Like many other professionals, I have a strong commitment to continuing professional development (CPD), also known as continuing education.

A lot of CPD happens informally: reading books relevant to our fields, following newsletters and magazines, and even scanning our Twitter feeds for posts by colleagues. Some of it is more formalized, though. If you’re a client or colleague who’d like to know what formal classes, presentations, and webinars I stay fresh with, here’s a listing.

Designed for translators:

• American Translators Association 55th Annual Conference (2014) – In addition to presenting a session at this conference, I had the pleasure of speaking with and learning from many other colleagues. A few sessions I attended:
  • Xbench for Terminology Management and Translation Quality Assurance (Riccardo Schiaffino)
    
  • Proofreading Refresher Course (Carolyn Yohn)
  • Terminology Management: A Panel Discussion on Practical Issues by and for Freelancers, Language Services Providers, Companies, and Educators (Barbara Inge Karsch et al)
  • Lights, Camera, Action: Translating for Film and Television (Jisu Kim)
• American Translators Association 54th Annual Conference (2013) – Nothing beats in-person learning! Some sessions I attended:
  • The Pitfalls of Game Localization (Timothy Hove)
  • Finding the Right Japanese to/from English CAT Tool (Charles Aschmann, Tracy Miller)
  • Managing Chinese-Language Projects: Tips for Project Managers (Evelyn Yang Garland)
  • Why Do Translators Make Simple Mistakes? (Gregor Hartmann)
  • Music and Meaning for Interpreters (Armando Ezquerra Hasbun)
  • Explosives and Bombing-Related Terminology (Christina Schoeb)
• Documenting Terms, Once and For All (2012) – A great beginner-to-intermediate webinar by Barbara Inge Karsch on terminology management. This really helped me formulate my own terminology management system, although it differs from hers in various ways.
• How to Blog for 1 Million Visitors: Advanced Blogging Techniques for Language Professionals (2012) – An ATA webinar by Fabio M. Said. This is more about the technical aspects of websites and blogging than the content aspects.
• How to Get the Mentoring You Need (2011) – I actually attended this ATA webinar by Courtney Searls-Ridge to get tips on how to be a better mentor to the translators whose work I quality control. Note: If you’re interested in learning about the ATA mentoring program, this webinar is outdated.
• “Forensic Transcription and Translation” (2008) – A presentation by Rafael Carrillo at the Houston Interpreters & Translators Association quarterly meeting on Sept. 6, 2008. Mr. Carrillo has experience in law enforcement-related work, transcribing Spanish-language wiretap recordings and then translating them into English. Oddly enough, this means he works with audio that’s often similar to what we TV/film translators deal with when we’re translating live interviews with cast, staff, etc. I’ve put several of his tips into practice for those situations.
• I also try to periodically attend memoQ webinars, or watch their recordings.

Business:

• Integrity in the Workplace: A.C.T.! (2012) – an ADP TotalSource University webinar. Description: “Maintaining business ethics and compliance standards is important to any organization. This course builds employees’ skills in how to recognize the most common business ethics and compliance issues within organizations. Learners are given real-world scenarios and gain knowledge on how to do the right thing, for the right reason, in the right way.”
• Business Writing for Employees (2012) – an ADP TotalSource University webinar about how to write more effective emails. Some tips were quite simple, but I still use them: for example, being sure to put your name at the bottom of the email to reinforce who you are in an email chain where many people are weighing in, so no one gets confused.
• Communication: Basic Skills for Clear Messages (2012) – Though this ADP TotalSource University webinar with Tania Mora was geared toward general company employees wanting to communicate better with each other, I attended because I wanted to ask the instructor how to best talk about sensitive topics like sex, religion, etc. in cases where that actually has to happen for work reasons. Since I do quality control at FUNimation, I make myself available to other translators for questions, idea-bouncing, etc., but working in television means that things like sex and religion come up, so I wanted HR advice on how to best talk about those topics in a work environment.

Other:

• HHP100: OpioidX: The Opioid Crisis in America (2017) –  Public health is a core interest of mine. The opioid crisis in the U.S. becomes deadlier every day, and was recently declared a national emergency. Although I saw it evolve from the sidelines, I’d been wanting to learn more for a long time, and this course provided a good opportunity.
• ER22x: Justice (2013) – This was my first edX course. It’s an ethics/philosophy course not directly related to translation, but I found out about it through a fellow translator at Words to Deeds, and it turned out to be what I focused most of my continuing ed brainpower on in 2013 (“Sorry guys, I have to go read Kant now!”). It was a great supplement to my overall education, and Professor Sandel of Harvard is an excellent lecturer.