When translating we can't move a muscle until we know what things mean, and that applies to the words and concepts we use to talk about our work. Translation and interpreting is a highly technical field, full of tasks and methods never encountered by non-translators. Frustrated at the lack of consistently applied definitions to the many terms that define our occupation, I wrote my own glossary. Don't ask me what anyone else means when they discuss translation, but rely on this to know what I mean when I do.

One thing that distinguishes us from most translation providers is the closeness with which we work with our clients. There are many questions and answers, going both ways, and we incorporate a lot of feedback and direction from authors and end-users. But the bar is set to a professional height.

This document explains exactly what we are looking for in people. Is it you?

You should use Google Translate! If the benefit to you is greater than the cost you’d be a fool not to!

Here I detail my disgust that a whole profession can't manage to name itself.

Let's see who really digs down into this website. Here is a photo album of most of the people who have made this business what it is. They mean a lot to me. If I've missed anyone send pics!

What happens when a barbecue of translators translate the same phrase back and forth in the manner of Google translate?

Working on a large project with a team of Australian Project Managers and about 20 Japanese Technical Advisers, I use this material to improve the communicative effective on site, whether I am assisting or not. Interpreters need to worry about the quality of their raw materials too. That means sentences that are as complete and as grammatically correct as those you would produce for speakers of the same language.

Have you ever asked or been asked for something to be translated BACK into its original language? Please plow through this correspondence to see why it might not be as helpful as you think. Names have been changed to protect the innocence of some of my closest friends.

Dimsims, noodles and frozen pizza. Some of the most difficult materials to handle!

This has been our number one market sector for the past thirty years.

In 2001 I argued that we don't get paid enough, because we don't know how to sell our product. Has anything changed?

Oh I'm still pissed off about this one.

Some of the traps and pitfalls of working with drug smugglers and lawyers, neither of whom are particularly sensitive to the role of the translator.

If you are not sure what you are worth per hour, please have a read of this.

They've been asking the same stupid question for nearly twenty years now, we gave them a perfectly good answer in 1995!

CPTサービスのご案内

This short paper deals with the lay terms "Literal translation, word-for-word translation and verbatim translation" and I dispense with them as gently as I can. Which is not particularly.

Quality audit of Lucid website

Obsessed with the individual practitioner and their mysterious personal heritage, the translation industry remains largely pre-industrial. Here I explain why.

Australian employers are exposed to a variety of risks by failing to assess effectively English language proficiency of employees.

In 2006, Chris explained why interpreters get paid so little in the health system. He also successfully predicted the trouble that would befall some of Australia's largest Language Service Providers four years later. Please read and share your thoughts with us.

This was my input to the new National Standards for Interpreters Working in Australian Courts and Tribunals. It's not all bad!

This document is strictly for the eyes of our translation team members. If you are a potential or existing client, some of the language in this document may cause unintended hurt or offense. I implore you, under no circumstances should you click here and read the document, as it may reveal TOO MUCH of the mental discipline required by your translators as we fight for your interests in a world otherwise populated by people labouring under a grave over-estimation of their own grasp of language.

Apparently you can negotiate, mediate and facilitate "across cultures". Sounds shonky to me.

OHS professionals understand better than most the challenges of risk management and mitigation. Often they have arrived via other roles in the trades, project management or engineering where risk management runs like rio through everything they do.

A talk designed to snap dozy public servants out of their complacency as they jostle to get their photo taken with translators.