This week’s Translator of the Week blog will be a little different: instead of honouring one of our favourite professional translators, we are going to celebrate the achievements of our fantastic University Challenge winners, some of which are in the office today collecting their prizes!

So well done first of all to our overall winner Christopher Smith, who has been in the office learning the ropes this week. Chris wasn’t able to make full use of the month’s internship offered as a prize, as he has to make preparations for his upcoming move to China, but he has learned a lot about life within a translation company this week. We’ve really enjoyed having him here, and hope he has had a great time. Have fun in China!

We were very impressed with the quality of entries in our contest this year, and our winners were chosen from almost a thousand entries, so they should be very proud of themselves!

Our fabulous winners from each language pair were:

EN>ES – Sonia Arroyuelo, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

CYM>EN – Mair Roberts, University of Oxford

FR>EN – Jennifer Green, Swansea University

IT>EN – Jacqueline Casey, University of Bath

RUS>EN – Thomas Rowley, University of Oxford

EN>IT – Carla D’Amato, Universita degli Studi dell’Aquila, Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia

So well done to these fantastic young translators, this week is your week! We wish you all the best in your future careers!

This week our super Translator is Igor Murawski!!! Igor recently completed a job for us, where an eye for detail was essential. He replied straight away to our query and was also more than happy to come to the office to sign the certifying letter. Thanks for that!

Igor translates from English into Polish, his native tongue. He boasts over 12 years of experience, as well as a love for spaghetti Bolognese and photography.

This is what he wrote about himself:

“Apart from being an interpreter for Polish community and helping them with all sorts of issues (also as a British Red Cross volunteer), I have advised and run marketing and advertising campaigns, been a photojournalist, tourist guide in the Middle East, translated fiction and non fiction books as well as various documents, brochures etc.
I have recently left a hustle and bustle of London, choosing to settle close to a wonderful landscape of Gower. In my spare time I a run a metal detecting/treasure hunting website, magazine and club, trying to solve lost mysteries of the past. I love reading, writing, travelling, photography and film and hope to write a really good book one day as well as sail away in search of some really exotic treasures ”

Well, thanks again for your hard work and we are looking to work with you again in the future Igor!

Markus Hoedl!

Markus is one of our German translators, who is working on an ongoing project with us. We think he deserves our Translator of the Week award for numerous reasons, and that he is a model translator. Markus always replies very quickly to any enquiries, his work is punctual and accurate, and he always lets us know his availability in advance. All these things mean that Markus makes life a lot easier for the project managers who work with him, and he ensures that everything progresses smoothly.

Here’s a little about Markus:

“In a couple of days I’ll be 48 years old. In 2005, after 17 years of service, I quit my job at Siemens due to a reorganization and because I wasn’t satisfied with my job any more. I decided to become a translator since languages have always fascinated me and engineering was already a bit boring. During these 17 years, I was more or less regularly translating and proofreading the manuals of the devices I/we developed there. From 2006-2009, I studied languages for a second time – this time French and Spanish (the 1st time, it was English and French). Since 2006, I’ve also been working freelance. I spent much time in Venezuela (the longest period 6 months) since my fiancée lives there, but in a couple of weeks we are going to live in Spain since she will be studying for a post graduate Masters ...

This week’s translating heroine is our special Alison High!!!

Alison completed a very important project from Russian into English on a very tight deadline and we were surprised by her professional attitude and ability to manage her time! So a round of applause for Alison!

This amazing woman interprets and translates from Russian and French into English. Now based in the French speaking part of Switzerland, she completed a BA in Modern Languages in the UK, before achieving a Postgraduate Diploma in Interpreting and Translation Studies. Since 1991 Alison has been working as a freelance translator for several important organizations, such as the World Meteorological Organization, the World Health Organization and the United Nations Secretariat for the Convention to Combat Desertification.
Some of the fields she specializes in are patents, calls to tender, IT and quality assurance documents, although these are only a few of her specialist areas. She is also fully computer literate and can handle HTML, Javascript and much more.

In her free time, Alison likes spending time outdoors, making dresses and cooking. However, she is also very passionate about digital photography and anything related to IT, ranging from graphics and media to programming and websites.

What else can I say? Thanks again for your professional translations, it’s been a pleasure!!!