A week in the life of our project manager Melanie Fitzgerald
In this article, Melanie, who has amassed nigh-on two decades of experience in the localisation industry, gives us a rundown of her working week. Originally from Germany, Melanie came to the UK many moons ago. She is a veteran member of our multilingual project management team, focusing primarily on our editorial and publishing clients.
Monday
Over the past few weeks, I have been working on a very exciting niche request – the translation of Armenian poetry into English. I was able to track down four professional translators who were interested in submitting samples, which were then assessed by one of our trusted senior editors (who writes poetry himself!). Today, I sent two of the best samples to our client for review. Working this way, we can offer the client an insight into our team’s styles and allow them to pick the style that best suits them. I also delivered our English translation of a French crochet book after having resolved some final queries between the linguist and the customer. Last but not least, I continued working on a four-part series of children’s activity books, which we are translating from German into English.
Tuesday
The day started off with a new request from one of our regular clients, which involved translating the latest research results on temperature differences on the planet Mercury. Content like this is always insightful – I hadn’t previously known, for example, that the temperature there ranges from -170 to 430 degrees Celsius! Harnessing my own translation skills, I also spent time conducting quality assurance checks on children’s books that our editorial linguists and DTP specialists had translated, proofread, and formatted. Once again, I gleaned some fun facts along the way!
Wednesday
Today, we made a start on updating the French and German translations of a cathedral visitor guide. The cathedral in question had rehauled their English text, and the changes needed to be applied to the existing French and German editions so that all versions contained the same information. Thanks to our dedicated ‘computer-assisted translation’ (CAT) software, we were able to clearly track all the differences between the old and new English versions. In this way, our translators don’t miss any updates and can handle the work within the tight timeframe allocated.
Thursday
My day was mostly spent onboarding translators. At First Edition, we make sure to vet our linguists, verifying their skills, experience and credentials. We are lucky to have a fantastic pool of freelancers who cover almost all world languages, and we collaborate with them very closely to ensure they have everything they need to deliver quality results. Today our crochet client also gave us the go-ahead for a similar publication – the translation of a sewing book!
Friday
After dealing with my to-do list of admin tasks, I handled some new customer projects, including the translation of press releases on space technology innovations into English and the translation of website content from German into nine other European languages. I also received an exciting new request to translate wall texts for a museum exhibition on the Edwardians. This client asked for their English material to be translated into eight languages – Brazilian Portuguese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin, Russian, and Spanish. All translators were delighted to be working on these texts filled to the brim with historical knowledge.
Who we are
Our story as an end-to-end language service provider began all the way back in 1981 in the quaint town of Cambridge. As the years have gone on, we’ve expanded both our presence and our service portfolio. We’re proud to collaborate with high-flying legal firms, reputable publishing houses, communication agencies, pharmaceutical manufacturers, and contract research organisations to bring everything from literature to legalese to new audiences. We are always happy to provide a non-obligation quote and discuss what’s best for your requirements. You can reach our team via our website.