Board Meetings and Monthly MeetingsNB: Both NETA board meetings and NETA monthly meetings are held virtually via Zoom. 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: Board meeting dates for 2023-24: September 23, January 27, March 23, and June 15. General meetings are usually held once a month from September through April on Saturday afternoons. The fee is $25 for nonmembers. 2023-24 September 30: 18th Annual Translation Bash - virtual, with Zoom rooms, 1:30-4:30 Log into our website, tell us your language pair, and receive a copy of this year's English source 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, English>Portuguese, and English>French. If you work into another language and would like to participate on September 30, indicate that when you register. We'll keep a tally. If a given group is large enough, we will attempt to find a facilitator. Smaller groups and pairs can readily work on their own. NB: This year we will have Spanish>English and French>English reverse bash group, which will work on a passage on the same theme as that of the English source text that the majority of participants will be discussing.
2022-23 September 17: 17th Annual Translation Bash - virtual, with Zoom rooms, 1:30-4:30 Log into our website, tell us your language pair, and receive a copy of this year's English source 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, English>Portuguese, and English>French. If you work into another language and would like to participate on September 17, indicate that when you register. We'll keep a tally. If a given group is large enough, we will attempt to find a facilitator. Smaller groups and pairs can readily work on their own. NB: This year we will again have a Spanish>English reverse bash group, which will work on a passage on the same theme as that of the English source text that the majority of participants will be discussing.
Known for pulling rabbits out of hats and turning lead into gold, today our speaker, Chris Morton, is an independent business communications consultant. His 25+ years in the medical device, medical imaging, information security (infosec), software, hardware, and other B2B/B2C realms enable him to enhance web and print content for accuracy, readability, and continuity. Chris has been a marketing director, author, ghostwriter, copywriter, technical editor, IT instructor, seminar speaker, newsletter managing editor, computer reseller/consultant, digital graphics artist, publishers' rep, and old-school lithographer. Only the first position came from answering an ad. Typically over 300 people view Chris Morton's profile over any given 90-day period, and his thought leadership has amassed a regular following of over 4,200 LinkedIn users.
Our speaker, Javier Castillo, is president of Castillo Language Services, Inc. in Greenville, NC. He is an interpreter, translator, consultant and internationally recognized speaker. He is a Federally Certified Court interpreter, a NC AOC-certified court interpreter, a Certified Medical Interpreter (CCHI) and a contract interpreter for the U.S. Department of State, and he routinely interprets for international delegations and high-level speakers across the United States and abroad. Since 2007 Javier has offered training workshops for court, medical, conference and community interpreters throughout the United States. He has provided in-house training for interpreters in hospitals, Administrative Offices of the Court and departments of social services. He recently developed and taught training courses for the Department of State Office of Language Services. He has designed and taught courses on working with interpreters in the legal field at Campbell Law School and the UNC School of Law. He has also taught Continuing Legal Education courses for members of the judiciary. Javier is a frequent speaker and trainer at national and international conferences. He is the President of the Carolina Association of Translators and Interpreters (CATI), the Chair of the National Association of Judiciary Interpreters and Translators (NAJIT), Head of the U.S. chapter of the International Association of Professional Translators and Interpreters (IAPTI) and an active member of the American Translators Association. December 10: Annual holiday party in Woburn, MA
Our speaker, Maria del Mar Farina, is an Associate Professor and Master of Social Work Program Director at Westfield State University and Adjunct Professor at Smith College School of Social Work. She maintains a practice working with the Latino community. Her research pertains to American immigration policy, immigrant integration, nativist discourse and white power groups.
Our speaker, 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. Currently, she also works as a project manager for a boutique translation agency.
At the heart of the sociolinguistic perspective is an appreciation for the ways i which language use is variable, rather than homogeneous. that is, close inspection of the behavior of individual and groups reveals socially and linguistically conditioned patterns of variability in the use of sounds words, and phrases. Intergenerational transmission of such sociolinguistic patterns is a key factor in determining whether a community's characteristic ways of speaking are undergoing change. Sociolinguistic analysis of Spanish-speaking Bostonians reveals evidence of both continuity and change in the community. Our speaker, Daniel Erker, is an Associate Professor of Spanish and Linguistics at Boston University. He teaches courses on language variation and change, Spanish in the United States, language and music, the biological evolution of language, the linguistic structure of Spanish, and language and identity. Erker earned an M.A. in linguistics at the Graduate Center of the City University of Ne York and a Ph.D. in linguistics at New York University. He is currently the director of the Spanish in Boston Project, a federally funded research initiative that investigates the sociolinguistic behavior of Spanish-speaking Bostonians. Erker has published research in several leading linguistic journals, and his work has been featured in the Boston Globe, on NPR, and in a TedX talk. He has investigated a broad range of phenomena, ranging from microlinguistic variation in speech sounds to macrolinguistic trends such as the intergenerational maintenance of immigrant languages. He is currently working on two books, one on Spanish in Boston and another on cross-linguistic morphosyntactic variation.
This interactive session will provide participants with concrete tools and guidance for researching the thorniest of U.S. legal terms, including words that lack a natural legal equivalent in other languages (such as "upward/downward departure") and provide clear criteria for identifying reliable mono and bilingual sources. The session is language neutral. Our speaker, Katty Kauffman, is a conference and legal interpreter, a graduate of Pedro de Valdivia School of Law in Santiago, Chile and the Certificate Program in Comparative US/Latin American Legal Reforms at Washington College of Law at American University in Washington, D.C. A member of NAJIT and AIIC, she is a contributor to the 2nd Edition of Fundamentals of Court Interpretation and a member of the Editorial Board of the 2nd Edition of Sandro Tomasi's Criminal Law Dictionary. A federally, Maryland, Florida and D.C.- certified interpreter, she is a frequent speaker across the U.S. on the criminal procedure reforms that have swept Latin America. Katty is former staff interpreter with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida and currently works as a freelance court and conference interpreter from her home base in Washington, D.C. 2021-22 September 18: 16th Annual Translation Bash - virtual, with Zoom rooms, 1:30-4:30 Email mcomenetz@gmail.com, tell us your language pair, and receive a copy of this year's English source 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 and English>French. If you work into another language and would like to participate on September 18, 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. NB: This year we will again have a Spanish>English reverse bash group, which will work on a passage on the same theme as that of the English source text that the majority of participants will be discussing.
Conventionally, training materials address the core of interpreting services appropriately by describing and emphasizing codes of conduct. Simultaneously, the real-life context of an interpreter's performance is supremely important: each partner in the encounter exchanges cues, signals or comments on the perception of the value of the services received/provided/contracted. The concept of reputation, on the other hand, is seldom covered when discussing interpreter services. Indeed, it presents a puzzle: reputation is a portrayal of who one is. However, it is dependent on qualifiers provided by others. Formal or informal evaluations become the starting point for communicating any judgment connected to our skills or professionalism at large. Additionally, the notion of quality of service, attached to an individual's performance, has come to signify the measurement of the worth of the interpreter as a professional. We survey here factors and circumstances that affect all of these moving parts. We also offer recommendations that, applied responsibly and consistently, can help interpreters define a path of confidence and effectiveness grounded on accountability, respect and reputation. Finally, this will also be an interactive session as we collect valuable insights from the professional practice of the participants. Our speaker, Cesar Muedas, serves as Program Director for interpretation and translation services at the Tennessee Language Center (TLC), an agency of the Institute for Public Service at the University of Tennessee. His role of supervisor at TLC began in 2014; his work as interpreter and translator dates back to 1990. Cesar graduated from Yale University with a PhD in Chemistry in 1991 and from Vanderbilt University with an MBA in 1998. Before his tenure in a language service organization, he engaged in research and commercial work in Chemistry, business consulting, marketing and sales. A native of Peru, Cesar became a US citizen in 2004.
Our speaker, Athena Matilsky, holds a BA in Spanish Interpreting and Translation from Rutgers University and a Master's in Conference Interpreting from Glendon College, York University. She is a Federally Certified Court Interpreter (Sp<>Eng), a Certified Healthcare Interpreter (Sp<>Eng) and a New Jersey Journeyman Court Interpreter (Fr<>Eng). She was editor-in-chief of Proteus in 2015, and she served as a staff interpreter for the New Jersey Judiciary from 2013-2016. Currently she works as a freelance interpreter/translator and trains candidates for the state and federal interpreting exams. She owns her own company, Athena Sky Interpreting (https://athenaskyinterpreting.com/), where she coaches students on interpreting technique, and also works in collaboration with Interpretrain. She is an active members of NAJIT, the ATA, and the DVTA. When she is not teaching and interpreting, you may find her practicing Acroyoga or studying French.
A qualified translator may prepare a translation accompanied by a statement of accuracy to be entered into evidence and may later be called on to testify on how they prepared the translation and the choices they made. An expert witness testifies about matters within their professional knowledge and experience, and their engagement as an expert witness may include consulting with counsel, preparing a declaration, and testifying in a deposition and in court. In this presentation, our primary speaker, Bruce Popp, will be joined during the last half hour by Michael O'Laughlin. Bruce will discuss the related concepts, roles and documents, including the difference between qualified and expert, and between a statement of accuracy and a declaration. He will use his own experience to provide advice on a translator serving as an expert witness. Whether you want to know more about the statement that you sign when you translate a birth certificate, or you're considering expanding the services that you provide, this presentation will have something to offer you. Bruce Popp and Michael O'Laughlin will each discuss their experience as expert witnesses. Bruce Popp is an ATA-certified translator from French into English. He is an experienced patent translator who has presented many times at NETA monthly meetings and at ATA conferences. He has been engaged as an expert witness twice. Bruce, in a parallel career, is a historian of physics with a particular interest in Henri Poincaré. He has translated or written two books and is preparing a third book that is under contract. He is revising an article for publication in the Journal for the History of Astronomy. The Fulbright US Scholar program is reviewing his application for a grant to support research as a visitor at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. Dr. Michael O'Laughlin holds advanced degrees from Oxford and Harvard Universities, where he studied nine languages. He is the founder of the Boston University Interpreter Training program, which recently closed, after 19 years, due to Covid economics. At present he works as an expert witness for foreign languages and cultures. As such he has consulted on over 350 cases. Although no longer working as an interpreter, he serves on the board of the Massachusetts Association of Court Interpreters, which fights for better pay and treatment of court interpreters. He can be reached at michaelolaughlin10@gmail.com. Rudy: Your voice is much faster than your fingers. Sometimes recordings are clear enough, but nobody includes commas, periods and m-dashes when they speak. Rudy will share how he makes transcribing efficient and painless, with the full understanding that translation then follows. Rudy Heller started transcribing for law enforcement agencies back in the 1980s, after which he garnered much experience producing transcriptions and translations for private industry. Lately he has returned to doing transcription work for the government, but only when he can work at his own rate. Antje Ruppert is a German native and freelance translator (GER<>ENG) specializing in technical, medical, IT, marketing, and business content with over 30 years of experience in the industry. She served on NETA's board until last year and is NETA's long-term membership coordinator.
Our speaker, Thomas Carey, has been a professor of Allied Health at Berkshire Community College for 39 years. He is also program director for the Respiratory Care Program there. He holds a BS from Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse, NY and a Masters in Public Health from UMass Amherst. The courses he has taught include Anatomy & Physiology 1 and 2, Chemistry, Pharmacology, Medical Terminology, Nutrition and Pathophysiology.
Our speaker, Konstantin Lakshin, became interested in computational linguistics when he was in middle school. He was trained by some of the best Soviet-era researchers in the field and worked on several natural language processing projects. His experience after immigrating to the US includes teaching, being an independent translator and interpreter, and managing a translation company. August 13: NETA's annual summer picnic, 12:00-5:00 We are delighted that our annual summer social event will take place in person again this year. This is a potluck event. Members will receive publicity with specifics. We hope to see you there. 2020-21 September 26: 15th Annual Translation Bash - virtual, with Zoom rooms, 1:30-4:30 Email mcomenetz@gmail.com, tell us your language pair, and receive a copy of this year's English source 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 and English>French. If you work into another language and would like to participate on September 26, 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. NB: This year we will have a Spanish>English reverse bash group, which will work on a passage on the same theme as that of the English source text that the majority of participants will be discussing.
Our speaker, Kara Lund, has been a voice and speech coach, college-level educator, and film and stage performer for over 20 years. As founder and CEO of Speech Revolution, Kara coaches clients between Boston and Paris to be clear, confident and credible when presenting in English. Because strong content without strong delivery lacks impact, she helps client sharpen their delivery skills in three ways: through customized Accent Reduction courses for native and non-native English speakers; Voice Coaching for public speakers in and out of the C-Suite; and Delivery Skills Workshops that focus on managing stage fright, developing positive body language and effective voice skills. Kara's work helps clients gain a stronger, more competitive edge in their professional fields, and bring their storytelling to a whole new level of professionalism and inspiration. Referencing the Federal Code of Criminal Procedure, we will examine the anatomy of pre-trial proceedings in federal court from the moment of an arrest to the actual pre-trial hearing, review pertinent documents and forms, and consider the legal terms that typically arise, along with possible Spanish equivalents. We will also take note of potential ethical missteps on the part of the interpreter vis a vis various codes of professional conduct as well as standards and procedures. Special consideration will be given to the delivery of interpreting services during the Covid pandemic. Our speaker, Jose Kleinberg, is a native Colombian raised in a multilingual family and educated in an American school. He trained as a lawyer at the Universidad de los Andes in Bogota and then worked in several contexts in his home country. After arriving in Massachusetts, he earned certification from the Judicial Language Center in Boston and subsequently joined a team of freelance court interpreters from diverse backgrounds. Meanwhile, he pursued a law degree and became a member of the Massachusetts Bar in 1995. He also was certified by the Administrative Office in Washington, DC, as a federal court interpreter. Today Jose holds the position of Staff Interpreter at the United States District Court in Providence, RI. In his free time he especially enjoys tutoring ESL to adults, working as a voice talent in recording studios and attempting to write fiction.
Our speaker, 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. Currently, she also works as a project manager for a boutique translation agency.
Our panelists are as follows: March 20: Red Pill or Blue: Unpleasant, Life-changing Truth or Blissful Ignorance? 2:00-4:00 March 20, 2021. You have a choice: accept unpleasant, life-changing truth that changes how you conduct business from this day forward, or continue in blissful ignorance. Every day, outside forces are at work trying to access your accounts and peruse your personal data. Sooner than we'd like, the day will come when they try to get to the content you hold in your professional practice. In the 21st century, information is a commodity, and value is put on it. In this session we will discuss hackers and scammers, securing data storage and file transfer, and passwords. Our speaker, Joseph Wojowski, has been a translator for 14 years and is an Adjunct Professor of Translation and Localization at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies. He is also the administrator of the ATA Language Technology Division, and former vice president of the Midwest Association of Translators and Interpreters.
Our speakers are Zarita Araujo-Lane, MSW, LICSW and Andrew Jerger, CHI™. Ms. Araujo-Lane has 30 plus years of experience and is recognized as one of the leading presenters on cross-cultural communication tools for a variety of institutions servicing an array of professionals working in the education and healthcare fields. She has been invited to conduct national and international trainings on cross-cultural topics to both large and small groups using creative approaches such as case scenarios and storytelling. She has vast experience working with cross-cultural populations in medical and mental health organizations. She is the president and founder of Cross Cultural Communication Systems, Inc.™ (CCCS, Inc.™), a small woman- minority-owned business since 1996 with 250 interpreters and translators.
Andrew Jerger, primary instructor for medical interpretation courses, is an experienced interpreter and instructor. He spent 11 years in the Dominican Republic teaching public speaking courses in Spanish, English language classes, and Spanish reading and writing classes. He successfully completed the Art of Medical Interpretation® course at CCCI (54-hour certificate of accomplishment by CCCS, Inc.™) and went on to become a language coach before joining the CCCI faculty in 2009. He has since completed certifications in both CHI™ & CMI.
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