top of page

Quality Commitment

I’m not happy until I’ve done the best possible job for you.

How can you tell if a translation has been done well?

  • It reads so naturally that not even a native speaker notices that it’s a translation.

  • The tone and style correspond to those of the source text while only using elements of the target language.

  • The information content corresponds to the original text.

  • The terminology is correct.

  • The translation is neatly formatted and doesn’t contain any typos, spelling mistakes or other careless errors.

I draw on my extensive experience to write translations that correspond stylistically and in terms of content to the source text yet are authentic in the target language. This is also one of many reasons why I don't use artificial intelligence, which is very poor at doing that. I avoid word-for-word translations as far as possible, since the result tends to be unnatural, inaccurate and hard to read. In many cases, the choice of words and phrasing is influenced by the larger context and how the translation will be used.

It's also important to watch out for so-called false friends. If, for example, idiomatic expressions are translated literally, the result can be completely wrong. For example, if you translate the English expression "kick the bucket" into German word for word, what you get is completely meaningless. There are many traps that a professional translator has to avoid like the plague. In case of doubt, it's better to translate the actual meaning. The expression "not see the forest for the trees" expresses the hazards of literal translation very well.

bottom of page