When we decided to add a blog / news section to our website, I’ve been thinking about what I could write about in the first article. The topic had to be extremely exciting to grab your attention and make you want to come back here. I thought about how easy it would be if someone else wrote it for me. Maybe someone with experience in the art of blogging and, most importantly, someone who could relieve me of that responsibility. Although I tried to delegate it, in the end I came to the conclusion that our Romanian folk saying is true: “there’s no escape from what you’re afraid of”. So I took heart and decided that the first article would be about me as a translator and interpreter.
The activity of translation has been with me since childhood. I am a second-generation translator and interpreter, and this heritage was passed on to me with grace and passion by my mother. I started working as a translator at the age of 18 in a multinational oil and gas company. I can truly say that it was a wonderful time, when I was lucky enough to have an absolutely extraordinary boss who supported me and helped me develop as a professional and who gave me the freedom to continue my studies. I firmly believe that that experience contributed to building the person I am today. As a result, I saw my boss as a reliable friend. Then, after a while, I decided to focus on completing my studies in Economics. You’re probably reading this and wondering what it’s like to be an economist working in translation services. Well, it is just like this! In 2009 I reconnected with this field of work that I used to love so much, so I started providing translation services again. This new, yet already familiar path helped me rediscover forgotten parts of myself, memories of my mother working on a portable typewriter to translate a contract, different Saturdays spent in the translation booth while other kids were playing, but, most importantly, I remembered how much I loved communicating and helping people communicate.
In 2009 I planted the seed that later became Transl8. Those who know me know that this road has been full of ups and downs, but this bumpy road has been one that made me love working in translation services even more and has brought me to where I am today, as a person and as a specialist in this field. My journey has helped me rediscover my passion for translation and it helped me understand that what I really want is to help people communicate, always with an open mind and a passionate heart, always eager for learning new things.
This blog is meant to be my “writer’s pen” in this journey of communication with you, the reader. Through it, I want to share with you what it means to be a translator and an interpreter, what a translation means or what an interpreter does at a conference and how we, translators and interpreters, can help you communicate with others in a professional and beautiful way.
I also dare to ask you to remember that we, translators and interpreters, are people like you, and we are not walking dictionaries. So if there are any linguistic slips that you may spot, please bear with us and help us be a better version of the translator and interpreter that we already are, so that, in the end, we can help you get your message across.