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…
SEO optimization and text quality can be in conflict. For example, people often search for keywords such as “conference translator” or “simultaneous translator”, although somebody who works with languages in a booth is correctly called either a “simultaneous interpreter” or a “conference interpreter” – oral translation is normally described as…
We used to have a price list for translations, proofreading and interpreting on our homepage, but we took it down because the prices are too individual. What does a translation cost? That depends on the text, the topic, the format, the urgency and the scope. A complex urgent translation of…
2018: the first year when I fully abandoned academic work in favour of translation and interpreting, and I didn’t regret it for a minute. Translations (science, advertising, technical texts, literature): I got the chance to translate several poems and songs: into German and English from Russian, as well as into…
The thing about translating photography & art catalogues is that you really need to know the lingo; there is great deal of variation between different kinds of art texts: thick and serious museum catalogues can sound differently from playful exhibition prospects, so you need more than terminology – apart from…
I just got a very cute order from a translation office (I won’t say which): “Herewith we order: § Absolutely flawless translation German-Russian”. If this phrase were part of every order, flawless quality would be guaranteed, right? :) Some possible alternatives include “ideal translation”, “perfect translation”, “impeccable translation”, “excellent translation”,…
Once again, I was asked if I was a native speaker of English – and this is always a complicated discussion for me. I come from academic translation studies, where everybody loves saying how outdated the concept of native language is: one’s most active and versatile language is not always…
In “Less”, a brilliant novel (alas, already translated into German; I would have loved to do the job), an American author unexpectedly receiving an Italian award: “Less begins to imagine […] that he has been mistranslated. Or, what is the word? Supertranslated? His novel given to an unacknowledged genius of…
I won a translation award for Viktor Shklovsky: Reader! First things first: why would a native speaker of Russian (or Russian and German) translate into English? The bit in brackets is a whole other discussion: if only Russian or both Russian and German should count as my native languages if…
