and practice tests. We will cover the format of the exam, including what online resources are allowed, so you know what to expect on the day of the exam. We will take advantage of the resources made available by the Certification Program to delve into the skills and knowledge the exam is testing, with an in-depth look at the rubric and error categories used by graders to assess each candidate’s translation. We will examine examples of errors made on past exams to highlight common difficulties candidates face on the exam and discuss effective ways of preparing to overcome these challenges and increase your chances of passing on the first try. By the end, you will have an understanding of what ATA graders are looking for.

This webinar will be most useful to candidates looking to take the Russian>English and English>Russian exams, but can also provide valuable insight to any potential exam candidate with a working knowledge of Russian.

Find out more and register here.

Turkic Languages SIG: Seeking Moderator

For colleagues who are ATA members:

SLD members Shelley Fairweather-Vega and Jamila DelMistro would like to start a Special Interest Group (SIG) for Turkic Languages within ATA. They are looking for a 3rd person who is willing to serve as a moderator of the SIG for the first two years. If you are interested in helping out or learning more about this initiative, please contact Jamila (jamdmistro@gmail.com) or Shelley (translation@fairvega.com).

Filed Under: ATA Tagged With:

ATA65 Review: On Interpreting for Russian-Speaking LGBTQ+ Individuals

A review of On Interpreting for Russian-Speaking LGBTQ+ Individuals, presented by Olga Bogatova at ATA65

Review by Julia LaVilla-Nossova

Finding a session that was not related to AI in translation or interpreting at the ATA Conference was a nice change of pace.  It was therefore refreshing to come across the session titled “Interpreting for Russian-Speaking LGBTQ+ Individuals” by Ms. Olga Bogatova among the offerings of the 65th ATA Conference in Portland, Oregon. What can be better than learning about something new and practical and, most importantly, related to the development of languages – the love of our lives!

In her lively and well-illustrated presentation, Ms. Bogatova examined various LGBTQ+ reference terms (such as queer, transgender, questioning, ally, pansexual, etc.) and their newness. In addition, she guided the audience in understanding the language barriers that LGBTQ+ asylum seekers encounter when they initiate asylum claims and the process that leads to obtaining legal status in the United States.  Ms. Bogatova mentioned the well-founded fear LGBTQ+ persons have of being persecuted for belonging to a certain social group and how that impacts what words should be used to characterize their situations. She also described the asylum interview structure and provided information about general and special questions one needs to answer during an interview.  Her presentation (which is available on the SLD website) included a table with a fascinating comparison between the LGBTQ+ situations in Ukraine and Russia. While this complex and sensitive topic is of great interest even of itself outside of making asylum applications, using appropriate terminology and forms of expression can be determinative in deciding the outcome of any particular case; therefore, especially in this context, Ms. Bogatova emphasized that one needs to be very careful in choosing precise English and Russian equivalents for the phrases used in connection with LGBTQ+ individuals.

This made me think about a different, albeit related, subject – translating Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, which the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor at the Department of State prepares and publishes every year.  The annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, also known as the Human Rights Reports, cover internationally recognized individual, civil, political, and worker rights, as set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international agreements, including sections on LGBTQ+ rights. Acts of Congress mandate the annual submission of the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices to Congress. These important reports serve as guidance to help craft U.S. foreign policy that bolsters respect for human rights around the globe (additional information about the Human Rights reports, Trafficking in Persons Reports, and Religious Freedom Reports may be found on the official site of the Department of State). These reports are translated into several dozen foreign languages to make them available to people in various countries around the globe.  They are presented to Congress on an annual basis for its committees to pass decisions regarding granting countries most favored nation status or, on the contrary, putting countries on sanctions lists due to poor human rights environments. Information about the most recent of these reports can be viewed here.

One of the most important emphases of Ms. Bogatova’s presentation is the idea that language is a dynamic entity. These changes are often driven by societal evolution – therefore, for translators to be relevant, they must always pay special attention to this societal evolution in order to establish correct equivalences for the languages they translate.  And this makes the research conducted by Ms. Bogatova in the LGBTQ+ milieu and her sharing of it especially valuable.

Julia LaVilla-Nossova received her M.A. at Herzen University in St. Petersburg, Russia, and has been working as a freelance interpreter and translator in the United States for more than thirty years. She has been a staff translator at the Department of State Language Services since 2011.

 

ATA65 Review: I Can’t Place the Accent

A Review of: I Can’t Place the Accent: Identifying the Characteristics Traits of Computer Translation, presented by Eugenia Tietz-Sokolskaya, CT and John Riedl, CT on Friday, November 1 at ATA65

Review by Christine Pawlowski; slides from the presentation available in the Slavic Languages Presentation Archive

I do not feel threatened by AI,  and this is not because I think my language skills are superior to the machine. Perhaps it is mostly that my monthly social security check allows me to lighten my workload to a manageable volume. And maybe it is also that I am technologically challenged (being provided with a modem to do my work for FBIS in the 90’s was a huge step).

In my very limited experience with AI projects, I have enjoyed “beating” the machine, as when the AI translation of the word “wygodny” in Polish, which may be translated variously as “convenient” or “comfortable,” resulted in an English version of an apartment advertisement that sported a comfortable bedroom armoire—perhaps a magician’s prop?

Well before the October/November ATA65 Conference, we received a survey from Eugenia and John in which we were asked to select the best translation of several Russian texts, but we were not told who (or what) did the translation. When we arrived at the session, we learned that the translations had been done by Deepl, an NMT (Neural Machine Translation) service launched in 2017; ChatGPT 3.5, an LLM (Large Language Model) service launched in 2022; and a few different humans.

Given its timeliness, it is not surprising that generative AI figured prominently in many of the conference sessions. John and Eugenia’s session dovetailed beautifully with the subject of Holly Mikkelson’s Wednesday training for ATA graders: Prescriptive and Descriptive Language. In a nutshell, we investigated how we really speak.

In both Holly’s presentation and that of our Slavists, we looked for the “tell”—a clue or indication that reveals information or suggests a hidden truth. All translators—human or generative AI–have these tells. To find them, we looked to cohesion, fluency, syntax and terminology.

From the survey results and our on-site bantering about some of the linguistic conundrums, we learned that:

  • ChatGPT’s renditions will be grammatical and flow deceptively well but may not be accurate.
  • DeepL is easier to peg as a computer translation.
  • Human translators take liberties, which can be a blessing or a curse (hence the dangers of prescriptivism and the difficulties encountered in evaluating translation).

The good news disseminated by Eugenia and John is that humans can achieve higher quality by:

  • recasting or rewriting clauses
  • splitting or combining sentences
  • choosing subject-appropriate terms
  • substituting phrases for words and vice versa

This list suggests that skills in manipulating syntax are critical. The bad news is that humans also misspell words, misuse collocations and struggle with job fatigue.

Comparatively speaking, for the three passages we studied in the session, in every case ChatGPT came out on top of DeepL, which sticks very close to the original syntax, even to the point of unreadability. In two of the three examples, the human translation won.

Discussions of AI are ubiquitous—on Linkedin, in journals and magazines. An opinion piece in the latest edition of the journal First Things offers the suggestion that society can resist the techno-tyranny trend, which is making us miserable, by demanding human-to-human businesses because “People…will pay for happiness.”  There is some nostalgia for the way things were before the modem and the ease of searching the web for the contextually right word—but not much, in my opinion.

Christine Pawlowski is a freelance Polish and Russian translator with an M.A. in Slavic Languages and Literatures from Indiana University, Bloomington. She is retired from teaching elementary-school music and delights in being Busia to her 17 grandchildren and in directing and accompanying her church choir. She is ATA-certified for Polish-into-English and an ATA Certification grader for that language pair. She may be contacted at pawlow@verizon.net.

SLD Announcements: Networking Zoom and ATA66 Deadline Extended

Networking Gathering on Zoom: March 9th

Please join SLD the upcoming quarterly gathering on Zoom. Come chat with Slavic Languages Division colleagues about what’s going on in life and in business. The past meetups have offered members a valuable chance to catch up with each other. We hope that this one will give attendees a sense of connection and motivation going forward.

Grab something from the fridge and meet us on Zoom from 3-5 PM EDT on Sunday, March 9th. Latecomers are welcome. Attendance will be limited to 100 attendees, but this has not been a problem in the past.

To register, go to https://tinyurl.com/cdj9z3rt. With questions, please email SLD AssistantAdministrator Natalia Postrigan (postrigann09@gmail.com) before the event. We hope to see you there!

Proposal Deadline for ATA66 Extended to March 10th

Call for Speakers for ATA66 - Submission Deadline March 10

Speak at ATA66 – Proposals Due March 3

Call for Speakers for ATA66 - Submission Deadline March 3

Call for Speakers – Submit Your Proposal by March 3!

Speaking at the ATA Annual Conference is a challenging and rewarding opportunity. You will gain recognition as an industry leader by sharing your expertise.

Submit Your Proposal by March 3, 2025!

Book Your Hotel Now!

ATA66 will be held at The Westin Seaport – Boston. ATA66 rates at the Westin are available until September 29, 2025, or as space allows.

Hotel Reservations are now available!

Visa Information

You may need a visa to travel to the U.S. We encourage you to make the necessary arrangements as soon as possible. Please see the ATA66 website for additional information.

Review visa information now!

Need More Information?

If you have any questions, please contact:

Cat Kenol

Senior Professional Development and Events Coordinator

cat@atanet.org

More ATA66 Information

New Slovo Episode: Philip Boehm

The SLD podcast, Slovo, has a new episode! Host Halla Goins chats with playwright, director, and literary translator Philip Boehm about how his various literary identities shape each other, capturing the original voice of a work in translation, and some of his most memorable Polish-to-English translation projects.

According to the National Endowment for the Arts, “Philip Boehm has translated more than thirty novels and plays by German and Polish writers, including Herta Müller, Christoph Hein, Bertolt Brecht, and Stefan Chwin. Nonfiction translations include A Woman in Berlin by Anonymous and Words to Outlive Us, a collection of eyewitness accounts from the Warsaw Ghetto. For these translations he has received numerous awards, including fellowships from the NEA and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. He also works as a playwright and theater director, and is the founding Artistic Director of Upstream Theater in St. Louis.”

Listen now: https://soundcloud.com/atasld/episode-35-philip-boehm

You can also find this and past episodes on Google Play, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify.

Fundraiser for Galina Korovina’s Funeral Expenses

Long-time SLD member and Russian translator Galina Korovina passed away unexpectedly earlier this month. She left no family behind, and her friends have organized a GoFundMe, which can be found here, to help cover her funeral expenses. We can help by donating or sharing the link to spread the word.

If anyone has any memories of Galina, please feel free to share in the comments.

Notes from the Administrative Underground

Steven McGrath, SLD Administrator

At long last, I am reaching out to you in the first administrator’s column on the SLD Blog. I acknowledge that it would have been ideal to update you on events in the division sooner, especially since this has been an eventful year for the ATA and SLD, but, as is fitting at the year’s end, I can now report to you a summary of challenges overcome and successes for our membership.

The first success I’d like to mention is the SLD website and blog where you are reading this column, which is now our division’s primary organ. After some technical difficulties earlier in the year, website administrator and blog editor Eugenia Tietz-Sokolskaya has started to right the ship. Starting in May, she oversaw the first member-submitted articles on the blog, a series on translation quality by Mikhail Yashchuk and a guide to generative AI by Viktoryia Baum. The blog is now publishing the post-conference staples of session reviews and newcomer first impressions, as well as administrative updates, announcements, and job opportunities. Kudos to Eugenia and to all SLD Blog contributors!

In speaking of the conference, it was a pleasure seeing many of you at ATA65 in Portland. Special thanks to Eugenia, John Riedl, Olga Bogatova and Shelley Fairweather-Vega for presenting under the Slavic Languages topic category. Thank you as well to SLD members who presented under other topics – I tried to attend them all when the schedule would allow.

Preparations for ATA66 in Boston are already well underway, so I encourage you all to consider presenting sessions. The call for proposals typically goes out in January, so start brainstorming now! SLD’s leadership council has already decided on a nominee to be the Susan Greiss Lecturer in Boston: British literary translator Robert Chandler, who has made an incredible mark on the profession over the course of his distinguished career – including his highly praised translations of the works of Vasily Grossman, to name only one of many authors. He has been on the SLD’s short list of speakers for several years now, and both Paul Gallagher and Nora Favorov, respectively our incoming and emerita Greiss Lecture sherpas, endorsed him in a competitive process.

The past year was quite productive for SLD volunteers. Halla Bearden has been steadily recording interviews for the Slovo podcast, notably with Viktoryia Baum concerning, among other things, her experience with NASA, and also with the Language Technology Division administrative team Daniel Sebesta and Bridget Hylak. An interview with Polish>English literary translator Phillip Boehm has been ready for some time and the link should go out to SLD members shortly. SLD’s social media moderators – Mikhail Yashchuk for the LinkedIn group, Anna Livermore for the Facebook group, and Julia Thornton for the Google listserv – helped spread the word on various opportunities and requests made known to the division.

Moving the administrator’s column to the SLD Blog seems a bit like the start of a new era, and in some ways this reflects changes in the ATA and in the profession as a whole. The sustaining force for any organization in times of change is the energy of its members. Next year, the columns will become regular again, we will have our own Greiss Lecturer at the conference, and there will be new initiatives in new formats. In 2024, a year of transition marked by staff turnover and technological changes at ATA headquarters, we were fortunate to have an enthusiastic body of volunteers who helped us connect with each other and stay abreast of the industry. Thank you all! I look forward to working with you again in 2025!

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