NETA board meetings are held four times a year, generally in September, January, March, and June. Final dates, times, locations, and agendas are announced in advance via email.

Attendance Policy:
Any NETA member may attend a board meeting as an observer. Once you've received an email with the meeting agenda, we ask that you tell the board which agenda item(s) you are interested in via email to board@netaweb.org. At the meeting, you will be invited to speak about those items. Board members may or may not discuss those items, depending on time constraints. NETA members can sit through the whole meeting, unless the board moves to proceed in a closed session.

Board meeting dates for 2019-20: September 28, January 25, March 28, June 27.

General meetings are usually held once a month from September through April on Saturday afternoons.

2019-20

September 21: 14th Annual Translation Bash, 1:30-4:30 Email mcomenetz@gmail.com, tell us your language pair, and receive a copy of this year's English passage. Translate that passage at your convenience before bash day, and join in as we debate the ins and outs of each sentence. We'll have a facilitator in place for English>Spanish. If you work into another language and would like to participate on September 21, just write to us. We'll keep a tally and let you know about other people who sign up to work in your language pair. If a given group is large enough, we will attempt to find a facilitator. Smaller groups and pairs can readily work on their own.

October 19: Code Switching in Intercultural Communication, 2:00-4:00  Different approaches to translation or interpretation of bilingual (multilingual) communication may challenge the practitioner when s/he needs to transfer embedded cultural codes from a language other than the dominant language of the source message (SM), be it in written or oral form, into target communication. The purpose of this presentation is to review code switching practices, its implications, and various ways in which code switching (CS) is transferred into a target message (TM). We will highlight issues specifically related to code switching in culturally challenging multilingual communication encounters. A PowerPoint presentation and pertinent handouts will complement this talk.

Our speaker, Jenya Krein, is an educator, a certified medical interpreter and a translator. A native of Leningrad (St. Petersburg), Russia, she holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Tampa and a BA in Human Services from the University of Massachusetts-Boston. She served at the Office of Multicultural Health of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. As Community Connections Program Director funded by the U.S. Department of State, she worked in cultural exchange arranging homestay and internships for visiting professionals. As Russian Program Director at Brighton House, she served the local Russian community and facilitated access to services and healthcare for Russian-speaking seniors. Ms. Krein is also a translator, author, and editor, and a member of PEN America, writing and publishing both in her native Russian and in English. Her novels, short stories, essays and translations of poetry and literary prose have been published in the U.S., in Russia and in Europe. Her Eliot Weinberger essay translations were included in the Paper Tigers collection (Ivan Limbakh Publishing House, Russian, 2007) and Moscow's Esquire magazine (Russia, 2007).

November 16: Adding Value to Your Language Services, 2:00-4:00  We will explore how we can use the "value added" concept to make time spent working more profitable and enjoyable. Let's stop being at the mercy of outside forces. If we craft a unique brand and specialized services, we will have more control over our work and the rates we charge, whether it be interpreting, translation, recording or any other language service.

Our presenters, Rudy and Sarah Heller, have been a highly respected team in into-Spanish translation for over 30 years. They also co-authored the Spanish version of Simon & Schuster's Pimsleur audio language-learning program. Originally doing business as Spanish/English Services, they changed the company's name to Heller Language Solutions in order to incorporate other languages into the portfolio. This was in response to client requests to manage multiple language projects.

Rudy got his start in freelance translating when he was still in high school in Colombia, translating family business projects. He has continued working in all aspects of the language profession for over 50 years. He is ATA-certified from English into Spanish and was an ATA grader for almost 20 years. Rudy is certified as a Federal court Interpreter and continues to interpret in the federal courts as well as at conferences. He has also worked as talent and director/producer at recording studios.

Sarah was born and raised in the U.S. and earned a B.A. in Spanish. She lived many years in Colombia. Sarah has over 20 years of experience working in the language profession as a project manager and editor. As a graphic designer, Sarah is skilled in the Adobe Creative Suite (InDesign®, Illustrator®, Acrobat®) and Microsoft PowerPoint. She specializes in taking existing English graphic elements and modifying them so that they have the same visual appeal with Spanish content.

December 7: Annual Holiday Party, in Woburn, MA

January 18: Author and Translator Describe Challenges in Working on a Full-length Book on Violence Against Women, 2:00-4:00 In this #Me too/Las Tesis moment, a translator and bilingual author worked together to get the words and tone "just right" for a readership that would extend across national boundaries. In this talk they describe the process they followed, the interactions, and specific terms that posed challenges, such as: victim (f), survivor, abuser, stalking, and gender in the abusive dynamics.

Our author-presenter, Lisa Aronson Fontes, PhD, is an internationally known expert on child abuse and violence against women. As researcher, activist, expert witness, and author, she works to protect the most vulnerable people from violence. She has written widely about interpreting for children in crisis. She authored the books Invisible Chains: Overcoming Coercive Control in Your Intimate Relationship, Interviewing Clients Across Cultures, and Child Abuse and Culture, as well as numerous journal articles. She is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Dr. Fontes is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese.

Our translator-presenter, Rudy Heller, got his start in freelance translating when he was still in high school in Colombia, translating family business projects. He has continued working in all aspects of the language profession for over 50 years. He is ATA-certified from English into Spanish and was an ATA grader for almost 20 years. Rudy is certified as a Federal court Interpreter and continues to interpret in the federal courts as well as at conferences. He has also worked as talent and director/producer at recording studios.

February 22: TBA

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2018-19

September 22: 13th Annual Translation Bash, 1:30-4:30 Email mcomenetz@gmail.com, tell us your language pair, and receive a copy of this year's English passage--or a French passage (if you work French>English) or Spanish passage (if you work Spanish>English). Translate that passage at your convenience before bash day, and join in as we debate the ins and outs of each sentence. We'll have facilitators in place for English>Spanish, Spanish>English, and French>English. If you work into another language and would like to participate on September 22, just write to us. We'll keep a tally and let you know about other people who sign up to work in your language pair. If a given group is large enough, we will attempt to find a facilitator. Smaller groups and pairs can readily work on their own.

October 20: Interpreting for Multilingual Justice, 2:00-4:00  At this meeting will learn about the goals and activities of the Boston Interpreters Collective (BIC), an organization dedicated to promoting a multilingual society by eliminating language barriers and building community. BIC works toward social justice by supporting community organizing through their interpretation services and popular education workshops. BIC is committed to promoting equal rights for all by addressing root causes of oppression.

There will be two speakers. Loreto Paz Ansaldo was born in Santiago, Chile and has been a member of BIC since 2016. She works as a freelancer and translator, and is currently enrolled in Boston University's Interpreter Certificate Program and UMass Boston's Spanish/English Translation Certificate Program. Loreto is a certified mathematics and Spanish teacher and has been involved in local arts programming since since high school, most recently as a member of the Leadership Council for Boston Creates.
Ester Serra Luque has been a member of BIC since 2007. She works as a court interpreter and also coordinates a community program assisting survivors of domestic violence. Prior to moving to the U.S., Ester worked as a journalist for 10 years in her native Catalonia. She is a member of the National Lawyers Guild and is involved with several other social justice groups in the Boston area.

November 17: Cognates: Friends or Foes? 2:00-4:00  As interpreters, we are familiar with working under pressure and with strict time limitations. Cognates can help us make quick conversions in our brains from one language to another, and they are great allies when learning new terminology. They even help us save face when we encounter Greek- or Latin-based medical terms that we have never heard before. However, we must remain vigilant. Not all cognates are our friends. False cognates, also known as false friends, can get us into a lot of trouble. In this session we will take a look at the general guidelines for forming cognates from English into Spanish, we will learn about the differences between total and complete cognates, and we will have fun with the most common false cognates that we encounter regularly in our profession.

Our speaker, Esther Bonin, holds a degree in Translation and Interpreting Skills from Pompeu Fabra University (Spain) and an M.A. in International Relations from Durham University (England). Esther has worked as both a translator and an interpreter in different European countries. As a translator she worked for several nonprofit organizations and agencies in Spain. She also has experience as a medical, court, and conference interpreter. A soccer enthusiast, she has worked as a television interpreter for the Barcelona soccer team channel. Esther has taught language, culture, and translation courses at Durham University in the U.K. In the United States she has taught at several colleges and universities in New England, including Hampshire College. Currently she supervises the Interpreter & Translation Services Department at Baystate Health. Esther speaks four languages, enjoys traveling, soccer, and spending time with her family.

December 15: Annual Holiday Party, in Woburn, MA

January 19: Aligning Bilingual Reference Material with Trados,  2:00-4:00  If you have a reference document available in source and target languages, aligning the documents in Trados to produce a translation memory can be a good way to make use of it. The translation memory created by the alignment can be useful for matches and various searches. This presentation will show how to align documents in Trados to produce a new TM and will provide pertinent hints and suggestions. Various related subjects, including creating, filtering and editing TMs, will be covered depending on time and interest.

Our speaker, Bruce D. Popp, is an ATA-certified translator for French and English. He is a recurrent speaker at NETA monthly meetings. He wrote up his presentation from last year on terminology drift, and that article will appear in the January-February issue of the ATA Chronicle. In his spare time, Bruce translates and studies the work of the famous French mathematician and physicist Henri Poincaré.

February 16: From Both Sides Now: Working as Both a Freelance Translator and a Translation Project Manager,  2:00-4:00  In 2018, after 28 years as a freelance translator, our speaker, Diana Rhudick, began working part-time as a project manager for a translation agency in Massachusetts. In this presentation, she will compare her experiences on both sides of the translator's desk, exploring the viewpoint from each side. Not so much a primer on how to get agency clients, this talk is more a consideration of how freelancers and agencies have differing priorities and of how keeping this in mind will make it easier to work together. Diana hopes to shed light on how one agency operates, and to talk about some of the major freelancer complaints from an alternative optic. Please bring your own experiences to share.

Diana Rhudick is the current president of NETA, as well as its cowebmaster. A graduate of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, California, she has 30 years of experience as a translator of French and Spanish texts and as an editor of English texts. Recently, she gave a talk on ways to improve translation from Spanish into English at the ATA Spanish Language Division conference in Miami.

March 16: Mental Health Treatment: Trauma and Implications for the Medical Interpreting Process,  2:00 - 4:00  During this workshop we will explore how trauma and related emotions manifest during the medical interpreting process, affecting not only the clinical encounter, but also the medical interpreter. We will focus on Mood Disorders and PTSD. Participants will be able to define transference (client's feelings/reactions) and countertransference (therapists' feelings/reactions and understand their impact on the medical interpreter, therapist and client alike. We will also discuss the relationship between Major Depression and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, symptoms and diagnostic characteristics. Implications for affect regulation and the development of meaningful interpersonal connections will also be explained. Acculturation and its implications for assessment and treatment will be emphasized through the workshop.

Our speaker, Maria del Mar Farina, PhD, is an assistant professor at Westfield State University and Assistant Director of Field Education, Adjunct Professor at Smith College School for Social Work, where she completed her doctoral degree. She maintains a clinical practice in Holyoke, working primarily with the Latino community. She is also a clinical trainer and consultant specializing in the examination of race, ethnicity and culture in direct clinical practice. Her research pertains to American immigration policy, immigrant integration and white Nativist discourses. In 2016 she was appointed to the Council on Racial, Ethnic and Cultural Diversity (CRED), an advisory council and working group for the Council on Social work Education.

April 6: Form, Meaning and Use: ESL Teaching Concepts Applied to Translation and Interpretation,  2:00-4:00  The understanding of the concepts of form, meaning and use is crucial for both translation and interpretation. This is because, for example, a word or phrase in a source language might have several different translations/interpretation (forms) in a target language, and the use of any one of the particular forms can either change  a sentence's meaning (what the writer or speaker wants to communicate) entirely or, in some cases, render it meaningless. Consequently, the translator or interpreter needs to decide what forms to use in order to best communicate the writer's or speaker's intended meaning to the target audience. In this presentation, we will examine ways in which the concepts of form, meaning and use can be employed to teach English as a second language. We will then apply those concepts to translation and interpretation by looking at how, within certain guidelines, starting from meaning and assessing how languages used by the target audience can help the translator or interpreter decide on what forms a written or spoken communication should take.

Our speaker, Peter Wilner, Principal of PMW Consulting, speaks Portuguese and Spanish, is an instructor in Framingham State University's ESL program and a member of the board of directors of the Massachusetts chapter of CDLE, the Brazilian chamber of commerce. He has interpreted for various organizations, including local public health departments and chambers of commerce, and prepared Portuguese<English translations for community functions and consular events.

July 27: Annual summer picnic, in Holliston, MA