Tag: interpreter

Healthy Freelancing Boundaries

Posted on by drawingboarddesign in Industry Tips, Professionalism

When you are a self-employed as a freelancer or contractor, being on the lookout for potential clients is a way of life.  When we find new potential clients, or when there are new inquiries into our work, it is certainly an exciting thing. This is especially the case when we are just starting out, are experiencing a lull in incoming business, or have recently wrapped up projects and are eager to start more.

However, it is important to not allow your boundaries to be crossed by potential clients, even when you are in need of new ones. There may be traps that we can fall into, such as more work required than was stated at the beginning of the contract and clients who assume you are available most times of the day. If we can set reasonable boundaries from the beginning, from the time the initial contract is made, this can prevent you from falling into any of these traps.  Here are some trade secrets for subtly setting boundaries in this line of work:

  • Set project management meetings
  • Get all documents needed before starting work
  • Consider rush fees, revision fees, and deadline missed fees

Set regular meetings to go over progress and any issues. This not only keeps you on task, but can also be very helpful for the client. All too often we are inundated with emails, texts, and phone calls from clients. If we can limit this correspondence to these meetings, it can cut down on the expectation (and overwhelm) of timely replies.

Gathering everything needed before work starts can eliminate the need to drag projects on past their expected deadline. If you find yourself waiting for necessary documents, this can potentially prevent you from working on other projects, as you are saving space for this client and perhaps have not taken on others. Assert this to avoid this potential set back.

A tight turn around time requires hard work in a short amount of time, with little room for maintaining work-life balance. You may consider raising your prices for this. On the flip side, you might also consider setting fees for projects that drag on due to the client’s delay. At times, you may come across clients who never seem to be satisfied – here you can charge a fee for going beyond a set number of revisions that you deemed to be sufficient from the get-go. Finally as a follow-up to number 2, charging for missing documents and missed deadlines on the client’s part may be helpful.

Pro tips:

Manage expectations with assertiveness

The best way to manage expectations, of course, is to set them at the beginning and be extremely consistent and diligent with these contracted expectations. However, in the case that these expectations aren’t respected or maintained, it is imperative to have assertive and direct conversations with clients about this.  In addition, in the very early stages of project discussion prior to contracts being drawn up, remember that you are under no obligation to take on the project if it’s not a good fit for you.  Just because you’ve entered into a dialogue about the client’s needs and expectations does not mean that you are then obliged to take the job on.

Use your intuition by listening to yourself

If you have a gut feeling about a potential client or an offer, then it may not be for you. Listening to your intuition takes skill, including an ability to listen to what your body and “gut” is telling you, an ability to read body language of others, and, of course, an ability to say no.  Sometimes we ignore these for the sake of incoming business, but the outcome could end up being less than beneficial. Always listen to what your intuition is telling you to avoid potential setbacks, negative outcomes, and individuals who may be trying to take advantage of inexperience or financial need.

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Self-Care for Busy Professionals

Posted on by drawingboarddesign in Industry Tips, Inspiration, Professionalism

Self-care is often defined as anything we purposefully do to take care of our emotional, spiritual, and mental health. But there is much more to it than that. What we often don’t hear about is self-care defined as the opposite – things we don’t engage in because they are not good for our health. 

Additionally, self-care isn’t always planned activities, but it can be anything that helps you move toward either stillness or growth, such as playing with thinking patterns, exploring attitudes, purposeful reflections, and meaningful connections.  Perhaps one of the most well-known terms in mental health but also one of the most misunderstood, simply because it is difficult to define something that can look, feel, touch, taste, and smell differently for everyone.

Self-care for individuals who work as translators or interpreters may look the same or different from those who work in other fields. Translators, who often work in solitude and interpreters, who have high paced expectations, need to take care due to these special circumstances. Here are 5 ways in which any busy professional may consider for self-care. 

?Connect to Others

Connecting to others is important, especially when working alone is very important. As human beings, we are creatures who not only thrive through human connection, but require it for sustaining life. From an evolutionary perspective, we need each other to stay alive. This was especially true in the past, but our brains have not evolved as fast as society has. We are generally safe in solitude, but at times our brains will tell us that it is dangerous to be alone. In fact, being alone and lonely can trigger our fight, flight, freeze response. Connecting to others (or allowing others to connect to us) is key to mediating this response and may be the most important self-care work we can do.

?Fuel Your Creativity

Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs” shows us that creativity is a human need that helps drive us towards “self actualization”, or towards fully knowing our potential and talents, which furthers us towards fulling knowing ourselves. Luckily, as translators and interpreters, you are often working within the realm of creativity. Of course, there are countless other ways to be creative, and integrating more into your life can be an important act of self-care.

?Live in the Moment Using Mindfulness

Mindfulness is a phrase that most people have heard of. It is defined as “a mental state achieved by focusing one’s awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one’s feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations”. This helps us understand, tolerate, and live with our internal experiences. There are many resources available for mindfulness, and finding a few practices you enjoy doing can be integrated into your repertoire of self-care.

Create Full Sensory Experiences

Our five senses have a direct pathway to our brain, and thus can help soothe and calm us, or can help us better integrate our learnings. Creating situations during which each of your 5 senses can explore, integrate, and experience can facilitate new brain connections, new behaviors and habits, or can simply produce stillness and calm.  

Validate, Appreciate, and Celebrate Yourself

Finding ways to validate yourself, which means to tell yourself that your inner experiences are all important and okay, is key to self-understanding and self-growth. Equally important is finding time to infuse appreciation in your life, whether it’s from big successes or from simply finding gratitude in the fact that you have the ability to take breaths. Recent research has shown us that gratitude can actually help with integrating learning and helps with decision making, as these areas tend to be more active during grateful moments. Finally, celebrating yourself through purposeful ceremonies and traditions, such as a weekly time to watch your favorite tv show, or a monthly get-together with validating friends, is a lovely tool for self-care, because it shows self-love. 

How We can Use Feedback for Business Growth

Posted on by drawingboarddesign in Field, Industry Tips, Interpretation, Professionalism, Translation

Feedback has always been an effective form of communication used by humans. It has been defined as a response to a person’s behavior that influences whether that behavior will continue or stop. In other words, feedback is information given to us that tells us how we are doing – the good and the bad.

When we receive feedback, the results of that feedback help us to determine if what we are doing is actually helping us work towards a goal. Deliberate feedback is feedback that is used for a specific purpose has many important features.

First, feedback is descriptive in that it based on our observations of another. It is also emotionally revealing. Instead of describing behavior, it may describe the feedback sender’s emotional response. Feedback is also evaluative; it can judge our performance toward our goal. Similarly, feedback can also be used to guide someone toward achieving insight on a particular behavior – this makes it interpretive. Feedback is a necessary tool that is used for personal and professional growth in the translation and interpretation fields.

In sales, marketing, and fields that require gathering potential clients, communication is also highly important for success. More specifically, the importance of a salesperson listening for developing solid relationships that can lead to sales is often stressed. According to some leading researchers in the field of feedback, there are three components to listening in the process of gathering new clients for any business: sensing, evaluating and responding to communication.

Feedback plays a very important role throughout this process. Customers or clients of business people can judge if a we are actively sensing and will likely provide verbal or nonverbal feedback regarding their emotional standpoint here. We are then able to evaluate the incoming feedback. This feedback can be verbal, nonverbal, and can involve anything from the client’s communication skills to their personal style.

In turn, the client or customer will use feedback from the salesperson to determine if they are trustworthy. It is very beneficial for a business person to fine tune these listening skills in order to be deemed more trustworthy. This reciprocal feedback in a buyer/seller relationship will determine the likelihood of a sale being made or a client gained.

In the fields of interpretation and translation, gathering clients is important if you are working for yourself or your own business. As such, it is necessary for us to be both skilled at what we do in our fields AND skilled as business people, in order to gain new clients or new contracts. Using feedback in the process of marketing yourself is essential.

Feedback also helps us determine if the “product” we are producing or selling is in line with the client’s needs. Gathering the feedback of our clients, through sensing, evaluating, and responding can help us determine if we are on the right pathway towards the goal of producing a piece of written translation work or interpreting in the way that is required.

The feedback we give is equally as important, even in our personal relationships. Most of our communication is done through nonverbal language, and we can communicate a lot in this manner. Sometimes we give feedback to others that we don’t intent to give – through facial expressions, body posture, and our stance.

Being aware of our bodies and the feedback we give through them is important for communication, progress toward goals, gathering clients, having positive relationships, among many other things. Feedback is a bidirectional process that influences us personally, as well as directly contributes to our business of gathering clients for interpretation or translation needs.

What Happens in the Brain When We Interpret?

Posted on by drawingboarddesign in Interpretation

The human brain is a powerful control centre. It is responsible for everything from our ability to breathe to our ability to be empathic. It is responsible for all skills and abilities, and language is no exception.  Language is an exceptionally complicated, yet highly coordinated task. It is a cognitive skill that is both unique to humans and universal to all human cultures. Different brain structures are responsible for all parts of language production – including hearing spoken words, making sense of those words, producing a response, and executing that response.

So how does the brain do this?  Many researchers have asked themselves the same question, and some of them have attempted to find the answer. Most research uses fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) so that the areas of the brain that are working harder during different situations can be viewed. More specifically, some research has examined the brains of interpreters to better understand the skills involved in understanding and producing speech. Two well-studied areas that play a very significant role in language are two areas known as Wernicke’s and Broca’s.

Wernicke’s area, located in the temporal lobe of the left hemisphere, usually, plays a large role in understanding the incoming language information. It is here that the original language goes in and where you make sense of the meaning of the words and sentences. Whether translating or interpreting written or audible language, Wernicke’s area is responsible for transforming words into their meaning.  Not only is this area responsible for language comprehension, but it is where we plan the what we want to say back. For interpreters, an extra step is involved during which language is switched, and the speed of which this happens is extremely fast. If this area is damaged, speech is created without content or meaning.

The next large brain area involved in language is called Broca’s area. Although the research is less clear on the role of Broca‘s area,  it has been hypothesized that Broca’s area also is involved in language production and comprehension, including verbal working memory, syntax, grammar, and the motor movements responsible for speech. It is also associated with functions outside of language, including motor-related activities associated with hand movements, and sensorimotor learning and integration. Damage to the Broca’s area can disrupt language production, but nobody is quite sure exactly what specific language-related function is lost to cause that disruption. Thus, the Broca’s area plays a large part in interpretation.

To get more specific, researchers have looked at brain scans of interpreters in three different situations: listening to a sentence in one language, listening to and repeating a sentence in one language, and listening to a sentence in one of their languages and interpreting it into another of their languages. Broca’s area was lit up during all of these tasks. Interestingly, the caudate nucleus, an area of the brain responsible for learning and decision making, was the most engaged part of the brain during the latter task.  This makes sense, because the caudate nucleus uses information learned from previous experiences and to make future decisions, and so it coordinates different parts of the brain to do this. These researchers hypothesize that interpretation requires various regions of the brain, not only the language centres, to be coordinated during the difficult task of interpretation.  The caudate nucleus becomes more engaged during such a task because it has a huge role in facilitating this highly coordinated function.

In general, language is a multi-faceted cognitive skill that engages many areas of the brain, but most prominently Broca’s area and Wernicke’s areas. For those who work in interpretation, it has been found that many more areas of the brain are also engaged, because the ability to switch languages requires more coordination and abilities. This coordination is likely to be controlled by the caudate nucleus.  It is safe to say, however, that much more research is required to be able to answer exactly what happens in our brain when language is interpreted.

6 Ways to Sharpen Listening Skills

Posted on by drawingboarddesign in Field, Industry Tips, Interpretation, Professionalism

?Steven R. Covey, in his famous book that outlines The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, stated that “most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply”.  Interpreters, however, understand that listening to understand is fundamental to the work we do. Without proper listening, vital information can be missed, and the message can be misconstrued.  Listening allows us to properly intake information and sort through it, in preparation for changing the incoming language while still communicating the original message.

 An Interpreter’s listening skills must be sharp, as there can be immense pressure to do one’s job with speed, accuracy, and all while likely having an audience. Listening skills can also be helpful in other professional ways, such as engaging others and potentially gathering more clients and business opportunities. The following suggestions are potential ways to hone or practice these skills. 

 1.      Clearing the mind of “other clutter” 

When we can clear our minds of information that is competing for our attention, this helps us focus better on what we are required to do. If you have difficulty clearing your mind of competing thoughts, as most of us do, a simple visualization prior to starting may be helpful. Visualizing keeping the other stuff that is in your mind to one side temporarily, and in the forefront is where your task at hand is. For some, visualizing containers within the mind is helpful. In these containers you can place the other mental content, close the lid, and reassure yourself that you will come back to these items later.  

 2.      Preparing body language  

Non-verbals and other body languages are the primary way we communicate.  Being consciously aware of what we are communicating through our body is essential from the get-go. This allows the other person to see us as prepared and engaged in what they have to say. A quick scan of your body prior to beginning may be helpful. Starting at the toes, scan upward while thinking about open body language can be helpful.  Likewise, body language in the other person is important to gauge as well.  What is the other person doing? Are they leaning forward and engaged? Or leaning back for some distance from you? This is also important to assess to determine if you are on track.  Open body language can even encourage the other person to open up. 

 3.      Having the right tools 

This may seem obvious, but necessary and worth mentioning all the same. Having the right tools for interpretation is essential for listening and having what you need prepared shows that you are ready. ? 

4.      Practice summarizing to assist with consolidating information 

An interpreter’s role is not only switching spoken word from one language to another, it also includes the ability to condense information when necessary.  The skill of summarizing information is essential, here. This is where an interpreter takes the incoming language and shortens it, while still ensuring the message of the statement is clear and is communicated. Not only does this get a message across, but a good summarizing statement can leave a listener feeling as though they are listened to and understood. Practicing this in everyday communications can be essential to sharpening it. 

5.      Practice empathetic listening 

Interpreters are often in situations where emotions are at a high. You act as a window between two languages, and thus between the two communicators. Empathy, which is the ability to both understand the feelings of another person, and further, to communicate that you understand, can help mediate these situations.  

6.      Find a method for managing stress 

The pressure to perform is intense in an interpreter’s world. Having methods in place to manage this is essential. When we are under stress, our bodies and minds react in ways that may be beyond our control and may impact our ability to do our jobs. Preventing this from occurring, through relaxation exercises or mind clearing strategies similar to point 1 can be helpful. Find what works for you! ? 

As a bonus, not only are listening skills valuable for the basis of what interpreters do, but they can also help in other areas of life. Most of these skills can be applied to our personal relationships, and can help deepen these connections as well.