 Hello, everyone. So today I want to talk a bit more about the ATA conference, the American Translators Association conference here once again this is it and the one that I attended in DC and I want to give you my thoughts on it before I get into the sessions though I just wanted to talk I thought I should start off at the beginning giving you my Impressions about the conference as a whole Now as I mentioned in the previous video, this is a four-day conference I just went to the Saturday, which is the last day basically and I mean on Sunday They have some closing ceremonies, but Saturday is the last day and it's a day that's full of sessions and that's when you kind of have everything going on at once and Once again, you have these sessions. These are the ones that I attended they're about an hour each and they go on sporadically throughout the day and They're quite interesting and they're divided up into different Categories as you can see here. So you'll have 11 15 to 12 15 and Then you'll have all these Different categories and you can see oh sorry here what they tie into so anything that has K is Korean so if you're doing something with Korean languages, then you know, that's a that's a session you want to attend I See that's usually what I attended is that's for independent contractors P is Portuguese So some of them are our language specific some aren't like TRM is terminology med is medical and Translation and interpreting and stuff like that. So they have these sessions that are divided into All these different categories and you can pick which ones you want to attend as I mentioned So if there are two sessions at the same time slot you want to attend I did meet someone there who would attend first half of one session and then switch to another session I didn't try that but I guess you could try that if you go Otherwise for the rest of the time they have the exhibitors They have exhibits going on and this is basically like a fair if you've ever been to a job fair stuff like that That's how it is now. They're not all jobs for translators In fact, a lot of them they're trying to sell their own thing You have traidos traidos however you pronounce it had had a big section there and you had some other Computer assisted translation tools, but but then you had you had some schools miss was there Monterey Institute of International Studies That's always big with translators and interpreters the State Department was there Kent State University in trans book So they were selling books as well The IMF had a stand there localized Africa. There are other ones as well. And so there are stands that Have I presume job offers, but keep in mind most of these are looking to hire someone They don't want freelance translators So you kind of need to specify that because most of these will say oh come work for us such as the IMF You know, we'll probably be like come work for us We need translators which is great if you live in DC and you want to work at the IMF But otherwise if you live somewhere else then it's kind of hard and a lot of these because we were in DC That's why you have a lot of these International organizations that are based out of DC every year. They hold this summit somewhere new next year It's gonna be New Orleans So it'll be interesting to see who who's exhibiting there And otherwise that's pretty much it you have the schedule you have a break for lunch and then and then you have a schedule again There are a whole lot of people. They're a bit older on average than I thought they would be But I guess it makes sense because if you have people flying all the way to DC to hope you know I'm paying for a conference to stay there. They're gonna already be established Most of them were definitely in-house translators. They work for a company. They work for some courthouse some government some State Department or some company or organization or whatever it might be and They they work for them and that's it. There are a good number of independent contractors freelancers like us but the majority of definitely work for other people and oh, yeah, also there were signs around the uh, I mean Obviously someone had just printed these out and left them Scrone about all over the conference But they said to stay away from Bette Marl language it so actually that's I'll put a picture of it Overlayed because I took a picture of one of the signs And it says stay away from Bette Marl languages because they're crooks or they what is it? They don't pay your translators and I can't remember the name of whoever's in charge She's a crook and she can't you can't trust them at all. I don't know that was pretty interesting. What else can I say? So there were the sessions. Oh, and there were there also conferences going on in the background But those are more for higher ups. Oh, and there were translation tests So you can take the certification tests for the ATA languages during this time as well and What happens is ATA the American Translator Association gives its own certification Which is a pretty well known certification in terms of all the certifications out there ATA is probably the best known and you can take this test during the session now keep in mind if you do take it You're going to miss out on all the sessions, which you Might not want to do so also by the way, it's not easy. It's actually very hard Some translators were talking to me about it how, you know, there are people There's one woman who'd been a translator for I think 35 years or something like that and she said Like she put it on her her reservoir She said she was going to put on her grave or something like that basically made a living from translation and Made a good living at that never passed the certification test for ATA. So they're not easy so you might end up spending a couple hours taking the test and Failing and then not being able to attend the sessions So I'm not sure if that's the best use of your time because you can find other times to take These tests usually you don't have to take it during the the event Anyway, that's pretty much it. And so in essence, I think if you are a freelance translator if you're just starting out I Think it'll definitely be interesting. I'm not sure really how useful it will be though you're gonna meet a lot of other translators and They're either in house translators or freelance translators most of them in house most of them a bit older But they're not hiring translators and they're not hiring freelance translators So you meet other people in your shoes people with more experience. So it's definitely interesting to talk to them I had some very interesting conversations while I was there, but they don't necessarily help you in finding a job For example during lunch, I was at a table with people who were doing translations in Farsi Urdu Pashto Arabic and other anyway So they're comparing all these notes about how they write numbers differently or they do this and that and the other and How their languages are related or not related to each other and to me was fascinating I know who about any of this and so it was really interesting to To hear this on the other hand, it's not like it's gonna help me professionally So and I say this just because if you were planning on going to this you have to pay to attend first of all And you have to get there and you have to stay in a hotel when you're there if it's not in your city Etc. Etc. So it is an outlay it is a cost to get there and So what you get out of it is you do get you get to meet some interesting people They're all translated so they all speak at least two languages so it is interesting in that sense and you get to go to these sessions most of which are quite informative and You get to spend a day amongst other translators Now, I don't know if it's necessarily worth your time and money To go there if you are searching for your first couple jobs. I Think definitely not if you're searching for your first couple jobs If you're already a bit established then maybe You can get something more out of it because you can talk more as equals to these people But if you're first starting out these people can't get you jobs and they're they're kind of talking about the translators Just compare notes, you know, they're not offering jobs so they can't really help you all that much They might have notes or they might have advice, but that's pretty much it It will be anecdotal and like I said, they do have the the stand They have the exhibits where there's some people that are offering jobs But most of these will be in-house so in the city that you attend usually I assume I don't know at least a lot of these were based out of DC and they won't be for freelancers They'll be for people working in-house So it depends on whether you find this useful or not I would suggest if it does happen to occur in your city, then yeah, why not attend? I don't think there's any reason not to attend You don't have to pay for transportation or hotel. You just have to pay the entrance fee It is a cost like I said, but I think it would be worth it But otherwise traveling there if you're first starting out might not be too worth it Maybe once you're a bit more Into the whole scene then you can get a bit more out of it because you can meet other people in your shoes but It was very interesting More interesting than many other conferences. I've been to but monetarily, you know, we'll have to see so That that's it for my thoughts about the conference in itself There are I wanted to go through quickly two other well actually just one other Session that I attended one of them talked about financial independence, which I thought will be very interesting for independent Contractors like us for freelance translators, but it only talked about retirement in the end and you know, which is important but I'm not there yet and it went into a lot of detail and also It only applies if you are American living in the States So I'm not even gonna talk about that session. There was one other session. I wanted to talk about briefly and I see I'm almost at ten minutes So I'll end it right there and just talk about the rest of the conference tomorrow I'll see you then. Bye