What you need to know to have your personal documents translated Translating certificates and other personal documents (which usually need to be certified) is a particularly challenging part of our job. These translations may appear straightforward at first glance, but there are all kinds of considerations that make them extremely time-consuming. School and university diplomas, for example, require painstaking research …

The majority of translators working in Germany are freelancers. In fact, a massive 87 percent of members of the German Federal Association of Interpreters and Translators (BDÜ) based in Baden-Württemberg work on a freelance basis.[1] But why is that? One reason for this figure being so high has to be the sheer lack of in-house positions within the industry. If …

Riding a bicycle across the United States with a group of 35 people to raise funds for the American Lung Association gives you a lot of time to think. Where have you been? Where are you going? What are your aspirations? During the seven weeks it took to pedal 3,250 miles from Seattle, Washington to Washington, D.C. in the summer …

This year I am celebrating twenty years as a conference interpreter. When I look back on my career so far, one trend in particular stands out: More and more international conferences and meetings are being held in English, without interpreters – even when only a minority (or none!) of the speakers and attendees are English native speakers. The decision to …

At the end of February, the leadership team of Peschel Communications greeted each day just like the locals with a hearty „Kaliméra, Athina“ – on February 22-23, Anja Peschel and Ellen Göppl attended Elia together 2018, the conference of the European Language Industry Association, in Athens. The objective was to gather new ideas, exchange with colleagues and recruit new freelance …

Where are you from and how did you become a translator? I grew up in New Glarus, Wisconsin, a small town south of Madison, the state capitol. Known as “America’s Little Switzerland”, New Glarus was named after the Swiss canton of Glarus, and the community remains very proud of its heritage. Thanks to the many festivals that are celebrated there …

Last Christmas I announced that we would be welcoming some new faces in 2017, and the changes to our team are at the top of my agenda for this year’s round-up. In February we were joined by Sarah Zeller, freshly graduated from her Master’s studies (French and English) and starting out as a trainee translator. Sarah settled in and became …

When we began brainstorming for our Christmas party this year, it quickly became clear that we wanted to do something a little out of the ordinary. As big fans not just of foreign languages but also of exotic food, we finally hit on the idea of asking the Brazilian owner of our favourite food truck whether he would give us …

“If I want to learn to swim, I have to go into the water, otherwise I’ll learn nothing.” (August Bebel) With a Bachelor’s degree in translation under my belt and the start of my Master’s approaching, I wanted to see what it’s like to work in a translation company and put the knowledge I’d acquired at university into practice. After a …

Marketing texts are about more than facts – they are about emotions. These are conveyed through a rich mixture of language, content and images, often using wordplay, rhyme or other stylistic devices. So what does this mean for translating marketing texts into other languages? Can marketing texts even be translated? There is no definitive answer to this question. Unlike very …