The Useful Links & Resources for Translators & Interpreters page on my blog is by far the most popular with almost 9,500 views so far. I’ve been working on it in recent weeks, adding some new links that I’ve come across over the past few months. Some of you may have noticed that the clickable ‘Back to top’ hasn’t been working. For some unknown reason, every time I add anything to the page, all the ‘Back to tops’ stop functioning and I have to fix the coding one by one. They should all be working properly again now.

What’s on the page?

For those of you who are not familiar with this page, it starts with lists of General Monolingual (29 entries) and Multilingual Dictionaries (63 entries). These are followed by subject-specific lists of glossaries and dictionaries in alphabetical order. Currently there are 17 categories.

Next comes the section with Collocations, Corpora (27 entries), Digital Journals, Digital Libraries, Encyclopaedias, Style Guides (42 entries), Thesauri (17 entries) and Writing. The latter contains 17 entries with links to software you can purchase to improve your writing style and spot errors as well as free links to tips and guidelines.

Finally, towards the bottom of the page, there’s a list called Other Links of Interest for items that don’t (yet) fit into another category. Recent additions here, for example, are Answer the Public, which displays the type of questions people ask in search engines,  Good Gopher, a search engine for independent news and information, and Our World in Data, a fascinating site for visualising data of our human civilisation.

This final section provides links that are not directly connected with translating, but which can, nevertheless, help us improve our business management or productivity. It also contains links to MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) with some new recent additions, including a link to courses in French.

What’s new?

I’ve added some new categories:

Music and Background Sounds. Listening to certain sounds (such as background noise you might get in a bar, restaurant or café) or music can help you concentrate on the task at hand and get more done in the time you have available. This is particularly useful for freelancers juggling work and family life who need to minimise distractions.

I currently use Spotify to listen to some jazz or classical music when I can be more relaxed and Focus@Will, which provides specially sequenced tracks to aid concentration, when I really need to focus and power through my translation. But I’m also a fan of white rain noise, although, as I live in the UK, I don’t need to use an app to listen to rain that often 😉

There’s also a link to Radio Garden, which takes you to a spinning globe with thousands of green lights representing radio stations worldwide. I have not managed to get it to work on my computer yet (I use Chrome, which may be the issue), so let me know if you have better luck.

Lifestyle. I’ve created this category to be a mishmash of work–life balance links and sites that appeal to me on a more personal level due to the type of lifestyle they advocate. It includes, for example, Workrave, as a new addition to the list. This site can help prevent RSI (repetitive strain injury) by letting you know when you need a break.

Interpreting. As I’m not an interpreter, this category is really small at the moment. If you have any suggestions, do please let me know.

Social Media. A short list (so far) of social media management dashboards and sharing apps.

Fashion and Textiles, Food and Renewable Energy are three new categories towards the top of the page in the glossary and dictionary section. Again, these are very short lists as I’ve just started them.

I’ve also added many new links in the previous categories.

I hope the Useful Links & Resources for Translators & Interpreters page does indeed prove useful to my colleagues. Please contact me if you have any comments or suggestions for the page or notice a broken link. I’ll add new links when I next find some time to update the page. And if you cannot find what you’re looking for, try the Links & Tips for Translators & Interpreters page (also recently updated). Here you’ll find links to courses on translation, business and writing, associations, webinars, podcasts, software and much more.