Meet Melissa Kamenjarin, Success by Rx’s New Copywriter

As the new copywriter for Success by Rx, I’m excited to introduce myself to you. My name is Melissa Kamenjarin, and I am a Spanish/English translator, writer, editor and proofreader specializing in educational materials, health insurance, non-profits, and published fiction and non-fiction books, blogs and websites. Some of my clients include educational materials publishers, published […]

3 Instant Productivity Boosters

Systems are important and so are processes but both take time to develop so if you’re looking for a way to boost your productivity instantly, check out these tools. You might have one or two, but I’d be willing to bet you don’t have the last and most important productivity booster in this list!1. Extra MonitorIf […]

Never Update Your Client’s TM…and Other CAT Tool Tricks

CAT (computer-assisted translation) tools are now a staple in the translation industry. If you’re not using one, I would argue that you are choosing not to take advantage of one of the best productivity tools available, regardless of the type of translation you do. Even if you have been using a CAT tool for some […]

The Interpreter Phenomenon

If you’re a translator who has never interpreted before, you may be rolling your eyes already. But I encourage you to read a little further. If you are an interpreter or have interpreted before, you may already know where I’m going with this.

Unlocking the Secrets of Dictation Software

Dragon is a software that allows you to dictate your translation while it does the heavy lifting, i.e., typing. In my opinion, if you aren’t utilizing dictation software of some kind, you’re really missing out. I’ve heard from a few people recently that said they had tried it and not liked it, but the more […]

Technology: Embrace It or Get Left Behind

There’s a lot of resistance to machines in the translation industry and some of that resistance is for valid reasons. Computer-Assisted Translation (CAT) tools were introduced to improve both quality and productivity. Translation agencies then began capitalizing on that by asking translators for discounts. Being asked for a discount doesn’t feel good. It might even […]

OCR Tools: Coping with PDF Files

As a medical translator, I work with a LOT of PDF files. I probably use my OCR tool up to 10 times per day and I’m fairly certain that at this point, I couldn’t work without it. However, it took some time before I figured out exactly how to get the most out of it […]

Dragon NaturallySpeaking: Twice the Product, Half the Effort

Dragon Naturally Speaking is gaining ground in the translation industry. I attended a session on Dragon given by Tom Fennell and Andrew Levine at the last ATA conference in October, which really made me realize how much I am under-utilizing the program. Then in December, Mario Chávez reviewed Dragon in the ATA Chronicle from the perspective of medical translation and handling PDF documents. After recently editing a few documents obviously done with dictation software, I started pondering how this tool fits into a translator’s workflow and how it is best used to increase productivity while avoiding the pitfalls.