I wanted to give some more time to the topic of audio description so that we can explore it, both as an important way to make films, series, and live events accesible to visually impaired people, and as a new area of work for language professionals to explore.

I got together with a group of language professionals from my network with different types of experience, different working languages (English, German, Italian, and Spanish), to talk about both the role of the audio description script writer and the voice artist.

During our discussion, we covered topics such as:

• The guests’ stories and how they became involved with audio description
• The process of creating scrips and recording the voice-over tracks
• Challenges and points to consider when thinking about creating content in different languages
• Different types of information that the audience needs, depending on the type of content
• Training available for those interested in this kind of work
• The interaction between scrip writers, voice-over artists, and end users

Practical tips for people who want to find out more or get into either of these areas of work.

Thanks Sion, Francesca, Philipp, Dolores, and Zayda for sharing your experience with us – I think we all learned something!

We had some minor technical difficulties towards the end. It was important to me that we got all of the points into the episode, so I have added in a couple that were rerecorded so that none of the information was lost.

Do you have any tips or comments to add?

You can find the show notes page and further links here: https://englishwithkirsty.com/podcast/episode276/

To celebrate 10 years of the English with Kirsty podcast, I’m creating a 10-part series to celebrate 10 different forms that learning can take.

There will also be an online networking event for guests and listeners to come together on the podcast’s birthday in July. Use the contact form further down if you want to be one of the first to receive more information about the event!

Part four of the series is about how we can learn through business adventures – or intentional travel to help ourselves and our businesses.

I decided to have a conversation with Jane Eggers about this because it’s something that we’ve both done recently. Actually she inspired me!

Jane is a German to English translator who lives in /Germany. For the last 3 years, she’s been coming to England to attend the LinkedIn Live conference and meet up with business friends and contacts.

I’m an English trainer who started off working only with German-speaking clients. This is no longer the case as my business has grown and evolved, but a lot of my work still comes from Germany. I use German for communication with some of my clients and as a bridge language in some of my language training sessions. I had the chance to go to Berlin and I took the opportunity to meet up with some of my clients and friends. I also attended my first in-person LocLunch event.

Jane and I talked about what our trips taught us, how they helped us in terms of our businesses, the value of setting the agenda on your terms (it doesn’t have to be a big event if that’s not your thing), some practical tips, and what we plan to do now – both in terms of new ideas and new travel plans! For Jane, it was good to come back to the UK to be surrounded by English for a while. I really have to hunt for opportunities to speak German, so this emersion in the language was a great experience for me. Both of us enjoyed having the opportunity to participate in events where we could discuss business topics in a different language for a change!

I also mentioned the German version of my networking for language professionals events – the first one will be this month! Check my LinkedIn profile or sign up to the newsletter from the show notes page so that you won’t miss any new events!

Have you been on a business adventure like this? What did you learn? Would you like to go on one?

Visit the show notes page here: https://englishwithkirsty.com/episode275/

To celebrate 10 years of the English with Kirsty podcast, I'm creating a 10-part series to celebrate 10 different forms that learning can take.

There will also be an online networking event for guests and listeners to come together on the podcast's birthday in July.

Part three of the series is about how we can learn through community. The first people who came to my mind to talk about community were Kelsey and Anikó from Team Translator - and fortunately for us, they said "yes"!

Whether you call yourself a freelancer, a business owner, a self-employed professional - community is so important for all of us working on our own.

Kelsey Frick and Anikó Pető-Mordovski set up Team Translator to provide a community for those working in translation. We talked about what the community is, how it works, why it's important, and what Anikó and Kelsey have learned through leading and being part of it. We also discussed the importance of building meaningful connections, LinkedIn strategies, the need to be yourself, and how connection can take different forms, such as the Team Translator Slack community.

If you are a translator and you don't know about the community, you can find out more on the Team Translator website: https://www.team-translator.com

If you're not, are there other communities where you could find support, colleagues, potential clients or friends? It doesn't just have to be one. Our own personal community is the support system that we build around ourselves and might involve several professional communities. The main thing is that they are a great source of support and opportunities to learn.

Find out more on the show notes page: https://englishwithkirsty.com/podcast/episode274/

Accessible communication with Josélia Neves

Josélia's name came up when I was doing some research about an upcoming episode on audio description. That episode is coming soon, but when I discovered all the other things that Josélia is doing, I decided it would be good to have a conversation with her on her own so that we could explore her work in more depth.

We talked about:
🎤 What Josélia does in her role as a researcher, teacher, and social entrepreneur
🎤 Practical examples of how Josélia has made museum exhibitions and live international events accessible
🎤 The need to look at the accessibility of the whole experience or journey, rather than focusing on specific elements individually
🎤 How ensuring accessible communication ultimately benefits everyone
🎤 The options and next steps available to language professionals who want to gain new skills and explore these areas of work.

Find out more on the show notes page: https://englishwithkirsty.com/podcast/episode273/

To celebrate 10 years of the English with Kirsty podcast, I’m creating a 10-part series to celebrate 10 different forms that learning can take.

Part two of the series is about how we can learn through events and I thought that talking about LocLunch events would be a really good way to explore this topic. I invited four LocLunch ambassadors: Patrícia from Loclunch Lisbon, Roberta from LocLunch Rome, Lisa from LocLunch Barcelona, and Magali from LocLunch Berlin.

When you listen to our conversation you’ll discover:

• More about my guests – who they are and why they decided to become LocLunch ambassadors
• What happens at a LocLunch event
• How these events provide practical opportunities for support and learning for those involved in the localisation industry
• How the events in each city are developing their own identities based on who’s running and participating
• Some of the different forms the events can take and the practical ways in which they help people, both personally and professionally
• Some of the things that my guests have learned through participating in the events.
• How listeners in the localisation industry can get involved.

Find out more on the show notes page: https://englishwithkirsty.com/podcast/episode272/

Today my guest is Tania from Tania Lines Translation & Writing Services. We met on LinkedIn recently and I thought that Tania would be an interesting podcast guest … so here she is!

We talked about

• How Tania keeps all of her languages up-to-date – both her working languages and the additional ones that she wants to learn
• The idea of having one day dedicated to each additional language and how this looks practically
• Tania’s experience of moving to countries where she did not speak the language
• Language exchanges and my online language exchange meet-ups
• Facial expressions and how the correct position of your lips, teeth and jaw are also important if you want to produce the correct sounds
• Roxie the beagle and how Tania’s interest in dogs and cats has opened up a new area of specialisation for her

How about you? If you speak more than one additional language, how do you try to ensure that you give enough attention to all of them?

Find out more on the show notes page: https://www.englishwithkirsty.com/podcast/episode271

To celebrate 10 years of the English with Kirsty podcast, I’m creating a 10-part series to celebrate 10 different forms that learning can take. This is part one!

Today I’m talking with Alfonso González Bartolessis about learning via courses.

When you listen to our conversation you’ll find out:

🎧 How Alfonso became interested in languages
🎧 The many forms that courses can take – we have to figure out what works best for us
🎧 Why Alfonso decided to create the TranslaStars platform, who can benefit from the platform, and some of the courses that are available there
🎧How it’s possible to personalise the learning experience on TranslaStars – learning at your own pace, making connections with others, content in different languages.
🎧Why investing time in continuous learning and personal development is importat for everyone, but especially for freelancers
🎧 Why we should never stop learning!

Thanks Alfonso for this inspiring conversation and for sharing more about your platform. I'm suremost of the translators in my network are already familiar with TranslaStars, but if not, go and check it out!

Further information and all the social meedia links are on the show notes page: https://www.englishwithkirsty.com/podcast/episode270

Our brain, emotions, and language learning with Alice Mansaud

This week I have a returning guest on the podcast. Last time, Alice was part-way through some training, so she agreed to come back when she'd finished to share what she'd learned.

We talked about

🎤 Alice’s Neurolanguage coach certification and how what she learned during the training helps her now in her role as a teacher
🎤 The journey to become ourselves in our additional languages – accepting that it is a journey and figuring out what works for you
🎤 The role of emotions in the learning process
🎤 Naming the negative emotions so we can find the best way to process them and build strategies for similar situations in the future.
🎤 Finding some smaller milestones between where you are now and where you want to be in the future
🎤 How preparing is not a waste of time – you can’t prepare for everything, but you can take some steps to make your life easier if you know you’ll have to do a new or more challenging thing in the future.

We talked about all kinds of challenges when you’re using language in a practical sense, from fear of not understanding others to looking for a new apartment. Did any of our suggestions resonate with you? Are you planning to try out any of our suggestions?
Find out more on the show notes page:
https://englishwithkirsty.com/podcast/episode269/