Dynamic Equivalence Blog

This week, I had an opportunity to hear Erin Timberman, Coordinator for Parent and Family Engagement at Irvine Unified School District , discuss how we can choose our "best yes" at the OCDE Interpreters and Translators Conference . A very timely presentation considering a major decisions on my plate: whether to accept a new consulting project or not.  How much free time do we actually have? As a freelance interpreter, translator, mentor, trainer, consultant, and active contributor to our profession as well as a mother, wife, daughter, sister, and friend, I often feel overextended and overwhelmed. Much to my surprise, Erin started her presentation by leading all participants through an exercise to help us identify how much "free" time we actually have. Her exercise was so simple I could not believe I had not thought of it before. Simply make a list of how much time you spend each day/week on various activities including sleep and work. With only 168 hours in a week, ...

Unsplash photo by Brendan Church I have had an opportunity to learn from Daniel Tamayo on multiple occasions. Those of you who have had the same opportunity know that he advocates for enhancing both our interpreting and translation skills as they are complimentary of each other. He recently spoke at the OCDE 2020 Interpreters and Translators Conference about how instrumental developing both skills has been in weathering the current pandemic. He also elaborated on his career path and how diverse his areas of expertise are, which inspired this entry. Should interpreters and translators specialize or diversify to build a successful career? Daniel Tamayo says that: "We should be generalist before we are specialist."  When discussing specialization, most practitioners in our profession see specialization in a couple of different ways: 1. skill based specialization (Are you a community interpreter, a conference interpreter, a video-remote interpreter, a translator, a translation e...