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Poll: Who was your first client?
Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
John Cutler
John Cutler  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 06:50
Spanish to English
+ ...
Other Apr 11, 2007

I chose “other”. My first translation job came through a temporary job agency. I was working for them substituting as an English teacher for a few months in a local school. I didn’t have the slightest intention of doing any translation work but I think the people at the agency got the idea that I could translate because they heard me speaking fluent Spanish and, more importantly in this part of Spain, fluent Catalan. When my teaching contract finished, they asked me if I could do translati... See more
I chose “other”. My first translation job came through a temporary job agency. I was working for them substituting as an English teacher for a few months in a local school. I didn’t have the slightest intention of doing any translation work but I think the people at the agency got the idea that I could translate because they heard me speaking fluent Spanish and, more importantly in this part of Spain, fluent Catalan. When my teaching contract finished, they asked me if I could do translations. I’m a firm believer that opportunity knocks many more times than just once in life, so I said, “Sure, why not?”
I’ll be the first to admit now that my style was less than polished in the beginning, but I was lucky to work with people who demanded high quality work and so quickly learned how to improve my translating skills.
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Stephanie Mitchel
Stephanie Mitchel  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 01:50
French to English
A library! Apr 11, 2007

The French Library in Boston gave me my first job out of school, which was a monstrous manual for kiln dryers - nothing I had any knowledge of or would ever agree to do today - but I would have taken on anything at the time. It took me most of the summer to do it, from a hard copy, on my little laptop, and I spent many a lunch hour pawing through the old dictionaries in the library at Harvard University (where I was working). I don't know what the end client made of my translation, but I hope it... See more
The French Library in Boston gave me my first job out of school, which was a monstrous manual for kiln dryers - nothing I had any knowledge of or would ever agree to do today - but I would have taken on anything at the time. It took me most of the summer to do it, from a hard copy, on my little laptop, and I spent many a lunch hour pawing through the old dictionaries in the library at Harvard University (where I was working). I don't know what the end client made of my translation, but I hope it helped them...Collapse


 
Christine Andersen
Christine Andersen  Identity Verified
Denmark
Local time: 06:50
Member (2003)
Danish to English
+ ...
My brother-in-law Apr 11, 2007

My brother in law, who was an archaeologist and specialised in Dendrochronology. (Tree-ring dating, bog oak and time-sequences, far more exciting than it sounds!)

Mercifully he later found a colleague and other translators who could take over as the job got more demanding and out of my range, but he set me off on 'real' translation, working with technical texts and genres which I had rather forgotten, though I had learnt some basic principles at school and college.

I t
... See more
My brother in law, who was an archaeologist and specialised in Dendrochronology. (Tree-ring dating, bog oak and time-sequences, far more exciting than it sounds!)

Mercifully he later found a colleague and other translators who could take over as the job got more demanding and out of my range, but he set me off on 'real' translation, working with technical texts and genres which I had rather forgotten, though I had learnt some basic principles at school and college.

I translated recipes and children's books for the family and especially my son.

Then one of my parents' friends asked me to translate a book written by a Danish colleague about their work in Bombay. I was able to use part of it as a sample when I applied for a job with the agency where I worked in-house, and that agency is still my biggest client. I think it was the agency's own test that made the big difference, but the book convinced my coming colleagues and mentors that I could do the necessary research and was really interested.

Sadly, my brother in law passed away last year. But my other early source of inspiration, my father, is still very much with us
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Poll: Who was your first client?






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