Boston College was chosen as site for the annual conference since members of the New England translators' group have been meeting monthly on campus under the sponsorship of the German Studies Department.
The event will feature a job fair with exhibitions by translation agencies and booksellers, speeches by American Translators Association President Tom West and others, and a panel discussion on standards in medical translating.
NETA President Ken Kronenberg, a translator of German to English who specializes in medical texts and historical letters and diaries, said the market for interpreters and translators has grown with the increasingly global economy.
"Businesses better know the markets they are dealing with," said Kronenberg. "If you don't translate well, you give the impression you don't respect the people on the other end."
For example, he noted the Spanish spoken in Mexico differs from that spoken in Chile or in Argentina, which is an important thing to realize if you seek to penetrate the Latin American market.
"You may say something in Spanish you know, and that word in Argentina may be a slang word you don't want to get across," he said. "Or they may scratch their heads because they use the word in a different way."
Admission to the exhibition and conference is $15 for NETA members, $20 for non-members.
-Mark Sullivan