In the news

As many readers will be aware, I recently had the honour of being featured in an article on working as a specialist translator that ran on the front page of the Los Angeles Times. You can read the article in full here .

The story of how this article came about starts a little over two years ago when I attended my second ATA Conference in San Francisco. Whenever other translators ask me what I specialise in, I explain that I work in the environmental field with a strong emphasis on recycling and waste management. The next question is typically whether there is enough work to making a living with this speciality (yes!). After networking for a few days in San Francisco I was attending one of the evening functions when I was approached by a translator who had obviously heard of my unusual speciality: "I've heard of you before," he said, "you're trash girl." I was a little taken aback, but realised that my speciality was gaining attention and that the memorable "trash girl" moniker might prove to be a good marketing tool.

Fast forward to a little over a year later when I drove six hours to Oklahoma City to attend our annual regional translation and interpreting symposium. The invited guest speaker was ATA's current president, then president-elect, Nick Hartmann. Nick and I ended up talking about my unusual speciality and apparently the "trash girl" story stuck in his mind, too.

A few days after this year's ATA Conference I received an e-mail from Tina Susman, a journalist with the Los Angeles Times. Ms. Susman told me that she had attended the ATA conference and was planning on writing an article focusing on the varied and often unusual specialities of translators, and my name had been given to her by Nick Hartmann. We had a 30-minute phone conversation later that morning and covered areas including how I got started as a translator, how I fell into my area of speciality and how the recession was affecting my business. She also asked me about the potential annual salary, any tough situations that I have been in as a translator or jobs that I now regret having accepted. Of course, a lot of the subjects that we discussed did not make it into the final interview. Ms. Susman also requested that I send her the details of any other translators who I knew with unusual specialities (I recommended that she contact Katrin Rippel who mainly translates for the food and hospitality industries.)

We kept in touch by e-mail over the next few days, and Ms. Susman asked me to provide her with a list of words that I often find myself translating. I did so, emphasising the complex nature of German grammar. A photographer was also supposed to take my photograph for the article, but ultimately the freelancer that the newspaper uses for the Kansas City area was not available in time for the deadline.

The article ran towards the bottom of the front page on 16th November and continued inside. I was happy with the way that it turned out, with the exception of a few inaccuracies. Most regrettably, there was a misunderstanding about my Alma mater: I went to university in Edinburgh, but attended Heriot-Watt University rather than the University of Edinburgh. I was also disheartened to see that the list of words and phrases that I commonly translate did not have the nouns capitalised. Most glaringly, "die Abwrackprämie" was not only missing its umlaut, but also translated merely as "cash for clunkers" rather than the fuller description I gave explaining that these were the equivalent of payments under the German "cash for clunkers" scheme. (Side note: The New York Times has an excellent article on one of the shortcomings of the German scheme compared with the US approach.

The article was subsequently picked up by other media outlets including the LA Times' sister newspaper, the Chicago Tribune. It was also the subject of several blog posts. I have since received more than 20 e-mails and several phone calls as a result of this article, mainly from other translators interested in specialising in the environmental field. A couple of US-based companies have also contacted me asking for more information about my services after reading the report in the Chicago Tribune.

In the past few days, Judy Jenner from Twin Translations has made it two high-profile newspaper stories on translation and interpreting in a month with this article published by the Wall Street Journal's online edition. It is great to see our profession garnering this kind of attention for all the right reasons.