Swet Columns
September 11, 2024
Translator Tuesdays Reports
These quick reports of the hour-long online meetups held on the first Tuesday of each month are contributed by Daniel Morales, moderator, following the close of each session. The reports appear with the most recent at the top.
October 1, 2024
This was one of our best attended sessions to date. We had nine participants sharing various "spooky" stories of translations gone wrong.... more
July 7, 2024 *Members-only Content
Latest SWET Financial Report (and earlier)
Financial Report for 2023
In 2023, the major expense for SWET was the long-awaited rebuild of the SWET website to be mobile responsive. Previously, the website used graphic images for colored headers, and on a smartphone the site would appear in tiny print that needed to be expanded and shifted around to read. Thanks to the programming skills of ResourceCode, now... more
July 6, 2024
Event Report: Fifth East Asian Translation Studies Conference
The fifth East Asian Translation Studies conference was held at the University of Queensland on June 26–28, with a mixture of on-site and online participants. The conference kicked off with a keynote speech by Professor Min-hua Liu from Hong Kong Baptist University titled “Is There an Aptitude for Interpreting beyond Bilingualism?” The second keynote was by Professor Clint... more
December 28, 2023
Highlights of 2023
While we have been busy crafting with words, learning about ChatGPT and the Japanese government’s new invoice system, keeping our equipment up to date, meeting deadlines, and keeping abreast of our email, now we find that another year is upon us. SWET started 2023 in its usual laid-back fashion, but the questions arising and alarms sounding over large language... more
July 6, 2023
No More Kōsei Trauma: A Japan Wordsmith’s Glossary
An oft-overlooked ailment among wordsmiths working with Japanese clients is “kōsei trauma.” The classic scenario begins with a client or manager breezily asking for kōsei (“proofreading”) of a manuscript, insisting it will only be a “light check” of the English. The good-natured wordsmith agrees and is then handed the Japanese text as well and told to feel free to check... more
May 5, 2023
Event Report: SWET Talk Shop via Zoom—Chatting about ChatGPT, April 23, 2023
Note: This event report was produced with the help of two tools from OpenAI, a prominent player in the field of artificial intelligence. Its Whisper program was used to transcribe the Zoom session, and GPT-4 was used to summarize the transcript (special thanks to Tom Gally for adeptly managing these tasks). The GPT-4 summary was then edited by SWET volunteers.... more