Tim Chilcott

Questioin and Answer

• What is your name?
  • Tim Chilcott
• Where do you live?
  • Brighton, England
• What made you decide to become a translator or interpreter?
  • the early study of French, German and Latin in pre-university days instilled a fascination with translation that has never diminished
• List one strength that you think sets you apart from your colleagues.
  • I have a highly developed appreciation of the rhythms in the English language. I think I can detect a false rhythm in Englsh, especially in poetry, at a hundred paces!
• Name the one thing that you most enjoy in your translating or interpreting career.
  • the feeling that the word or line just translated, sometimes after hours of effort, is the best that could be achieved.
• 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.
  • On the basis of some short poems by the Italian poet Leopardi, I decided to translate the whole of his poetry into English, not realising that some of it was not far above turgid bombast. Moral: read widely in your chosen authors/texts before committing yourself to a large-scale project.
• 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?
  • Learn that the sounds of language are just as important as the sight, i.e. speaking and hearing words are just as important as seeing and reading them.
• 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.
  • Roget's Thesaurus, with all its recent updatings.
• What's the best book you've read this year?
  • Alexandra Harris' historical study of the weather in English art and literature was fascinating