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If you've ever been to an ATA conference, you know it can be a rather busy time, so busy that you might not have time to do everything you set out to do. Such was the case for me this year. I usually try to talk to all the exhibitors in the exhibit hall -- at least the technology-related ones -- but alas, I didn't get to do that this year.

So I looked up the ones I missed and was not familiar with and called them once I got home.

Enter Metalinguist.

Metalinguist is a new company, made up of eight developers and a couple of people in sales, including Bridget Hylak, an industry veteran who also is the present administrator of the Language Technology Division of the ATA. Metalinguist is a product that to my knowledge is unique for the translation sector -- at least in the kind of configuration it is being marketed and sold as. It's a portal for translation vendors all the way from freelance translators to small and midsize agencies. While there are a number of products that contain portals (many of you will have worked with LSPs that use one of them), they typically have two weak points (at least from the freelancer's perspective). One is that the overall package is typically too large and expensive for freelance translators; the other is that clients (here: translation buyers) often don't like to use them -- either they're too clunky, or clients just don't want to do anything other than what they're used to, especially if they're working with several different kinds of portals for their different vendors.

Metalinguist tries to solve that by being both the standalone portal that it already is and aiming at becoming the portal of choice even if there already is a portal in a product like, say, Plunet (work on that is already in progress).

Okay, so what exactly is a portal? A portal is a part of your website (or an external website connected to your digital properties) that allows your clients and, if applicable, your vendors to log on, upload (or download) files and/or projects, and, depending on the available connectors, automatically process these files/projects in the application of your choice (such as presently with RWS Language Cloud). The benefits for you as the owner of the portal are obvious: all data and communication is located in one well-defined area on the one hand, and (potentially) you can look very professional to your clients on the other. The benefits to clients are somewhat similar, only that clients -- depending on their own sense of importance and (un)willingness to submit to external workflows -- might be more hesitant to use it. Whether the above-mentioned ease-of-use and the envisioned homogenous portal landscape will help remains to be seen. Other arguments that might sound attractive to some clients may include a secure, cloud-based transfer protocol and the ability to view mid-project progress reports.

But all of that might not be of primary importance if this is a tool that makes you look better and more professional. One of the takeaways of the Innovation in Translation Summit was that translators still have a long way to go when it comes to presenting themselves in a more professional manner. While the vast majority have LinkedIn profiles (of course, just "having" a LinkedIn profile doesn't make you look professional -- a "professional" LinkedIn profile might), fewer than half of freelance translators have their own website (46%, according to polls we did at the Summit). And it seems to me that if you are either looking for a way to spruce up your website or building a website, a professional-looking portal might be a great component for that. Not for your LSP clients, mind you, but certainly for direct clients.

Here are some facts about the portal that might be interesting (you might also want to watch this short video): It's widely customizable with your own logo, color scheme, URL, customer-facing messaging that can be even customized to individual customers, services and workflow, approval processes, etc. All these customizations can be executed in a simulation format so you know what the portal will look like when you save your choices. Metalinguist's folks say it takes 45 minutes or less to set it up (their word, not mine), and that once set up, it would take your clients a matter of minutes to submit a project.

Metalinguist is in a very early stage, so as a freelancer you can apply to be part of the early access program, which will grant you free access with unlimited storage (click "Request early Access" on their website to apply). Otherwise, pricing will begin at $9.99 a month for a single admin user with up to eight client accounts and 100 GB of secured storage.

For LSPs, the subscription can go up as high as $300 per month with access for more than a thousand users.

I'm looking forward to seeing how this shakes out on the LSP front. On the freelance front, I can certainly see that this is immediately attractive because it might just provide one more avenue to look appealing to translation buyers (AKA direct clients).

In March 2022, I was diagnosed with hyperacusis and tinnitus due to poor sound from interpreting.

Six months later, I am now well on the path to recovery.

Today, I'd like to share my journey with you. I hope it will help you stay safe. If you face something similar, know that treatment is available, and that you are not alone.

If you'd like to watch me tell this story, click here to see a video I recorded two months after my injury.

As interpreters, we often need to make difficult calls about whether incoming sound is good enough to be interpreted.

In my case, I decided to tough out some poor, crackling sound with drastically varying volume levels since a key participant in the meeting relied on me in order to communicate and contribute.

I thought the sound was bad, but "doable." However, after interpreting, I felt splitting ear and jaw pain and a headache. Soon thereafter, I started feeling like my ears were clogged, and was hypersensitive to volume levels that wouldn't normally have bothered me.

The pain lasted for several days, so I went to see a doctor. My generalist suspected an ear infection, but when the pain did not lessen, I took medical leave for the first time in my freelance career and went to see a specialist.

I also reported the issue to the Occupational Safety and Health representative of the organization I had been working for, to our professional delegation, and to the health and safety committee of AIIC, my professional association.

Tinnitus, which affects at least 10% of people at some point in their lives, can cause a buzzing or ringing in one or both ears. In my case, I hear a constant, high-pitched sound (∼8000 Hz) in my injured ear. Tinnitus is uncomfortable, and can make falling asleep hard. Early on, it also gave me a headache. My tinnitus is especially bad whenever my ear is covered -- which, unfortunately, is the case when interpreting, regardless of which headphones I use.

Although I have become somewhat more accustomed to the tinnitus and notice it less, it is still a constant presence in my life, and flares up when I am stressed, tired or exposed to bad sound.

The hyperacusis was far worse.

Have you ever gone to a concert and felt uncomfortable because the volume level was so high? Imagine feeling that way all the time.

Everything bothered my ears. People talking. High-pitched sounds. Clinking silverware. Even walking down the street. (Sirens and motorcycles were unbearable.)

When I dared to go to a restaurant, I'd ask for the quietest table, then pick the seat where I'd hear best and experience the least discomfort.

I was honestly afraid that my interpreting career was over, and that I wouldn't be able to do the things I love in life, like meeting up with friends or singing with my choir.

An ENT doctor (otolaryngologist) will run a series of hearing tests, where you have to indicate uncomfortable volume levels. If you are uncomfortable at decibel levels below average, you may be diagnosed with hyperacusis.

Although some ENTs are unaware of the fact that hyperacusis is treatable, luckily, various treatments do exist.

My doctor prescribed an earbud with a custom filter that lowers the decibels I hear in my injured ear. I wear it when I might be exposed to poor or loud sound, including while interpreting. Most importantly, I don't wear it all the time: By slowly re-exposing myself to normal volume levels, my hyperacusis has lessened significantly.

I also started a treatment called audio-psychotherapy (aka the Tomatis method). For two hours a day, three days a week, I listened to Mozart and Gregorian chants through a special headset that used both normal audio tech and bone conduction to "rewire" my brain. Although research on this technique is limited, I found it helped me.

After three weeks, I went back to work. The beginning was especially hard: I heard buzzing from most consoles, and suffered through remote participants. Colleagues were incredibly understanding, and offered to work longer shifts or take over if I needed a break. Although interpreting was exhausting and sometimes painful, I have gradually been improving. Six months after my accident, I am now able to work full days again, although I still favor my healthy ear.

Our professional associations have spent the last few years fighting to limit our exposure to poor sound, raise awareness, and protect us. Studies like AIIC's Acoustic Shocks Research Project help to document stories like mine and suggest potential solutions.

You're probably already protecting yourself by applying one or several of these tips:

(Consider sharing my one-pager with ten easy tips for great online meetings with your clients. It is available in a range of languages thanks to our generous colleagues.)

In the unfortunate case that you experience symptoms like mine, here are a few things you can do.

First, know that you are not alone. You may feel isolated and depressed, but seek medical treatment and let your family and friends support you.

Second, see an ENT. Get a diagnosis, and seek treatment. In my case, I saw three doctors before I found one who knew how to treat my hyperacusis, but treatment is available.

Third, report symptoms to your employers and professional associations. Reporting potentially harmful sound is essential for insurance claims.

Fourth, make sure your contract protects you from temporary or permanent disability. (Tony Rosado and I have compiled a 15+ page cut-and-paste template to help you draft and negotiate remote interpreting contracts.)

Fifth, take the time you need to recover.

Josh Goldsmith is a UN and EU accredited translator and interpreter working from Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese and Catalan into English. A passionate educator, Josh splits his time between interpreting, researching and teaching through www.techforword.com, which empowers language professionals to make the most of technology.

Ever found a document and its translation, and wished you could use technology to automatically extract key terminology from both versions? You can! 🚀

Join Josh and the Sketch Engine team for a FREE 60-minute webinar on Tuesday, November 29 and learn to automatically identify key terms in a flash, find the collocations your clients actually use, and extract and align terms from parallel documents.

Here's something that has really sparked my interest: Zoom has rolled out a new feature whose default setting is to save all audio channels (including those with voices of potential interpreters) if a session is recorded. Sounds handy at first, but it comes with some really interesting intellectual property questions that I find intriguing because it's not completely unlike the question of who owns a translation memory. Interpreter and interpreting advocate extraordinaire Maha El-Metwally has written an open letter to Zoom that Zoom -- interestingly -- responded to rather quickly (see here). Clearly I'm not an expert in interpreting matters, but if you are interested in this topic (and you probably should be if you're an interpreter), be sure to listen to this podcast in which Tianlu Redmond, the administrator of ATA's Chinese Language Division, interviews Maha about all the ins and outs of this.

Serge Gladkoff has given a very interesting presentation on NMT that is available on YouTube. You can see from the screenshot below that it requires a bit of a time commitment -- but it might be worth your time. And depending on your technical prowess, there might also be some parts that you could skip:

Also on the topic of machine translation is this article from my friends at Slator: In Literary Translation, Humans Prefer Humans and Machines Prefer Machines. The title of the article essentially sums up its content and it's, well, hilarious.

And then there is this:

A priest, an imam, and a rabbit enter a clinic to donate blood. The nurse asks the rabbit: "What's your blood type?" "I'm probably a type O," says the rabbit.

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