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.