This year’s event was due to take place in Budapest but for reasons which everyone is aware of, it had to be cancelled and instead they took this opportunity to take this year’s gathering online! As members of TermNet, and sponsors of the event, we were pleased to learn that the event was still taking place, although not in the same format as initially planned. To celebrate, we interviewed our colleague Petra Dutz, Senior Sales Representative, who presented a live session at the event and we wanted to share her thoughts. On Thursday July 2, Petra delivered a workshop on machine translation and terminology. Petra is renowned in SDL for her broad knowledge surrounding the topic of terminology, and is thusly seen as our terminology guru. She is a trained translator and studied Applied Linguistics and Cultural Studies at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz. Since 2005, she has been teaching as a part-time lecturer with the focus on CAT tools, software localization and terminology.We had a lot of fun conducting this interview, and we love that these events give us more of a reason to chat to our colleagues in different countries! So sit back, relax, and enjoy the read… Can you give us some information about your workshop? Absolutely! The session I delivered was based on machine translation and terminology. We took a closer look in- practice, from a translator’s and terminologist’s perspective.I shared information about the history of machine translation, who uses it, and the advantages of neural machine translation verses statistical machine translation. A large part of the workshop was a live demonstration of how it works in the browser, how you train it, how you export data from MultiTerm and how to import it into the dictionaries. I also showed how to use the web plugin. I had an excellent attendance and our participants seemed really interested in the information. A selection of questions and attendee engagement followed afterwards, which is reassuring, as I believe this means everyone was listening. The feedback I got was very positive which is always great to see! Have you attended this event before? Yes, several times. I believe it has been at least 4 or 5 times now. The event has been held face-to-face in Cologne, Germany a few times previously, which I have thoroughly enjoyed attending.I always appreciate the TermNet Summer School, and really enjoy interacting with the attendees every year. It’s a great opportunity to stay up to date with the latest practices in terminology. As a board member of the TermNet Summer School, I’m very enthusiastic about the event, and keeping in the loop with all my fellow terminologists. This is very much an international event where I have met people from all over the world who have traveled from different continents in order to attend. The dedication of terminologists is certainly something to admire! Do you think there is a big difference between the face-to-face event and online/virtual events? I believe the main difference is that, as a speaker, at a face-to-face event it is easier to engage the audience with eye contact and gauge their responses and interest. It is much more rewarding to address a live audience and it can be daunting to present to a computer screen… a very new experience! For this online event, I liked that the attendees could turn their cameras on, so I could see some friendly faces and didn’t feel as though I was talking to myself.I appreciate it can be more difficult for people to concentrate for longer durations whilst they are on their computers, and the social aspect of the coffee breaks is definitely missed. But I do believe that online events are an excellent alternative, and a great way to engage with a broader audience! In our upcoming release of SDL Trados Studio 2021, what do you think are the main features which will be beneficial for terminologists and translators? Where to start?! We have lots to look forward to in Studio 2021, I think the main thing that everyone is most excited about is the flexibility of the cloud; now everyone can choose their preferred way of working in Studio.Also, the introduction of the SDL AppStore in Studio 2021 makes it even easier for terminologists to download the specific apps they require to work as efficiently and effectively as possible. We have a whole range of apps which are useful for the creation and management of termbases. It is great for everyone to be able to personalize their CAT tool so easily. I think this aspect is really cool!We are already looking forward to the Termnet Summer School in 2021! In the meantime, if you would like further information about terminology or machine translation please click here to view Petra’s recent webinars [NB: delivered in German].Keep your eyes peeled, SDL Trados Studio 2021 is coming! For further information please go to our website to discover what’s new.Why not join our Translation Productivity Community. Simply pick the most appropriate forum from the list and ask your question. Find out more about SDL Trados Studio 2021