Your professional translator

Experience

Prior to 1998

Executive Assistant in international companies:

• Translation of calls for tender and quotations
• Processing of export transactions
• Translation and linguistic assistance for in-house counsel
• International correspondence

As of 1998

Self-employed translator

Prices

FAQs

Questions that I am often asked:

Do you also translate into your foreign languages?

A clear “it depends.”

Occasionally, I do translate texts into my foreign languages that are of highly technical nature and for which nice-sounding formulations as used in marketing are of lesser importance than the correctness of the translation (legal texts, annual reports) – under such circumstances, it may even be an advantage to rely on the specialist knowledge regarding the source text. These texts are proof-read - or double-checked - by a native speaker, whenever possible.

I translate texts which are expected to be nice to read for the target audience and which deal with the cultural customs and particularities of the target country solely into German. I will be happy to recommend qualified colleagues who are native speakers of other target languages and who will be glad to help you.

One constantly reads about machine translations. What is your opinion on this subject?

Machine translations are helpful tools when one quickly needs to understand at least what a foreign language text is about. You should, however, under no circumstances regard machine translations as being a replacement for translations done by a professionally qualified translator because:

• In order to translate a text online, it must be sent over the internet to an external computer (server). No one knows where this computer is located and what is done with the texts or who else might have access to them. Confidentiality does not exist here. From where do you think online-tools get their texts for comparison?
• A computer can only reproduce something that has already been translated. It cannot judge the quality of the translation; it can only find matches in similar texts. Nothing protects you from repeating a bad translation mistake made earlier.
• Nuances in a language, creative differences - a computer can’t handle any of these things. The obvious mistakes, which are immediately recognizable, are not particularly “dangerous,” but rather the minor discrepancies which only the specialists can recognize, because these are not immediately evident but under some circumstances have far-reaching consequences (You are liable for your texts!).
• If I notice a mistake in the source text or I find that a sentence seems very vague or incomprehensible, I will inform you of this and ask you what exactly you had wanted to express. When appropriate, I will also point out that in my opinion a legal or technical review by experts might be advisable. A machine will not do this.

Show your customers and business partners your respect and appreciation also by providing them with an accurately translated text, which they can understand easily and through which you transmit your corporate message to your customers.

Note: I also work with “translation software,” so-called CAT-tools (“Computer Aided Translation”). These are complex systems based on relational databases, with which I can access previous customer-specific translations. Your advantage:

• I am quicker because I can immediately see changes to already existing texts and insert these.
• I am better because I have constant access to company-specific terminology which has already been approved.
• I enhance my quality because the software facilitates the use of consistent terminology.
• If needed, I can develop a company-specific glossary that you can implement as a source for standard terminology within the entire corporation.
• Furthermore, CAT tools enable the alignment of older, already approved texts so that the internal company terminology and phrases are available from the start.