Trabalu

Nathalie is French and works in Spain as a freelance translator. She translates from English and Spanish into French. She also does liaison and whispering interpreting. Nathalie likes both activities and they can be combined. In this interview she tells us how she passed from having three jobs at the same time to becoming a full-time freelance translator. She is not a specialised translator. “I prefer to cover a wide range of topics, because if you specialise you can restrict yourself to an increasingly narrow range of translations”, Nathalie explains.

Ainoha is an in-house translator and also a teacher at university. She started on a work-experience placement scheme run by the Madrid Regional Government and she has continued working there up until now. Ainoha tells us that she has progressed through different stages: “At the beginning, I cleaned up translation memories, which entailed weeding out terminology and correcting it. Then I was entrusted with producing and cleaning up glossaries, and after that I started to work mainly as a translator of manuals and handbooks. Later on I became a proof-reader, checking the translations of freelance translators and, finally, I began working in localisation, which involves adapting computer programmes, in my case mainly Microsoft programmes, for the Spanish market”.

Elena. She is a freelance translator from English and French into Spanish. After working at a translation agency, Elena left her job and travelled to South Africa for two years to become a freelance translator. At the moment, she is doing well with her clients and financially she can support herself without another job. However, she has not yet built up the client portfolio that she would like. She explains: “I am not referring to the quantity of clients, but good clients offering good rates and the translations that I like in order to specialise more in my favourite field”.

Irène. She is a French freelance subtitling translator from Spanish into French. She came to Spain to work for two months and, after this, her idea was to continue living in Toulouse, because Irène thought that this job would allow her to work from a distance. But later she realised that the laboratories like to know you and so she became a freelance translator in Spain. At the same time, she is a French lecturer at university. In this interview she talks about the particular characteristics of audiovisual translation, such as how to translate a film, how many hours are needed, how many people are required, the restrictions of the job, among other interesting questions.

José. He started to work as a literary translator in 1990 when he was granted early retirement at the company where he worked. That year José registered as a freelance translator. The books which he has translated (most of them essays) cover different topics: literature, politics, company management, sociology, psychopedagogy, economics, Oriental philosophy, painting, mental health, finance, medicine, sexology, anthropology, martial arts, spirituality, chiromancy, etc. He explains the characteristics of this field, such as the process of translating a book or how to charge, among other aspects.

Lashem. He has studied translation and interpreting at the University of Algeria, the country where he was born. Lashem is a translator and interpreter and also an Arabic lecturer at university, among other occupations. With regard to translation, he usually translates into the Arabic language at his own translation agency. He explains the differences that he finds between studying in Spain and in his country. He also talks about how he manages all his different jobs and combines them with his social and family life.

Mariano. He is bilingual from birth, with an American mother and Spanish father, so the language issue has not been a problem. As a graduate student in physics, he often found himself proof-reading and occasionally translating research articles for publication in international journals. After leaving university, Mariano decided to pursue this as a career. He translates technical and scientific documents. In this case he finds a technical and scientific background to be more relevant than a translation background, as the challenge lies more in understanding the subject than in translating it.

Andrew, Beatriz and Silvia. They are three translators who share an office. All of them work independently with their language pair and within their field. They do not compete with one another but us work at the same office. In their opinion this is a more enriching experience than being alone at home. They share materials, get to know different resources, ask about doubts, not only regarding translation but queries in other fields, such as computer doubts, etc. All three offer very different and interesting opinions due to their different positions: Andrew is an English translator who founded the company, Beatriz is a Spanish translator with many years’ experience and Silvia is in her first few months at work after studying a degree and a Master’s course.