An Amazing Year Thanks to Amazing Talent

Analía has been a valued partner for MLC since 2014. She’s a subtitling specialist with ample experience in transcreation and law enforcement transcription as well. We asked Analía about a time she laughed while working on a job and this is what she shared with us: Some time ago I was working on a Law Enforcement interview where the investigator and the interviewee had a pretty hard time understanding each other because the officer thought “niece” meant  “nieta” (granddaughter) in Spanish. It was particularly funny because I had never before noticed the similarity of those words as a potential cause for confusion.

Stephanie is a German<>English linguist who enjoys marketing, medical, and technical translation. Within her arsenal, she also boasts of having translated a pirate video game once– arr! Stephanie filled us in on a translation anecdote that made her LOL: German borrows heavily from English when it comes to marketing and business terms. A while ago, I had a client who insisted I translate every single English word regardless of the implications. They wanted “market” translated as “supermarket” and “traffic” as “intercourse” (the word is ambiguous in German). It took a lot of delicate convincing to tell them that “Achieve your supermarket goal and increase intercourse” is probably not what they wanted to convey to their audience!

Adam is one prolific linguist whose expertise lies in Spanish, German, Portuguese, and French to English translations. He greatly enjoys working on international development and scientific texts. Adam elaborated on a misconception he’s personally experienced regarding his work as a linguist: One misconception has to do with the “direction” that translators work. For example, I translate nearly exclusively into English, which is my native language. People are sometimes surprised that while I can translate from, say, Spanish into English, I only very rarely work the other way around, from English into Spanish. Although I have professional and life experience in Spanish, it’s not enough to write in the language in a professional capacity. On the other hand, many people believe that it’s impossible for a translator to translate into a language other than their native language, which is also untrue– many translators’ second language skills are sufficient to produce top-rate work. I’ve always enjoyed working with translators who are native in the source language, since they can often pick up nuances in the source text that might be missed by someone who is native in the target language.

Seamus is a versatile English<>English linguist who engages in a variety of fields ranging from content creation, writing, proofreading, English rephrasing, localization, transcription, to MTPE. Seamus opened a window into his world and told us about one of his favorite words: Hiberno-English and Northern Irish are home to many loan words borrowed from other languages, such as Irish and Scots, and most of them are not used or heard in English outside of the island (unless you’ve been watching Derry Girls recently). One of my favorites is “craic”, arguably one of the most famous words to come from the island that typically often garners a curious (and sometimes jeering) fascination from language enthusiasts for its quaintness. Its meaning can differ from referring to anything that is fun or enjoyable or can be used as a term for news or gossip: “What’s the craic?” or “That’s some good craic”. Its origins are even more interesting, though, as it was originally an English word – crack – that was then borrowed into Irish as craic and once the original word fell out of the English vernacular, it was then re-borrowed back into English while maintaining the Irish spelling. What’s the craic with that?

Yazmin, a Multilingual Connections veteran who has been collaborating with MLC since 2014, mostly works with English<>Spanish law enforcement transcription, translation, and editing. We asked Yazmin what her favorite project at MLC has been, and this is what she said: I don’t have one favorite project, but the projects I enjoy the most are the ones that teach me new things. I remember working on an audio about Cuba that was fascinating. I got to learn new things about a different country and culture while working. I also transcribed and translated an interview with a singer I love. I had lots of fun doing it, and it made me feel kind of cool. When it comes to law enforcement projects, I must say that the part I enjoy the most is knowing that I have done the best I can to produce high-quality documents that can be trusted in legal procedures. 

Selene, an English>Spanish linguist who started taking projects with MLC in 2019, has worked mainly on assignments related to the medical, health-care, environmental, education, museum, and marketing fields. Selene shared her favorite blog as a linguist, and believe us, this one you may just have to check out: One of my favorite blogs is Flowrece, by Carmen Lozano and Basi Alburquerque (who are also translators, as well as yoga and mindfulness instructors). They share top-quality content related to yoga, meditation, mindfulness, and stretching, as well as useful exercises for linguists who spend long hours sitting in front of the screen. The information and techniques they share in their blog to cope with everyday stress are amazing! 

Eva has been partnering with MLC for more than six years now. Time flies! She shared her experience of how back then the workflow and mechanics were quite different from what they are today (she’s 100% right!), and considers herself fortunate to have had wonderful experiences collaborating with many of our project managers throughout this time. Eva told us about her take on global culture today: I’ve been studying Japanese for a little over a year now, so I listen to the podcasts uploaded by my teacher on YouTube, @YuyuNihongo. Though I’m far from being fluent, I really enjoy learning not only about the language itself, but the culture as well. And much like working with MLC, my Japanese lessons remind me of how distance can be easily overcome through technology: my teacher is from Japan and lives in Mexico, and my other classmate is a Colombian lady living in Germany!