Interpretopia

Special thanks to Nicole Montagna at Interpretopia for sending so many readers to the From Our Lips to Your Ears site! Written by Nicole, a graduate of SUNY Geneseo and the Ohlone College Interpreter Preparation Program, the Interpretopia blog makes for some very interesting reading.

Zesty Dormouse

Special thanks to a colleague in Belgium whose blog devoted to translation topics, Nouvelles News de Zesty Dormouse, now links to the From Our Lips to Your Ears project. This is enabling readers from around the world to learn about the project!

Traduction technique, interprétariat et coaching en anglais

I was very pleased to see a kind blog post from an interpreter in Brittany regarding the From Our Lips to Your Ears project. This blog, called Traduction technique, interprétariat et coaching en anglais, looked like it might be of great interest to many French interpreters and translators who visit this site, so I am sharing it here.

General Project Updates and Frequent Visitors

Every week, I start off thinking I will scale back the number of blog posts to a more manageable number, especially given the fact that I am working on many other projects simultaneously that consume a great deal of time, but each day, it seems like there are so many updates to share, that instead of reducing the number of posts, I should be increasing them in number. There simply aren't enough hours in a day!

This week, for example, I received a tremendous amount of emails and calls with support from individuals and organizations, both in the United States and in various countries. Several of these conversations and discussions led me to update the project FAQ, and the revised version was posted on the project website earlier this week.

Some of the questions I have already answered, but merit a bit of additional attention here.

One organization posed an excellent question about whether or not it would be possible to submit a collective submission on behalf of numerous interpreters. In many cultures and organizations, it might be more appropriate to send a collective submission as opposed to having a single delegate. As long as the submission is in keeping with the project goal of demonstrating why interpreters are so important, this is not only acceptable, but a great way to ensure that numerous interpreters achieve recognition. It also provides a greater level of anonymity for those who desire not to stand out as individuals.

I've also been fortunate enough to exchange emails with many university professors, forming great relationships and learning about many of their interesting publications in the process. I hope to feature some more of them in future posts. One question asked was whether I would consider contributions from university professors, and I would be delighted to receive them. While these not might be anecdotes per se, if they are in keeping with the project goal of demonstrating why interpreters are of great value in the world, they would be received with enthusiasm and considered for the project.

Several organizations have also asked it they might submit stories about interpreting assignments they have witnessed, heard about or experienced, and these will also be welcomed, provided of course that confidentiality is observed. Ideally, the majority of submissions will be from working interpreters, but all submissions that support the project goal will be considered.

And speaking of submissions, they continue to arrive. I am fascinated by many of the stories I have been receiving. Some are quite touching, others are laugh-out-loud funny, others are of the kind that make you want to pull your hair out... quite reflective of the life of an interpreter in general, I'd say!

I also want to give a special thanks to the interpreting associations (many of whom have been featured this week) and the telephone interpreting providers who've done a great job in helping me get the word out about the project. So far, I would say that more than 50% of the people who have submitted stories heard about the project through these channels. So, we do have a nice mixture of stories so far from different and diverse perspectives.

Also, several individuals have wondered if they should submit a story even if their writing in English may not be perfect, and the answer is most definitely "YES!" Interpreters are not required to be experts at written language, which is just one of many reasons an editor is mandatory for a project like this! Also, while good grammar and spelling are appreciated, the most important thing is the essence of the story itself. Refining the writing is just part of the editing process, so if you have a wonderful story to share, please do not be overly concerned with English that isn't quite perfect - all writers, even native speakers of English, require such editing.

I want to give a special thanks (again) to Céline Graciet, whose blog continues to generate a lot of traffic to both the From Our Lips project page, and this blog. Not only that, but her blog always makes for interesting reading! One of these days, I will get around to creating a blogroll to include her blog and some other great blogs that I've stumbled across from the T&I world.

I'm also pleased to be using several tools, such as Google Analytics and ClustrMaps, that show me the locations of visitors to this site, and if they arrived at this blog through a web search, what they were searching for that led them here. It's very interesting to see the locations of visitors, and it seems like every day, there are a few new dots on various countries in the map at the bottom of this page. I also love knowing that individuals are finding out about many of the great organizations I've mentioned here through their searches. It is also interesting to compare the stats from the project site and the project blog.

For example, the image on the left is from a screen shot of the top 10 visitors for yesterday, August 9th, 2007, to the project web site. Among the top 10 are Malaysia, India and Hong Kong, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland, Norway and Singapore, in addition to the countries I most expected, the United States and Canada, who appear on both lists.

On the right is a screen shot of the top 10 visitors to the project blog. It's very interesting to me that the blog is attracting visitors from many different countries than the project site, and vice versa. The blog's top 10 countries for visitors include the U.K., Spain, Argentina, South Africa, Poland, Australia, France and Belgium.

The countries in the Top 10 for the blog are all places where I have more contacts of my own, so I suspect that many of my friends and colleagues are helping me to spread the word.

Also, the stats provided to me are quite interesting too when looking at the city-by-city breakdown. Each day on the project web site, the #1 location for the most visits varies. For example, this week, the top spot was occupied by cities in various parts of the world, such as London, Madrid and Ottawa.

However, for the blog, the #1 spot has been consistent -the greater Los Angeles area, where the blog appears to have quite a loyal following, with many readers returning several times in a single day! Because of these devoted fans of the blog, each day, Los Angeles nudges out frequent runner-up Paris and other cities, such as Palmyra and Warsaw, but no other U.S. city even comes close to the number of visits from L.A.-area readers!

The strange thing is that I have received story submissions so far from all of the other cities with frequent visitors, except Los Angeles! Very curious indeed! Well, a special thanks to all of you readers in the vicinity of the City of Angels for your consistent interest in this project, especially your many daily visits to the project blog... but don't be so shy! Get in touch with me and share your submissions - I am sure you have many great stories to share, and I look forward to receiving them!

More Support!

Another exciting week for the project!

Story submissions have been coming in from around the globe, including several that are wonderfully thought-provoking, with great potential for publication.

Special thanks to our friends in Canada at Interpreters Niagara/Hamilton, a program of a larger organization funded by the provincial government called Information Niagara, which provides information services and is devoted to volunteer opportunities. As a program of Information Niagara, they provide interpretation services free of charge for victims of domestic violence to non-profit human service agencies.

They were kind enough to feature our program in their Interpreter Information newsletter for interpreters, pictured above.

Recently, there has been a lot of interest in other countries (Australia, Japan, Argentina, Turkey, China, U.K., Spain, Ireland, Israel and more), and I've discussed the worldwide interest here, but I also wanted to share that the national reach within the United States is helping tremendously too to spread the word.

I am especially happy that interpreting associations have been so supportive. In addition to getting in touch with me to share their kind words, many have taken the initiative to spread the word through their newsletters, listservs, websites and more!

Special thanks to the California Healthcare Interpreters Association for letting members know about the project. I've already begun hearing from interpreters as a result of these efforts! Check out their newly revamped website by clicking on the link above.

Also, the Northwest Translators and Interpreters Society (NOTIS) shared the Call for Submissions as well! I've started hearing from interpreters in the Northwest as well. NOTIS has a great quarterly newsletter worth checking out called the Northwest Linguist. You may download copies of it from their website.

Nearly all major providers of telephone interpreting services have been in contact to voice their support for the project, and in an effort to help out, they have been sharing the call for submissions with thousands of interpreters through their newsletters and interpreter relations staff. As a result, I've been hearing from interpreters for languages that I don't get to deal with every day (Thai and Bulgarian, for example). I really appreciate this wonderful support that enables me to reach literally thousands upon thousands of interpreters!

Special thanks also to Lola Bendena, who kindly shared information about our project through the multi-languages email newsletter.

Thanks also to utranslate4me.com for spreading the word about the project!

It's also amazing how many interpreters have connections in the publishing world. If the response so far is any indication, I expect you may see some translations of the book into other languages shortly after publication, as well as publishers overseas who are already starting to express an interest in the project.

And, who knew that so many interpreters are also writers? I've begun to hear from many interpreters that are either published authors or shopping around manuscripts. This gives me a great chance to share information about the writing and publishing processes with them while learning about their projects.

I already had some lists in Amazon to help interpreters find books about interpreting all in a single place, but I've since updated them with additional finds. By the way, these lists are purely to help interpreters - they do not generate profits of any sort for this project. You can access them through the links in the right sidebar.

The main project website continues to receive hundreds of new hits as a result of all of this help in getting the word out, and that's exactly the goal - for interpreters in all settings to have a chance to contribute!

In fact, while it is quite a surprise, this blog itself is also beginning to see more and more traffic - not nearly as much as the main website of course, but more than what I originally could have anticipated.

I already knew our main project was receiving visitors from around the world, but I didn't expect the blog to receive so much international attention as a result of it. The site stats indicate that this blog has had visitors from several continents already. In fact, I even added a little visitor map at the bottom to show who is visiting from what locations. It doesn't track every single person, but it's fun to see the different locations of visitors who've stopped by.

The blog has now been submitted to lots of RSS and Atom feed directories such as Blogaholix, and we're starting to see more and more traffic on the main project site as a result. Searching for the project name in Google now yields nearly 1,000 results. Not bad for only a couple of weeks!

Also, I feel blessed that so many university professors and other interpreting colleagues are helping to share contacts and resources, as well as potential writers with great stories to share about interpreting.

Feel free to email me to let me know how you are helping to spread the word, and I am happy to reciprocate with a mention here if you like.

And for the single most exciting accomplishment for the week with relation to the project goal of striving toward greater appreciation of interpreters in society, I am happy to report that the Associated Press did a story on the national need for interpreters in the U.S. courts. The story was picked up by newspapers in nearly every state, not to mention many countries around the world. Both the American Translators Association and the National Association of Judiciary Interpreters and Translators were quoted in this important story.

Little by little, interpreters are getting more recognition. And it's about time! I am thrilled that our project is helping to fuel this effort.

Like Wildfire...

This is how the news about the project seems to be spreading- like wildfire, albeit in a positive, non-destructive way, of course.

Our project got a mention on the Multilingual Computing site, and the release was picked up by ABC12 (Flint and Bay City), ABC6 (Philadelphia), the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the Pasadena Star-News, the Business Press (Southern California's Business Newspaper), La Nación USA,

A blog post about the project was also picked up by a newsfeed in Finland, and was also posted to the Talk to Japan newsgroup, as well as another blog in Japan.

I was also thrilled to see that the project is showing up on a translation studies blog in China. Thanks very much to the blog owner for doing a translation of the call for submissions!

Also, the project was picked up by JuraBlogs, a site in Germany, and Vivendo e Traduzindo, a blog from Fabio M. Said, a translation colleague in Brazil.

The project was also kindly mentioned on the Twisted Tongues blog, featuring the very insightful writing of Dena and Daniel Shunra. They run the Shunra Translation firm and work between English, Hebrew, Dutch and German. If you are a reader of the ATA Chronicle, you might recognize Dena's name - she is a frequent contributor.

I was also pleased to see that the Metroplex Interpreters and Translators Association (MITA) was so kind as to share our call for submissions on their website.

Also, the call for submissions was posted at the Yahoo Group site for a community-based organization called Invisible to Invincible: Asian Pacific Islander Pride of Chicago.

I am very pleased to see the word spreading so quickly, and to so many unexpected (but much appreciated) places.

The Word is Getting Out!

Over the past couple of days, I've been hearing from our colleagues from Down Under as a result of the project being mentioned in the eNewsletter for AUSIT, a professional association for interpreters in Australia with more than 750 members. Thank you, AUSIT!

The national symbol for interpreting services in Australia is pictured at left.

I am also happy to report that many university professors around the world have also been willing to help spread the word among fellow faculty and students.

Our project continues to receive mentions in the blogosphere! It has been mentioned on Transblawg, a blog for German translators, the N-Zone blog, written by Norayda de Leon-Jones, a Spanish<>English court interpreter, and the Translation Blog, written by Céline Graciet.

This week, I also heard from a colleague to let me know that she had already heard about the publication in a variety of ways. The fact that people are hearing about the project from multiple sources is encouraging. Still, my hope is that all interpreters will have the opportunity to participate in the project, if they are so inclined. So, there is still work to be done and still more interpreters to reach. If you are interested in helping get the word out, feel free to visit the project website for some ideas.

The media release continues to be picked up by so many sites, we've lost track! A few new ones we received through Google Alerts include the SmartMoney site, ABC7 news (Los Angeles) and WLS-TV / ABC (Chicago).

In response to the recent story in the Washington Post, I am also supporting other journalists who are writing about interpreting issues. More items are currently in the works. If this project is mentioned in any of them, I will be sure to post an update here.

You can now subscribe to the From Our Lips to Your Ears blog in a reader. To do that, simply click on the small orange icon in the right-hand column. This enables you to view this blog using the news reader of your choice (Yahoo, Google, Explorer, AOL, etc.).

Within just a couple of days of adding the subscription feature this week, the FeedBurner stats indicated that quite a few people are already subscribing to this blog in a news reader. That was a surprise to me, but I chalk it up to the fact that we all enjoy reading positive things about our profession. Also, I may have underestimated the number of contributors who like to stay updated about the project.

I've also been getting requests from individuals for me to receive my "newsletter" and be added to my "mailing list". I had not yet planned for either of those, but given the interest, it looks like I will need to do so in the near future. For now, I've added another new feature, so that now, you can receive blog entries via email. If you're interested, it's easy to do - just enter your email address into the little box in the right-hand column.

Each day, more and more submissions, questions and ideas keep pouring in! So much so, in fact, that it's very hard to keep up with it all. Still, it's inspiring and encouraging to see so much support, both within the U.S. and internationally, for the project.

At this point, several of the interpreters and colleagues who have contacted me have said that this project is a wonderful public relations effort for the entire interpreting community. I consider it an honor to help people understand the value of interpreters in society. So, I can see why the project is being viewed this way. Still, my goal is much simpler: to collect and record anecdotes that demonstrate how interpreters are changing the world, and make them available through a publication. I believe that one of the project's benefits will be greater outreach to the public at large, in a positive way.

Thanks again for the amazing support, now evidenced through hundreds of emails, thousands of unique hits on the project website, as well as your continued phone calls and comments on this blog. As a special treat, click here to learn how to say Thank You in 465 languages.

Manic Monday

The word continues to spread, far and wide!

Over the weekend, the counter on our website showed that we have already received more than 1,000 visitors to our site since the release went out. Not bad for only a few days!

I've exchanged emails with colleagues from across the globe at this stage, and am excited to report that many of our friends in various countries are planning to share the project with their association members and colleagues too. If you are planning to spread the word, feel free to tell me about it - I'll be glad to reciprocate with a mention on this site.

It's truly a blessing to be meeting so many great people from around the world, and from so many disciplines either within, or related to, the profession of interpreting!

Now, for some media updates:

• The media release was picked up by several other news sites, including the Denver Post, KGWKAIT (ABC channel 8), KGO-TV (ABC channel 7 - San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose), and the Whittier Daily News.
• It was also picked up by website sources such as FindLaw, MedWorm and Kwintessential. Law firms based in New Mexico, Minnesota, DC, Georgia, Mississippi and Texas also posted the release.
• I was also happy to see it get picked up by websites devoted to Latino readers, such as Hispanic Abilene, Hispanic-American Chamber of Commerce of Greater Boston, and others.
• The Memphis Area Library Council also posted a notice about the project. We love libraries!
• And in the category of "most unexpected", our project's release was also posted on the Pink Sheet Daily, the Hollywood Reporter and a soap opera site (?)
  

Moving back to more familiar ground, I also posted the call for submissions in the interpreting forum at TranslatorsCafe. Our friends over at TranslationPeople were also kind enough to post the release on their various sites. Also, a notice about the project was posted to the Multilingual Computing site.

We are also happy to report that, as our call for submissions makes its way around the world, several friends are starting to post it to forums for interpreters in various language pairs. A colleague from Turkey was kind enough to post it to a forum for Turkish translators and interpreters, and it will be mentioned in the July issue of a newsletter for Turkish translators that reaches 6,000 linguists and agencies.

In addition, the Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies group kindly shared our call for submissions with their network, and posted our call for submissions to their site. We really appreciate that they have been so willing to support us in this way.

We've also made some new friends in the blogosphere. One blog in particular by Céline Graciet is worth checking out, and she was kind enough to mention our project.

An interpreter based in Japan named Lionel Derset wrote about our project on his main blog and another blog located here. I really loved what he had to say about the project:

"There are a very few single life testimony of conference interpreters I have read about in the past, and several life records and essays in Japan by veteran interpreters. [...] It also means that Nataly Kelly may usher in a little bit of multiplicity in the perception of interpreting where A class conference interpreters are seen at the top of a pyramid under which everything is undistinguishable. Any move to expand the view and perception of the scope encompassed by interpreting is a welcome move."

This is precisely one of the things I hope to accomplish with the book: to gain greater recognition and appreciation for interpreters. All interpreters.

More Flurries...

Media Updates:

As Google crawls the web, I'm beginning to see that a larger number of other sites published the release than what I first realized. It was picked up by KRNV-4 (Reno-Tahoe) SciWeb, Netscape, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Las Vegas Business Press, the Sacramento Bee, DrKoop.com, and several others.

People keep sending me new links to places where they've run into either the release or the call for submissions - please feel free to keep doing that. I love to know how individuals are hearing about the project, and I am very pleased to know that even just the press announcement is helping the general public to hear some positive news about interpreters.

Many interpreters are also helping to spread the word via listservs, forums and blogs. Special thanks to Aurora Humarán for spreading the word in Argentina through La Cabina.

Project Updates:

We've already started receiving stories from various places around the world! I am very encouraged by both the quality of the writing, and the care everyone is taking to maintain confidentiality. One story in particular made me laugh out loud, and it did a great job of demonstrating why interpreters are so necessary. I feel very privileged to be on the receiving end of these, and very much look forward to sharing them with everyone through this treasury.

Many people have also been bouncing story ideas off of me via email to see if these would be of interest. I am always happy to give feedback, so please feel free to keep contacting me with questions.

The project website also continues to receive hundreds of unique hits each day. Instead of slowing down after the release went out as I had expected, each day I am pleasantly surprised as there are more and more visitors welcomed to our site.

I really appreciate each and every effort to share information about the project, and will reciprocate by making every effort to ensure the project continues to be deserving of such attention.

Flurry of Activity

Wow! The last 12 hours have been quite a whirlwind!

Media Activity:

• I did an interview with a local reporter who's writing up a story about the project.
• An online travel publication (with 50,000 readers) is interested in publishing an excerpt once we have completed the book, helping travelers to understand the value of interpreters.
  
• The call for submissions has been shared on a site for freelance writers called novelspot.
• Hispanic Business and several other sources picked up the release.
• Bloggers are starting to cover the project, including one blogger based in Brazil whose blog covers false cognates and idiomatic expressions in Portuguese and English.
• Another blog dedicated to health information issues also posted our call for submissions.
• The media coverage has been generating lots of traffic to the website - hundreds of unique hits in the first few hours of "opening shop".
  

General Project Updates:

• Dozens of emails have been coming in through the project website, all of them very positive, supportive and enthusiastic! I feel blessed to have so many people helping to get the word out and encouraging interpreters to participate.
  
• The FAQ section of the website has been updated to include some of the questions that have been asked, and the FAQ document on the Downloads section has also been updated (more on this below).
  
• A colleague in Israel with a wonderful interpreting project gave me a great idea for gathering stories in language pairs that do not include English (ex. Hebrew<>Amharic). I look forward to working with her and hearing the important stories of the interpreters in her group.
  
• The kind folks at the Nebraska Association of Translators and Interpreters have agreed to share project materials at the information table during the upcoming conference to encourage participation.

Project Updates:

• One question I received from various individuals was, "Do you only want happy stories?" The short answer is, "No." We want stories that demonstrate the value of an interpreter, which is the purpose of the project. These may include a range of emotions and outcomes, including ones that are sad or negative - these can be powerful and thought-provoking. The FAQ has now been updated to include this question.
• Another common question asked was, "What about confidential information?" The short answer is, "Don't share it." In summary, all confidential and identifying information should be removed by the contributor prior to submission. Our forms require the author to indicate that this has been done before submitting the story. If this is not done and the story is selected for publication, the story will be edited accordingly. As a reminder, prior to publication, all authors will complete and sign a comprehensive release form. This happens closer to the publication stage. The updated FAQ also reflects this.
• An unexpected question I've heard multiple times is, "Can I share a story if I'm not an interpreter?" The answer is "Yes." We're looking for stories that show the value of interpreters. We may consider having a special section or supplement with these types of stories. Some of my medical education colleagues have suggested that these would be fantastic to show the "lessons learned" from the stories. We'll definitely keep that in mind as a possible follow-up material to provide.

Thanks again to everyone for all of your kind words and support for this project.