Slavic Languages Division (American Translators Association)
Photo by J. Kelly Brito on Unsplash
On July 31, ATA will host a 2-hour practice-driven webinar for English to Russian translators on editing their own translations. During this webinar, participants will go through a sample text and practice their editing skills, as well as learn a framework to edit their own translations more efficiently.
You can register at https://www.atanet.org/webinars/ataWebinar203_russian_editing.php.
By Maria Guzenko
Image by rawpixel from Pixabay
Having up-to-date subject-matter, technology, and business expertise is one of the things that sets the professional translator apart from the amateur. In addition, if you are certified by the American Translators Association (ATA) or another translation/interpreting organization, you need to accrue continuing education credits to maintain your credential. The requirements will vary depending on the organization, and those for the ATA can be found here.
With that in mind, I would like to start a column where we review continuing education opportunities, whether specific to the languages of the SLD, focused on a certain subject area or text type, or promoting any other skill useful for translators. If you have taken a course, watched a webinar, or attended an event in the last year or so and would like to review it for the SLD blog, please get in touch with Maria Guzenko at maria.guzenko@intorussian.net.
My American Master’s degree, while incredibly helpful in many ways, did not offer practical English-to-Russian classes. Since I mostly translate into Russian, I wanted to fill that gap and started looking for language-specific classes where I could get some tips, guided practice, and feedback. My search brought me to the website of Alliance Pro («Альянс Про»), a company that offers Russian translation and interpreting classes, either as live webinars or as recordings of past events. I have no financial or business relationship with this course provider, other than paying for their class.
The class I took was called Medical Translation («Медицинский перевод») and “met” via teleconference twice a week for two hours. Four weeks of webinars were followed by a final test, which determined whether the participant would get a certificate of completion. Because the live sessions were held in the evening, Moscow time, I was able to join in the early afternoon on the East Coast. Webinar recordings and PowerPoints were available for later viewing if you had to miss the live session, which was also convenient for the times I had to be away from my desk.
The course was taught by Olga Gilyarevskaya (Ольга Гиляревская), the chief editor of a Moscow-based translation agency and a former pharmaceutical representative. It appeared that the curriculum largely reflected the types of documents and subjects Ms. Gilyarevskaya regularly saw in her work, such as clinical study protocols and disease descriptions. Each week covered a different area; by the end of the course, we had looked at clinical trials, evidence-based medicine, oncology, cardiology, pharmaceutical companies, and ophthalmology.
Each webinar started with the instructor going over the homework from the previous class, and she would either comment on our cohort’s proposed solutions or discuss typical errors for the homework passage. Next, the instructor would present new material. Beware, a typical PowerPoint had more than 100 slides, which can definitely be a lot of information, especially if you are trying to take notes! Fortunately, the PowerPoints were available to the course participants online so you could always go over them later.
On the positive side, Ms. Gilyarevskaya did not only lecture and share information; she made sure to keep the group engaged by asking us for possible translations and giving us feedback. Clinical studies can be intimidating for a newcomer, and the teacher put the group at ease with her down-to-earth attitude and not being hard on those giving incorrect answers.
At the end of each class, the instructor would assign homework for the following class. There were two differently priced “access tiers” for this course, so some participants turned in homework and had it corrected, while others simply audited the class. We would normally get a choice of two texts, one more advanced than the other. A typical passage would be some 3-4 paragraphs long, and we would usually get about 2 days to upload our translation. Between going over the new material and doing your homework, you would probably need a minimum of two hours after each session, so I do not recommend taking this class if you are overloaded with work or family responsibilities!
A lot of homework passages came from clinical trial documentation, and I appreciated that we worked on real-life texts. On the other hand, the homework would regularly include concepts we had not discussed in the previous lecture. It could be a bit discouraging when some things in the passage were not clear even after you went over your class notes. I suppose that reflects real-world working conditions, where we often have to research things as we go along.
Any review is bound to be subjective, so what I say here reflects my professional goals and preferences. If you come to this class expecting a comprehensive overview of medicine and different text types in various specialties, you are likely to be disappointed. For instance, the text types I translate most often—patient education materials and descriptions of health benefits—were not represented. Neither were such areas as mental health or diagnostic imaging. That makes perfect sense, though—no single month-long class can cover all possible text types you come across in the medical field.
Personally, I am happy I took this class. I now have a better understanding of clinical trials, statistics, immune therapy, and the cellular mechanisms underlying cancer, even though I still have a lot more to learn. I also enjoyed the easygoing teacher and the “can-do” attitude she encouraged in her students. I would recommend this class to English-Russian translators who are interested in clinical studies and are willing to put in several hours of study and homework every week.
Maria Guzenko is an ATA-certified English<>Russian translator and a certified medical interpreter (CMI-Russian). She holds an MA in translation from Kent State University and specializes in healthcare and marketing content. Maria has also worked as a project manager and has taught college Russian and writing classes. More information can be found on Maria’s website at https://intorussian.net.
By Olga Shostachuk
This article is reprinted with permission from the latest issue of the SLD newsletter, SlavFile. You can find the current issue and an archive back to 1999 at https://www.ata-divisions.org/SLD/slavfile/.
You would think that after decades of attempting to scrupulously identify and combat the Internet’s oldest hustle, namely email scams, there`d be a fix for them by now. Alas, there is not. Internet access, social media, and the convenience and anonymity of email, along with the capability these provide for easily contacting thousands of people at once, enables scammers to work in volume. Although translators are generally aware of scams these days, even experienced, savvy translators get duped on occasion. The fraudsters continually refine their techniques and expand their targets, so it is crucial to stay alert.
This article describes some of the many email-based scams targeting translators (and often other types of freelancers as well). We hope this information will help you to better recognize potential traps and avoid them. The Federal Trade Commission (https://www.ftc.gov) is a great resource for further information on new and “recycled” scams and how to avoid cybercriminals.
Common types of scams
Many scams fall into a few broad categories, described below.
419 Advance fee fraud
This type of scam is also known as the Nigerian Prince scam, the Spanish Prisoner scam, the black money scam, Fifo’s Fraud, and the Detroit-Buffalo scam. These schemes are quite elaborate and, despite their somewhat preposterous appearance, they manage to hook a surprising number of victims. The classic 419 advance fee scam attempts to entice the victim into a bogus plot to acquire and split a large sum of cash. The translator variant of this scheme is usually one in which a translator is asked to perform a translation, paid in advance for the work, and then asked to refund an accidental overpayment.
Here is how it works. Once you’ve taken the initial bait, i.e., responded to the original job message, you will likely receive a sizable document to translate (usually 3,000-5,000 words) and an offer of payment. If you go on to accept the job, you will soon discover that the client has sent payment in advance (even if advance payment was not among the agreed-upon terms) and has “mistakenly” sent a check for a much larger amount than the agreed-upon fee. The scammer will ask you to return the excess funds, usually by bank wire. Alas, because of the length of time it takes to process a check, particularly one from overseas, by the time your bank informs you that the check is fake and no funds have been credited to your account, you will have long since sent the bank wire and had the money pulled from your account and transferred to the scammer. Thus, you are out whatever effort you put into the translation as well as the funds you wired to cover the “overpayment.”
Phishing emails
Phishing emails have been crafted to look as if they were sent from a legitimate organization, when in fact they aim to fool you into visiting a bogus website where you inadvertently download malware (viruses and other software intended to compromise your computer) or reveal sensitive personal or account information. Phishing emails usually contain a link that appears to take you to a legitimate company`s website to fill in your information, but the website is a clever fake and the information you provide goes straight to the crooks behind the scam.
Subscription scams
Subscription scammers approach translators (and other freelancers) with the promise of well-paying work, but they want you to pay for the leads or subscribe to their services for a fee. All they want is your money, not your skills. You might as well throw your money away.
Resume (identity) theft
In this scenario, fraudsters pluck a translator’s resume from a website such as www.proz.com, set up an e-mail account in the translator’s name, and send (often poorly crafted) e-mails posing as the professional translator and soliciting work. It is unclear how exactly this profits them, although they might get paid; but certainly it damages your reputation.
SlavFile editor Jen Guernsey warns of another scam in which the scammer impersonates a legitimate company. If a new company contacts you be sure to look closely at the website and domain name.
Recognizing and avoiding email scams
The screen shot below contains numerous red flags indicating that this email is likely a scam:
Source: www.webroot.com
1 and 2. The email is not addressed to the recipient by name. Here, the addressee is “you” and “Dear customer.” Either the fraudsters don`t know your name, or they are using a template and not bothering to customize it.
3. The email doesn’t make sense. In this instance, it might reference an account that you never created. Or it states that you have exceeded the number of login attempts allowed, when you haven’t even been trying to sign in to that account.
4. The email contains a surprising number of grammatical or spelling errors, even though it ostensibly comes from a professional entity such as a bank or a translation company.
5. The email encourages you to confirm that the email is legitimate by clicking on a link provided in the email itself.
6. The email contains a link to a site or an email address that does not match the text of the link. To see the link destination, simply hover your cursor over the website link (without clicking), or click on the email address link, and you will see that the website or email address does not match the email originator or the purported destination. In this example, you can see the true link address displayed along the bottom of the screen.
Here is another typical example of a fraudulent solicitation. In November 2017, an email from George Boucher, georgyboucher@gmail.com, landed in my mailbox. It read: My dear! I’m in need of your service to translate the attached English content document. However, I have some questions such as:
1.How much would you charge per page, word or for the entire
translation?
2. Specialized language/s.
3. Preferred mode of payment, though I would like to propose cashier’s check or
bank certified check and do not hesitate to confirm if this is okay by you.
Project deadline is 1 month starting from 12/20/2017.
What are the warning signs here?
1. First of all, no client, especially a new one, is likely to call you “My dear.”
2. Grammar, style, and register are all off.
3. If a “client” found your info somewhere online, he or she would already know your language combination(s). No legitimate client reaches out to a translator without specifying the required language pair.
Tips to help you avoid being taken
The following recommendations can minimize your chances of falling victim of an email scam.
1. Utilize good general cybersecurity practices:
2. Never share your banking information with somebody you don’t know. If your overseas clients insist on paying you via wire transfer, or this is your preferred method of payment for overseas clients, you may set up a separate secondary account in your or any bank which you would use only for wire transfers for your overseas clients and transfer the money to your regular bank account right after the transaction. This is a great way to safeguard your regular account in case your bank info is hacked. 3. Ask as many questions as you can. If a “client” tells you that she has a 30-page article to translate, ask for the subject, style, details, background, and the like. A legitimate client will be able to give you all of this information in a blink, whereas a scammer will avoid the answers or will give you answers that seem off or simply don’t make sense.
4. Be suspicious if an email says that they found you on https://www.atanet.org/, for example. People generally make reference to institutions, not domains.
5. If you receive a link to a site or a downloadable file from a known colleague but your colleague has not communicated with you in advance and/or you don’t know why you’re receiving the link, do not click on it. Instead, contact your colleague and ask him or her about the matter. Do NOT respond directly to the email. Create a new email, or better yet, call.
6. Use your own link. If you receive a message supposedly from a legitimate company, go to its site directly from the web using any search engine but not through the email you received . This is the ONLY way to guarantee that you land on the legitimate site of a known company.
7. Hover before you click. Whenever you receive an unsolicited email asking you to “click here,” beware – even if it sounds like a legitimate company. The same goes for social networking links that take you to what appear to be login pages. These may in fact be sites designed to steal your information.
8. Google the named company or individual. Try keying in their name as well as an excerpt from the message text. Crooks often use the same wording and names for multiple translation scam attempts.
9. Ask for an advance fee. If the job is large, ask to be paid in installments and ask for a retainer. If at any stage the “client” suggests they’ve overpaid and asks you to wire back part of the payment, don’t! It’s a scam. Do not begin working until the payment fully clears. Be prepared to pay a bank fee if the check is fake.
10. Set up a PayPal or Square account, or any alternative thereof, (https://www.merchantmaverick.com/top-7-square-alternatives/) to be able to take a full or partial payment in advance from a new or unknown client that you find suspicious.
11. Pay no commissions or subscription fees. Translation is a large, fast-growing field, so you shouldn`t have to pay to get work. Try to be creative in finding your own clients.
Valuable resources:
https://www.proz.com/about/translator-scam-alerts
https://www.translator-scammers.com/translator-scammers-directory.htm
https://www.proz.com/forum/946
Olga Shostachuk is a PhD Candidate in Translation Studies at Kent State University, Kent, OH, where she previously completed her M.A. in Translation degree. She also holds an M.A. in Education and Linguistics from Lviv National University in Ukraine and a paralegal degree from the Academy of Court Reporting in Cleveland, Ohio. Ms. Shostachuk served as the Vice Chapter Chair for Ohio IMIA and currently is a Ukrainian editor for SlavFile, the newsletter of Slavic Languages Division of the ATA. She is also a Ukrainian into English grader for the ATA certification exam. Her research focuses on legal and medical translation, computer-assisted translation, psycholinguistics, localization, pedagogy, and assessment. She can be reached at olgalviv27@yahoo.com.
The ATA 60th Annual Conference takes place October 23-26, 2019, in Palm Springs, California. Whatever your role in the T&I Industry, ATA60 is the place where dedicated professionals come together to expand their knowledge and their network.
The conference website is live! Learn more at: https://www.atanet.org/conf/2019/
The 2019 season continues on the SLD Podcast with Alaina Brandt, a business owner, Spanish-to-English translator, and expert on project management and processes. Ekaterina and Veronika chat with Alaina about best practices in project management, sources of communication failure, and the state of localization training in the US.
Listen now on Soundcloud, iTunes, or Google Play, and be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode!
The American Translators Association is accepting presentation proposals for the ATA 60th Annual Conference in Palm Springs, California, October 23-26, 2019. Proposals must be received by March 1, 2019.
Learn more: https://bit.ly/ata60speak
If you are looking for proposal ideas, here is a call from Jen Guernsey specific to the SLD:
Hello everyone! The deadline for submitting a proposal for a conference presentation is March 1. Presenting at a conference – whether as a solo act, with a colleague, or as part of a panel or a translation slam – is a fun way to get your name and face out there, connect with your colleagues, and support our conference, which relies on us members to provide nearly all of the sessions on offer. Jen Guernsey would be happy to provide you with information, suggestions, and help in getting your proposal submitted.
We have had requests for presentations on tricky interpreting situations, differences in training (particularly interpreter training) in the US vs Slavic countries, and additional translation slams. Please email Jen Guernsey (jenguernsey@gmail.com) if you would be willing to serve as a participant, panelist, or moderator on any of the following:
Thanks, and see you in Palm Springs!
The SLD Podcast is kicking off its new, 2019 season, centered around the topic “Business Matters.” In this first episode, Veronika and Ekaterina interview Sara Maria Hasbun, a linguist, entrepreneur, and Managing Director of Meridian Linguistics. You can listen directly on Soundcloud or through Apple Podcasts and Google Play.
Make sure to subscribe so that you never miss an episode! You can also find the entire archive with links on the SLD Podcast page.
The ATA has put out its call for speakers for the 60th Annual Conference in Palm Springs, CA. Details on proposal requirements and perks can be found here.
The SLD encourages anyone with an idea for a session to apply. Our members have expressed specific interest in sessions focusing on the day-to-day practice of interpreting, including cultural expectations, as well as deeper dives into specialized fields and the linguistic aspects of translating, but other topics are always welcome! Keep in mind that the SLD is limited to 6 slots (of which 2 are reserved for the Distinguished Speaker), so we encourage potential speakers to consider submitting sessions overlapping with other topics and divisions (such as interpreting, literary, T&I education or technology, etc.).
We look forward to seeing you at the conference in October!
Happy New Year! If one of your professional New Year’s resolutions was to do more continuing education in the coming year and you are a legal translator or interpreter, the ATA has just the opportunity for you. It will be hosting a full-day law seminar in Jersey City on February 16, with morning and afternoon sessions divided between translation and interpreting. ATA-certified attendees can earn 7 CEPs!
The schedule, session descriptions, and hotel and registration information can be found here: https://www.atanet.org/events/law_jerseycity.php.