"A very attentive and careful person."

"Ulrike Michiels's presentation was very clear, and as a listener you had plenty of time to "digest" the information. Thank you Ulrike for this good training!"

"Sorry, I'm late to give my feedback. The webinar was very interesting and clear for me. I think this trainer has a great teaching feeling!"

"Sehr kompetente und verständliche Einführung in die Übersetzungsarbeit mit Trados. Die Schulung war für mich sehr hilfreich. Vielen Dank!"

"Ulrike Michiels did a great job. She even spotlighted faulty descriptions or so taking two screenshots to draw the developer’s attention to it."

"In addition to her professional attitude during the training presentation, she stayed connected for extra 10 minutes or so after the end of the presentation, to give participants time to explore the product/courseware by themselves and to take any questions. "

"A really good presentation, worth listening to."

"She was very clear in her presentation, as well as in her replies to attendees' questions. All tips were very useful."

"This was my second course with Ulrike today! She did a wonderful job!"

"She was very pleasant and always invited us to ask questions."

"Highly professional trainer."

"This was an excellent training course. Prior to the course I didn't know how the program worked and now I feel as if I could definitely start to use it. All of the information was very practical and useful. "

"Seemed not really confident that day."

"I had trouble understanding her due to the German accent. "

"Not enough time for QA session."

"I got many new knowledge by attending this webinar. Ulrike give us many tips that does not exist in the handout material given before the training. She tried to explain the material in as simple way as possible."

"Thank you very much! I enjoyed your presentation and I certainly learned a lot. "

"Very competent, answered all our questions, slowly enough so that everybody can follow. "

"Se explica muy bien."

"An excellent, highly professional teacher, who takes you by the hand and patiently leads you through the complexity of a sophisticated software program that is meant to support many different languages and to face the demands of professional users…"

"Ulrike was very clear and helpful during the session all the material is given in orderly. Her english is very good and I understand it very clearly even though it was not my maother's language. She knows every detail of the material and convey it nicely. "

"Thanks to Ulrike Michiels. She gave a very clear and efficient explanation of the material. I received answers to all my questions. "

""extremely satisfied", this is my opinion, REALLY! Ulrike is dynamic. She knows what she talks about. Her voice is clear. She is easy to understand. She answers every question. No bad things to say about Ulrike.
I have no regrets about the course fees (this time!).
My future training courses for Trados will be with Ulrike and nobody else, if I have the choice among several trainers! It is bound to happen!
"

"Ulrike is obviously very knowledgeable and a good trainer, but I found her accent sometimes difficult to understand. She was very kind to answer a few questions at the end."

"She explains very well!!"

"After having read the workbook and attempting the exam, I realized that the trainer used some terms incorrectly. This is confusing to a new user especially when taking the exam because the exam uses the terms as the appear in the workbook and also as they appear within the software. If Trados calls something 'xyz' the training should be consistent with the terminology as not to confuse people."

"Course was pretty clearly laid out, there were times when it would have been nice to have the course given by a native speaker, especially since many (most?) of the people listening are not native speakers."

"Ulrike is a very capable trainer with both knowledge of Trados and the transaltors' viewpoint. She answered all relevant questions without letting that interfere with the flow of the course."

"The trainer was clear, explanatory and to a native speaker (I am) her English language was excellent. She answered questions clearly, and if she did not know the answer, she said so, but gave an explanation for it. She also noted questions she could not answer, but in her experience found necessary to take further. Her experience as a translator was very clear to see."

"Delivery was very clear and well-paced and questions were answered fully."

"Ulrike is a very capable trainer an there was enough opportunity to ask questions. Up front, three hours seems a long time to listen to a presentation, but the time was gone before I knew it."

"She tells a lot during the course, maybe too much for an 'absolute beginner'. At one time her MSWord did'n't seem to work, so she couldn't use the 'preview'-mode in Trados. That was a pity. But she clearly has an extensive knowledge of Trados and gives clear answers to the questions that were asked. "

"All the topics were well described and all the questions were answered upto the satisfaction level. "

"The trainer spoke clear English and answered all questions I asked. I would recommend her to other members and would like to take another course with her as a teacher"

"The German trainer we had is extremely knowledgeable about Trados and can anwser practically any question about it. One thing though: the intermediate course should not waste time giving a quick recap of the getting started course. If people need this introductory material, then let them sign up for the correct level of course!
"

"She was great. Extremely knowledgable and well-prepared. I was very happy."

"Elle a été très claire et efficace!"

"Rambling, poorly structured and tedious."

"She explains things very clearly and she is extremely competent!"

"I'm happy to have met Ulrike.
She's clearly the SDL Trados expert, and is able to share her knowledge with new users in a very structured way."

"Concise, clear and without hesitation."

"This trainer is very knowledgeable, and very articulate. Easy to understand. I particularly liked the way she would pause every once in a while to answer questions, instead of being interrupted every time."

"Crisp and clear demontration of the features, English easy to understand; often native British can be harder to follow than in this case a German talking English."

"She was quite good but she does um and ah a bit which is frustrating within an online framework. But I would follow another course with this trainer because she speaks slowly and clearly which is so important. I'm English living in France and would probably find it harder to follow a trainer with a strong US accent than this softer German one."

"Ulrike is an extremely friendly trainer, she's also very knowledgeable and answered all questions coming from the participants. She also spent some extra time on questions when the course was over. Brilliant!"

"Would prefer a later start time to allow for Pacific time. Starting at 6 am is a wee bit early... ;-)"

"Clear and precise. Thank you very much Ulrike!"

"Ulrike is an excellent trainer, the pace of the course was adequate, the presentations were very clear and the trainer and the teaching method is adapted to the course material. She also answered all questions very clearly. "

"Besides being a translator, I also work as a trainer and consultant; I know first-hand from both sides what constitutes a successful training.

The trainer was not engaging (Grade C) and did not speak native-level English (my German girlfriend is much, much better despite not being a language professional).

Her presentation was a slow, somewhat disjointed execution of a check-list that failed to fulfill the basic promise of any training: "Tell them what you'll tell them; tell them; tell them what you've told them."

I think Proz should consider certifying me and then hiring me to do introductory training sessions. Seriously. I'll audition. Give me the same prep material / course goals and a week to practice.

She did, however, make a great effort to answer all questions, even staying beyond the official course end. But considering the revenue generated by such trainings, I would expect MUCH MORE from Proz and the level of professionalism of their trainers. Poor value for money overall. This is my second webinar and I have yet to be truly satisfied. Why do I come back? I had to pay for the upgrade and thought I could learn something from the free training."

"The spoken introduction at the beginning was too long an overview. I would suggest that Ulrike begin first by presenting a brief overview of the interface, very brief, to whet her students' appetite for more, perhaps by showing what an aligned file looks like in Word or in .xml format, and perhaps showing what it looks like in the translation editor as well. Then instead of commenting a page of dense texte, very undigestable just after the morning coffee, show us a block diagram of the modules available and skip back and forth to illustrate it. Once Ulrike started showing us the basics of the interface the webinar was more interesting and fun. Also after an hour of commentary on the text I don't think that was the right time to take questions. Ulrike you should rather throw your students in the deep end, then fish them out and while they're drying show them the interface bit by and perhaps space the questions out more because in fact, they can disrupt the group's attention if too many are taken at one time. I was an English teacher for eight years and learnt that it is very important to change the pace of activities as students' generally have very short attention spans. Of course a Webinar is very different to a classroom situation. Anyway it was very worthwhile, thank you very much"

"Thank you Ulrike for this very interesting course and your explanations. Now I understand more how I can improve my translations with this very efficient CAT Tool and will start using it. I only regret lack of time to get more information about project packages.
Best regards
Bernard"

"She made every effort to answer questions, going beyond the the time limit for this reason. She does give extensive explanations."

"High quality and clear explanations.
thanks a lot.
Christine"

"The trainer knew the material well and was able to explain it adequately. "

"She's excellent and did her best to overcome the audio problems"

"So thanks to "Ulrike" for her very professional performance... "

"It always takes time to accommodate to a new trainer, at the end I was feeling more comfortable with her. Lots to cover, she was clear most of the time. I like the way she responded questions every so often. This was some of the best time for me. I appreciate her efforts. "

"I think the trainer did what was possible to fix the problems. She acted very professionally and kept her cool in a extremely difficult situation."

"It was not the trainer's fault, but due to the audio problem, I cannot quite correctly gauge my satisfaction with the trainer."

"Man hat sich die Zeit genommen, alle Fragen zu beantworten. Vielen Dank an dieser Stelle!"

"Very clear."

"Very practical instructions"

"I am impressed with Ulrike's ability to sort out problems on the fly and without getting stressed."

"clear and concise, a hard worker."

"Did not seem well prepared said several times "I'm improvising". Didn't look at questions for ages so did not know what they were referring to. Didn't seem to be that familiar with the software as said several times "Why is it doing this?". Didn't sound enthusiastic at all, again said several times "this is boring". Went over the 3 hours without covering the additional topics!"

"I thought she was very clear and as well as following the course outline she gave useful information about, for example, organising translation memories, from a practising translator's perspective. There was a program glitch in the project section, but she showed us how to sort this out if we experience it and gave us extra time at the end to make up for it. In short - well delivered and helpful."

"From all the webinars and training sessions that I have attended so far I consider this one the best; therefore I'm happy to provide positive feedback.

Ms. Ulrike Michiels started her session with something that (from my previous mixed experiences) should be common practice for any content delivered online , i.e., she asked for comments, whether there were any problems concerning the reception of sound and/or video.

The training session was delivered clearly and precisely. Ms. Michiels provided good value in it: two full 1.5h units of lecture with one break of 10 minutes. While this may be a bit exhausting to some of the audience, I am used to such pace from my studies.

Throughout the session she demonstrated a methodical approach to the subject and shared her real-life experience with the topic as well. Her in depth knowledge showed especially in situations in which some technical difficulties had to be mastered. Such occurrences did not trouble Ms. Michiels much, and she was able to turn this into a valuable lesson on its own, showing how to troubleshoot the workflow, suggesting alternative solutions and quoting relevant knowledge base resources.

The whole training experience was made even more enjoyable by her no-nonsense attitude and dry humor. I would certainly recommend Ms. Ulrike Michiels as a trainer and would gladly attend more trainings with her as a teacher in the future.
"

"She was very good and gave some valuable tips during the course. She also answered the questions. "

"I came in at the very end, because an incorrect update from McAfee had blocked my access to the Webinair for 2 1/2 hours. So I came in with a frustration already in process. But I found Ulrike's pace uncomfortably slow and and this added to my frustration. "

"Nice way of presenting, also gave me confidence in my own ability. She is enthusiastic and motivates one."

"Ulrike gave clear and helpful information to allow us to get started with Trados 2009. She answered a long list of questions and certainly cleared up my initial doubts.

Thanks very much again Ulrike, the course was really very helpful."

"She explained everything very clearly and very well. She answered all of my questions."

"I think Ulriche was very thorough and went past the scheduled 3 hours to answer all the questions the students had."

"very clear explanations!"

"I found Ulrike professional and efficient and would thank her for the course. The only comment that I have is that I would have liked to have the actual, practical aspect (i.e. exactly how a document is translated using SDL Tardos Studio 2009 done more SLOWLY and in a more detailed manner, allowing time to make notes. Although Ulrike explained it all very well, I feel that when I actually first attempt to carry out a translation, I shall have problems because I was unable to take step-by-step notes.
Akos Nicolas, alias "Leveleki"."

"This was the first of the Trados sessions that was actually starting to get interesting. Instructor knowledge was good; however, there were a lot of little glitches and things not working as they should. This could probably be solved by doing a test run of all the main procedures using the actual training environment and course materials, which shouldn't take too much time. Overall, I think all of the Trados courses need much more conceptual and best practice information and less clicking through dialogs -- that part I can easily figure out myself."

"I agree with izy - some practical exercises would definitely improve the learning experience. The session was very well carried out.

I am mildy disappointed though that there don't seem to be any webinars taking place in the forseeable future for the intermediate and advanced stages in German. I would very much appreciate if those stages were available in German as well as in English."

"I would appreciate if you would offer a "Level 2 training" for Studio 2009 in German and I think that many translators are interested in participating.

Kind regards

Gabi"

"I would have liked a longer session to go into more detail on some of the steps and to have the opportunity to do some practice exercises rather than just being shown the theory. I appreciate not everyone owns a Trados license, but it could be an optional 1 hr extension to the session for participants who do own the license or have downloaded the trial version. From experience as a trainer, I know how much more information is retained from practical exercises compared to listening to theory.
Overall, the course was well done. Thanks!"

"The training was really helpful. The trainer gave complete and comprehensive answers to my questions. I have already started to create my own translation memories. Thank you!"

"I wish I had known there was time after for answering questions.
I could not attend after the three hours had passed."

"I loved the course. However, it would be nice if there was the possibility of follow up question after the course, because when I started applying what we learned, I realized I had a few questions for the instructor, which I didn't think while the course was taking place."

"Some parts of this advanced training webinar are not really that useful to freelance translators and are more for project managers. I found the part on creating termbases in MultiTerm very useful and it's something I can use in my current projects. On the whole, the presentation was very clear and went very smoothly."

"Sorry to say that I was a little disappointed about the fact, that many questions from fellow participants had to be answered.

There were both questions about points that were dealt by the beginner course as well as questions that could have been avoided if the training material had been worked through prior to the session.

Having to answer these questions took a lot of the precious online training time and as a consequence of that, about 50% of the actual training material could not be worked on.

However, the Advanced Course was a lot better regarding theses points.

Thank you for your efforts!"

"well done!"

"The training (all training, all levels) should be provided free of charge"

"The teacher was very unsecure handling the technical facilities, sound quality low. The program crashed at TMX export (teacher did not know that this did not work in SP1). Also the XML examples failed. The extra delays meant, that terminology verification was omitted. I think that the teacher should work throught the examples before the course, to see that everything works as it is supposed to."

"Good training session. The topics are well-chosen, and Ulrike seems to be very knowledgeable - she often brings up small details which typically are not in the manual, and she seems to notice small oddities and check them up immediately. Very good!

The pacing of the session was good, although somewhat uneven. For example, selecting and loading files meant a significant slowdown. Of course, not much can be done about this directly - loading files takes the time it takes, so time has to be effectively used elsewhere to make up for it...

..which it generally is. However, I feel questions at "getting started"-level were given way too much time. Of course the questions will vary in character, but I feel it's a bit absurd to even answer questions such as "what is the hotkey for 'confirm'", and giving an answer that lasts longer than 10 seconds even more so. If anything, such questions should be adressed at the end of the training session, and only if there is time to spare.

Anyway, it was a good training session, and I'm sure this won't be my last!"

"3Omn taken at the beginning of the session for a useless presentation of TM, AutoSuggest, Certifications, etc - then rushing for the actual training and covering only half of the programme... At the end of the session chapters 7,8,9,10,11, and 12 were not covered. I can admit that one or 2 points are not fully covered in a training, but there was obviously a serious planning pb in this presentation. Fortunately, the manual and the exercices are very well done, I should be able to catch up on my own, but I was expecting a lot more from the Webinar."

"I had no audio connection during 40 Minutes! It was suddenly interrupted and connected again after 40 Minutes.
I disaprove the publicity made for the certification during the session."

"I never did get answers to the questions the instructor said she would check into, and the last answer I did get was kind of facetious (i.e., Is it possible to do so and so? Yes (without telling me how)). Still, it was useful."

"I found the advice that I needed a USB headset confusing. In the end I wasted time hunting around the local villlages in my rural area for a USB headset and money on a long international phone call, when all I actually needed was to listen through my pc loudspeakers and then to type in my questions to Ulrike. Please would you make it clear to others that the headset is not really required.
Otherwise I was very happy with the training and especially Ulrike's attention to the questions.
many thanks"

"The training exceeded my expectations; the trainer was very knowledgeable and answered all the questions I had. I felt much more comfortable in the usage of the Software (as a new user) and now understand concepts that were not too clear for me.

The way in which the course was delivered was smooth and comprehensive; I am looking forward for the consecutive courses presented by ProZ.

Thank you
Deborah Cordeiro"

"I couldn't contact the trainer when phoning in. There was no way I could contact her electronically either.
The actual training quality was good but sometimes she proceeded to quickly for me follow the steps taken.
So it all boiled down to me using my headset for this which failed (because of a deficiency of the headset)."

"When buying the course I got the impression that we would be doing the sample files online, and not just listening to a lecture. This could have been explained more clearly in the ad for the course. The audio info suggested using headset or microphone and speakers, which made me believe that there would be more of direct communication.

I feel that the lecture did not give much extra, you could just as well go through the study material (which was very good) yourself.

I would have prefered two 5 min breaks instead of one 10 min break."

"I applaud the reasoning behind providing an online course like this - but I think there is more that can be done to make it effective.

The media used was Citrix's GoToMeeting programme which provided the capacity for attendees to participate using a microphone and audio speakers or headphones, and the facility of inputting questions using the keyboard. However in the event we did not use our microphones, and it was very difficult meaningfully to participate.

The Webinar leader gave us a Powerpoint presentation and then went through the various topics that were listed to be covered – and I felt it was "learning by rote" for me: there was no interaction. I had great difficulty concentrating and remaining awake.

There was no audio interaction: I was hoping there would be exchanges with participants using the microphone facility. All that happened was that we were encouraged to input questions by text (it took me half the session to work out how to do that - but that was more my stupidity than anything else).

The overall effect was that I felt that I was not participating and that I was watching a TV programme. Yes, there were interesting topics that were covered, but I got no sense of how the rest of the participants were responding - and I am sure the technology is there for us to create more of a "conference"-type event. I would have like to have seen an image on-screen of the presenter making her presentation.

I applaud the presenter for her ability in doing the event in a language not her mother-tongue (as an Englishman I am continually ashamed of the English inability to learn, communicate in or use even one or two foreign languages). I think she would have felt more at ease if there had been a way to get more instant on-going reaction from her "audience" - but it looks as if we have not worked how to do that yet.

I did not feel - I am sorry to say - that I got value for money out of my ninety-nine dollars.

Concerning the content (Trados and Studio), I felt myself overwhelmed by Studio. As a FL translator I have been more than happy using WorkBench and TagEditor as needed: I am finding it very difficult to handle all the bells and whistles associated with Studio. I am also unclear where my clients stand if I start sending them TMs and unclean docs other than in the mode and format they have been used to.

Clearly SDL Trados is spending a lot to promote this Studio concept and programmes (the training and Webinars are to be applauded) but as a freelancer I feel I am being pushed to the wall. I suppose this is inevitable in these times where capitalism and profit and productivity are still the linchpins in our society. But I do wish we were a gentler society sometimes.

As someone who has spent much of his career organising and leading participative conferences I would be happy to discuss this with any of the principals involved in this exercise. I do mean my comments to be helpful; maybe I have not expressed myself very clearly."

"The teacher had a very slow computer, wich delayed presenting the examples. Creating of the Autosuggest dic did nefver finish and was stopped after some 10 minutes. She said it was a "virtual machine". Some of the questions remained unanswered."

"The trainer did a fantastic job. Well paced. Answered all questions. Demonstrated detailed knowledge of the software, especially when difficult questions were raised. Worth the investment, even for experienced users."

"A big "Thank you" to Ulrike for taking time for questions efter after the training and very good explanations!"

"Ulrike explains very well and clearly. I would especially thank her for not strictly sticking to the scheduled time in order to finish up the subject properly. Very participant-friendly! Thanks a lot!"

"Excellent trainer, very clear and to the point, very knowlegeable, able to answer all the questions.Very useful session. Thank you!!"

"Very clear. Having spent so much time with the manuals, I had a clear idea of most of what was happening but it was very useful to be able to see the program in action."

"I expected something more than a Webinar, yes longer than the free ones from SDL, but a Webinar nevertheless. I found that the time was to short to examine all the subjects, so some of them did go to quickly. Right now, I'm not feeling very confindent about Studio 2009..."

"Ulrike did a very good job to get through the material in the time. She was also very good at answering everyone's questions. The session has encouraged me to implement Studio 2009 and get started with it. I would definitely attend another of these online sessions to improve my knowledge and achieve certification."

"held in a very clear manner. hope to be able to make most of it"

"I was at first worried that the session was not in Japanese since I am a Japanese, but the lecture and explanation were real clear and easy to understand, so I really enjoyed it and learned much. I want to take the advanced courses after I settled and put in order the knowledge of this session."

"The session has been overall good. The trainer made a brilliant exposition anticipating probable questions in addition to those asked."

"As it was an online course, the question about the training premises does not apply."

"Poor sound quality at the beginning because the trainer had two computers picking up her voice, causing an echo. Sound was fine once this had been sorted out."

"I wish the pre-training materials were optionally available for download at the ftp server in a single RAR, ZIP, EXE file however large this file may become."

"Some problems with the sound at the beginning of the session.
Too much time spent on presentation, upgrading memories...
Would have prefered spend more time on translating, using the software."

"The trainer helped me to understand a bit more about Trados and gave step by step instructions on how to get started. She went through everything slowly and clearly and that was very good and helpful! Thank you! Is there any way of getting in touch with this trainer just in case I need any help?"