DANIA TRANSLATIONS
Experienced provider of professional
translation and revision services
Thank you for visiting my Dania Translations website!
Please have a look around, and get in touch if I can help you with your current translation and/or revision projects!
Under Services you will find a list of the language combinations, specialisms, and services I offer as well as a list of my current rates.
You can read about my educational background and professional experience under About Dania Translations.
The calendar under Availability, which I endeavour to update on a daily basis, shows you when I am free for work.
Why choose Dania Translations as your
language partner?
The forces behind my drive to meet and hopefully exceed my clients’ expectations are my passion for languages, translation, creative writing, and teaching.
My thorough approach to my work and attention to detail have stood me in good stead throughout my long career, working as a Translator, Reviewer, and CAT Tools Trainer. By choosing Dania Translations (me) as your language partner, you can therefore expect to receive a high-quality translation service, built on a solid educational background, over 25 years of translation experience, a high level of IT skills, and a reliable and professional customer service.
I look forward to exceeding your expectations!
Some of my clients
past and present
“Translators have to prove to themselves as to others that they are in control of what they do; that they do not just translate well because they have a “flair” for translation, but rather because, like other professionals, they have made a conscious effort to understand various aspects of their work.”
Routes to becoming a professional translator
Contrary to common belief, being fluent in two or more languages does not automatically qualify you to be a translator. Far from it. Professional translation is a challenging profession based on learned skills and technique, in other words a craft. To become and remain a successful professional translator therefore requires a multitude of skills and prerequisites, of which the main ones are listed below:
- A solid knowledge of and proficiency in the languages involved is a prerequisite.
- A university education in the languages involved and/or linguistics and translation studies is a common route for prospective translators. Another category of translators is those who first become professionals in another field, and then train as translators later, after having gained experience and become experts in their first field. Prospective translators often take an MA degree course in translation studies before embarking on their new translation profession.
- As with any other profession, translators need to continuously develope and hone their skills to be able to produce high quality translations and progress from general into more challenging specialist subject areas.
- Importantly, proficient research skills are also needed, in order to find specialised terminology quickly and effectively. Professional translators often work to very strict deadlines, so time is always of the essence.
- Professional translators who work freelance for translation agencies, additionally need a high level of technical skills, as these companies almost exclusively store, process, manage, and produce translations in computer-assisted translation (CAT) tools.
- Translators who exclusively work for direct clients rather than agencies do not necessarily have to produce their translations in CAT tools, although many do, as the many advantages the tools offer them enable them to translate faster, more consistently and accurately, increasing their productivity scope and chances of receiving repeat work from satisfied clients.
- Lastly and very importantly, a high level of multicultural knowledge is needed for a translator to successfully identify and transfer all the cultural references from the source to the target text. If that is achieved, the translation will read like an original piece of text and therefore fully resonate with the readership.
Interesting language quotes
Language is a process of free creation; its laws and principles are fixed, but the manner in which the principles of generation are used is free and infinitely varied. Even the interpretation and use of words involves a process of free creation.
Noam Chomsky
I boldly assert, in fact I think I know, that a lot of friendships and connections absolutely depend upon a sort of shared language, or slang. Not necessarily designed to exclude others, this can establish a certain comity and, even after a long absence, re-establish it in a second.
Christopher Hitchens
I am a lover of truth, a worshipper of freedom, a celebrant at the altar of language and purity and tolerance.
Stephen Fry
Poetry is not a matter of feelings, it is a matter of language. It is language which creates feelings.
Umberto Eco
War is what happens when language fails.
Margaret Atwood
Tears are the silent language of grief.
Voltaire
It is impossible to translate poetry. Can you translate music?
Voltaire
I like to write in fairly everyday language - I've always tried to write lyrics that, if people would speak the words, it wouldn't sound like a song.
Tim Rice
I would say that jazz is my own language.
Amy Winehouse
Bob Dylan enabled rock & roll to grow up and survive. He injected the power of language and ideas into the music.
Jimmy Lovine
Translating is always about making sacrifices; however, nothing essential should be sacrificed.
Enrique Diez-Canedo
The translator is a privileged writer who has the opportunity to rewrite masterpieces in their own language.
Javier Marías
The word 'translation' comes, etymologically, from the Latin for 'bearing across'. Having been borne across the world, we are translated men. It is normally supposed that something always gets lost in translation; I cling, obstinately to the notion that something can also be gained.
Salman Rushdie
I just enjoy translating, it's like opening one's mouth and hearing someone else's voice emerge.
Iris Murdoch
When you finish anything, people want you to then talk about it. And I think it’s almost like a crime. A film or a painting – each thing is its own sort of language and it’s not right to try to say the same thing in words. The words are not there. The language of film, cinema, is the language it was put into, and the English language – it’s not going to translate. It’s going to lose.
David Lynch
The problem, of course, is that languages are not only languages. They're also worldviews -- and therefore, to some extent, untranslatable ...
Nancy Huston
We read and reread the words of the original text in order to penetrate through them, to reach, to touch the vision or experience which prompted them. We then gather up what we have found there and take this quivering almost wordless 'thing' and place it behind the language into which it needs to be translated. And now the principal task is to persuade the host language to take in and welcome the 'thing' which is waiting to be articulated.
John Berger