About Us
Translation is the paradigm, the exemplar of all writing. It is translation that demonstrates most vividly the yearning for transformation that underlies every act involving speech, that supremely human gift.
Harry Mathews, American novelist, poet and essayist (born 1930)
We work with highly qualified translators with extensive experience in a number of different fields. Apart from all aspects of business communication, we have special expertise in technology (e.g. telecommunications, oil and gas industry), law (e.g. contracts, terms and conditions) and cultural subjects (e.g. art history and criticism, fiction and music).
The experience of our translators is based on three essential qualities. Firstly and most obviously, they must have at least bilingual expertise in the form of impeccable spelling and grammar and excellent writing skills. Secondly, they need to be intimately aware of cultural differences to ensure that the translation makes sense and sounds appealing to its target readers. In other words, they are not only bilingual but bicultural. Thirdly, they need to be familiar with the subject matter of the text to be translated. Depending on its content, this familiarity may range from the industry at large to issues of corporate culture and even down to the level of departmental policies.
Given that the contextual information required for an expert translation is a function of linguistic and cultural competences as well as specific subject knowledge, it is not surprising that only a fraction of it is available from dictionaries and the Internet – and much less from training courses and degree programmes. Consequently, professional linguists need extensive experience. To complicate matters further, technological innovation and growing exchange between cultures mean that linguists constantly need to expand their vocabulary. “Internaut”, “cloud computing”, “crowdsourcing” and “guanxi” are just a few examples of recent additions to the English language.
