I remember the very first time I felt drawn to the dark art of translation. When I was thirteen years old, a schoolfriend showed me a script of a French play. A spectacularly dull play, if memory serves, but with one saving grace: the original French was on the left-hand page and an English translation […]
Having English as your native language is something of a mixed blessing. There’s no doubt that speaking the world’s lingua franca from birth is a great advantage. But at the same time, watching as your richly complex mother tongue descends into a kind of makeshift Esperanto is a little like having your vintage Aston Martin […]
I’ve never had much luck with websites. Back in the days when fax machines ruled the Earth, I set up my stall as a freelance translator. Having spent the best part of three years working as a project manager in the English department of a translation agency here in Cologne, I’d had my fill of […]
