Troublesome Terps

With Jonathan travelling to far-away lands, the two Alexanders get their tablet nerd on and chat with Andrew Belisle. He tells us how he got into interpreting, and we dive really deep into the how's and why's of consecutive interpreting. Plus, we discuss tablet interpreting.

While Alex G is on assignment, Jonathan and Alex D sit down with renowned interpreter trainer and book author Andy Gillies to discuss his career in the profession, the ins and outs of how to train interpreters, and the books he has translated and written.

Interpreting for the large political institutions of this world is quite separate from working on the freelance market. This is why in this episode, the Troublesome Terps take an extra close look at how working for the European Union really is. From the requirements, the scheduling, the different topics (and the lack of invoicing!), this is an episode stuffed to the brim with know how, insights and nuggets covering everything you ever wanted to know about being an interpreter at the EU.

Everybody can English - or: a story of ELFs and BSE! English is generally recognized as the number one language around the world, both in the world of business as well as for general communication purposes...

While the Troublesome Terps have covered gender in interpreting before already, it is a topic that will never not be relevant. For this reason, Sarah Hickey - conference interpreter and professional researcher at Nimdzi Insights - is joining us this episode to discuss the ‘feminisation’ of conference interpreting from female interpreters' perspectives. An interesting, well researched and entertaining look into the gender dynamics of the profession!

Sometimes it feels like language professionals forget that they are just that - professionals with a business "attached" to them. While being a wordsmith or having "a way with words" is perfectly fine, the economic elements must not be forgotten. Enter Florian Faes, co-founder and managing director of slator.com, the language industries biggest (and only?) business focused one-stop-news-shop...

In this "back to the roots" episode of the Troublesome Terps, Jonathan and the Alexes take a look in their crystal ball and have a discussion about what the future of the interpreting market could look like, that might be considered controversial...

Interpreting and translation are two sides to the same coin - or so they say...

2018 was truly another blockbuster year for the Troublesome Terps. Not only was our first - and certainly not last - live event in London a bona-fide hit (thanks to all the supporters and attendees!), as always we covered a wide range of different and super-interesting topics this year. Humor in interpreting and our very best travel tips and tricks provided some levity, discussions on feelings/emotions in interpreting and why interpreting research matters, provided some serious food for thought...

It finally happened. The three Troublesome Terps got together for their very first live event at The Roebuck pub in London! With almost 40 guests, we discussed two topics. First, we covered the topic of "Lies We Tell Clients". These "untruths" cover many different aspects, whether it's changing your quote for the umpteenth time or whether it's telling the client that "of course" you already have a team in waiting, although all your "usual suspects" are already booked...