Haydée Menna

Question and Answer

• What is your name?
  • Haydée Menna
• Where do you live?
  • Buenos Aires, Argentina
• What made you decide to become a translator or interpreter?
  • I decided to become a translator because I like studying languages and wanted to communicate throughout the world.
• List one strength that you think sets you apart from your colleagues.
  • Adaptability to clients
• Name the one thing that you most enjoy in your translating or interpreting career.
  • Apart from communicating around the world, I enjoy the simple act of writing and speaking.
• We all have worked on those not-so-perfect assignments. Write about one such assignment that was not ideal and what you learned from it.
  • I once had to transcribe a video which I was not so comfortable with, but it was useful because the subject was very interesting and I had to adapt myself to that situation.
    Sometimes we have to translate on subjects we do not like so much, and we have to be prepared. It is part of your education.
• If you could go back in time to when you were just starting out as a translator or interpreter, what advice would you give to your younger self?
  • I would tell myself to study Marketing and Business from the very beginning, so as to be able to have useful strategies to promote my services.
• Name one resource – such as a phone app, CAT tool, website, and so forth – that you find especially helpful in your translating or interpreting work.
  • I use the Internet in general to do research and networks like Linkedin and Twitter.
• What's the best book you've read this year?
  • In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote (I am still reading it).

The 1st Edition, 1st printing of the 1965 Book Club Edition of Truman Capote's masterpiece. An account of a 'true crime'. In 1959 four members of the Clutter family were murdered in Holcomb, Kansas; In April of 1965 two men were hanged for the crime. This book was published the same year as the death of the accused.

Abdullahonibon Nosiru Olajide (PhD)

Question and Answer

• What is your name?
  • Onibon nosiru olajide (PhD)
• Where do you live?
  • Lagos - Nigeria
• What made you decide to become a translator or interpreter?
  • Proficiency in both Arabic and English languages
• List one strength that you think sets you apart from your colleagues.
  • Expertise in economic terminologies
• Name the one thing that you most enjoy in your translating or interpreting career.
  • New coinages
• We all have worked on those not-so-perfect assignments. Write about one such assignment that was not ideal and what you learned from it.
  • Interpreting anger and emotions as the author would wish and learn to be trustworthy to the source.
• If you could go back in time to when you were just starting out as a translator or interpreter, what advice would you give to your younger self?
  • Need to read wide and be patient during translation and interpretation
• Name one resource – such as a phone app, CAT tool, website, and so forth – that you find especially helpful in your translating or interpreting work.
  • Phone dictionary application
• What's the best book you've read this year?
  • Thinking arabic translation

Julie Sullivan

Question and Answer

• What is your name?
  • Julie Sullivan
• Where do you live?
  • Paris
• What made you decide to become a translator or interpreter?
  • I have spoken and read French most of my life, lived 20+ years in France, & learned German when I moved there in 1984.
    I decided to go back to school to get a translation degree because I wanted to be paid instead of just doing translations for free! It's also a job I can do in any time zone from anywhere
• List one strength that you think sets you apart from your colleagues.
  • I'm a professional copy editor, writer & proofreader & have always read unusually widely, which helps a lot in translation
• Name the one thing that you most enjoy in your translating or interpreting career.
  • learning new things
• We all have worked on those not-so-perfect assignments. Write about one such assignment that was not ideal and what you learned from it.
  • I do not enjoy technical (or legal) translation and do not want to do it professionally, but in my translation school there was so much of it that I learned a great deal about how to find the right term. It's challenging but rewarding to know you've done a good job.
• If you could go back in time to when you were just starting out as a translator or interpreter, what advice would you give to your younger self?
  • Start younger! Get recommendations from everyone you work with. And get your professional photo taken ASAP–you're not getting any younger!
• Name one resource – such as a phone app, CAT tool, website, and so forth – that you find especially helpful in your translating or interpreting work.
  • Wordfast–I have a Mac. In Chinese (which I don't translate from officially, but use every day) the Pleco app is absolutely awesome.
• What's the best book you've read this year?
  • Les rois maudits

Helen Scholdstrom

Question and Answer

• What is your name?
  • Helen Scholdstrom
• Where do you live?
  • Sweden
• What made you decide to become a translator or interpreter?
  • I have always liked languages
• List one strength that you think sets you apart from your colleagues.
  • In the old days (the early nineties in my case), I was very much into computers
• Name the one thing that you most enjoy in your translating or interpreting career.
  • Independence
• We all have worked on those not-so-perfect assignments. Write about one such assignment that was not ideal and what you learned from it.
  • It used to be difficult to get answers to queries, I remember one job about a canning machine and in Swedish it makes a  difference what sort of can it is (drinks can, can of food etc) and the agency would not/could not give me an answer. What I learnt from it? Trying to find my own answers, which is a lot easier these days with the Internet. Back then you were pretty stuck...
• If you could go back in time to when you were just starting out as a translator or interpreter, what advice would you give to your younger self?
  • Believe in yourself and your abilities
• Name one resource – such as a phone app, CAT tool, website, and so forth – that you find especially helpful in your translating or interpreting work.
  • There are so many CAT tools etc., but the enormous amount of information on the Internet is always useful for checking terms, style etc.
• What's the best book you've read this year?
  • After the Ice. A Global Human History 20,000-5000 BC by Steven Mithen

20,000 B.C., the peak of the last ice age--the atmosphere is heavy with dust, deserts, and glaciers span vast regions, and people, if they survive at all, exist in small, mobile groups, facing the threat of extinction.

But these people live on the brink of seismic change--10,000 years of climate shifts culminating in abrupt global warming that will usher in a fundamentally changed human world. After the Ice is the story of this momentous period--one in which a seemingly minor alteration in temperature could presage anything from the spread of lush woodland to the coming of apocalyptic floods--and one in which we find the origins of civilization itself.

Drawing on the latest research in archaeology, human genetics, and environmental science, After the Ice takes the reader on a sweeping tour of 15,000 years of human history. Steven Mithen brings this world to life through the eyes of an imaginary modern traveler--John Lubbock, namesake of the great Victorian polymath and author of Prehistoric Times. With Lubbock, readers visit and observe communities and landscapes, experiencing prehistoric life--from aboriginal hunting parties in Tasmania, to the corralling of wild sheep in the central Sahara, to the efforts of the Guila Naquitz people in Oaxaca to combat drought with agricultural innovations.

Part history, part science, part time travel, After the Ice offers an evocative and uniquely compelling portrayal of diverse cultures, lives, and landscapes that laid the foundations of the modern world.