Below are my reflections upon passing the English-to-Chinese certification exam of the ATA (American Translators Association). The article was originally published in the winter 2019 issue of Yifeng (译风), the official publication of the ATA’s Chinese Language Division, and was edited by Trevor Cook.

Since January 2018, I have been coordinating a practice group for Chinese/English translators in which we help each other prepare for the ATA certification exam. We practice with one passage per week and usually alternate between Chinese-to-English and English-to-Chinese. The weekly homework is typically around 350 words or characters, which takes about 1 hour to finish. By the time I took the Chinese-to-English ATA certification exam in May, I had finished about 10 passages in that particular direction. Since I’m not so much a translator (I am an interpreter), those 10 hours were basically all my preparation for the translation exam.

Apparently, it worked. I passed the exam, joining the ranks of a small handful of individuals who are currently ATA-certified in Chinese-to-English translation. (Few translators have passed this new ATA certification examination yet because it was launched only in January 2018.) In a way, I can say that I went from knowing nothing about translation to being certified by one of the most prestigious bodies in the profession after only 10 hours of preparation.

Now, before I share my experience, let me say that the title of this article is admittedly exaggerated—and perhaps a little provocative. After all, in addition to the 10 hours of homework, I also ended up spending more time

• carefully comparing my own work with others’;

• digesting feedback I received from my practice partners;

• fulfilling administrative duties for the group, such as selecting passages, releasing weekly assignments (a WeChat group helped minimize the workload), and compiling everyone’s submission into one Google doc.

So, even though “only 10 hours” might be a bit of an exaggeration, I’m glad to report that this practice group proved to be a very successful experiment for me, and I think I’ve found a very efficient way to prepare for the exam. Here are a few tips based on my experience that might help you successfully prepare for an ATA certification exam.

Tip 1: Join or Create a Practice Group.

Finding peers who share the same goal and can critique each other’s work is not always easy, and I think joining an association like the ATA is extremely helpful in this regard. The core members of my practice group were colleagues that I met at the ATA Annual Conference in Washington, DC, in October 2017. I highly recommend that any freelancers looking to boost their careers attend conferences like this, especially the ATA’s annual conference.

If my case study isn’t convincing enough, here is another post written by our colleague Sarah Symons Glegorio, who also vouches for the benefit of joining a study group. In fact, this single post saved me many hours that would have otherwise been spent unproductively. Thank you, Sarah!

Tip 2: Take the Practice Exam.

The ATA administers a practice exam that follows the same format and grading scheme as the actual certification exam. As a professional test-prep coach, myself, I honestly could not think of a better way to gauge my readiness than taking a practice exam. The ATA certification examination grading scheme requires that a single translated passage have no more than 17 error points deducted in order to pass.  When I received my practice test result, the number of error points deducted was, to my great surprise, zero. Needless to say, this boosted my confidence that I would likely pass the actual exam, and so I did.

Tip 3: Never Translate. Always Rewrite.

In my training as a conference interpreter, the best eureka moment came from my instructor Anchi Lue, who always emphasized the importance of “making sense” in English. All too often, after hearing something in Chinese, a Chinese interpreter begins to produce an English sentence that doesn’t even make sense to the interpreter’s own ears. On the first day of class, Anchi was quick to point out that I made very few of those “Chinglish” mistakes when speaking English to express my own opinion. In other words, I only fail to make sense when I interpret from Chinese. The reason, according to Anchi, is that I didn’t have a “self-censoring mechanism” in place.

This so-called “self-censorship” means that interpreters should act as if they are not interpreting but, rather, chatting with an English speaker about something that they understand, with the goal of helping the other person understand it, too. Before you begin to interpret, ask: in that chat with an English speaker, would you say what you are about to say? If the answer is no, then you’d better rephrase it.

This was a truly enlightening comment. It made me rethink what I’m doing when I interpret. For two languages as different as Chinese and English, it means we need to rephrase almost every single sentence to make it sound like English, rather than interpreting the words literally.

More importantly for our purpose, this principle applies perfectly to translation. Assume that you are not translating but writing an email to someone with the aim of delivering the source’s meaning. Before you translate, think: in that email, would you still write what you are about to write? If the answer is no, then you’d better rewrite it.

Tip 4: Always Time Yourself.

The computerized ATA certification exam provides a relatively generous time limit: you have three hours to translate two of three passages provided. However, this doesn’t mean that time is irrelevant in the test-taking equation. Whenever possible, you should always track the amount of time spent on any practice material and make sure that you are able to leave enough time to check your work before submission. Keep in mind that you are also expected to fulfill a number of technical requirements for the exam, such as saving the work in the right font and format, which will take some time as well.

After participating in a practice group, taking the practice exam, developing an attitude of “re-writing,” and always timing myself as I practiced, I was able to successfully pass the Chinese-to-English ATA translation certification exam, even without extensive translation experience. I hope the lessons from my experience can also translate into exam success for readers in the Chinese Language Division and beyond.