In today’s Translator Talk, we spoke with state-qualified English-to-German translator Julia Landry. A whizz with all things beauty and fashion, our wordsmith Julia particularly loves to let her creative juices flow with marketing translations.
How did you get into translation?
My love for languages started quite early, when I was about four or five years old. My two best friends in Germany were two Scottish boys who had moved in next door, and I was fascinated by how they switched so easily between flawless German and English.
After high school I moved to Munich, where I graduated in specialised translation (engineering) from the Fremdspracheninstitut München. After working for a spell in customer service, I packed my bags and headed to the UK, working in a hotel at reception while studying for my MA in Translation Studies at the University of Leicester.
Towards the end of my MA, one of my professors put me in touch with someone he knew at Amazon’s translation department as he knew they were looking for German linguists. I passed their test and that’s how it all started, translating product listings for the German website. Shortly after, I found a part-time position as a translator for an online retailer who needed someone to translate all their products (clothing, shoes, etc.) into German. So I worked there in-house while also doing freelance work for Amazon and an ever-greater portfolio of SMEs and translation agencies such as First Edition. Today, I work exclusively freelance and have accumulated well over a decade of experience in the translation industry.
What are your areas of specialisation?
My areas of specialisation are Beauty & Fashion, Creative Translation and Marketing. I also translate a lot of food-related copy (packaging and adverts for teas, chocolates, biscuits, drinks, etc.), tourism content (hotel websites), and content for social media platforms.
My workload quite often involves website content for cosmetics and fashion brands, packaging for their products, blog articles, T&Cs, size charts, and delivery and return information. I’ve also done a fair amount of employee coaching & training material for companies. One of my favourite projects to date was a rabbit and guinea pig care and feeding guide (I have two dwarf rabbits), combining work and pleasure!
What do you have to think about when translating marketing copy?
Particularly for creative copy such as ads or product descriptions the English copy tends to be much ‘louder’. Everything seems to be the tried-and-tested No.1 bestseller of the highest quality, whereas Germans are much more reserved and understated. They’re not big fans of hyperbole and want to see proof if you claim something is the best. So it’s all about finding the balance between toning it down a bit, but still making it appealing to the target audience. Such texts also often rely heavily on wordplay and other stylistic devices, where a literal translation often doesn’t work. So you need to get creative and stray away from the words on your screen.
When it comes to your language combination, English to German, what particular aspects or challenges are there?
German is a rather wordy language (around 15-20% longer) whereas English is much more compact. This can prove challenging for the content I work with, e.g. Google ads and social media ads, as they very often have character restrictions. The same goes for adding copy to images; I need to make sure it fits and doesn’t take over the whole image.
In terms of formality, English only has one version of address (‘you’), whereas German has both informal (‘du’ or ‘ihr’) and formal (‘Sie’). So when translating into German, you need to make a decision on the formality of speech. Particularly when starting a new client collaboration, it is tricky to convey to the client what exactly that means, as English speakers usually don’t quite understand the implications since there is no such difference in their native language. So it can take a bit of time to discuss how the client wants to come across and how they want to address their readers – a more relaxed, friendly tone or more distanced with a corporate feel.
What is the best thing about being a translator?
Apart from earning a living from something that I truly enjoy, I learn so many new things on a regular basis. I need to read a lot of reference material to quickly become a so-to-speak expert in topic at hand, and that can be incredibly interesting. I’d say I’m a curious person and this way I often learn things that I would never have discovered otherwise – be it about the ins and outs of lambing season, the joys of mudlarking, different beauty rituals, or intriguing plant ingredients in cosmetics. It’s also brilliant to see my translations ‘in the wild’ when I visit family in Germany, going through a supermarket or a toy store and discovering a brand or product that I worked on (though I can’t share my excitement due to confidentiality!).
What has been your favourite First Edition project to date?
As an avid reader and true travel fanatic, I didn’t need much convincing when the First Edition project management team asked for my help to translate an editorial publication on a thirteenth-century explorer’s manuscripts. It was certainly challenging as I needed a keen eye for detail, but it was incredibly interesting to learn more about the journeys undertaken and discoveries unearthed. Part of the text examined the illustrations used in the manuscripts and the handwriting. It was just fascinating to see how much could be deducted from finite details. It was things we wouldn’t think twice about today but that were obviously baffling back in the day, including how a European painter would draw an exotic animal based solely on a description.
Julia, thanks so much for our successful collaboration to date and for talking to us today!
If you’d like to know more about what Julia and First Edition can do for you, contact our multilingual project managers at enquiries@firstedit.co.uk.