Subject to Interpretation
Subject to Interpretation
Corinne Mckay
Interview with Corinne Mckay, President of ATA.
Links to the courses advertised:
Language Neutral Court Interpreter Training
Finding the Parallels Summit
Hello! Thank you for listening to Subject to Interpretation, hosted by Agustin de la Mora! My name is Claudia. And my name's Kayla. And we are the producers of this program. Before we get into today's interview with special guest Corinne McKay, who is a certified French and English translator, also the president of ATA, which is currently stands as the largest interpreter and translator association, with over 10000 members, we wanted to bring you the latest announcements from de la Mora Interpreter Training. If you found us on Facebook we like to remind you, you may download us to your phone wherever podcasts are available. Now on to some more exciting new shows. Our annual summit, Finding the Parallels, is returning this year, here to Orlando Florida on November 9th 10th, and 11th. Join us as we begin the weekend with our welcome reception, including a panel with surprise guests, food, and drinks, followed by two days full of seminars and hands on exercises designed for both medical and legal interpreters. Come out and network with your fellow colleagues and certified professionals. Once again this conference is for both medical and legal interpreters. And Florida legal interpreters can earn all of their 16 CIE credits just in one weekend, so don't miss that opportunity. Also the final schedule for the courses we are offering for the remainder of the year have been posted on our website, including the new dates for our Language Neutral Court Training, that now begins November 27. All the links for everything discussed in this announcement will be included in the description box below. Stay tuned for next week's podcast, featuring Darinka Mangino, who is a conference interpreter in interpreter training who you may know, because she has gone viral on Facebook before, due to her long consecutive ability, so don't miss it. We appreciate you all for listening in. We pride ourselves on being one of the very few podcasts professional interpreters out there. So please share us with all of your colleagues. We would also love to hear your feedback or if you have any questions, please feel free to contact our office, and you'll most likely speak to one of us. Until next week! Now enjoy that interview with Corinne. Goodbye!
Speaker 2:Hello everyone, and thank you for joining us again for another session of Subject to Interpretation. We're very honored and happy to have with us the president of a ATA, Corrine McKay, who graciously agreed to share with us a few minutes of her busy life to talk to us about the interpretation and translation field. So without any further ado, welcome Corrine, how are you doing?
Speaker 3:I'm great, thank you so much for inviting me.
Speaker 2:So here we are. The first question, and I think that we talk about this in the field a lot, are you an interpreter, are you a translator, and is there a difference?
Speaker 3:Yeah, well I always tell people if you understand the difference between a translator and interpreter, and an interpreter you're a ahead of media outlets like NPR and The New York Times, because they say"speaking through a translator" all the time, and I think, you know, all of those of us who work in the profession know that translators don't like to talk to anybody. So you can't speak through a translator. It's not possible. So yeah, so I will say at the moment I am exclusively a translator, but one of my own goals for sort of the next phase of my career, after I'm done being ATA president, which will be one more year, is that I am studying for the French court interpreter exam. So I've been a French to English freelance translator for about 16 years, and just as a little side project I'm studying for the French court interpreter exam, and I have literally zero idea what I'm going to do with that. I just like to have a goal and progress toward it.
Speaker 2:Talk to us. That's what we do. Where are you going to get certified?
Speaker 3:Well going to get certified is a little optimistic, because I'm not anywhere near being able to take the test. But I live in Boulder, Colorado. And so what I'm studying for right now is the French state court interpreter exam. But that's a several years away goal, don't hold me to that. Don't wait for any exciting updates in the next three months.
Speaker 2:Well we won't hold you to it in the short run, but we'll certainly talk to you and congratulate you when you become certified, because we do need more certified interpreters. So Corrine, how did you start in this field? Were you like nine years old, and said,"I wanted to be a translator, man, that's exactly what I want to do," is that how it went for you?
Speaker 3:Well it's sort of a funny story because one of the reasons I think professional associations and the message we have is really important, is because there are so many misconceptions out there about what translators and interpreters do, and what it takes to become a translator or interpreter. So French was always my favorite subject in school so I started taking French in seventh grade, so I was 12, I guess. And then I was a French major in college and did study abroad in France for a year in a program where we just went to a regular French university and didn't speak any English. So when I got back to the US after that, I said to one of my college professors,"I think I want to become a translator," and my professor said, you know, I don't think that, that would work out for you because you have to have at least two languages and that's a really long road, to start learning another language when you're 20. So I think all of us who work in the profession know that basically none of that is true. You know, now when I think back on that, I think, you know, did she have some misconception that I was talking about becoming like a UN interpreter or something? I mean or some sort of job within the language professions where it is really true that you need more than one language? And even if that were true, you know, starting another language when you're 20 is certainly not at all impossible, but be that as it may, I thought OK then I guess I'd better give up on that idea. You know because when you're 20 you believe what what, you know, older, more experienced people like college professors tell you. So I thought OK I guess I better give up on that idea. So I got a master's degree in French Literature and taught high school French for eight years, I guess. And then in 2002 I had a baby. And so I thought what sort of job can I do where I can work from home and use French, which I thought, I think correctly, was undoubtedly my most marketable job skill. But when I started freelancing there were very few resources about the business side of working as a freelancer. Now there is tons of stuff out there you know, thankfully both about running a freelance business and how to get started in the language professions specifically. But back then there was very little information. So on the first day that I thought of myself as a freelancer I sat at-- I can still see myself in my head in the house we lived in at the time-- I sat with my baby daughter on my lap and a phone book. Remember the phone book?
Speaker 2:I do bring it up in my classes sometimes and I tell people that's what I tried to do to get information.
Speaker 3:Precisely. So I sat there with my baby daughter who was the size of a loaf of bread. She's now taller than I am, but I sat there with my baby daughter on my lap and the phonebook on the dining room table. And while my baby daughter slept on my lap, I called every entry in the translator and interpreter section of the Yellow Pages for where I live, in Colorado, and just asked them you know, what to do to apply for work with your agency? And so you know, when I look back on it, I guess that, that wasn't the absolute worst way to start as a translator. One could probably think of worse ways, but I think you know, there are certainly better ways as well. And so one of my goals in my freelance career and in my work with ATA has been to, you know, help people start in a smarter way than I did. But I think now also you know, I think you know, we'll talk later also about kind of directions that the language professions are headed. Although you know, the Internet has brought some challenges such as you know, increased competition from translators who live all over the world, that the actual job of being a translator is undoubtedly easier now because you don't have to do things like sit there with the Yellow Pages and you know, cold call agencies and ask you know,"what do I do to work for you or with you?" So in my first year as a freelancer I joined the Colorado Translators Association and ATA right away. And I say that you know, not only as a promotional pitch for associations. But just to say I think that the reason that I was able to stick with it and make a go of it as a freelancer should be largely credited to the advice that I got from more experienced translators who I met through those associations. And I would say within... It took me about a year and a half to replace the income that I had been making as a high school teacher, you know through my freelance income. And I would say, you know, and I mentioned those statistics simply because I think probably a lot of your listeners who are just starting out may have a somewhat unrealistic idea of how long it takes to start a successful freelance business. And for me, I would say the first year was a ton of marketing. I applied to over 400 agencies in the first year that I was a freelancer. It took about a year and a half to replace my income from my previous full time job. And I would say it was about two years until I stopped thinking you know, is this going to work out or should I just go back and get another, you know, some sort of in-house job. So yeah, that was sort of my, you know, trajectory as a beginning freelancer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you did have an idea from the beginning I have to tell you when I started in the business, I started because somebody told me it was a good idea. I was teaching languages and then a guy hired me to do a deposition and I go OK. And then he said"Oh you did a good job you should go to the courts" and the courts' very thorough investigation of my background was"Do you speak Spanish and can you be here tomorrow?"
Speaker 3:Right, right. Do you speak Spanish and are you available at eight?
Speaker 2:And you know I truly thought I was going for an interview. But my experience was I was a teacher at Berlitz and I had done one deposition. That's how I started as a freelancer. But at least you did want to-- the idea of having a translation career as part of your make up. I certainly didn't until I stumbled upon it. Luckily I stuck with it, and this idea, this anecdote about the Yellow Pages is so close to me because I remember the same thing once I got that job as a freelancer interpreter in the courts, I went to the Yellow Pages to look for something that said something like interpreter training or resources for interpreters. And of course I found pretty much nothing. I found a few agencies that offered services but nothing really to train interpreters so we kind of came from different areas but we found the same idea of this difficulty of finding out how to do it. So then you become a translator and then how do you go from belonging to the local association, moving all the way to the ATA presidency and in between. Tell us a little bit, how did that happen?
Speaker 3:Sure. So as I said, one of the first things I did as a freelancer was to join the Colorado Translators Association which you know thankfully for me, is a very active and supportive and helpful association. You know then, and I think even more so today. So you know, I think another takeaway for your listeners who are just starting out in the profession and you know, you maybe experienced this yourself as well, is one thing you have when you're just starting out and you don't have a ton of work is you have a lot of time, which is something that experienced freelancers don't have because they're working all the time. So I decided to use some of my available time to volunteer as the newsletter editor for the Colorado Translators Association. And so the thing I wasn't really thinking strategically about that, but, it turned out to be a really valuable career move in a way, because writing an association newsletter, you get to know everybody because you interview people, and you write articles about people, and you know put member updates in the newsletter. So I got to know a lot of people in the Colorado Translators Association through that. So then a few years after that I'd say, I don't know I had been freelancing maybe six years, and I ran for president, or was elected president of the Colorado Translators Association, so I filled various volunteer roles within the chapter. It's now an ATA chapter. We weren't then, but we are now. So I served two terms as president of the Colorado Translators Association. And I think one thing anyone who has done that type of job would say is, if you can be a local association president, you can do just about anything because you know, one thing I think that is really important to keep in mind when you look at what the ATA board does, is we have you know, depending on the staffing levels at the time, you know, 10 or 11 full time employees who implement basically almost everything that ATA does is actually executed by ATA employees not by the ATA board. Whereas when you are a local association president, you are, you know, printing the name tags at midnight the night before the mid-year conference. You know, you are calling up the venue for the holiday party to find out if they can do kosher vegan food. You know, you are picking presenters up at the airport. You are doing everything like that. So I think it was really, you know, those four years as the Colorado Translators Association president that kind of prepared me for like, larger roles. So the first volunteer role that I held within ATA was Assistant Administrator of the French Language Division. And it was another person from Colorado who was the-- Michelle Landis, who was the administrator at the time and recruited me, sort of, to that position. And then I, you know, moved up from there into various volunteer roles within ATA in the French Language Division and on various committees Public Relations Committee and things like that, until finally I decided to try running for the board. So I served one full term. I've been on the ATA board for six years total now. So I served one full term on the board which as a director you served for three years. So I served a three year term as director. And then I was elected president elect three years ago. And in ATA when, after you were elected president elect, you automatically become president. So the president elect term is two years, and the president term is two years, but it is essentially you know one four year term because you know barring some unforeseen disaster, the president elect automatically becomes president after two years. So yeah, so that's a bit how I rose up through the ATA volunteer ranks.
Speaker 2:So I want to know-- everybody to know-- and be clear about this. All the board members of the association are volunteers right? They're not paid?
Speaker 3:Yes. Yeah that's important to note.
Speaker 2:Yeah because you know it requires-- and for me that's why I like to talk to people like you, because that shows their real love and interest in the profession itself, and not just oh it's my job. You know, we are always finding ways to make the profession a better profession for all of us. Why do you think belonging to associations is important? Because, I tell you, we have a hard time in my opinion, recruiting members for us. I don't know. You guys are big. How many members you have right now?
Speaker 3:So, we finished 2017 with about ten thousand five hundred members. So the membership kind of fluctuates throughout the year because you can join at any time but certainly over 10,000 members. So yeah I think, you know, ATA faces membership and ATA, I think, is pretty strong compared to a lot of other associations that you may read about. You know in the language industry or not for that matter, that face a lot of competition from things like social media groups that you can join for free. And people think you know I don't really need to pay like an individual membership in ATA, right now it's a hundred and ninety five dollars a year. And I do think that there are a lot of people out there who think, you know, I don't need to pay that hundred and ninety five dollars because I'll join a Facebook group for free, and that will be the way I connect with other translators and interpreters. And I think, you know, I belong to Language Industry Facebook groups, too. And I find them very valuable, but I think an association lends a legitimacy and seriousness to the association voice that you can't really get from a LinkedIn group or a Facebook group or something like that. So as an example, at our most recent ATA conference, which was held in Washington D.C. last October, we organized a congressional advocacy day where we had the lobbying organization to which ATA belongs give our members some fact sheets and a briefing on how to talk to your elected officials about issues that are important to the language professions and our-- we had 50 members attend that. It sold out, and they then went to their senators' and representatives' offices and you know, happily in the U.S., your elected officials staff people are actually obligated to meet with you if you want to go talk to them. So we found that they were very receptive to our messages about the language profession and I just think when you think of something like that, or for example, when I write a letter to the editor of a major newspaper on behalf of the language professions it makes a big difference to say, you know, I'm the president of the American Translators Association, which is the largest association representing language professionals in the U.S., versus I'm a member of this Facebook group for interpreters in Houston, Texas, or you know, whatever that group is. So I think, I mean to me, it's something that I feel, both of those ways of connecting to other people in the professions have value. You know, I don't mean that in any way to, you know, minimize the importance of things like social media groups because I find them hugely helpful, but I just think that professional associations are a different thing altogether. And you are able to connect with people who are established serious professionals in the language profession. You know, not some person who took you know, two years of high school German and decided yesterday that maybe they could be a translator, that you're able to connect with people who have done this for 20 years. You know, people who have grappled with all of the issues that you are grappling with. And you know those things that all of us had to go through. Like, how do I find clients? How do I decide how much to charge? What do I do when clients don't want to pay my rates? You know, what is happening at all? Yeah right, right, exactly, when I work for a client that they don't pay. You know, what is likely to happen to the language professions in the age of you know, artificial intelligence? I mean all of those things are things that you know, find answers to in established professional organizations.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I had a gentleman that when I used to work for the court system, and this is about 10 years ago, maybe 15, and told me you better look for another job because within two or three years machines will be doing your job. So I think that there's also this perception that we're becoming obsolete and I keep on fighting that idea and saying no, I don't think so, not for the short term, maybe in the future, that will be an issue. Do you hear that a lot? That translators are very soon going to be replaced by machines?
Speaker 3:Oh sure. Like, we've been hearing that since the 90s. So, I mean, my take, and I don't mean that at all to sound like oh you know, computers are no threat at all to our professions, I mean the thing-- I think my sort of takeaway message on that would be if for example if my daughter, who's now a junior in high school and will soon be in the position of deciding what she wants to do with her life, if she wanted to be a translator or interpreter I would feel very positive about that. I would not say you know, just the way that, you know, online travel booking sites sort of put the travel agent profession out of business, that's going to happen to translators and interpreters. I really don't think so. Within the working lifetime of those of us who are you know, in the profession today. At the same time, I do think all of the new technologies you know, neural machine translation and artificial intelligence are going to have a major effect on the way translators and even interpreters work. I mean I think for interpreters, my sense is that some of those same effects are going to be felt because of technologies like video remote interpreting. I think I think automated interpreting is further away. Because, I mean you know that's a whole other podcast in and of itself, but my sense is, automated interpreting is much further away than automated translation is. But I think you guys, who are interpreters, face some of the same pressures because of video remote interpreting. For example you know, clients asking you to be paid by the minute, or clients telling you, you know, we're not going to bring live conference interpreters to our events anymore. We're just going to use people sitting at home you know, maybe even in another country. So my take would be when I look at, for example, the types of translation that I like to do that require creativity and rewriting and interpretation of meaning, and changing the tone of a text for an American audience versus a European audience, the chance that a computer will be able to do that in my working lifetime is not something I am afraid of. At the same time I do think that a lot of, if not the majority, of information only translations could be taken over by machine translation within the working lifetimes of those of us who were in the professions today. So I think both of both of those things are true. I have a Swiss client who says to me, don't quote unquote translate this; rewrite it as an American blog post. That is not something that I feel intimidated by a reader being able to do. But at the same, if you are translating you know, let's say a computer software knowledge base, where the main point is to just get information across, not to sound beautiful, it uses a very controlled vocabulary and there aren't a lot of sort of linguistic surprises in that, and you're translating into a language like Spanish, where there are huge huge volumes of texts to train machine translation engines on, that is something that I do think we could see machine translation you know absorbing a lot of that kind of work within the working lifetimes of those of us who are active today.
Speaker 2:Right. Yeah. And on that thing, what can we do, and most important what can associations do, to help professionals move forward? What should they look for with the associations? We already said that they will give them some formality and give them certainly a voice, and I think that's what I would advocate the most about belonging to associations is that belong to that gives you a voice that you might otherwise not have as a person. And so what else can a professional--or what does your association do to help professionals move forward in the field? What can they look for in ATA?
Speaker 3:So I think a bunch of things. I mean first of all, just getting advice and support and connections with other people who do a similar job I think is really valuable. And then ATA has a pretty extensive public relations program that you do various things so for example, during the recent dust-up with the Trump/Putin interpreter issue, you may have seen various ATA spokespeople, I think a lot of you probably saw Judy Jenner, who is an ATA spokesperson who was featured on various national news programs responding to that and talking about you know yes like in theory interpreter confidentiality is an absolute thing, and diplomacy depends on interpreter confidentiality, but it's also pretty rare that, that is tested by something like a congressional subpoena. You know and I think Judy did a great job of explaining you know, within our profession, it is not the norm at all that the interpreter would be interviewed separately, or that the interpreter would be asked to, for example, turn over her notebook to anyone, you know, outside of the conversation that took place. But on the other hand, this is really a sort of you know, new frontier where that could potentially be tested by a congressional subpoena. So I think in ATA's public relations program, lots of reporters come to us now as a source for stories such as that. We also push out stories that are written by a writers group within the ATA public relations program that are published in various business journals and things like that about issues related to using language professionals in your work. You know, globalizing your company's website, how to go take your business global with confidence in multiple languages. And then a new initiative that ATA is just embarking on right now is position papers. So as luck would have it, our first position paper is on machine translation, and it is actually open for comments from ATA members right now. So if you're in an ATA member, you would have received in your ATA news briefs, a notification about the ATA machine translation position paper and how to give us your feedback on it if you want to. So I think ATA has lots of things like that going on to help people you know, continue thriving in the language professions in the 21st century.
Speaker 2:And what can you share with us about the goals of ATA? What is your vision for the future? And one of the things that I want to sneak in there, I don't want to lose the opportunity, how do you see the possibility of some kind of national federation of language access associations, you guys being the biggest and strongest one at this point, but how do you see maybe some kind of federation. RID, NAJIT, and other national associations that are in our business?
Speaker 3:Sure. So I would say that the idea you just mentioned already exists to a certain extent through NIAC, which is the National Interpreter Associations Coalition. So NIAC is a sort of informal organization, I would say, but extremely helpful, that brings together various organizations that work not specifically on language access, but on interpreter issues, which I think by definition bleed over a lot into language access. So just as an example you know, when various issues come up in the news that we believe run counter to the idea of using professional interpreters rather than volunteers or untrained bilingual people, NIAC will do things like write a joint letter from all of those associations you know, encouraging whatever entity this is in the news whether it's you know recently there were issues with police departments using volunteer interpreters to ride along with their police officers to interpret in bilingual situations. And so NIAC was able to write a joint letter and say you know, good for you for making an effort to reach out to people who are involved in crimes who don't speak English, however, especially, when this concerns something as serious as someone being either the victim of or accused of perpetrating a crime, volunteers are not the option that you want to go with. You want to use a trained professional interpreter. So yeah so I think to some extent that already exists.
Speaker 2:With NIAC. And you said that it's kind of an informal thing, so does NIAC--I've heard about NIAC, I know IEK is a member, and IMIA, and ATA, and NAJIT are members of NIAC. But do you guys have monthly meetings? Do you have conferences, or how does that work?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I think what I meant by an informal organization is that I think MIAC is purely an organization of associations. So as an individual, you can't go become a member of NIAC, but NIAC has monthly conference calls and an e-mail list, and we generally try to meet in person at the ATA conference every year because most of those organizations send representatives to the ATA conference anyway. And as far as the future of ATA, I think that we are always trying to balance sort of keeping on doing what we're doing. You know, staying the course if you want to put it that way, that you know our conference is, to our knowledge at least, the largest event in the world for translators and interpreters we have between 1,500 and 2,000 people who attend that every Fall it's coming up this October in beautiful New Orleans, Louisiana. Next year we'll be in Palm Springs, California. So I think two really appealing locations, so you know, so part of I think, you know, part of my job as ATA president is to make sure that the things we're doing well, that we just keep doing what we're doing, and then that we you know, keep up with changes in the profession. I think the main thing that our main sort of front burner project right now is that we just signed a contract to have our website completely overhauled and redone which is a process that will take about 9 to 11 months because it involves not only the huge amount of content on our website, but our member directory and things like that. And then obviously our certification program is a major initiative for ATA. We just added two new language pairs this year to it.
Speaker 8:So I believe we have 20 language combinations, I'd have to check the website to make sure of that, but we're in the neighborhood of 20 language combinations in which one can be certified right now. We've pretty much completed the roll out of our computerized certification exam. The certification exam was handwritten for a long time, and you know, obviously didn't keep pace with how translators work in the modern world. So we've pretty much completed the roll out of our computerized exam right now. So I think right at the moment the things that have been on my mind in terms of ATA are our new position paper initiatives. Like I said the machine translation paper is out for member comment right now and the next one is going to be on remote interpreting actually, so that the paper hasn't been written yet, but we approved the committee that is going to write the paper on Remote Interpreting technology. So those two things and the website, the new ATA website, are the main things that are on my mind lately.
Speaker 2:Great. So you've been so generous with your time so I wanted to see if you have a couple of minutes to answer two more questions that I think are important. One of them of course, is how do people get certified, like the short version, how do they become certified as translators, and what does that give them as far as credentialing or opening doors?
Speaker 3:So if you would like to be certified at the moment, you have to be an ATA member. And I say at the moment because our plan is that as of January 1st 2020, that we will open the ATA certification exam to nonmembers. So you will no longer have to be an ATA member, but that is still, you know, if you're thinking about becoming certified right now, that's still pretty far in the future for you. So at the moment you would become an ATA member and also make sure that we offer certification in your language combination. Because if you are a you know Tagalog translator, the answer is going to be we don't offer certification in that language pair. But we offer certification in a lot of language pairs, even esoteric languages like Croatian and things like that. So check on there and see if your language pair is offered. Then you take the exam at an in-person sitting so you can either see if there is an exam scheduled near where you live or you can take it at the ATA conference, and then your exam is graded by at least two graders. So your exam is sent first to two graders and if they disagree on the result it's then sent to a third grader. So I think you know just to clear up a few misconceptions about the ATA exam, it is difficult to pass. The overall pass rate is about 20 percent, but the pass rate varies by language. But I think if you, I mean you've probably talked about this on your podcast before, if you compare that to something like the federal court interpreter exams, 20 percent is actually pretty high. When compared to, I think the federal court interpreter exams from-- if you look at the number of people who start the written exam to the number of people who end up passing the oral exam is well under 10 percent. So 20 percent is either high or low depending on how you want to look at it.
Speaker 2:It's one of those half-empty, half-full glasses, huh?
Speaker 3:Exactly, it depends on how you look at it, but I think one important thing to know is you can never fail the ATA exam based on only one person's assessment of your exam because each exam is graded by at least two graders. So if you become certified you can then use the initials CT for certified translator after your name and you can get a seal that has your name and your certification number on it and you can put that on translations you do with your certified translator seal on them. So I think you know, the benefits that ATA certification brings you depends on who you work for and what your goals are. So I think at the very least, ATA certification shows that you are serious about the profession and that you are very good at what you do. So for example, when I first became certified I hadn't been translating for that long, and I would tell all the clients who I applied to, you know, I've only been freelancing for two years but I am ATA certified, and I think you know, the U.S. is not a country where you are required to be certified in order to work as a translator for better or for worse. But I think at the very least, clients are going to prefer to use certified translators because of the you know, seal of legitimacy that, that sort of confers upon someone who has passed the ATA exam. So I think it is you know undoubtedly a plus at any stage of one's career. And then there are various purposes for which you might have to be certified. So for example, I do a lot of official document translations for individuals and it is not unusual that they let's say it's a you know, French or Swiss person applying to graduate school in the U.S., and it's not unusual that the U.S. university will require that they use and certify translator, you know, for that purpose.
Speaker 2:And I wanted to tell you also when you mentioned about this paper and this committee about remote interpreting, I would love to talk to them if they want to. Remote interpreting for courts started here in Orlando with a team that I was of, and I'll be happy to share what I know which is quite a bit about remote interpreting. And remote interpreting, obviously people might be confused. Well what do you mean interpreting? Isn't this a translators association? So what is the story? Didn't we say that translation and interpretation is different? So how come you're talking about interpretation?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a really good question. So one interesting thing about ATA is that interpreters, as members, have been a tremendous growth area for ATA. So ATA has about 20 divisions within ATA. So once you join you know, big ATA, you can then include it in your membership, become a member of as many divisions as you want. And some of them are language specific. So for example, I'm a member of the French language division and then some of them are specific to areas of practice. So you know we have a legal law division and things like that, and we have of course, an interpreters' division. So an interesting sort of factoid is our interpreters division now has over 4,000 members. So of the 10,000 people who belong to ATA, over 4,000 are members of the interpreters' division. And so you know, to our knowledge, if the interpreters division were its own association, it would be the largest interpreters association in the world you know, and that's just for perspective. I think you know, when you think like, how important are interpreters within ATA? Because it's called the translators association. Well in fact very important because nearly half of our members are members of the interpreters association and our interpreters division is huge.
Speaker 2:Well thank you and I really wanted to bring that up because I don't want people to say oh this is not for me, I'm an interpreter.
Speaker 3:No, it is for you. Come join us!
Speaker 2:I've been a member of the interpreters' division of ATA and I know that it's huge. And ATA was gracious to invite me a couple of times to do presentations in your conferences, which I really appreciate. So we really want to thank you again, Corinne, I know we ran over the time that we asked you to dedicate to us. So thank you for being so nice and if you want to have any closing words or invitation. I know that a lot of people would love to go to New Orleans, just with the excuse of going to New Orleans so, when is the conference?
Speaker 3:Yeah so our conference is at the end of October, last week of October in New Orleans. We're going to be at the New Orleans Marriott which is right on the edge of the French Quarter. And so the early bird registration deadline runs through early September, and if you haven't made your hotel reservations, you should do that immediately because the hotel is filling up, if not, sold out for a couple of the nights of the conference. So we're anticipating a really large turnout which we're very excited about. But even if you can't make it to the conference, still join ATA and you can participate in our webinars and every division has an email list and you'll receive our magazine, the ATA Chronicle and ATA Newsbriefs which is an electronic newsletter that we send out twice a month and all sorts of things like that. And if you can't make it to New Orleans, you can join us in Palm Springs next year or at another upcoming conference.
Speaker 2:Okay. Well thank you very much Corinne. And we will let you know when is our next podcast and when this is going to be published. Thank you very much!
Speaker 3:Great, thank you, too! Bye.