This section includes other courses translators can take to improve their skills.
Even if you’ve studied languages and/or translation at university, you’ll probably need some extra tuition and practice if you want to take an exam to become a qualified member of an association.
If you’re interested in doing a master’s degree, you need to go to the MA Courses section.
And if you’re finding it hard to decide whether you should study an MA or take the DipTrans exam, you might find it useful to read about Gwenydd Jones’s experience of taking the Diploma and two MA in translation courses.
Another interesting resource if you’re looking for some training possibilities is Skilliga, a calendar of training and CPD events and courses for translators and interpreters.
Please read A Word of Caution about Using the Resource Pages before you start exploring the links.
Last updated May 2023
Alba Longa Translator’s School
The course focuses on translation skills, as well as software knowledge and business basics. In Russian and English. It is provided by the Alba Longa Translation Company.
ART – The All-Round Translator
ART, run by Ellen Singer and Magreet de Roo (who replaced Dorota Pawlak), hold workshops for translators and interpreters in the Netherlands. Workshop topics have included: poetry, MTPE, memoQ, transcreation, poetry and SEO (search engine optimisation)
Organised by ATLAS (Association par la promotion de la traduction littéraire), these workshops give you the chance to discuss your unpublished and unrevised translations (into French of fiction, plays, poetry, etc.) with colleagues. ATLAS also organises other workshops.
Online courses for translators in Spanish. The offering includes banking, financial, patent, tourism, pharmaceutical and medical translation and more practical topics, such as learning how to use CAT tools. Most translation courses are en-es, although one on renewable energies is de-es and one on audiovisual translation is fr-es.
Online courses on audiovisual translation (AVT) and localisation. AVT Masterclass was co-founded by Łukasz Dutka, Agnieszka Szarkowska and Agnieszka Walczak, who are also the instructors.
They offer courses on the fundamentals of subtitling, timing subtitles and template creation.
The Bundesverband der Dolmetscher und Übersetzer offers a wide range of CPD seminars, webinars and courses. Some of the topics covered are: postediting, revision, Spanish law, Italian law, French family law, GAAP financial reporting, terms and conditions, data protection, contracts, medical translation, project management, wine, literary translation and interpreting. You do not have to be a member of the association to attend.
You can also find more CPD and seminars listed on the BDÜ website.
Bristol Translates Literary Translation Summer School
An intensive course of workshops and discussions for professional translators interested in exploring literary translations. Several language pairs (all into English) are offered.
British Centre for Literary Translation
The BCLT is part of the School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia. It organises a summer school.
A wide variety of courses on translation, proofreading/editing, localisation, grammar, spelling, copywriting and much more in Spanish. Both online and classroom-based programmes are offered.
CAMELS, an Austrian translation agency specialising in capital markets, offers translators seminars on financial translation.
Cardiff University offers online translation courses in Spanish and French to English to prepare for the CIOL DipTrans. This university is also an examination centre for the DipTrans.
Centre for Translation Studies at the UCL (University College London). It offers online courses (for example, cloud-based translation tools, localisation and subtitling), a variety of one day professional courses (interpreting, subtitling, dubbing, Trados Studio, memoQ, transcreation, etc.) and some summer courses.
Distance-learning course in literary translation provided by the Centre Européen de Traduction Littéraire, based in Belgium.
CTI Masters for Translators and Interpreters
CTI, based in Milan, Italy, offers four classroom-based courses (which they call masters) and two online masters. They all focus on specific fields. The online courses are on Medicine and Pharmacology, and Economics and Finance. These courses are also taught on site in addition to IT and Localisation, and Legal Translation. The course consists of various modules and practical translation exercises from English into Italian.
Please see this guest post by Martina Abagnale for a review of CTI’s financial translation course.
DP courses are taught by Dorota Pawlak. Learn how to translate and localise websites and mobile applications.
Online course to prepare for the CIOL DipTrans exam. For a small fee they will evaluate your level to ensure you should proceed with the course and the exam before parting with your money.
Based in France, Edvenn (formally CI3M, the Centre de Formation Professionnelle et Continue) offers distance-learning courses in translation (English, French, German and Spanish), CAT tools (SDLTrados and memoQ) and legal, medical and technical translation.
Please see Andrea McGibney’s guest post for a review of the French to English course.
The school provides video courses on writing and translation in Portuguese as well as an introduction to memoQ and tips on how to use Word and Excel.
Based in Madrid, Estudio Sampere is an examination centre for the Diploma in Translation and also offers an online course to help you prepare for this exam (English-Spanish). Other online courses include specialised translation (English-Spanish and French-Spanish), legal translation, technical translation and literary translation.
Based in France, Formation traduction provides online training in Trados and Multiterm for professional translators.
Online English & Spanish subtitling courses. Four courses are available with an offline tutor and students’ forum. The modules include learning how to use the subtitling software EZTitles. GOSUB also host webinars.
Live or recorded online training in Spanish on a variety of topics: legal translation, corporate, technical, journalistic, financial and literary translation, subtitling, copywriting, style, CAT tools, project management systems and more.
A variety of courses on French and Spanish law and legal translation into French and Spanish. The trainers are Lucie Davioud, Ruth Gámez and Fernando Cuñado.
Online learning courses provided by the e-learning branch of the translation and interpreting agency Talking Heads. The courses include: DPSI (Diploma in Public Service Interpreting), law or health pathway; DipTrans (Diploma in Translation); FCI (Foundation Certificate in Interpreting); and FCT (Foundation Certificate in Translation).
Lingvajet provides short-term courses on SDL Trados and other CAT tools, terminology management, AutoCAD, memory training for interpreters, translating for oil & gas industries, editing and proofreading, and more.
London Metropolitan University
This university offers a one-year part-time course to prepare to be a public service interpreter (PSI) in the legal field. You can also go on a one-week intensive course to practise conference interpreting.
Based in Canada, Magistrad offers a wide variety of online courses and webinars for translators and interpreters in French and English. Taught by several well-known professionals, the topics include: financial, legal and promotional translation, contracts, human resources, revision, style, effective writing, leveraging MT, science and tricky terms.
This is a distance-learning course provided by Pompeu Fabra University.
The university offers short online courses to prepare for the papers in the CIOL Diploma in Translation (DipTrans) exam.
Slightly longer courses can prepare you for the CIOL Diploma in Police Interpreting (DPI) and the Diploma in Public Service Interpreting (DPSI) in the Medical and Legal fields.
Online courses run by TAUS provide training on data management, post-editing, quality management, transcreation, DQF hands-on and quality management.
Online on-demand courses focused on technology for wordsmiths run by Alexander Drechsel and Josh Goldsmith. Some are free.
If you want help mastering file types in SDL Trados Studio, you can take the five modules offered by The Studio Academy. The modules are available in a PDF format.
Run by Gwenydd Jones, the Translator’s Studio offers advanced Spanish-to-English and French-to-English translation courses with DipTrans preparation. The course includes 10 marked assessments, detailed feedback and two 30-min tutorials.
You can also study pre-DipTrans conversion courses to help prepare you for the CertTrans examination. The Spanish-to-English and French-to-English conversion courses are ideal if you have an MA in Translation or less than a year’s translation experience. Also on offer are DipTrans resitter packs and workshops focusing on translating DipTrans texts (general, literature, business, social science and legal papers).
Online training for and by translators in Spanish. The courses include audiovisual translation, localisation, web design, CAT tools and productivity.
This translation and interpreting school offers a variety of online and classroom-based courses for translators and interpreters from English, Spanish and Portuguese into Spanish. Besides courses on several specialisations (food, dubbing, theatre, audiovisual, tourism, finance, medical, legal, video games, etc.), they also run courses on CAT tools (memoQ, Trados Studio, Wordfast), modes of interpreting and much more.
Please click here for a review of Trágora’s culinary translation course by Pili Rodríguez Deus.
Besides a number of business-related courses, Training for Translators, managed by Corinne McKay, also runs some courses focusing on translation skills in collaboration with other translators. Past courses have included: English to Spanish Legal Translation, Translation Workshop: German to English, and courses on legal and medical terminology.
Distance courses to prepare for the CIOL DipTrans exam. Founded by Susanne James Associates in 1996. Translator Training also offers introductory courses for people with little or no translation experience wishing to enter the profession. This course can be followed by their Improver’s and Follow-Up courses.
You can read a review of the DipTrans course by Joanna Scudamore-Trezek on her blog.
Based in Brazil, Translators101 focuses on online courses in Portuguese for translators and interpreters. Course subjects include literary, technical and gaming translation, note taking and event planning for interpreters, information on taxation, financial control and physical and mental wellbeing.
TransLegal offer several courses on: company law, contract law, intellectual property law and legal English.
Spanish/English translation and interpreting courses are provided, including the Professional Certificate in Translation and Interpretation.
Classroom-based course to prepare for the CIOL DipTrans exam.
Warwick Translates Summer School
The summer school is a week long course (residential and non-residential options) focusing on literary translation into English. Several language streams are offered.
For more details of this course, please read this review by Natalie Soper on her blog.
WLS offer two translation courses. The first is to gain a certificate based on translating a variety of texts. And the second is preparation for the CIOL Diploma in Translation (DipTrans) exam. They are both distance-learning courses that you can start at any time. The language combinations you can study are: en<>de; en<>es; en<>fr; en<>it; and en<>pe.
Workshops by Nina Sattler-Hovdar
One or two-day courses on transcreation taught by Nina Sattler-Hovdar.
Links are generally listed in alphabetical order in the sections and they are provided for information purposes only. Under no circumstances should they be understood as a personal recommendation.
The Links, Tips & Resources pages are constantly being improved, expanded and updated, so please come back another time. If you have any comments or recommendations, please contact me.
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