Translating a script or a screenplay, especially a radio play, is a unique experience. Last week, I was translating a short audio drama from German into English. The most difficult things to translate turned out to be the pauses and gaps. I tried to leave as much open as possible…
A good interpreter must also be honest. The same applies to translators. Say I get the assignment to translate an article from German and find that a finished translation is already available online – I’d always inform the client. Thus, I should also be honest about the function of this…
It has been a great year for literary translation so far, but I miss a bit of interpreting – especially simultaneous interpreting. To be honest, partly because my husband and I like to use assignments as interpreters at international trade fairs and other events to visit friends (which also saves…
Poetry translation remains my favourite! This weekend, I translated a poem and a song: a chanson by Georgette Dee, whom I greatly appreciate. Now the American performance of the song will have subtitles in my translation, with rhyme and rhythm. Especially for singer-songwriters, a sensitive translation of the lyrics can…
„Wherefore art? Aesthetics after Darwin” by Winfried Menninghaus has finally been published in my English translation by Academic Studies Press – an evolutionary theory of the arts (painting, music, poetry, literature). The author, being a scholar, writes a serious academic German; we decided that the translation could be more reader-friendly…
Summer is often a quiet time for translators and interpreters, but this one brings exciting assignments and requests: for Pavel – translations from his field (technical, law, start-ups), for me – translations that fit my specialization (academic, mainly Jewish studies and sociology). This time, I was commissioned to translate an…
The year is still young, and already, I’ve been lucky twice! I published a literary translation into Russian for the first time (I translate more into English and German), and it was shortlisted for a translation award named after one of the best translators from the English: Nora Gal. The…
I thought literary translation was my absolute favourite. But turns out there’s something I enjoy even more: translating drama & screenplays. The other day I translated a radio play from German into English, and it was a lot of fun. I’d love to try a film script, too. In a…
Yay, we finally have 20 Google ratings! Customer recommendations are a good way to assess translation quality, and for us, the evaluations of our work as translators and interpreters are our favourite reading matter, as 20 out of 20 have awarded us 5 stars. Let me go through the references…
A rather typical week in the life of an interpreter / translator: On Monday, I translated a chapter of a novel from Russian into German; On Tuesday, I translated an advertising text from German into English; On Wednesday, I was an interpreter at a technical schooling (Russian-German); On Thursday, I…
