John Gordon Ross

A Man for All Reasons

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Translation

If I were consistent enough to have a core business instead of dabbling in too many things, it would be translation – at least, it is my steadiest source of income. If you happen to be looking for a Spanish-English translator, I hope you don’t need a detailed CV as I haven’t updated it in a long while, but here is a kind of mini-profile:

Languages: Spanish to English. Accepted good practice is to translate only into your native tongue, so under normal circumstances, I only translate from Spanish to English. I occasionally translate into Spanish, but there needs to be a good reason. I have varying degrees of proficiency in other languages – French, Portuguese, even Latin – but don’t work with them.
Specialities: air traffic control; civil engineering tenders; radar systems; presence and access control, etc. The full list is very long, as I have been translating professionally since 1991, approximately. Inevitably, I have worked with most language areas, though the bulk of the work that comes my way is technical.
Availability/Output: I am usually available for translation work. I turn out around 3,500-4,500 words a day comfortably and can accept up to 2,000-2,500 words a day from a single client, more when a relationship of trust has been established.
Rates and Payment: normal Spanish rates, by which I mean rates in Spain, that being where I live and have to buy my groceries. I rarely haggle, but the better the rate you offer, the more likely I am to be available. Payment on delivery would be nice, but the truth is most people pay me at 45-60 days.
Contact: send queries to jgross52 AT gmail.com, please.

And now, for your edification and amusement (if you are interested in language at least), the following are feeds from some of the sites I browse regularly to keep up to date or put myself in a translation frame of mind (this page is about the translation business – you’ll find more general, usually lighter articles about linguistics and language on the Language Stuff page). If you know a site related with translation or the translation business that would be in good company on this page, do drop me an e-mail or, better still, a comment.

the world in words » Eat your words

Friday 5 December 19:09:46 UTC 2014

Where do the words “ketchup,” “toast” and “salad” come from? [Photos: Steven Depolo (l), Adam Singer (c), stacya (r)/Flickr Creative Commons] Read this post from Alex Gallafent. Or listen to the podcast above. I didn’t think too much about what food I stuffed into my mouth when I was a kid, so long as there was lots of it. No longer. … [Link]

the world in words » Do we still need professional translators to subtitle foreign language movies?

Friday 5 December 19:09:45 UTC 2014

Photo: froussecarton/Creative Commons Read this post from Nina Porzucki. Or listen to the podcast above. In the beginning there was light, a little music and subtitles, technically called intertitles. I’m talking the beginning of the 20th century, during the silent era of moviemaking, when an image really spoke a thousand words and intertitles were used sparingly to explain action, and dialogue, … [Link]

the world in words » The spread of mondegreens should have ended with the Internet — but it hasn’t

Friday 5 December 19:09:44 UTC 2014

Was Jimi Hendrix kissing ‘the sky’ or ‘this guy’? Read this post from Alina Simone. Or listen to the podcast above. You may not know what “mondegreen” means, but you definitely have a great mondegreen story — like maybe mishearing the chorus for the Cuban song “Guantanamera” as “One ton tomato. I ate a one ton tomato.” The word mondegreen was … [Link]

the world in words » Remembrance of the Man who Translated Proust

Friday 5 December 19:09:43 UTC 2014

Photo: louveciennes/Flickr Creative Commons Read this post from Nina Porzucki. Or listen to the podcast above. It’s not often that a translator has a story as good as the author himself. But C.K. Scott Moncrieff’s was wild enough to seem like fiction. Moncrieff was the first person to translate Marcel Proust’s seven-volume epic, “Remembrance of Things Past” into English. He was … [Link]

the world in words » How the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have shaped military slang

Friday 5 December 19:09:42 UTC 2014

A jinglytruck (British English)/jingle truck (American English) in Afghanistan. (Photo: Kurt Clark via Flickr) Here’s a post from The Big Show’s Leo Hornak. How do you feel about doing armourbarma on the way to Butlins? Or getting a craphat to check for Terry in a jinglytruck? Unless you’re a member of Her Majesty’s Armed Forces, you’re probably totally confused. The British … [Link]

the world in words » A Soviet-era storytelling game trains you to bluff, lie and sometimes tell the truth

Friday 5 December 19:04:54 UTC 2014

A tense moment during a game of “Mafia” in Kiev, Ukraine. (Photo courtesy of the English Mafia Club of Kiev) Read this post from Alina Simone. Or listen to the podcast above. The storytelling parlor game “Mafia” crosses borders, transcends culture and bridges the language divide in ways you’d never expect. There are no game boards or joysticks involved in Mafia … [Link]

Engrish.com » For the real cat lover in your family

Friday 5 December 11:00:17 UTC 2014

Photo courtesy of S.H. Cat food found in Belgium. [Link]

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