Linguist Spotlight: Making an Impact in 2020

At Multilingual Connections, we work with hundreds of talented linguists across the globe who are experts at translation, transcription, subtitling, and more. How do we pair each project with the best linguist for the job? We take into consideration their native language, region, and area(s) of expertise to achieve the highest quality of linguistic accuracy and cultural relevance. 

Linguists who go above and beyond are recognized as “Linguist of the Month” based on their exceptional quality, reliability, and their general amazingness.

This month, we are excited to feature Luciana and Axel, who have been doing an amazing job on translation, transcription, subtitling, and voiceover projects at Multilingual Connections. 

Quick facts about Luciana: 

• Luciana lives and works in Argentina.
• She is fully bilingual and works on Spanish<> English translation projects. 
• Luciana’s main areas of expertise are Life Sciences, Marketing, Business and Corporate Communications, Banking and Finance, and Tourism and Entertainment. 

Quick facts about Axel: 

• Axel is from Vendée in the West of France, and he currently lives near Rennes in Brittany.
• He works on English > French projects. He also speaks a bit of Spanish and Japanese.
• Axel’s main areas of expertise are marketing and medical/pharmaceutical, as well as IT. He provides transcription, subtitling and voiceover services.

Why and how did you become a translator? 

Luciana: I have always loved English and studied it as a second language since I was a very little girl. As I grew up, I fell in love with books, so I knew that I would end up doing something related to reading and English… and that is what I do on a daily basis. I got my translation degree in 1996 and have been working as a freelance translator and reviewer since then. As medicine has always been one of my main areas of interest, I have worked a lot in this field, taken courses, seminars and got my Master’s degree in Medical Translation in 2014. 

Axel: I started translating during my studies and as far as I can remember, I’ve always loved languages and working with them. I decided to make a career out of it a few years ago after trying a lot of different things, including working as a translation project manager.

What do you love about translating?

Luciana: I love learning about new advances, particularly in the Life Science field, and merging knowledge from linguistics and technology to make the most of my work. I love working with people from all over the world and attending conferences, fairs, and courses abroad to meet new colleagues, clients and partners, as well as visiting new places each time. I do miss that during these pandemic times, though. 

Axel: I love writing in my own language and feeling like a wordsmith. I also love producing a text without the reader ever realizing it might be a translation.

What was the most interesting project that you’ve worked on?

Luciana: Last year was challenging and unusual – I was working non-stop on rush assignments for different industries, everything related to the COVID-19 crisis. I have learned about in-company hygiene and safety procedures, multiple clinical trials on new treatments, vaccines, new dosing forms of existing drugs, corporate communications informing overwhelming news for employees and partners, then great news of reactivation, bank policies and fees adjusted based on the world health context. Everything had a connection to the same topic, so I could increase production as most of the research work I do for one project applies to the next one, too. It has been interesting also from the perspective of the impact of my work and how it helps business to keep moving, dangerous situations to be avoided, and new advances/findings to be shared and reused, etc.

Axel: Marketing and transcreation projects are the most fun for me since I have fewer limits and restraints with writing, and it is sometimes necessary or even compulsory to take an additional step back from the source text and produce something more original. However, one of the most interesting projects for me was some time ago when I had translated short phone transcripts between two speakers, in extremely varied topics, without any context. That was quite unlike anything I’ve had to work with, and it proved especially challenging.

Thanks to Luciana and Axel for being such a great part of our linguist team. Stay tuned for more updates from Multilingual Connections!