Digwyddiadau proffesiynol blaenorol
Previous events
Finding your Ideal Clients: Strategy and Execution
9 + 25 March 2022
In this 6-hour course (two 3-hour sessions), Tess Whitty drew on her 18 years of experience as a freelance translator and her marketing background to give you practical tips and strategies to define, find and engage with your ideal clients, plus market your services consistently with a plan. We covered:
Session 1:
Session 2:
Online Writing Skills For Translators
20 + 27 March 2021
The differences between writing copy to be read online and offline are very significant. People read copy differently on a screen from the way they’d read a printed page. And publishing copy online provides another dimension: it may be searchable but only if it is written with search engines in mind. Getting it right can make the difference between copy being read by vast audiences or nobody at all. The course provided a clear understanding of how these processes work and how to put them into practice.
Session 1:
Session 2:
Simon Newsam has been a journalist for more than 30 years and has mainly worked in newspapers, magazines and online formats.
His speciality is making complex scientific and technical subjects accessible to ordinary people. To this end, he writes eBooks and blogs and also provides public relations services for a small group of clients. He has also worked in training for more than 10 years, including running courses in digital marketing and associated skills and in business communications. He lives with his wife and daughter in the south Wales valleys where they keep chickens and bees and grow their own food.
9 + 25 March 2022
In this 6-hour course (two 3-hour sessions), Tess Whitty drew on her 18 years of experience as a freelance translator and her marketing background to give you practical tips and strategies to define, find and engage with your ideal clients, plus market your services consistently with a plan. We covered:
Session 1:
- Analysing your current customer base and current situation
- Defining your ideal client and creating a customer avatar
- Finding your ideal clients
- Mindset for better clients
Session 2:
- Essential marketing material for targeted industries
- Basics on website optimization and online presence
- Contacting direct clients – in person or by email
- Creating a marketing plan and following up
Online Writing Skills For Translators
20 + 27 March 2021
The differences between writing copy to be read online and offline are very significant. People read copy differently on a screen from the way they’d read a printed page. And publishing copy online provides another dimension: it may be searchable but only if it is written with search engines in mind. Getting it right can make the difference between copy being read by vast audiences or nobody at all. The course provided a clear understanding of how these processes work and how to put them into practice.
Session 1:
- How people read online and the pitfalls associated with this
- How search engines work
- The techniques needed to appeal to search engines
- How to organise and present copy most effectively for search engines
- Understanding different online audiences
Session 2:
- How to find key words and phrases for search engines
- How to plan this efficiently
- How to make online copy work hard for the owner, including calls to action
- There will also be tips, plenty of exercises, templates to help you and further reading for those wanting more.
Simon Newsam has been a journalist for more than 30 years and has mainly worked in newspapers, magazines and online formats.
His speciality is making complex scientific and technical subjects accessible to ordinary people. To this end, he writes eBooks and blogs and also provides public relations services for a small group of clients. He has also worked in training for more than 10 years, including running courses in digital marketing and associated skills and in business communications. He lives with his wife and daughter in the south Wales valleys where they keep chickens and bees and grow their own food.
The Write Stuff with Ros Schwartz
Saturday 21 June 2020
A one-day workshop designed to change translators' mindset from humble servant to competent writer, with concrete strategies to build confidence. Good prose stems from having confidence in your writing skills. Translators often see themselves as “humble servants” of the original rather than as confident, proactive and competent writers.
This workshop aimed to change that mindset and empower translators to use all the resources of the English language to develop their target-language writing skills by:
• Drawing on the literary translator’s toolkit
• Developing a vocabulary for analysing a translation stylistically and identifying ways to improve style and flow
• Offering concrete strategies and tips to build confidence
• Exploring opportunities for translators offering an end-to-end service through teaming up with editors and proof-readers
Ros Schwartz is an award-winning translator from French. Acclaimed for her new version of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince (The Collectors Library, 2010), she has over 80 fiction and non-fiction titles to her name. The French government made Ros a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2009, and in 2017 she was awarded ITI’s John Sykes Memorial Prize for Excellence.
Saturday 21 June 2020
A one-day workshop designed to change translators' mindset from humble servant to competent writer, with concrete strategies to build confidence. Good prose stems from having confidence in your writing skills. Translators often see themselves as “humble servants” of the original rather than as confident, proactive and competent writers.
This workshop aimed to change that mindset and empower translators to use all the resources of the English language to develop their target-language writing skills by:
• Drawing on the literary translator’s toolkit
• Developing a vocabulary for analysing a translation stylistically and identifying ways to improve style and flow
• Offering concrete strategies and tips to build confidence
• Exploring opportunities for translators offering an end-to-end service through teaming up with editors and proof-readers
Ros Schwartz is an award-winning translator from French. Acclaimed for her new version of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince (The Collectors Library, 2010), she has over 80 fiction and non-fiction titles to her name. The French government made Ros a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2009, and in 2017 she was awarded ITI’s John Sykes Memorial Prize for Excellence.
From Lada to Lamborghini: Moving into the premium market
Saturday 18 May 2019
Jenny Zonneveld shared practices on how to progress from the bulk translation market to the added-value and premium market. Drawing on more than 20 years’ experience, she gave ideas for professionalising your business, enabling you to raise your rates and work for clients with bigger budgets. Jenny talked about the strategies that have and have not worked for her, gleaning ideas from others in the sector.
Saturday 18 May 2019
Jenny Zonneveld shared practices on how to progress from the bulk translation market to the added-value and premium market. Drawing on more than 20 years’ experience, she gave ideas for professionalising your business, enabling you to raise your rates and work for clients with bigger budgets. Jenny talked about the strategies that have and have not worked for her, gleaning ideas from others in the sector.
Tidy Tools for Translators and Interpreters
Saturday 5 May 2018
This special peer-learning session was an opportunity for members to find out about tools they might not have heard about to improve quality, efficiency and productivity, including:
- ZipDx (remote interpreting suite)
- Protemos (invoicing tool)
- Apps for Trados Studio.
Read a brief write-up of the event by ITI member Elisabeth Hippe-Heisler here.
Saturday 5 May 2018
This special peer-learning session was an opportunity for members to find out about tools they might not have heard about to improve quality, efficiency and productivity, including:
- ZipDx (remote interpreting suite)
- Protemos (invoicing tool)
- Apps for Trados Studio.
Read a brief write-up of the event by ITI member Elisabeth Hippe-Heisler here.
Fifth Anniversary celebrations
Saturday 7 October 2017
Our birthday celebrations held at Chapter in Canton, Cardiff consisted of two translations slams (French and German to English), a buffet lunch, our first AGM, a pub quiz and a social to round off the day.
This marked the first time ITI Cymru Wales organised translation slams itself. While many were new to the concept, whereby two translators tackle the same text and discuss their approach and the challenges they faced, facilitated by a moderator and with input from the audience, both sessions were well received. Attendees came away with firm ideas on techniques that they could implement on their next project, come Monday morning.
We then held our first Annual General Meeting, where we presented our accounts, membership report and a run-down of the events we have organised over the past five years. We also passed a new motion by 12 to 3, requiring current members of ITI Cymru Wales to join ITI within the next three years. This follows the adoption of this policy for any new members who joined us earlier this year in order to support ITI and underline our commitment to the professionalisation of the translation and interpreting sector. We will discuss the finer details of the policy and any potential exemptions at our AGM next year.
Then in mid afternoon, we held a quiz on translation, language and culture with five demanding rounds of ten questions each, which was won by Juliet Haydock, Victoria Burns and Birgit Puttock.
Finally, we concluded a long day with a social in the Chapter bar, allowing us to reflect on the past five years and the five to come. Thank you to all our members who managed to attend and to all of you who have supported ITI Cymru Wales.
Saturday 7 October 2017
Our birthday celebrations held at Chapter in Canton, Cardiff consisted of two translations slams (French and German to English), a buffet lunch, our first AGM, a pub quiz and a social to round off the day.
This marked the first time ITI Cymru Wales organised translation slams itself. While many were new to the concept, whereby two translators tackle the same text and discuss their approach and the challenges they faced, facilitated by a moderator and with input from the audience, both sessions were well received. Attendees came away with firm ideas on techniques that they could implement on their next project, come Monday morning.
We then held our first Annual General Meeting, where we presented our accounts, membership report and a run-down of the events we have organised over the past five years. We also passed a new motion by 12 to 3, requiring current members of ITI Cymru Wales to join ITI within the next three years. This follows the adoption of this policy for any new members who joined us earlier this year in order to support ITI and underline our commitment to the professionalisation of the translation and interpreting sector. We will discuss the finer details of the policy and any potential exemptions at our AGM next year.
Then in mid afternoon, we held a quiz on translation, language and culture with five demanding rounds of ten questions each, which was won by Juliet Haydock, Victoria Burns and Birgit Puttock.
Finally, we concluded a long day with a social in the Chapter bar, allowing us to reflect on the past five years and the five to come. Thank you to all our members who managed to attend and to all of you who have supported ITI Cymru Wales.
Introduction to Statistical Machine Translation, Post-Editing and Adaptive MT
Wednesday 8 March 2017
Machine Translation has changed the face of localisation and post-editing is now an established practice. Valeria Filippello, Principal Computational Linguist for SDL, delivered a seminar on Statistical Machine Translation (SMT) and how to post-edit SMT output effectively. She also introduced AdaptiveMT, the latest Machine Translation breakthrough technology which self-learns in real time from translators’ corrections.
This event was organised jointly by the School of Modern languages, Cardiff University, and ITI Cymru Wales.
Wednesday 8 March 2017
Machine Translation has changed the face of localisation and post-editing is now an established practice. Valeria Filippello, Principal Computational Linguist for SDL, delivered a seminar on Statistical Machine Translation (SMT) and how to post-edit SMT output effectively. She also introduced AdaptiveMT, the latest Machine Translation breakthrough technology which self-learns in real time from translators’ corrections.
This event was organised jointly by the School of Modern languages, Cardiff University, and ITI Cymru Wales.
Finding customers in your chosen industry
Saturday 26 November 2016
Translators and interpreters are not salespeople by nature. Yet we are responsible for finding, acquiring and maintaining our own clients who need the expertise that we offer. ITI Cymru Wales invited translator Irina Perry to share her experience of working in international sales.
In this two-hour seminar, attendees discovered what lessons can be learned from marketing and sales that we can apply to our own sector to help us find our dream clients. Points covered included:
Speaker: Irina Perry
Saturday 26 November 2016
Translators and interpreters are not salespeople by nature. Yet we are responsible for finding, acquiring and maintaining our own clients who need the expertise that we offer. ITI Cymru Wales invited translator Irina Perry to share her experience of working in international sales.
In this two-hour seminar, attendees discovered what lessons can be learned from marketing and sales that we can apply to our own sector to help us find our dream clients. Points covered included:
- Analyse your market: understand opportunities and establish potential
- Review your business: SWOT analysis
- Segment your market according to your product offering
- Prioritise market segments according to potential
- Strategy development and action plan for each segment
Speaker: Irina Perry
'Craft or commodity?' seminar
Saturday 16 April 2016
Professional translation is a complex intellectual activity performed in a crowded and competitive marketplace dominated by corporate language service providers (LSPs). As translation professionals, we want to be valued as highly-skilled knowledge workers, while the translation industry increasingly views us as “service providers”, “suppliers” or “resources”. This can create a cognitive dissonance between expectation and experience which is most acutely felt by university-trained novice translators entering the market.
This presentation and panel discussion discussed the following questions:
Speaker: Silke Lührmann
Panellists: Dr Andrew Godfrey MITI, Juliette Scott and Mark Elliot AITI
Saturday 16 April 2016
Professional translation is a complex intellectual activity performed in a crowded and competitive marketplace dominated by corporate language service providers (LSPs). As translation professionals, we want to be valued as highly-skilled knowledge workers, while the translation industry increasingly views us as “service providers”, “suppliers” or “resources”. This can create a cognitive dissonance between expectation and experience which is most acutely felt by university-trained novice translators entering the market.
This presentation and panel discussion discussed the following questions:
- What can be done to equip prospective translators with the commercial awareness and mental resilience required to confront the increasing pressure on deadlines and bottom lines and the rise of machine translation
- Are there any models of best practice that can enable translators (collectively and individually) to maximise the benefits from working with agencies under current market conditions
- Can translation theory help us position ourselves more confidently as professionals and command more respect? Can it help us address issues such as the “moral hazard” that arises, for example, when quality is a secondary consideration compared to speed and cost?
Speaker: Silke Lührmann
Panellists: Dr Andrew Godfrey MITI, Juliette Scott and Mark Elliot AITI
Picnic in the park
Saturday 4 July 2015
Our monthly social was a special one in July, with a family-friendly picnic on a beautiful summer's day in Bute Park, central Cardiff. On the initiative of ITI Cymru Wales coordinator Trini Clares, eleven of us set up camp near the River Taff in the stunning grounds of the capital's largest parkland. There was plenty of food and drink to go around, with very international range of dishes, as one would expect from translators.
The atmosphere was made even more exciting with a Welsh-language festival, Tafwyl, taking place at the adjacent Cardiff Castle and an international motor racing event in the Millennium Stadium. It was clear we were in multilingual company, with plenty of visitors around the park waving flags for their home countries. Cardiff is no stranger to international events, making it the perfect place for ITI Cymru Wales members to work from. Thanks to Trini for organising and let's hope we make this an annual event!
Saturday 4 July 2015
Our monthly social was a special one in July, with a family-friendly picnic on a beautiful summer's day in Bute Park, central Cardiff. On the initiative of ITI Cymru Wales coordinator Trini Clares, eleven of us set up camp near the River Taff in the stunning grounds of the capital's largest parkland. There was plenty of food and drink to go around, with very international range of dishes, as one would expect from translators.
The atmosphere was made even more exciting with a Welsh-language festival, Tafwyl, taking place at the adjacent Cardiff Castle and an international motor racing event in the Millennium Stadium. It was clear we were in multilingual company, with plenty of visitors around the park waving flags for their home countries. Cardiff is no stranger to international events, making it the perfect place for ITI Cymru Wales members to work from. Thanks to Trini for organising and let's hope we make this an annual event!
Business and Strategy for a Successful Career in Translation and Interpreting
Cardiff University
Thursday 12 March 2015
Marta Stelmaszak, a Polish-English translator and interpreter, joined us to present this career training and networking event, organised jointly for Modern Languages and Translation students at Cardiff University and translation and interpreting professionals who are members of the ITI Cymru Wales.
Imparting basic knowledge of economics, business and strategy, the lecture uncovered some of the most important mechanisms in the world of business, looking at three areas: economics, strategy and management. The 90-minute training session was followed by a wine reception and networking session, whereby translation students were given the opportunity to grill local translators on their experiences in the profession.
Cardiff University
Thursday 12 March 2015
Marta Stelmaszak, a Polish-English translator and interpreter, joined us to present this career training and networking event, organised jointly for Modern Languages and Translation students at Cardiff University and translation and interpreting professionals who are members of the ITI Cymru Wales.
Imparting basic knowledge of economics, business and strategy, the lecture uncovered some of the most important mechanisms in the world of business, looking at three areas: economics, strategy and management. The 90-minute training session was followed by a wine reception and networking session, whereby translation students were given the opportunity to grill local translators on their experiences in the profession.
ITI Cymru Wales Christmas lunch
Zizzi in the Castle Quarter, Cardiff
Saturday 6 December 2014
Zizzi in the Castle Quarter, Cardiff
Saturday 6 December 2014
ITI Cymru Wales autumn workshop
Cardiff University
Saturday 8 November 2014
Cardiff University
Saturday 8 November 2014
