Beginning literary translators may now apply for travel funds to attend the 2008 conference of the American Literary Translators Association in Minneapolis/St.Paul, Minnesota, on October 15–18. To apply, send a letter that includes the applicant’s curriculum vitae, ten double-spaced pages of translation into English, and the original foreign language text to:

ALTA Travel Fellowship Award c/o UTDallas 800 W. Campbell Road - JO51 Richardson, TX 75020-3021 Attention: Lindy Jolly

Application deadline is May 15.

Over a dozen AATIA volunteer interpreters and career models helped serve the 3000 people attending the Austin Independent School District’s Feria para Aprender (educational fair) on February 17th. A photo of AATIA member Marco Hanson, wearing the official AATIA t-shirt, and Univision news reporter Regina Rodriguez accompanied the Austin American Statesman’s slideshow on the event. (See photo 4. Site may require free registration.)

CyraCom is partnering with Cook Children’s Medical Center in Fort Worth to present an Interpreter Skills Development training course on April 8–10, 2008, open to all practicing medical interpreters in the area.

This comprehensive, three-day course teaches how to apply interpretation techniques of clear, effective communication between Limited English Proficient (LEP) patients and healthcare professionals. The cost is $325 per person, which includes lunch each day and all educational materials.

AATIA’s Spanish Special Interest Group (SpanSIG) will host a workshop on English-Spanish contrastive grammar in Austin on Saturday, April 5, 2008. The day-long workshop will focus on compared grammar structures, discursive elements, phrasing and wording, direct and indirect speech, idioms, false cognates, and the “transcreation” (translation + creation) methodology for identifying these foreign elements and adapting them to the target language.

Although the workshop is aimed mainly at translators of English to Spanish, translators of Spanish to English will benefit from the discussion of contrastive grammar and “transcreation” methodology.

The presenter, Xosé Castro, is an English > Spanish technical translator and localization specialist based in Madrid, Spain, whose work also includes writing, dubbing, and subtitling for television and film. He has taught translation courses and seminars for T&I programs in Spain and has spoken at numerous international workshops and conferences on a variety of translation topics, including software and website localization, movie script translation, writing in neutral Spanish, and proofreading. Among many other distinctions, he is the creator of the online help for the CD-ROM version of the Diccionario de la Real Academia Española (Spanish Royal Academy Dictionary).

The workshop will be held at the International Center of Austin. Participants who are ATA-certified will be eligible to earn six continuing education points. Registration for the workshop will begin in early March.

The Translation and Interpreting program at Austin Community College is a collaborative effort with the Austin Area Translators and Interpreters Association. It consists of seven courses. Upon completion of the introduction course, students choose to follow the translation track or the interpreting track, with three courses in each track. Each course consists of 10 class periods, three hours each. Classes are usually presented once a week.

The program is available for all languages as long as there are two or more students who share the same language, as students are required to work in language pairs. For interpreting courses, students provide feedback to each other. For translation courses, students receive feedback from certified translators in their own language, whenever possible. All courses are conducted in English.

Upon successful completion of each course, students receive a certificate of completion from ACC. This is not a translation certificate and is not equivalent to the American Translators Association (ATA) certification or interpreter licensing. However, the ACC certificate does serve as proof of training in translation and interpreting and will give students an edge when seeking employment to apply their skills.

For further information, see attached brochure or contact Esther Diaz.

AATIA will host an information session on the American Translators Association (ATA) translator certification program on March 1, 2008, 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. The session will include general information about ATA certification and specific tips on preparing for and taking the certification exam. No practice tests will be given during the information session, but sample test passages in a variety of languages will be available for participants to take and use for practice on their own.

This session is intended both for candidates who are planning to sit for the ATA certification exam in Austin on April 12, 2008, and for potential candidates who want to learn more about the exam before taking the plunge.

The session will be held at the International Center of Austin, 201 E. 2nd St. Download more information about the session and a registration form. The registration fee for AATIA members is $25. Non-members pay $30. The fee includes a packet of materials containing general information on the ATA certification program and exam, together with language-specific tips for candidates and samples of previous exam passages.

Patricia Bown from McElroy Translations will explore the Spanish translation market at the Spanish Special Interest Group meeting at 10:15 a.m. on Saturday, February 9, at the Austin History Center.

She will address the changing needs that the Spanish translation market faces and how to prepare for it as a Spanish translator (areas of specialty that are in high demand in Spanish translation, qualifications agencies seek when hiring translators, and types of translations requests they get).

The Translators and Interpreters Practice Lab, better known as TIP-Lab, is offering its 18th Spanish Translation/Revision Workshop, specially designed and tailored for professionals working in any country of the world who translate from English into Spanish. It will run from July through December 2008.

Texts translated by the participants will be reviewed by Leandro Wolfson, a nationally known translator from Argentina who specializes in human and social sciences, and returned to the participants with revisions and annotated comments.

The workshop will cover general interest topics with no particular focus on specialized terminology or subject matter. Only applicants with extensive translation experience and full (native or highly proficient) command of Spanish (written form) and English (comprehension) will be accepted. For evaluation of their proficiency, applicants must submit a short narrative in Spanish (approximately 250 words) in which they describe their professional training and activities and the reason why they want to participate.

The American Translators Association has approved the workshop for continuing education (CE) credits. The Harvie Jordan Foundation is offering five $100 scholarships to qualified AATIA members.

Workshop fee is US$250 per participant (US$30 non-refundable administrative fee included in this amount). Registration deadline is Monday, June 16, 2008. We encourage AATIA members to register by March 1, since registrations will be accepted on a first-come-first-served basis until the quota is filled. Download the brochure for more information and the application form.