Rolling on to the Columbia – the upcoming 65th American Translators Association (ATA) conference

 

[Columbia River]

In around one week, the ATA conference will open in Portland, Oregon. If you have never attended a large national translation/interpreter conference, it is a special experience involving bountiful opportunities to network, learn and expand horizons. The ATA annual conference generally attracts around two thousand people.  This year, I personally have a special interest in it not only professionally but also personally but any person that is currently a part of or considering joining the language industry can benefit.

One of the amazing riches of the conference is the overwhelming choice of lectures. During each lecture period, a participant can choose among nine different presentations. It is almost too much especially since conversations in the hallway on the way to the lecture often prevent you from getting to them. This year, I will be giving two presentations, one on project-based quotes and the other demonstrating a step-by-step approach to preparing presentations. For a full program, see here. Clearly, regardless of a person’s actual area of specialization, there are numerous lectures of interest. Notwithstanding this opportunity to gain knowledge, the most important benefit of the conference is the creation and reinforcement of the feeling of a translator community, a large one even, so often lost as we work alone in our (office) caves, isolated from others. I finished my last ATA conference in Palm Springs, before Corona struck, exhausted but inspired. If you have a chance to attend this year or in the future, it is a worthwhile investment of time and money.

On a personal basis, I lived in Oregon before I immigrated to Israel 35 years ago. I am looking forward to seeing both the friends and place I left behind. Aside from attending a reunion party of Hopa, the Balkan dance troupe in which I was a member back then, I plan to rediscover and show my wife the beauty of Oregon as I remember it: Multnomah Falls in the Columbia River Gorge, Mount Hood, the Oregon Coast, the 5^th Street Market in Eugene and any of the places I can get to. Of course, rain is forecast. The joke is that it rains twice a year in Oregon, from January to June and June to January. My wife and dealt with killer humidity in Shanghai in July; we will deal with frequent pissing from the sky in Oregon. Another, albeit unfortunate, personal benefit is that we will not have to be on constant alert for air raid warnings as is the situation right now in Israel. They do get one one’s nerves very quickly. Thus, I am looking forward to returning to Oregon even if you cannot go home again as Thomas Wolfe wrote.

Therefore, if you can attend the conference and are interested in any aspect of the translation and interpretation (including the effect of AI on the business), it is not too late to register and profit from an amazing event in all aspects. Contact me if you want to meet at the conference. As follows from the words that Woody Guthry wrote in the song about the building of a hydroelectric dam on the Columbia river, you can see the power of language turn the darkness to dawn. Roll on to the Columbia, roll on.