Translator

Hello everybody!!! I present myself as Elena, a 45 years old book translator. During my whole career, I have translated eleven English books to French. I presently live in Quebec city which I highly appreciate to live there and where I was born. The reason why I am a book translator is real simple. First of all, my mother tongue is French. I know how to write and speak English because I went to an English college. So, I have always loved Quebec and the French language. This led me to have a huge desire to keep the French language in Quebec. By helping it to stay this way, I decided to become a French book translator, so people could read in French. In addition, I had extremely good grades in french so it made it easier for me to enter in this job field.

Before I became a real book translator, I went to school, college and eventually university. I am proud to say I went to Laval University. With this, I gained my Bachelor degree in language and my Master degree which took me a period of about five years to accomplish this. Also, through time, I managed to acquire different skills, including skills in language, understanding, working and wording skills. All of these skills are needed as a book translator because they will help you through out your career. In addition, I only recommend this job to the ones who are word smart since you must be this. If you are not word smart, you could possibly encounter difficulties.

To tell you guys how a day as a book translator is, I will tell you my day. First of all, I woke up at 10:00, an advantage since you mostly work at home. I had a meeting with my publisher at 12:00 which he would present me with a new project I would work with. Finally, after our meeting, I went back home and comfortably installed myself on my sofa with a cup of coffee, took the book I had to translate and started reading it. In awhile, I would take pauses and distract myself by doing something else to give my brain a break. Then I would get back to my reading. I read until it was 7:00 p.m., and I was already near the end of the book. Normally, it takes me about 1 to 3 days to read a book depending its size. Since I have not done reading the book, tomorrow I will continue, which it is sure I will be done. As well, tomorrow I will be starting to translate it. If you are wondering why I read the book first and not just translate it right away, it is because I have to know how the author wrote, the mood and all this kind of stuff. It is really important to be in the story, literally.

So now you guys know how it is to be a book translator. You might think it is a non-stressing job but there are many obstacles that make it the opposite, for instance the date limit to finish your project you are working on. I hope you have enjoyed and discovered more about his job. Thank you and see you next time!