The Best Project of my Entire Career as a Freelance Translator (so far!)

Reflecting everything that happened in 2013, a year that marked significant changes for my freelance translation office, one project seems to stand out from all the others. Not that the rest of the projects were not interested or less passionately completed, but this one was the shining jewel! And so I decided to share it with you, commencing a new series of blog posts in which you are invited to contribute (if you wish!).

Language Combination of the Project: Swedish into Greek

Field of Expertise: Medical (with an essence of marketing)

Nature of the Project: Website (the 56^th out of the 58 websites I have translated-so far!)

Reason of being Number One: The terminology was very challenging! Extensive research was needed as the texts were describing innovative techniques for a precise surgery procedure. Knowledge of anatomy of the particular body part was necessary. Unlike other language combinations, reference material, dictionaries, online language databases did not include vital terms for the translation. In fact, there is a gap that should be filled between the two languages. I could not simply rely on the online databases or dictionaries. I divided the number of words that needed to be completed each day and allowed enough time for review before the deadline. While keeping faithful to my word schedule, I researched the local doctors’ community to find a medical professional that specializes in this type of operations. I found a hospital doctor that I got in touch with and convinced him for an one-hour meeting. In fact, now that I think of it, I was very lucky that the doctor agreed to meet me during his dinner hour at the hospital (he was on call that night so he would be in the hospital premises all night). I arrived promptly, met him at the canteen and started talking about the procedure. Time flew! I felt like a sponge trying to absorb all this knowledge in an hour. I would invest endless time if I had a chance! Armed with all the valued information, I reviewed my translation before submitting it. The sense of fulfillment when hitting the Send button is indescribable. Months passed and I decided to search the url of the clinic to see if my text was online! And so it was! To my astonishment, the menu (not translated by me!) included unnecessary accents (capital letters in Greek should not be accompanied by accents). I got in touch of with the client and let them know. In half an hour I receive an email from my client containing the following praise from the clinic:

Tack för denna info då ska jag titta på detta och justera. Hälsa till Konstantina att det var jättebra service att kolla våran sida och meddela oss detta fel. 1000, 1000 tack!

In English, something like:

Thanks for this info, I’ll look into it and correct it. Thanks to Konstantina ,it was a great service to check out our page and inform us of our error. 1000, 1000, thanks!

If you would like to share with us what your best project ever was, please send me an email (info@wordyrama.com) and I will send you the template. A small bio and a picture of yourself are also welcome!