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Evidently, some of my writings and thoughts on various topics on this blog seem to be worthy to be pirated and are posted elsewhere without my permission or knowledge or referring back to this website. So, unfortunately, I have had to take some drastic measures to protect my intellectual property and added a plug-in that prevents certain keyboard shortcuts and mouse click actions. You should still be able to download the linked (and secured) files, but you shouldn’t be able to copy and paste stuff anymore.

If you want to use the material on this site elsewhere, please shoot me a message, I’m happy to work out an agreement that won’t cost you an arm and a leg (meaning, with the proper attribution, you’ll likely be able to use the content for free).

Grannies, Freds, and LSD – A Non-Pedestrian Introduction to Bicycles is the title of my 2nd talk at the upcoming 55th conference of the American Translators Association in Chicago. Information on my other talk on localization can be found here.

Abstract:

The bicycle market is a 6-billion-dollar industry in the US alone, and valued at over 50 billion dollars globally. This talk takes you on a whirlwind tour of all things bicycle, from low-end clunkers to high-end carbon fiber frames. Linguistically, you’ll learn what the jargon in the talk title really means (not what you think!), so that you can talk like a pro about the happenings in the peloton when you watch the next Tour the France, are able to translate the user manual for the newest electronic 22-speed gruppo, or localize the latest interactive GPS bicycling app.

You can download the slides here in PDF format.

Here you can find a link with the slides (in PDF format) for one of my talks at the American Translators Association’s 55th conference in Chicago on Software L10n QA Assurance from the Tester’s Perspective.

The talk is complementary to the paper that I contributed to the proceedings. You can download the paper here.

Fictitious warp drive software used as an example in the talk

The talk will discuss the QA process at the example of a fictitious app to control a warp drive (for non-sci-fi afficionados: a faster-than-light drive for space ships). The source language is Terran (American) English, the target language is Klingon (tlhIngan Hol). Even if you are not a sci-fi fan, you will appreciate the reasons for this choice: First, since warp drives are very much a fiction at the moment, I can’t infringe on any copyrights of existing software. Second, the Klingon language grammar, although pure fiction, is very thoroughly developed and a large number of resources exists for those who want to learn the language (see references in the slides). Third and perhaps the most important reason, the Klingon alphabet is not at all similar to the Latin alphabet and is therefore ideal to illustrate the points I want to make in the talk, because most people will have a hard time reading Klingon.

Qapla’!

I am happy to announce that my article “Translation Scams: Avoiding Them and Protecting Your Identity” has just been published in the October edition of The ATA Chronicle (links to an almost final pre-print version).

The article is a summary of my series of blog posts on the topic. You can access the original blog posts here:
Maria Brown and the Nigeria connection
Password Protection for your CV/Resume with Adobe Acrobat
Protection against Identity Theft
Translation Scams – Buyers and Translators Beware!
Verifying Identities and Payment Practices Online

I have just submitted my paper contribution for my upcoming talk at the American Translators Association’s 55th conference in Chicago. The talk will NOT follow the paper, rather, the paper is meant to be complementary to the talk. The talk itself will illustrate the steps discussed somewhat abstractly in the paper at the example of a fictitious app in a more hands-on approach.

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I am very happy to announce that I am now ATA-certified for translation from English into German.