Monday smile – Bonne conduite

A Monday smile in French today. Bonne semaine ! 😊

Un surveillant pénitentiaire dit à un prisonnier :

Félicitations, vous allez sortir de prison pour bonne conduite !

Ah bon, mais je ne comprends pas


Pourquoi ça ?

Je suis entré pour excÚs de vitesse et je sors pour bonne conduite ?

Book – Legal Translation and Bilingual Law Drafting in Hong Kong

Legal Translation and Bilingual Law Drafting in Hong Kong presents a systematic account from a cross-disciplinary perspective of the activities of legal translation and bilingual law drafting in the bilingual international city of Hong Kong and its interaction with Mainland China and Taiwan in the use of legal terminology. Continue reading

W2D2022 – REGISTRATION GOES LIVE!

IMPORTANT – DATES CURRENTLY BEING UPDATED – PLEASE CHECK THE BLOG FOR LATEST NEWS

First of all a very big thank you to all of the people who have sent in expressions of interest. I am delighted to announce that the Third WordstoDeeds Conference 2022 is going ahead from Saturday 5 to Sunday 6 February 2022 at Jesus College, Cambridge, UK.

Registration

Registration is now open on this page of the conference website. As previously indicated, registration will have two phases:

  • a deposit of 25% by 15 November, 
  • and the remaining 75% to be paid by 31 December.
  • there is also an option to pay the full fee in one go now, to avoid extra bank charges.

If you or your firm would rather receive an invoice to pay by bank transfer instead of paying by card through the secure platform on the conference website, just let me know.

Accommodation

Attendance can be with college accommodation or alternatively delegates can book their own accommodation elsewhere in Cambridge, which offers a profusion of bed & breakfasts and hotels.

As there will not be enough accommodation in the college for all participants, rooms will be allocated in the order that delegates signed up to the expressions of interest, provided they have paid for their rooms. As soon as we reach capacity, accommodation booking will be closed.

Following some questions I have received in the last few hours – if you are wondering which nights to book accommodation for
 

The conference will end on Sunday around 5.30-6pm, and we have planned a relaxed dinner at a local restaurant for anyone who wishes to attend. This was to replace the social activities that we previously had on the third day of the conference, thinking that most people would probably not want to do social activities on the Monday. 

As for Friday, the organizer and several others will be in Cambridge if anyone would like to meet up, although we are organising a schools competition prize-giving in the earlier part of the day.

Tell your colleagues!

Numbers are only just hovering around the feasible level at present, so please spread the word far and wide.

The conference Twitter hashtag is #W2D2022.

Let’s once again roar to the world out there about legal translators, the very important work that we do, that we are a force to be reckoned with, and make this another roaring success!

Programme

You can expect more details to filter through to the conference programme page over the next couple of weeks, so do keep re-visiting it!

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Safety

As explained in the previous information released, the Venue has agreed to give us a 100% refund if due to government restrictions whether inside or outside the UK the conference had to be cancelled.

Travel – STOP PRESS ADDITION!

Eurostar has a special offer of discounted Paris>London fares if booked by 10 November 2020: see here. At present they are showing at €39 per journey leg. They also say “All our tickets are flexible*, so if *you know what* puts paid to your travel plans, then you can always rearrange your trip”.

If it is more convenient for you to fly, London Stansted is the nearest airport – only 31 miles from Cambridge, and there are many ways to make the journey from the airport to Cambridge, including trains, coaches, taxis and hire car. By the way, “London” in the name “London Stansted” is quite confusing – if you look at a map you’ll see it’s nowhere near London!! 😊 The airline which runs almost all flights to Stansted is Ryanair.

Traineeships – European Parliament

The translation department of the European Parliament is offering 80 paid traineeship places in the Directorate-General for Translation (DG TRAD), in Luxembourg or Brussels.

The traineeships last 5 months! The next traineeship period is from 1 March to 31 July.
Applications are open until 30th November 2021. Continue reading

Monday smile – The time you waddled

The dangers of governments not carrying due diligence in the procurement of machine translation hit the news again last week – this time in Sweden.

The Local, a European English-language news network, reported that “British parent Neale Thomas was trying to apply for VAB – Sweden’s sick pay when looking after an ill child – when he discovered several “Monty Python-esque” translations on the agency’s website”. Continue reading

Symposium – Cultural Property Crime

A symposium is to take place online on 8 to 10 November 2021, entitled “Combatting Cultural Property Crime: Innovations on the Intersection of Law and Cultural Property Crime“.

This international Symposium is being hosted jointly by the Criminal Justice Center at Queen Mary University London, the Henry C. Lee College of Criminal Justice and Forensic Science, the Ronan Institute, and the Centre for Heritage at the University of Kent. Continue reading