What I’m working on
One of the things I love about translating is that I am constantly learning something new every day, even if it is in a field with which I am very familiar. You never know what the next job will entail. It could be dialog for a computer game, a marketing survey about razors, medical records for a disability or insurance claim, or a legal contract.
What I’m currently working on: Not a damn thing. Machine translation, Artificial Intelligence and T&I industry mergers and acquisitions have killed my business
The following is a sample of the jobs I have recently worked on:
- 30,000 words in a team effort for production documents for a perfusion pump
- a scholarly article analyzing a movie about Native Americans
- 14,800 words of legal and banking documents for a lawsuit
- 11,000 words of medical reports (surgical reports and stent implantation reports)
- a 3,000 word marketing survey for some new holistic and herbal-based sleep aids (I don’t have trouble sleeping but they sure sound great!)
- 8,800 words of survey responses on electric toothbrushes
- 6,000 words of survey responses on blood glucose meters
- 7,800 words of survey responses on shampoo
- OCRing 670 pages of legal documents for a court case
- a 1500 word back translation of a survey
- a medical journal article about the use of facial geometry and landmarks in orthodontic patients with cleft palates
- A legal contract (9000 words with over half the words being 90-100% matches. I’m getting full price for them though)
- 307 pages of shipping documents (and I created templates for the other translators to use)
- Market research survey and design and quality (approx. 9,000 words)
- Surgical report and medical report for a stent procedure (3,000 words)
- Divorce decree and accompanying documents for a private individual
- PowerPoint 2007 slides (9,000 words) on cold and cough remedies in TagEditor
- Proofread 27,000 words of legal document for a big lawsuit for an agency client
- Vaccination records and a birth certificate for a private individual
- General Business Terms and Conditions (Allgemeine Geschäftsbedingungen) for a direct client
- Marketing survey on vitamins and nutritional supplements (30,800 words in 7 days)
- 51 pages of medical invoices, bank transfer slips, prescriptions and medical reports. Lots and lots of formatting. Lots of handwriting and illegible doctor stamps.
- Service agreements and performance specifications for an IT company (12,000 words)
- Marketing survey about airline alliance ad(s) (4,200 words – one-day turn-around)
- Horoscope computer game – sign compatibility (in October) and the various houses and signs (finished it in November)
- Medical report about a patient with bipolar disorder
- Marketing survey about motor oil (ongoing for a month)
- Marketing survey about complaints about new cars (ongoing for a month)
- Legal documents for a contract negotiation (rush job)
- Article on Azerbaijan’s energy production
- German birth certificate (rush job)
- Quiz competition and legal texts for a German Web site
- Marketing survey about severance packages
- Article on relations between Germany and Iran
- Proofreading of corporate identity design guidelines
- Proofreading of an expert opinion on IT sourcing
Musings from an overworked translator 