Based in Derbyshire, I translate from German to English full-time and am also a visiting tutor in Applied Languages at the University of Sheffield. #ITIConf15 will be my first ITI Conference.

It’s about 160 miles to Tyneside from my base in the East Midlands and just 2.5 hours on a fast train, but I have to confess to never having disembarked between Durham and Edinburgh before. Attending the 2015 ITI Conference will rectify this omission and I am hoping to extend my stay and see something of Northumberland on the same trip.

Having been unable to attend the last Conference in London, I am particularly looking forward to the masterclasses and to learning from some of our most experienced colleagues. It’s a pity that I cannot go to all four workshops that day, but I am sure there will be excellent reports online and in the ITI Bulletin afterwards. After much deliberation I have opted for the talk by Andrew Morris on becoming the translators we want to be and Stefan Gentz’s technical journey into XML. I hope both talks will help me better navigate around and beyond the ‘tag soup’ that I have grappled with throughout my translation career!

A ‘Tweet Up’ is scheduled to take place on 23 April after the masterclasses, so if you’re not attending those, be sure to arrive in Newcastle in time for this vibrant pre-conference social. As I’m involved in bringing this Tweet Up North to Newcastle, you may well hear more from me in the run-up to the Conference. These informal gatherings for translators and interpreters take place across the North of England and the Midlands, but this will be the first time we’ve made it to the North-East (not for want of trying I assure you!).

The Conference Tweet Up will provide an opportunity for speed-networking and to discuss social media topics. Plenty of expert help will be on hand, as I shall be ably assisted by fellow delegates who host tweetups in London, Paris and ‘out West’. It promises to be a great evening and a fantastic way to make new contacts, whether you’re an old hand or have never been to an ITI Conference before. Watch this space and Tweet Up North on twitter and facebook for more details as we confirm arrangements over the coming months.

See you in Newcastle! #LinguistsUnite

I am a  German-to-English translator based in York, a couple of hours south of Gateshead. I specialise in the translation of fashion, e-commerce, marketing and tourism texts. Find me on Twitter @CatWolterman.

Northern England is a great place to be a translator

I have found the north of England to be a very supportive place in which to start my career as a freelance translator. It was in 2011, during my MA at the University of Leeds, when I first realised that the north of England was home to a thriving community of translators and interpreters. Towards the end of my studies, I was introduced to ITI’s Yorkshire regional group, Yorkshire Translators and Interpreters (YTI); I soon became an active member, later taking on the role of social media secretary for one year.

Through YTI, I found out about Tweet Up North. ‘Tweet ups’ for translators and interpreters started out in London and are now taking place across Europe, bringing translators together and offering an insight into the ways in which professional linguists can use social media as a business tool. There will be a Tweet Up North event at the ITI Conference, so watch this space.

More recently, I have started attending a monthly Jelly day in York, which is chance for freelance translators to meet up over a coffee, bringing their laptops along if they want to get some work done in the company of others or simply having a chat with other translators.

Being part of the vibrant, active network of translators in the North has played a big part in my career to date.

Looking forward to #ITIConf15 in Gateshead

Translators from around the UK and from other parts of the world can look forward to a warm welcome from this community when they arrive in Gateshead for the ITI Conference in April.

With so many excellent speakers already announced for the ITI Conference 2015, some difficult decisions will no doubt have to be made about which presentations to attend. There are a few I definitely don’t want to miss: Ros Schwartz’s pre-conference master class on the overlap between literary and commercial translation, Percy Balemans’ presentation on translating for the world of fashion, and John Evans’ talk on inspiring the next generation of translators and interpreters. Outside of the conference, I hope to have time to pay another visit to Gateshead’s outstanding BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art.

I am very much looking forward to being part of what promises to be a world-class translation event right here in the North.

Hi all! I was invited to write a little something on who I am and why I’ve signed up for the 2015 Newcastle event, so here goes:

My name is Karin Krikkink, I live in Groningen in the north of the Netherlands and I am a translator of English to Dutch. I have been in the translation business for about twelve years now; the first two years as a project manager for a small localization agency, after which in 2004 I took the plunge and started freelancing. Well, to be honest the plunge wasn’t really all that deep, as at the same time I also took on a part-time job (which I still have by the way) as an in-house translator and project coordinator at the University of Groningen translation service. I specialize in creative translation and transcreation, as well as the field of higher education.

So why am I coming to the 2015 ITI Conference in Newcastle? For quite a number of reasons really: to make new friends and keep in touch with old ones, to network, to earn a few CPD – or as the Dutch call them, PE (‘Permanente Educatie’) – points, to learn about what’s new in the industry, to get out of the office and spend a few days in a beautiful city abroad (let’s be honest, who doesn’t use conferences as a good excuse for a mini-vacation…), and perhaps most importantly to be inspired by all those colleagues who are also passionate about their jobs. After all, translation is a rather lonely profession and sitting behind your desk all day (even if you do have a part-time job on the side) you sometimes tend to forget how much fun it can be. With session titles like ‘Brain food for translators – the language (and flavours) of chocolate’, ‘Fashionable translations: from designer labels to clothing labels’ and ‘Languages take you further’ I’m sure this conference will serve as a perfect reminder to me of why translation is the best job in the world…

Looking forward to seeing you all in Newcastle!