{"id":46460,"date":"2018-07-04T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-07-03T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gengo.com\/uncategorized\/faces-of-gengo-sara\/"},"modified":"2019-10-23T17:06:46","modified_gmt":"2019-10-23T08:06:46","slug":"faces-of-gengo-sara","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gengo.com\/community\/faces-of-gengo-sara\/","title":{"rendered":"Faces of Gengo: Sara"},"content":{"rendered":"One of our freelance English to Portuguese Language Specialists, Sara, recently became a full-time mom to her beautiful daughter, Camila. Her dream of becoming her own boss motivated her to pursue a Master\u2019s Degree in Translation and Language Services to become a professional translator. She shares her journey with us in this interview.\r\n\r\nNationality:<\/strong> Portuguese\r\nLocation:<\/strong> Porto\r\nOccupation:<\/strong> Freelance Translator\r\nGengo LS since:<\/strong> 2014\r\nLanguage pair:<\/strong> English to Portuguese\r\n\r\nWhat languages do you speak? How do you maintain proficiency?<\/strong>\r\n\r\nI\u2019m a native Portuguese speaker, and I\u2019ve learned English in private schools since I was about seven years old. In Portugal, we are exposed to English since the day we were born, as foreign movies are subtitled, and our radios play hits from the UK and US charts. Besides being my tools of the trade, I use English and Portuguese to communicate with friends, clients and people from all around the world, on a daily basis. I maintain proficiency by reading about everything and anything and by continually using and studying my language skills.\r\n\r\n
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Sara with her newborn daughter, Camila<\/em><\/p><\/div>\r\n\r\nHow did you become a translator?<\/strong>\r\n\r\nWhen I was 27, unhappy with my career in the TV industry and with my life, in general, I moved back to my hometown to take stock and formulate a plan for an \u201calternative\u201d future. For two years, I taught English in a private institute, while also studying to take my Certificate of Proficiency in English (CPE).\r\n\r\nI wanted to be my own boss, enjoy my occupation, be challenged and stimulated and keep learning and improving. It didn\u2019t immediately occur to me that being a translator was the perfect fit.\r\n\r\nAt the age of 29, after having accepted occasional translation jobs and earning money in the most captivating way ever, I knew I wanted to become a professional translator.\r\n\r\nTo achieve that dream, I gave it my all and finished a Master\u2019s Degree in Translation and Language Services in 2014, and I\u2019ve been working hard and passionately as a linguist ever since.\r\n\r\nWhat have been your most enjoyable and challenging translation experiences?<\/strong>\r\n\r\nAll translations are challenging and enjoyable, but I would have to say a collaboration with professor and historian Matteo Salvadore. For four years I\u2019ve translated Portuguese documents from the 15th\/16th century into English and learned about old customs, language use, behaviors, politics, religion, human interactions and geography, to name a few. The collaboration culminated in the publication of \u201cThe African Prester John and the Birth of Ethiopian-European Relations, 1402-1555\u201d.\r\n\r\n

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Where all her work gets done<\/em><\/p><\/div>\r\n\r\nWhat\u2019s your favorite thing about being a Gengo translator<\/a>? How about being a Language Specialist?<\/strong>\r\n\r\nIt\u2019s hard to pick just \u201cone\u201d favorite aspect of the trade, but I\u2019ll make it short by highlighting how much I learn with the different materials and topics I translate every day, as well as with the research and constant knowledge renewal required to act as a Language Specialist.\r\n\r\nBased on your specific cultural expertise, what are the best books or movies you would recommend to others?<\/strong>\r\n\r\nTwo of my absolute favorites are: The Road<\/em> by Cormac Mccarthy (book) and 12 Angry Men<\/em> by Sidney Lumet (movie).\r\n\r\nWhat are your preferred translation tools?<\/strong>\r\n\r\nI recommend productive CAT tools such as SDL Studio and SDL Termbase, and QA tools such as Grammarly or Transistor.\r\n\r\nWhat\u2019s your favorite productivity tool or service?<\/strong>\r\n\r\nA cloud service to store and access my work whenever I need it, an online password manager service and a well-organized Excel Sheet to keep track of my work and accounts definitely save me tons of worries and time.\r\n\r\nWhat are your top tips for those translators who are just starting out?<\/strong>\r\n\r\nMake sure to keep improving your translation-specific skills<\/a>, be humble and self-critical, treat every text with the love and respect it deserves and always have your target audience and locale in mind.\r\n

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Her favorite place in her hometown, Porto<\/em><\/p><\/div>\r\n\r\nDo you have any specific translation advice to translators in your language pair\/s?<\/strong>\r\n\r\nBear in mind that many language mechanisms used to recreate the same communication effect differ greatly from English to Portuguese. Use your native proficiency, your general knowledge and your best judgment to create a fluent version and avoid literal translations. Research all language, cultural and industry-specific challenges that you come across, as this will make you a more powerful communication ambassador every day.\r\n\r\n\r\nWant to become a Gengo translator?<\/strong>\r\n\r\n