By Percy Balemans, 13 October 2025

Some clients may ask you to ‘transcreate’ or ‘adapt’ a text instead of translating it. But what is transcreation?

Transcreation basically means recreating a text for the target audience, in other words ‘translating’ and ‘recreating’ the text. Hence the term ‘transcreation’. Transcreation is used to make sure that the target text is the same as the source text in every aspect: the message it conveys, the style, the images, the emotions it evokes and its cultural background. You could say that transcreation is to translation what copywriting is to writing.

One could argue that every translation job is a transcreation job, since a good translation should always try to reflect all these aspects of the source text. This is of course true. But some types of texts require a higher level of transcreation than others. A technical text, for example, will usually not contain many emotions and cultural references, and its linguistic style will usually not be very challenging. However, marketing and advertising copy, which is the type of copy to which the term transcreation is usually applied, does contain all these different aspects, making it difficult to create a direct translation. Translating these texts therefore requires a lot of creativity.

In her book on transcreation¹, Nina Sattler-Hovdar explains the difference between translation and transcreation as follows: a translation is mainly intended to inform the reader, whereas a transcreated text must motivate the reader (for example to buy a product or service).

Required skills

In addition to creativity, a transcreator should also have an excellent knowledge of both the source language and the target language, a thorough knowledge of cultural backgrounds, and be familiar with the product being advertised, while at the same time being able to write about it enthusiastically. In addition, it certainly helps if the transcreator can handle stress and is flexible, since advertising is a fast-paced world and deadlines and source texts tend to change frequently.

Types of texts

The types of texts offered for transcreation vary from websites, brochures, and TV and radio commercials aimed at consumers to posters and flyers for resellers. They could be about any consumer product or service: digital cameras, airlines, food and drink, clothing and shoes, and financial products. Transcreators are often asked to deliver two or three alternative translations, especially for taglines, and a back translation (a literal translation back into the source language), to help their client, who typically does not understand the target language, get an idea of how the message was translated. Transcreators are also expected to provide cultural advice: they should tell their client when a specific translation or image does not work for the target audience.

What makes transcreation difficult?

In addition to the difficulties posed by creating a target text containing all the aspects of the source text (message, style, images and emotions and cultural background), marketing and advertising copy often poses other difficulties for the transcreator as well. Taglines, for example, often contain puns or references to imagery used by the company. They tend to be incorporated in a logo or image, with limited space and a fixed layout for the text. In addition, they are often used for multiple target groups: not just consumers, but also resellers and stakeholders, which means the text should appeal to all of them.

Can transcreation be done using AI?

If the Big Tech people are to be believed, AI can do ‘anything’. The AI tools used for translation and related tasks consist of so-called large language models (LLMs). LLMs are algorithms that basically ‘link together word patterns they’ve calculated from their training data’². LLMs do not understand language, so they do not write texts – they simply combine words based on algorithms.

An LLM could potentially be used for brainstorming, but using them to try and transcreate a text is not recommended, as they do not understand cultural references, idiom or word play. They may get it right in the case of commonly used references, but it is not safe to rely on this. Creating a customized transcreation for a specific target audience still requires the skills of a professional human translator.

Also, doing your own research by browsing dictionaries, thesauri, and other trusted sources, instead of getting answers from a machine, stimulates your creativity and helps you find plenty of creative options.

Sources

1. Get Fit for the Future of Transcreation: A handbook on how to succeed in an undervalued market by Nina Sattler-Hovdar.
2. The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want by Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna.

By Paula Arellano Geoffroy, 25 September 2025

Former lawyer and legal translator Tom West joined SENSE in May this year. He is a certified translator from French, Spanish, German and Dutch into English, and is a former president of the American Translators Association (ATA). I reached out to him to ask about his background, and about the key to translating so many languages. Below you will find his interesting answers.

I understand that you are American but have now settled in Amersfoort. Can you tell us a bit about your background and why you decided to move to the Netherlands?

I had always dreamed of living in Europe, and following an unwanted and painful divorce, I decided to make the move. It turns out that there is a Dutch-American Friendship Treaty that makes it rather easy for an American to get a visa to work as an entrepreneur in the Netherlands. I moved here in February of this year and had my verblijfsvergunning in my pocket six weeks later. The efficiency in this country is impressive.

How was your experience as president of ATA?

I had the privilege of serving as president of ATA in the early 2000s, when the profession was growing by leaps and bounds. It was an exciting time. Unlike the situation in Europe, there are very few schools that offer degrees in translation (or even training for translators) in the United States, so I made it my task to invite as many experts as possible to our conferences so that working translators could get the training they desired and couldn’t find elsewhere. There were so many people joining the profession at the time that we were able to offer specialized conferences on legal or financial or medical translation in addition to our large annual conference. A wonderful byproduct of the experience was that my predecessor, Ann Macfarlane, under whom I served two years as president elect of the association, is a natural leader and teacher who taught me a lot about servant leadership and how to run an effective meeting. Those lessons from Ann have stood me in good stead ever since.

Of all the languages that you master, which are your preferred ones? How did you learn them?

That’s sort of like asking me which of my children is my favourite. I can’t answer it because I’ve never really met a language I didn’t like. But I can tell you about my experience with each one. At some point in my childhood my mother happened to tell me that people in other countries speak differently than we do, that they even have completely different languages! For reasons I still don’t understand, I was so fascinated by that idea that I wanted to learn as many languages as possible. I grew up in a monolingual English-speaking family in a part of the US where most people trace their ancestry to the UK, so hearing or speaking other languages first-hand wasn’t a possibility, but my parents gave me their high school French and Spanish textbooks from the 1950s, and I set about studying them – although it felt more like play to me.

I took French and Latin in high school, spent a summer in Mexico supposedly teaching English but actually learning Spanish, and then started studying German and Russian at university. I majored in French and went on to get a master’s in German – switching gears, so to speak, because I couldn’t decide which language I liked better. I taught first-year German at the university where I did my master’s and then spent two years teaching French and Spanish at a secondary school. But I began to grow restless, so I set off for law school and obtained the Juris Doctor degree, was admitted to the Bar and practiced law at a large firm for five years. But I still wanted to study languages all the time, and even the evening courses in Dutch and Swedish I attended at a sort of volksuniversiteit in Atlanta were not enough. In the meantime, other lawyers at the firm began asking me to translate legal documents for them in addition to my regular legal work, often because they had already received an unusable translation from a local translation agency. I found that work even more interesting than drafting contracts, and after five years, I decided to try my hand at being an entrepreneur. So I left the law firm and started my own translation agency specializing in legal translation. Over the years I put together a fine team of other lawyers who had left the law to become legal translators along with other translators who specialized in legal documents. The company ultimately grew to over a million dollars in revenue, and we were known not only in the US, but also particularly in the Frankfurt market in Germany for the quality of our translations.

Because I have always been a collector of words, at the outset of my translation career I started recording the terminology that I had researched, especially because I find comparative law so interesting. One of my first clients was a large law firm in Miami with clients all over Latin America, so for example, we would receive documents from Guatemala on Monday, Argentina on Tuesday, Mexico on Wednesday, Costa Rica on Thursday and Ecuador on Friday. It is uncanny how much the legal terminology differs from one Latin American country to another, and back in those pre-Internet days, I travelled to law libraries in Latin America and at US law schools to research puzzling Latin American legal terms that had not made their way into any of the reference works. In 1999 I published the first edition of my Spanish-English Dictionary of Law and Business (the third edition of which will appear later this year), and I believe that if I have made any contribution at all to my chosen profession, this is it. The dictionary has been a bestseller, not only among translators, but also among lawyers working in the Latin American market. Over the years, I have also published the Trilingual Swiss Law Dictionary (Swiss French into German and English, and Swiss German into French and English) – because I found Swiss legal terminology in German so opaque – and also the Swedish-English Law Dictionary – because I did a lot of work from Swedish to English at one point. A visit to the Netherlands several years ago resulted in a large multi-year project for Aard van den End, vetting the entries in his famous ‘Juridisch Lexicon’. That took me deeper into Dutch legal terminology, and because the lexicon translates Dutch into both English and German, it became a fascinating three-way exercise in comparative law, often with Belgium thrown into the mix, making it a four-way game (Belgian law is sometimes more like French law than Dutch or German law). I can’t get enough of that, and still read comparative law books for fun.

I should also mention that I fell in love with Afrikaans before a trip to South Africa in 2016, and since my move to the Netherlands, I’ve attended Afrikaans classes at the Zuid-Afrikahuis in Amsterdam. I particularly like Afrikaans poetry and find it a joy to speak and listen to, but it certainly creates a lot of interference with my Dutch!

What kind of projects are you currently working on?

As I said, I’m a collector of words, and I love lexicography, so I am currently putting the finishing touches on a new ‘French-English Dictionary of Law and Business’, as a companion to the third edition of my ‘Spanish-English Dictionary of Law’, both of which I hope to publish this year. I continue to translate court documents, most often from French, Spanish or German into English. That’s the kind of text I enjoy the most because it allows me to put my legal training to its best use. I continue to teach legal translation online. And I’m working on my Russian by taking lessons on Italki.

What is your take on AI and translations?

I’m afraid that a lot of the legal translation market began to dry up with the introduction of DeepL in 2017, and my impression is that lawyers began using it in droves, particularly because it produces a translation in a matter of minutes. For example, many or even most of the contract translations into English we used to prepare were for information purposes only, because only the original untranslated version was going to be signed and would govern. The speed desired and the lack of a need for complete accuracy have made DeepL and other programs a game changer for lawyers (and did I mention that these translations are available for free or next to nothing?). Fortunately for our profession, I find that DeepL is much less able to translate court documents accurately, so there is still a market for that. As for AI, I feel certain that lawyers are using it for translations as well, but I am less familiar with how well AI handles legal documents. I do find ChatGPT strangely inaccurate when I ask it questions about law in other countries.

How did you learn about SENSE and why did you decide to join?

Earlier this year, I attended a meeting in Vienna of the ATA German Language Division in Europe (GLD-Europe). There I had dinner with my long-time colleague Dr. Karen Leube, who lives in Aachen. She has been head of the GLD and a member of SENSE and she advised me to join SENSE right away – which I did!

What do you enjoy doing in your free time?

My passions other than languages are music, travelling and reading. I wasted no time joining a local choir when I moved to Amersfoort and have loved it, not least because we sing in Dutch, German, French and English! I have to admit that I miss my piano, which is in storage back in the US. One of the most wonderful things about finally living in Europe is that I can attend concerts and other musical events so easily. In July I attended a ‘sing-along’ in London with the great British composer John Rutter – and believe me, it is much easier to take the Eurostar from Amsterdam to London for the weekend than to fly from the US to Heathrow! And I delight in the fact that I can check the concert schedule at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and be there in less than an hour – and in five hours, I can even be in Berlin for a whole weekend of music.

Are you a good reader? Have you read something interesting recently?

I love to read and usually have several books going at once. Currently, I’m reading ‘Wisselwachter: Amerika-Europa 1933-1945’ by Geert Mak, which I highly recommend. I’m about halfway through ‘Wir Kinder des 20. Juli’, by Tim Pröse, which is important to me because one of my friends in Germany is the granddaughter of one of the leaders of the plot to assassinate Hitler on 20 July 1944; he was hanged at Plötzensee for his participation in the conspiracy, and his wife (my friend’s grandmother) was sent to a concentration camp, where she fortunately survived. In English I’m reading Katja Hoyer’s ‘Beyond the Wall: East Germany 1949-1990’. So you can see that I read almost exclusively nonfiction and am particularly interested in history. But last fall, while still in the States, I participated in an online Russian reading group where we read ‘Anna Karenina’. I had never read it, and despite my general lack of interest in fiction, I found it beautifully written and very compelling. So I may well pick up another work of fiction one of these days.

By Susan Jenkins, 10 September 2025

Intelligent Editing recently released a new version of Draftsmith, the AI-supported editing tool that I reviewed in March 2024. Back then, generative AI tools for working with texts were announced on almost a daily basis, but were still early in the adoption phase by everyday users. Since then, we’ve moved past questioning whether generative AI is going to make much difference in our daily lives. Understanding how to work with it is becoming an essential skill.

Purpose-built tools make adoption easier by reducing the time needed to craft skilful prompts for generative AI chatbots. Remember a time when you bought something you had to assemble yourself, with your own tools, before you could use it for its intended purpose? Did you wish for a complete, ready-to-use item out of the box?

Draftsmith initially launched with a broad selection of ready-to-use tools called ‘suggesters’ aligned to different editing contexts. It took some experimentation to learn which suggesters were suitable for my many wordsmithing hats, but the results were more reliable than when using a Large Language Model (LLM) chatbot. It was also a bit speedier than my unassisted editing process. Draftsmith 2.0 makes the revising process even smoother by improving the flexibility and navigation of the software. They’ve also added a better tutorial on their site.

On the back end, they’ve improved the quality of suggestions by switching to one of OpenAI’s small language models more suited to writing, which also makes Draftsmith’s processing faster.

In my review of the first version, I sampled its arsenal of suggesters to address the various style, audience, or readability aspects that editors pay attention to. For this update, I again tested a few different texts from my workflow: a magazine article, a furniture catalogue, and a research article by a non-native English speaker.

The main feature that’s changed in Draftsmith since version 1.0 is the editing window and the amount of text it processes. Instead of displaying one sentence at a time, it now analyses a whole paragraph. Sentences from the paragraph appear in the ‘decision box’ with suggested changes. Just as in version 1.0, you can toggle the view to see or hide changed text, but there are more options to support your workflow.

Each sentence in the paragraph appears framed between a purple bar on the left and green bar on the right. Purple resets the text to the original, while green generates a new version. You can use these respectively to either reject an edit or regenerate a new one. These functions work on both desktop or tablet devices by using either a mouse, touchscreen, or keyboard to swipe or click for the desired action.

                                                       Rejecting an edit with a mouse click (before and after clicking)

Sometimes you like only part of a suggestion, so Draftsmith allows you to tweak the suggestion manually. Simply double-click on a sentence in the decision box and insert the cursor where you want to type, just as you would in the main document.

Once you are happy with all the sentences in the paragraph, click the ‘accept all’ button. Draftsmith will update the document and move to the next paragraph. If you have track changes active, these will be highlighted – another new addition to the software which gives editors more control. By analysing whole paragraphs instead of sentences, you also move through a document more quickly than before.

The new version isn’t without some hiccups. When using the Word Count suggester on quoted text, it sometimes edited the punctuation at the end of sentences unnecessarily. In fact, quoted statements are not always ignored for cuts or word changes, which hampers editing in texts with interview subjects. Draftsmith’s engineers are considering a setting for this in a future version.

Something that hasn’t changed is Intelligent Editing’s customer-centred approach to development. As I wrote in the first review, they are keen to support a very specific group – human editors – and their skills and pain points. While there are hundreds of products on the market for writers and editors claiming AI productivity gains, this company was trusted in the field long before anyone ever thought to connect an LLM with a chatbot.

Claire’s account

A lot can happen in ten years. On 21 June, language professionals met in Amersfoort for the SENSE 35-year Jubilee conference. This was ten years after my very first SENSE event – the 25-year Jubilee at the Paushuize in Utrecht – so I was feeling a little nostalgic. Back then I was a fledgling language professional in the early stages of transitioning from lab-based research to at-home editing. Now – thanks largely to some great people I met through SENSE – I am a successful scientific language editor and scientific writing trainer with plenty of work. At least that’s the story I would be telling if we had celebrated the SENSE Jubilee two years ago! A lot has changed in the industry in the last few years and it is putting a strain on all of us.

The challenges facing our profession were, not surprisingly, the main topic of the day. Jackie Senior defined these challenges in her presentation of the results on her survey on what SENSE members think about the rise of AI and how it is affecting our jobs. Apparently our response to AI has not been overwhelmingly positive. Far more of us are feeling apprehensive rather than positive about AI, and half of us have seen a drop in our income. Jackie’s tips to future-proof our language businesses included upskilling and diversifying, with a focus on doing what you enjoy and valuing your time. Jenny Zonneveld also talked about how we can survive AI by thinking like an entrepreneur and increasing our visibility, for example by attending conferences, volunteering, and sharing useful content on social media. One thing that struck me, attending the presentations and chatting to people, is how much we care about what we do – and how good we are at it! Although the sense of doom and gloom is undeniable, we are not ready to give up just yet. We know that we offer valuable services to our clients and cannot truly be replaced by AI.

After Jackie and Jenny’s talks on surviving AI, I took a welcome break to focus on my physical and mental well-being. Anne Hodgkinson and Monique ten Boske showed us a series of yoga and tai chi moves that we can do at our workplaces. The beauty of these moves is that they benefit the mind as well as the body, helping us to concentrate better while combating the aches and pains associated with too much sitting. That’s something we all need! Next came Ana Carolina Ribeiro and her talk on rebranding. Ana had recently successfully rebranded herself as a translator and copywriter working with Brazilian Portuguese and used her own experiences to give us an effective seven-step strategy to the rebranding process. She also encouraged us to think carefully about whether we need to rebrand or not (apparently it is far from simple!). Through her questions, she helped me to realize that a rebrand could be just what I need. I had not completely realized it, but I am moving further away from basic copyediting of scientific articles (that AI can do) and focusing more and more on structural editing (that AI will probably mess up seeing as it can’t think!) and teaching. This shift in services and focus means a rebrand is on the cards. Finally, Marieke Krijnen gave an engaging talk on interventions that improve the clarity and readability of scientific articles. Marieke presented sentences that had appeared in papers she had edited, diagnosed the problems with these sentences, and then showed us how she solved these issues for her clients. This prompted plenty of ardent feedback from the audience!

As always, it was an absolute pleasure to mingle with my SENSE colleagues for a day. It gave me the chance to catch up with old friends and meet new ones – including my colleagues on the Content Team, who I have been working with for years but never actually seen in person! Such are the joys of in-person networking. It was a thoroughly enjoyable day and I am already looking forward to the next event!

Tomas’ account

On Saturday 21 June young (at heart) SENSE members and guests gathered in Amersfoort to mark the 35-year Jubilee. Kicking off with an enlightening session on future-proofing your business by Jackie Senior, SENSE members got a breakdown of survey results concerning, among others, member’s attitude to AI: are they curious, avid, or willfully ignorant of AI’s supposed powers? Jackie’s talk led nicely into Jenny Zonneveld’s even more wide-ranging take on the broader economic outlook, from geopolitics down, with a focus on the thorny question of how – or indeed whether – to integrate AI into work processes. Meanwhile, in the other room Michael Friedman shared his expertise on legal citation.

After a tasty lunch, there was the choice between two contrasting talks: how to improve writing and translation processes by Simon Berrill, or an introductory yoga and tai chi session. For most, the choice was obvious and immediate and both sessions were very well received.

Later, the Unconference session run by Lloyd Bingham was a valuable introduction to the concept for the uninitiated. The subjects were decided on by the group and led to a lively and respectful exchange of ideas around the ever-present theme of pricing and an accompanying emphasis on core freelance business skills.

After a short break, Marieke Krijnen led a somewhat riotous and thoroughly enjoyable session looking at copyediting interventions that improve clarity and readability, while Courtney Greenlaw gave a wonderful talk on fantasy, translation and the use of digital tools.

Attendees then returned to the canteen for a plentiful dinner and a well-received speech by new Chairwoman Liz Cross, before wrapping things up with a zesty Crema Catalana.

All in all an enjoyable day with great food and plenty of opportunities to chat and network.

By Paula Arellano Geoffroy, 11 August 2025

The Merriam-Webster English Dictionary defines interest groups as ‘a group of persons having a common identifying interest that often provides a basis for action’ and states that the term’s first known use in the US was in 1908.

SENSE currently has nine Special Interest Groups (SIGs) that meet in person or online and whose meetings are open to all members. Guests are welcome to attend one or two meetings before deciding whether they would like to join SENSE. This month, I invite you to meet the Zuid-Holland SIG and its convener, Hans van Bemmelen.

You have been supporting SENSE in so many ways since you joined back in the early 90s, and currently as our Treasurer. Can you tell us a bit about your background?

I’m actually one of the founder members and wrote the initial constitution, together with Susan Hunt. At that time most of my work as a translator was in chemical engineering and related subjects. These days I do more in fields such as heavy lifting and transport, and I write more than I translate.

When and why did you start serving as the Zuid-Holland SIG convener?

That is lost in the mists of time. I think this is the second or third time I’ve served as convener ‒ the SIG tends to peter out after a while.

I believe you usually meet in The Hague. What are the main topics you bring to the table?

We occasionally select specific topics, e.g. the impact of AI on editing, the development of the translation market, or doing business. But quite often we just have a general discussion about editing, translating and writing.

Can you walk us through the last Zuid-Holland SIG meeting?

We last met in November 2024. As this was a busy time of the year, there were just a few of us. The discussion mostly focused on the impact of AI on our work and the shrinking translation market. After that it broadened out to cover CADS (Commercial Anglo Dutch Society) and chestnut honey.

Have you read something interesting recently?

As I spend most of my time at work dealing with words I tend not to read that much in my spare time. Instead, I focus on sound and set building for the Anglo-American Theatre Group (AATG), conservation volunteering, slowly learning to play the recorder and going to concerts (mostly early and contemporary music). I recently finished reading Tim Harford’s ‘How to Make the World Add Up: Ten Rules for Thinking Differently About Numbers’, which was very interesting and informative. I’m currently dipping into ‘Switched On: The Dawn of Electronic Sound by Latin American Women’ which covers a number of interesting composers and sound artists.

By Taylor Steed, 17 July 2025

When explaining my job as an editor, whether it be to a potential client or to an acquaintance over coffee, I tend to sound like Liam Neeson negotiating for the release of his daughter: ‘I don’t have money, but what I do have is a very particular set of skills. Skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you.’ Okay, that last part may only ever be said in my head. But the rest of the quote is surprisingly accurate. Most people assume these editorial ‘skills’ are limited to a deep understanding of grammar and syntax, or the ability to push my glasses up my nose with the back of my well-used red pen. And while they are not wrong in that regard, I find that the skills that are typically most essential for my work are those related to communication and client relations.

Scope talk

Before an editorial project gets off the ground, the project’s scope must be clearly defined between you and the client. For editors, this can be surprisingly challenging. You see, while we understand the nuanced delineations between a line edit, developmental edit, copyedit, and proofread, members of the general public (and most writers) do not. As a result, we spend a large part of our prep not only defining what our client will be paying us to do but also what they’re NOT paying us to do. And then most of us spend a large part of the editorial process muttering to ourselves, ‘It’s just a line edit; stop looking at that’, before adding a polite comment about it in the margins.

Communication channels

I also begin each project by establishing communication workflows. For example, we’ll have a meeting to go over the project goals, I’ll send you an email summary to confirm we came to the same conclusions, and then all edits will occur within the document. And then, of course, I tend to watch with fascination as those communication flows are systematically dismantled over the course of the project. Sometimes it’s a project manager who loves Slack. Other times, it’s an author who sends voice memos when inspiration strikes in the shower. And sometimes, it’s my own enthusiasm as I send a quick text to clarify a point within the document that simply can’t wait.

As an editor, there are three skills you should master to navigate editorial communication. Firstly, you must be comfortable meeting clients where they want to communicate. Whether they prefer calls, text, email, or chats over coffee, allowing them to establish a comfortable communication method decreases stress and improves overall communication throughout the project.

Secondly, you need to find your own way of organizing communication channels. Regardless of whether a carrier pigeon was within your workflow plan, you’re still responsible for ensuring the note tied to its leg makes it into the final draft. Without this organization, author requests, altered deadlines, or universal changes may be missed.

And finally, you need to be able to establish boundaries around communication and stick to them. This is for your relationship with your client, your mental health, and your work-life balance. I’ve not yet acquired this third skill, but I hear life is quite lovely once you do.

That tech that shall not be named

This is not a blog about AI (Gasp! She said the name!), and I won’t be venturing down the rabbit hole of the evolving skills needed to remain competitive in a Large Language Models (LLMs) world. However, whether we like it or not, this does represent another relationship where soft skills are key. I view most AI-powered editorial assistants, including my ride-or-die Grammarly, as just that: a caffeine-infused, overly enthusiastic assistant who definitely majored in marketing (this is not a knock against marketing, but rather a commentary on AI’s strengths).

While my assistant’s suggestions are undoubtedly helpful when I’m missing commas or trying to find the correct spelling of ‘entrepreneur’, it becomes much less beneficial when I’m line editing a legal document (yes, I’m sure that I still don’t want to change ‘lien’ to ‘line’) or copyediting a memoir (no, the author does not wish to change Grandma’s nickname to diversify word choice).

As an editor, it therefore becomes imperative to have the confidence to trust your editorial skills not only when arguing with your assistant, but also when speaking to your clients and co-workers. More and more, I find myself patiently (okay, sometimes not so patiently) explaining to clients why the AI-written or AI-edited portion of their piece still needs my expertise. While I have no problem waxing poetic about the human touch that makes both writing and editing shine, it’s much more challenging to convince people that my grammatical choices are more correct than the grammar bot’s.

Selling yourself

I’ve saved this skill for last, not because it’s most important, but because it’s the one that I feel I have the least expertise in discussing. If you don’t believe me, simply refer to the previous sentence.

Unless you’ve managed to land one of the mythical salaried positions that are fervently whispered about in the Forum, a massive part of editing is bidding for jobs and landing new clients so that the work doesn’t run out. However, this can be exceptionally difficult, as the best edits tend to be those you don’t see. It’s a fine line to walk between showing your skills and disparaging your writers. It’s an even finer one between explaining why a writer needs your services and minimizing their own hard work and abilities. The best editors are capable of both empowering and building up their clients while still allowing their skills to shine.

As editors, it’s true that we have a ‘particular set of skills’. And, as I hope this article even haphazardly has portrayed, they boil down to improvement. Our job is to improve anything we touch, whether it be your communication channels, your first draft’s ideas, or your final draft’s grammar. While there are undoubtedly challenges to this role (such as asking an introvert-dominated field to require these soft skills), they are worth overcoming when, on the other side, we can help someone realize their work’s full potential and share their ideas with the wider world.

By Cindy Chin, 3 July 2025

Two years had passed since I graduated with my Bachelor’s degree in English in the US (Buffalo, New York) and moved to the Netherlands. I was at a crossroads – should I pursue a Master’s degree or a TEFL certification? I wasn’t sure what to study for my Master’s, but I had always dreamt of travelling and teaching in Asia, especially in China, where my parents are originally from.

During college, I had some experience tutoring English and I didn’t want to waste more time debating my next step. So, at the beginning of 2019 I enrolled in an online TEFL certification course while working a restaurant job with irregular hours.

What TEFL is

TEFL stands for Teaching English as a Foreign Language, and it’s a certification that allows you to teach English to non-native speakers. TEFL programmes can vary in length, but a typical certification course requires around 120 hours of training. The content includes lesson planning, classroom management, and language acquisition techniques. Many programmes are available online, making it accessible to people all over the world, and they often allow you to study at your own pace, though some set completion timelines. Costs for the certification can vary, but a 120-hour course typically ranges from €200 to €500, depending on the provider. Once certified, you can teach English in a variety of countries and continents, from Asia and Europe to Latin America and the Middle East, or even teach online.

Struggles at the beginning

I didn’t expect that two years out of school would make studying so difficult. It was my first time juggling work and self-paced learning, and I struggled to stay motivated. The course was designed to be completed in six months, but if you exceeded that time, you had to pay a €150 reactivation fee to continue. Unfortunately, I ended up paying this fee twice – spending an extra €300 – because I kept putting off my studies.

Then, just as I was thinking about teaching in China, Covid-19 hit, closing that door completely. Without travel as an option, I started looking for local teaching opportunities to stay motivated. That’s when I found on Superprof, an online tutoring platform, a Dutch student who wanted to learn English.

My first experience teaching English in the Netherlands

This student, a Dutch high-schooler, was unmotivated and frequently skipped our lessons. When she did show up, she often asked me to do her assignments for her, which I refused. Though this first experience was discouraging, it pushed me to finally complete my TEFL certification in the summer of 2020.

Shortly after, I landed my first proper job as an online English teacher for young learners in China. I taught small groups (two to four students) on weekdays and weekends, and while I loved working with them, I only taught for six hours per week, so I needed more work.

Teaching Dutch high school students online

I found another online teaching job through Indeed.nl, working ten hours a week for an after-school organization based in Hoofddorp. My role was mainly tutoring Dutch high school students via Microsoft Teams, helping them with English homework and preparing for their exams.

Unlike my first tutoring experience, these students were motivated – they needed to pass their English classes to avoid being held back a year. However, keeping their attention was a challenge. Many of them would ask to end the lessons early or got distracted by their phones.

One major challenge was the language barrier. They refused to speak English, and many expected me to simply give them the answers. Some would ask, ‘What is a verb? What is an adverb?’ – but then insisted that I explain in Dutch, a language I was still learning myself. Google Translate became my best friend!

Challenges

Looking back, my TEFL journey was not what I expected. I initially pursued it with dreams of travelling and teaching abroad, but life had other plans. Instead, I found myself teaching online in the Netherlands, facing language barriers and unmotivated students.

A few years later, I applied for an English teaching position at another Dutch after-school programme. This programme, affiliated with Erasmus University, aimed to help high school students pass their final exams and gain admission to the university. During the interview process, I was given five minutes to prepare a lesson plan before the interviewer returned and pretended to be a student. Though she praised my engaging and interactive approach, I ultimately didn’t get the position because my Dutch skills weren’t strong enough. I hadn’t realized that, just like in my previous teaching job, I would be expected to teach English using Dutch.

This reinforced an important lesson: that many English teaching positions in the Netherlands require fluency in Dutch, something I wasn’t prepared for. While I believe immersion in the target language is the best way to learn, the Dutch education system often takes a different approach. I found that fluency in Dutch was a common requirement outside of international schools.

Lessons learnt

Despite the challenges, I learnt valuable lessons:

• Self-discipline: Completing a self-paced course while working was tough, but it taught me to be persistent.
• Adapting to different teaching styles: I had to adjust my approach depending on whether I was working with young Chinese students or Dutch teenagers.
• The reality of online teaching: It’s not just about teaching – it’s about keeping students engaged, dealing with distractions, and sometimes even handling difficult behaviour.

Would I recommend getting a TEFL certification? Yes – but only if you’re truly passionate about teaching. Otherwise, it can be a frustrating and costly experience.

For me, teaching was a stepping stone. While I’m still figuring out my next career move, I’ve started gaining experience as an English editor and proofreader. My TEFL journey helped me develop skills in communication, adaptability, and perseverance – skills that I’m now applying as I explore new opportunities.

By Paula Arellano Geoffroy, 17 June 2025

Long-standing SENSE member and Dutch-to-English literary translator David McKay won the Vondel Translation Prize in 2017 for ‘War and Turpentine’, his English translation of ‘Oorlog en terpentijn’ by Stefan Hertmans. His most recent works include ‘Revolusi’ by David Van Reybrouck, ‘Off-White’ by Astrid Roemer, and ‘The Remembered Soldier’ by Anjet Daanje.

In the following interview, David shares with us excerpts from his life and current work, and explains how his path led him to be a renowned literary translator.

I understand that you are American but have lived in the Netherlands for many years now. Why did you decide to settle in the Netherlands?

I met my Dutch partner in the Boston area in 1994. We were in the linguistics Ph.D. programme at MIT together, but both became disenchanted with linguistic research and academia and decided to leave the programme after earning our masters’ degrees. My partner was able to stay and work in the United States for a year or so, but in 1997 she had to return to Europe. We had talked about living in Europe in the long run anyway; I had lived in Italy for a year as a child while my father was teaching at a study-abroad programme in Florence, and maybe that made the prospect of moving to a different continent seem less daunting for me. At that point I had already spent a summer learning Dutch in Leiden, so I’d already been introduced to the language and culture.

You hold degrees in philosophy, linguistics and international relations. How did your path to literary translations unfold?

Learning the language was my top priority when I first arrived here. I was enrolled in the Dutch Studies programme in Leiden for a year, mostly taking their upper-level language courses, and my partner and I started speaking Dutch to each other as much as possible. I also started reading lots of Dutch books right away and even translated one of Marten Toonder’s Tom Poes books as an enjoyable exercise for improving my language skills.

I had always had an interest in language and literature and had written plays and poems earlier in my life, so I soon began wondering whether translation would be an attractive career for me. I began taking on little editing and translation jobs and soon found myself working for Van Dale, Kluwer Law, the English Text Company and Media Monitor for short periods before finding a great full-time job at AVT, the Dutch government translation department based in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. That was where I truly learnt to translate, thanks to my experienced co-workers and the intensive feedback on my translation work that I received from them.

Meanwhile, I remained interested in literary translation. In 1999, the same year that I started working at the Ministry, I applied for approval as a literary translator by the Dutch Foundation for Literature, the Letterenfonds. I was rejected – rightly so, since I was still very inexperienced and just learning the ropes – but I received positive feedback from both the reviewer and the Letterenfonds staff and was encouraged to apply again after gaining more translation experience. In 2000, I was invited to participate in the 2000 Summer School in Literary Translation in Utrecht and Antwerp, sponsored by Dutch and Flemish literary translation organizations. I was very fortunate to learn from three great translators and teachers there: Ina Rilke, Stacey Knecht and Susan Massotty. My admiration for their work has remained undiminished over the years.

But I couldn’t combine book translation with my full-time work at the Ministry, and in the years that followed, I had only very occasional small literary jobs. By 2006, I felt I had learnt all I could from my job at AVT and was ready for a new challenge. I left the Ministry and became a freelancer, working mainly for museums and academic researchers – still two important categories of client for me today. I believe it was also around then that I reapplied for approval by the Letterenfonds as a literary translator and was accepted for both poetry and prose. Over the next few years, I had a lot of small literary translation jobs – short stories, poems and samples from books – alongside my other work, which included many book translations for museums and academics.

It was not until 2014, when I had the opportunity to translate ‘War and Turpentine’ by Stefan Hertmans, that my literary translation career really began to take off. In retrospect, I’m glad it was slow to develop; that gave me time to become an experienced, confident translator before taking on challenging book-length literary jobs. It also taught me the value of collaboration and receiving feedback on your work.

I imagine that sometimes it might be difficult to work with renowned authors. Have you experienced any of that? How do you manage those moments?

I’ve been very fortunate to work with appreciative authors who are generous with their time, and I’ve learnt a lot from their feedback on my work. I think their sensitivity to language often helps them to understand their own limitations in English and the importance of a translator’s work. But the diplomatic skills I learnt as a government translator certainly come in handy sometimes, and I must admit that it helps when you already have a successful book or two under your belt!

Early in my literary translation career, I more often encountered authors who were understandably concerned about working with a young translator who had no real track record. In one case, an author even decided to work with someone else instead – a British translator whose style was a better match for his aristocratic background. It’s easy to get worked up about incidents like that, but the lesson I learnt is that you can’t expect to be the perfect translator for every author. Instead, I look for relationships of mutual appreciation: I admire the author’s work, and the author values my work. That lays a firm foundation of trust and respect on which we can build.

No matter what kind of translation I’m doing, I’ve learnt that I can avoid a lot of awkwardness through clear communication with clients and authors. I take the time to learn what’s important to them about the project, their priorities and concerns, and it reassures them to know that I’m genuinely interested in what they do and seek to understand the larger context for my work. And when I ask an author detailed questions about the book I’m translating and then take the time to reply to their own questions and comments in detail, they understand that I respect their work and value their contribution to my translation process. But that doesn’t mean I accept their suggestions uncritically – I expect the same respect for my expertise as a translator. I’m sure this collaborative approach is one reason for the success of some of the books I’ve translated.

Do you have favourite current or past projects? What made them special?

In recent years, I’ve taken the initiative to pitch a number of books to publishers. This is a demanding process and often doesn’t lead anywhere, even when you’re an established literary translator like me, so I’m not sure I would recommend it to anyone. At the same time, it’s wonderful to know that a few books I love have entered the English-speaking world through my efforts. Some only reach a small group, like J. Slauerhoff’s Dutch adventure classic ‘Adrift in the Middle Kingdom’, which failed to attract much critical attention despite being the runner-up for the Vondel Prize. Others find their way mainly to specialists, like ‘We Slaves of Suriname’ by Anton de Kom (another Vondel runner-up), which inspired thoughtful, enthusiastic articles in academic journals. In contrast, Anjet Daanje’s ‘The Remembered Soldier’, which has just come out in the United States, has received rave reviews in The Wall Street Journal, Publishers Weekly and elsewhere, and seems set to reach a large number of readers. But whatever happens to my passion projects out there in the world, I love them all equally.

Translating for the theatre is also a special thrill because of the collaborative nature of the work and the chance that you might see your words spoken by actors on stage. Working with playwrights, actors and directors has taught me a lot about staying playful, creative and open-minded.

Finally, I love mentoring emerging translators and always learn a great deal from it myself. It creates a personal bond, and I continue to follow the careers of my mentees with excitement and interest. Some have also become good friends.

We are in a particular moment in history in which AI is present in almost every aspect of life. What is your take on AI and translations? Do you use it? Are you worried in some way?

I don’t think AI will replace literary translators any time soon because, like neural machine translation, it’s based on the AutoComplete principle: it searches for the most likely word in a given context. That sometimes works well enough if you want bland, generic prose, or prose in some kind of well-defined pre-existing style, but it can’t capture a literary author’s original, idiosyncratic, creative stylistic choices simply because of their newness: nothing like them was in its training data. And at least for now, Machine Translation Post-Editing (MTPE) and other AI-assisted forms of translation are a dead end in the literary world. It often takes as much time to revise an AI literary translation properly as it would to translate the book yourself, and the result is inferior because seeing the AI version can dampen your own creativity and get in the way of reading the original properly. Psychologists call that a priming or anchoring effect.

On the other hand, publishers may find that AI can play a role in the translation of predictable genre fiction, which probably sells better than literary fiction anyway! And of course, literary translation, like so many other creative endeavours, never paid very well anyway, so most literary translators combine it with other types of work in order to make a decent living. In the translation that I do for museums and academics, I see no real alternative to investigating whether AI-based tools can help me to do my work more efficiently while offering at least the same high level of quality. I share the ethical objections to these systems (such as violations of copyright and privacy, unsustainable consumption of energy and the political role of tech companies in the United States), but I don’t think the solution is for translators to shoot themselves in the foot by refusing to adopt the technology that the rest of the world is using. I do believe in supporting professional organizations, like the Authors Guild in the United States and Society of Authors in the UK, that are joining the effort to hold AI companies responsible for their massive theft of copyright-protected works for AI training purposes.

I believe the translators into English who survive and thrive in the years ahead will set themselves apart by specializing, communicating clearly, working closely with direct clients and listening carefully to them, networking both online and in the real world, making intelligent, discerning use of the best possible translation tools, and putting quality first. (And that’s not just me patting myself on the back – I’m an introvert and really have to push myself to do real-world networking, for instance!)

If you could offer some tips to students or language professionals willing to take on literary translations, what would you say?

1. Don’t do it for the money! Think carefully about your financial needs and build up your literary translation activities slowly, making sure at every step that they’re not endangering your ability to provide for yourself adequately. Reach out to experienced translators to find out about typical rates and other professional practice issues, so that you find the sweet spot between underselling yourself and making unrealistic demands based on your experience with more lucrative varieties of translation.

2. Connect with other literary translators through organizations like the Dutch Foundation for Literature, Flanders Literature, the American Literary Translators Organization, and the Translators Association at the Society of Authors. Join mailing lists and other online groups for literary translators such as ELT, ELTNA, and World Kid Lit.

3. Take the time to read widely in both Dutch and English, and check out book reviews and literary magazines as well. This will give you a better sense of the two literary cultures and where you may fit into them.

4. Take your time before applying to become an approved translator. I was lucky enough to be allowed a second try, but some translators aren’t permitted a second chance. Make sure the sample you send to the Letterenfonds or Flanders Literature really is representative of your best work, pick a book that showcases your skills but isn’t unduly challenging, and accompany your translation with a brief message for the reviewer explaining the trickiest choices you made.

5. When you do literary translation, take your time. If you like to dash through the first draft, that’s fine, but that means you’ll need to spend even more time checking and polishing your work afterwards. Most literary translators do many rounds of revision. You need to do at least three: one to check whether you’ve caught all the nuances of the original, one to see whether the translation stands up as a piece of English writing in its own right, and one or more final checks (probably machine-assisted) for spelling, stylistic consistency and mechanics. But that’s a bare minimum! And if you’re translating a book for publication, you can expect it to come back to you several more times with comments from the author, one or two editors, the proofreader, and who knows who else… (See point 1: Don’t do it for the money!)

6. Ask questions when you don’t understand things. If you’re afraid of looking silly, don’t go straight to the author – first, ask a friend, family member or acquaintance, preferably one who’s an insightful reader and would appreciate the piece of writing that you’re translating. If they can’t figure out the answer either, then it’s probably not a silly question. But when you do get in touch with the author, please be friendly and diplomatic and make sure your questions don’t sound like veiled criticism of the writing. Meanwhile, you may want to take the opportunity to get to know the author better. That’ll give you better insight into the writing, and it’s great networking.

Do you read for pleasure as well? What are you currently reading?

I don’t think you can succeed as a literary translator without being an avid reader. I read a great deal purely for pleasure (right now, I’m alternating the Cadfael mysteries by Ellis Peters with a variety of other books) and often mix business and pleasure, in what is no doubt an unhealthy way, by reading a lot of books that feed into whatever literary translation I’m working on. For example, while working on ‘The Song of Stork and Dromedary’ by Anjet Daanje, I read many of the books that were on her own reading list as she wrote the novel (you can find that list on her website). That includes many books by and about the Brontë sisters, but also Margaret Atwood’s ‘Alias Grace’ and Carlo Rovelli’s ‘The Order of Time’. I also occasionally mix work and leisure in a different way by flipping through art books in the evening – staring at Van Goghs or Monets can be very restful after a long day of word processing.

By Claire Bacon, 2 June 2025

It’s no secret that many language professionals are facing challenging times. Whether it’s the rise of AI, withdrawal of National Institutes of Health funding, or university budget cuts, many of us are reporting that we have far less work to do than we did in recent years. One way to adapt is to learn from each other by sharing our experiences.

Towards the end of 2024, I lost two major clients. With no notice, the medical journal I worked for decided as ‘part of a broader strategy to streamline workflow and enhance external capabilities’ to no longer contract external copy editors and, thanks to the massive university budget cuts in the Netherlands, I suddenly lost teaching work from a Dutch university. This left some big gaps in my work schedule – not something I have been used to in the last few years. Instead of panicking, I decided to keep calm and carry on. I asked myself two questions: how can I adapt to this changing situation and how can I use this extra time to my advantage?

Adapting to the changing situation

My immediate challenge was to find new clients to fill the gap. Luckily, I had strategies for this that have worked well for me in the past. I built up my original client base through content marketing – writing blog articles about research writing and sharing advice on social media. I had neglected my blog for a few years because I simply didn’t have the time for it – there was always plenty of work to do and of course the family needed attention. Now was the time to reignite it. I dusted off my list of ideas for blog posts and got back to work. I realized just how much I enjoyed creating content to help researchers with their writing, and was almost thankful to my current difficulties for forcing me back into blogging!

I also developed an effective strategy for content marketing on social media. Although I have done this in the past, I did find it difficult to maintain a consistent online presence in the face of work and family commitments. To improve my chances of success this time, I decided to stick to one social media platform (I picked LinkedIn as this is where I have the most useful interactions with like-minded professionals and potential clients) and to make a content marketing schedule. A very helpful discovery here was the scheduling function on LinkedIn, which allows you to prepare posts in advance and schedule when they will be published. This allowed me to spend one or two quiet working days preparing my LinkedIn posts for the next month, rather than stressing out finding the time each day to post. I also allotted 15 minutes each day to going through my LinkedIn feed and interacting with others. These marketing efforts have already brought in new work.

Diversifying: Using ‘unwanted’ extra time to our advantage

Although no freelance language professional wants gaps in their schedule, I knew there must be ways to make the most of this extra time. I briefly considered a complete career change and getting new qualifications, but realized that I do still have a decent client base and that I love editing and teaching scientific writing too much to throw in the towel just yet. Then, a lab in New York got in touch out of the blue asking for scientific writing workshops, which gave me the motivation I needed to pursue this avenue of work independently. I started working on developing my own scientific writing courses and have now added this as an additional service on my website.

We all know that AI is affecting our work as language professionals and that we need to embrace AI to move forward. So, to learn more about AI, I signed up for the Academic Language Expert’s free AI bootcamp and invested in Emma Nichols’ AI in Medical Writing and Editing course . Both were very informative and I now know a lot more about AI and how to use it. However, I confess that I am still struggling to actually use AI myself in my editing and writing. I have spent many years developing my writing and editing skills and have approaches to writing and editing that work well for me. I am also concerned about the effect of AI on critical thinking skills in young researchers if they start to rely on it for their writing rather than using it to facilitate the writing process. I’m looking forward to getting more insights and advice on this at the SENSE Jubilee Conference in June!

What else to do with this extra time? I realized I could improve my German. I live in Germany and my German is already good; I get by in most situations, I have close friends with whom I speak only German, and I can happily read novels in German. But I have been stuck at a B2-plus level for a while now and realized that I cannot get to C1 level by myself. Now I had time to do something about it, and enrolled for a twice-weekly intensive online course. This course highlighted some specific language-learning goals for me this year: to improve my grammar and expand my vocabulary. I have vowed to read more in German this year to help achieve this (so far I have three novels under my belt). I would not have set these goals if I hadn’t lost my clients.

Staying positive

These are challenging times, but we language professionals still have a valuable service to offer our clients. I would love to hear about how you are responding to these challenges, so do drop me a line! I am also looking forward to chatting with you all at the conference in June.