My name is Carole and I’m from South-East France. I’ve just spent four weeks with The Translation People and it’s time to look back on my work placement.

This work placement forms part of my degree in Foreign Applied Languages with English and Spanish. I’ve always wanted to keep up both my languages and I love travelling. I spent the third and final year of my degree at the Translation and Interpreting College in Granada, Spain, where I learnt a lot about translation and I decided to set my sights on a career in legal translation. However, my English language skills had dropped so I decided to look for a company in an English-speaking country where I could do my work placement.

I got a very warm welcome at The Translation People’s Birmingham office where the atmosphere is professional but relaxed. In particular, I would like to thank my tutor Jasmin Schneider, Operations Manager, for her commitment, her care and for integrating me into the team. I now know how a translation agency works and how they deal with clients and translators. Since I wish to one day become a freelance translator, I truly believe that all I’ve learnt of the process, in particular what agencies are looking for, will fare me well. I also enjoyed the fact that the team listened to me, answered my questions and advised me on my future.

In addition, I was given the chance to work with TRADOS, the very complex but indispensable translation memory software. This will certainly be useful in my future career.

My day to day tasks involved helping the Account Managers with proofreading and formatting of translations, as well as translating content for the French website. It made me realise my love of translation, because I love languages and I love helping people. To be honest, I was a little worried that translating all day may have been boring, but I am pleased to say that this work placement has only confirmed my ambition to work as a translator.

It was a lively and varied experience, which has reawakened my interest in the English language, and enabled me to improve my language skills, as well as having the opportunity to visit the surrounding area. It was a delight to spend four weeks at The Translation People’s Birmingham office and I think it has been the ideal placement for a student from a professional and personal development point of view.

As part of our expansion program, The Translation People is pleased to announce the appointment of Howard Sinclair, who will form part of the company’s Business Development team. Howard has over 25 years’ experience in business-to-business sales and will focus on consolidating our presence in the pharmaceutical translation market.

After working as a Sales Rep for Bristol Myers Squibb and working in sales and marketing for an IT firm, Howard set up his own successful business supplying documentation solutions to a number of diverse businesses, including many in the pharmaceutical industry. In this line of work, Howard was often required to work on multilanguage projects, and saw first-hand the difficulty involved in finding a reliable supplier of these services. Howard is local to the area, is a keen Manchester United fan and plays regular football and tennis, as well as enjoying sailing and ski-ing.

Howard says: “In my previous line of work, I came across many companies with translation requirements and I became acutely aware of the difficulties some companies face when outsourcing their documentation. I am confident that The Translation People have the expertise to meet the requirements of these companies and they also have an ambitious growth plan that matches my own aspirations.”

The Translation People are pleased to welcome Denise Sauer to the team. Denise recently started work in the Birmingham office as Account Manager. She completed her undergraduate studies in Würzburg, Germany, at the Würzburger Dolmetscherschule (school for translators and interpreters). She specialised in economics, with English being her first and Spanish her second foreign language. In 2008, after graduating as a certified translator and interpreter (German and English), she went to Birmingham to start an MA course at Aston University. During her course, MA in Translation in a European Context, Denise studied amongst others theoretical concepts of translation. The study of theoretical aspects aroused her interest in how translations can affect societies, which is also reflected in her MA dissertation, in which she analyses and describes the first English translation of Grimms’ fairy tales and its effects on English children’s literature in nineteenth century England.

After her studies, Denise worked as an in-house translator in Lichfield/Staffordshire. During this time, she also introduced memoQ to make translation processes in the company she worked for more efficient. In her new role as Account Manager, she particularly looks forward to working with different people from all sorts of cultures and to meeting customers’ translation needs. In her spare time, Denise likes to meet friends, travel (particularly city trips), and riding horses, a hobby which she hopes she can take up again in Birmingham in the near future.

Anna Trocmé Latter recently spent a week with The Translation People’s Birmingham office. Here she recounts her motivations for applying for work experience and explains how she got on.

I graduated from the University of Warwick with a degree in French and Italian Studies in 2009 and moved straight on to the University of Westminster to begin a MA in Technical and Specialised Translation. The course is intense but enjoyable and I have learnt a great deal – especially about English grammar! As part of my course I chose to take a ‘Field Study’ module, which involves undertaking a work experience placement with a translation company for a week or more and submitting a record and diary on my experience.

After sending what felt like hundreds of e-mails, I was lucky enough to be offered a placement at The Translation People’s Birmingham office in April. My week has been varied, interesting and good fun. As well as translating a couple of archived texts for practice, I have had a brief introduction to Trados (though still have much to learn!), proofread several texts, written some marketing material and much more. I have also learnt a great deal about how a translation company works and found out what project management is all about.

My hosts have been wonderful, making a real effort to involve me in their work and provide me with a variety of tasks. I have thoroughly enjoyed my all-too-short week with The Translation People and, although I’m still not sure exactly which career path to take, it has definitely made project management a strong contender!

The Translation People are pleased to welcome Karen Hall as the newest member of the Glasgow Team. Karen came to Glasgow in 1999 to study Spanish and Portuguese and graduated in Hispanic Studies in 2004. After spending time travelling around Europe and working in a number of different industries the pull of languages was too strong and Karen moved to Leeds to begin an MA in Applied Translation Studies. The course was vocational, involving the study of many areas of translation including machine translation, subtitling for film and TV, linguistics and methodologies of translation. It was here that Karen was first introduced to the world of localisation project management and gained valuable experience of the wide array of computer-assisted translation tools used in the profession today to ensure translation quality and improve time-to-market.

On completing her studies Karen moved to Maidenhead where she worked as a Project Co-ordinator for SDL. Her main role was to manage translation projects for a variety of different clients from online gaming creators to electrical engineering companies. Here Karen experienced firsthand just how many factors are involved in producing a quality translation to meet her client’s needs. She developed her knowledge of translation technology and its many benefits to the translation industry along with her project management skills.

Before joining The Translation People Karen was Interpreting Co-ordinator for Scottish Refugee Council where she managed the Interpreting service for the charity, gaining valuable insight into exactly what is involved in providing an effective interpreting service. As part of this role she was also involved in a number of Scottish Government and NHS groups tasked with creating a framework for translation/interpreting service provision in order to ensure quality and consistency across Scotland.

Karen brings both her interpreting and translation experience to her role as an Account Manager with The Translation People. She is already enjoying working with and getting to know our extensive network of translators and clients. When she is not working Karen loves nothing more than to curl up with a good book, see a film or visit new places. She has recently become a Volunteer Mentor on a Refugee mentoring project in Glasgow where she hopes to put her English teaching skills to good use as well as perhaps picking up a new language herself!

The dawn of a new decade brings exciting times for The Translation People! Given The Translation People’s success in the French Market, January saw the appointment of a new representative in France. The Translation People are delighted to welcome Karen Mariet, former deputy director for Translantic Communications (a Paris-based translation agency) to the steadily expanding team. Karen will be based in western Paris, where The Translation People are currently in the process of setting up a French company. Karen, who is American by birth, has been living in Paris for thirty years – she speaks fluent French (in addition to reading German and Spanish) and will be the main contact for French clients.

After obtaining a Master’s degree from Middlebury College and the Paris Institute for Political Science, Karen attended Georgetown University where she earned a degree in translation. Karen began her linguistic career as a lexicographer for Les Editions Larousse, working as the American consultant for the Larousse Unabridged French-English / English-French Dictionary before firstly setting up as a freelance translator and then as a member of the Translantic team. Fascinated with language, Karen spends much of her free time reading, practising yoga and travelling.

The Translation People are pleased to welcome Denise Sauer to the Birmingham team. Denise completed her undergraduate studies in Würzburg, Germany, at the Würzburger Dolmetscherschule (school for translators and interpreters). She specialised in economics, with English being her first and Spanish her second foreign language. In 2008, after graduating as a certified translator and interpreter (German and English), she moved to Birmingham to start an MA course at Aston University. During her course, MA in Translation in a European Context, Denise studied theoretical concepts of translation amongst other subjects. The study of theoretical aspects aroused her interest in how translations can affect societies, which is also reflected in her MA dissertation, in which she analyses and describes the first English translation of Grimms’ fairy tales and its effects on English children’s literature in nineteenth century England.

After her studies, Denise worked as an in-house translator in Lichfield/Staffordshire. During this time, she  introduced memoQ to make translation processes in the company she worked for more efficient. In her new role as Account Manager, she is looking forward to working with different people from all sorts of cultures and to meeting customers’ translation needs. In her spare time, Denise likes to travel (particularly city trips) and horse riding, a hobby which she hopes she can take up again in Birmingham in the near future.