Blame the translator!

In translation, quality control is an extremely important issue.

Making mistakes is human, everyone makes them.

By any standards, being 99% accurate is a very good percentage. Now consider this: in translation, this means that you get one word out of one hundred wrong. One page is made of about three hundred words. Making three serious mistakes per page? Well, if you do that you certainly won't last long in this business.

Even 99.9% percent accuracy, or making one mistake per one thousand words, is simply not good enough.

To avoid making mistakes, I always check my documents two or three times. When I translate long documents, I always hire a proofreader to go through the document with a fine tooth comb. Once she finishes her job I go through the text again to make sure no further mistakes were made. It is a slow process that requires a lot of patience and dedication.

Metka Čuk, Translator

FORMAL TRAINING

MA in Linguistics and Modern English Language, 1991, Department of Linguistics, Nottingham University, UK

BA in Slovenian Language, 1981, Faculty of Arts, Ljubljana University, Slovenia

RELEVANT EXPERIENCE

Freelance translator since 1999

Lecturer, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia, 1994-1999

Assistant lecturer, Nottingham University, UK, 1990-1993

Freelance translator 1984-1990

RELEVANT PROFESSIONAL SKILLS

Linguistic Skills

• Native-speaker competence in English and Slovenian
• Able to use specific vocabularies: social sciences, arts, education, government administration, telecommunications, in English and Slovenian
• Slovenian native speaker in contact with Slovenia on a daily basis, have lived and worked in English-speaking countries for more than 15 years

Computing Skills & Equipment

Windows Vista & XP, Office 2007

InDesign CS3, Photoshop Elements

Hobbies

Painting, design