Previous Projects & Customer Reviews
Consider it done!
Nobody wants to buy a pig in a poke. Therefore, this page offers information on my previous projects, a couple of sample translations, and a few customer reviews. This should help you get a better idea of my qualifications and experience before you entrust me with your own texts.
To ensure the confidentiality of my clients’ data and sensitive information, I’m only providing general project descriptions, together with the roles or positions of the people whose reviews are quoted here. If you’d like to see some signed reviews, you can check my Feedback Card at Proz.com. Of course, you’re also welcome to leave a review yourself after we’ve worked together. Thanks a bunch!
“Over the last year, Simone has delivered high quality translations, on time. Her eye for detail has proved a real asset. We unreservedly recommend her.”
– Owner of a small translation agency, Sunbury-on-Thames, UK
Common types of projects
I handle a wide range of texts in my working fields and don’t have any preferences regarding the scope of individual projects either. Whether you have a short press release or a long textbook, it’s fine by me. However, I do not accept projects in fields that are more or less foreign to me. This includes, for example, medicine and pharmacy, chemistry and physics, mechanical and electrical engineering, patents, and a few more. The following list shows an excerpt of projects I’ve already completed so you can better decide whether I’m the right candidate for your needs:
- 6 books: Wiley’s …for Dummies series on topics such as machine learning, programming languages, and software apps
- 25,000 words: white paper on virtualization
- 40,000 words: guide for IT administrators
- 22,000 words: several textbook chapters on corporate privacy management
- 14,000 words: e-book on CRM strategies
- 170,000 words: website, ads, and blog posts for an Icelandic car rental company
- 8,000 words: educational brochure on risk management
- 370,000 words: editing of machine-translated texts and audio scripts for a data science e-learning platform
- 250+ product sheets: proofreading for a data storage solutions vendor
- 200+ articles: language quality control and fact checking for an HR platform’s career guide content
- 37 script pages: translation of the treatment for a documentary about the war in Ukraine
“Thank you, Simone! Files received. I appreciate your skill, speed, and economy of effort! It really is a pleasure to work with you.”
– Project manager at a translation agency, Spokane (WA), USA
Translation sample: IT/software
This first sample is a translation from English to German and was part of a marketing text for a data management system. It’s marked by a rather colloquial style, and the translation was supposed to be about the same length as the original. As you may know, this isn’t always easy because for every short German word, there are at least three long ones!
Original:
LOST A FILE? THAT HURTS. Just the thought of having to hunt through all of your company’s documents for the one piece of design data you need is enough to make your blood boil. It wastes your time and adds to your design development costs. With [XX] in place, you have a way to find exactly what you need. The search tool helps you quickly pinpoint the precise details you’re looking for across a variety of file types, and multiple vault data preview tells you at a glance that you’ve found what you need.
FILE OVERWRITTEN? WHAT A PAIN. When somebody overwrites one of your files, it’s not just frustrating. It’s infuriating. But face it: with the growing trend in global business and outsourcing, the chances it will happen to you are on the rise. [XX] protects your design data with secure managed access and controlled versioning. An easy-to-track approval process ensures files never get overwritten. And you can quickly enable job sharing by expanding access to other departments, partners and subcontractors.
Translation:
DATEI VERLEGT? DAS GIBT STRESS! Sicher schießt Ihr Blutdruck schon in die Höhe, wenn Sie nur daran denken, alle Dokumente Ihres Unternehmens nach dem einen benötigten Designschema durchforsten zu müssen. Das kostet Zeit und belastet Ihr Entwicklungsbudget. Mit [XX] finden Sie stets die richtigen Dateien. Über die Suchfunktion können Sie eine Vielzahl von Dateitypen ganz schnell nach präzisen inhaltlichen Details durchsuchen. Und durch die systemübergreifende Datenvorschau erkennen Sie sofort, ob die richtigen Dateien gefunden wurden.
DATEI ÜBERSCHRIEBEN? SO EIN ÄRGERNIS! Hat jemand eine Ihrer Dateien überschrieben, ist das kein kleines Malheur, sondern höchst frustrierend. Klar ist aber auch: In einer globalisierten Geschäftswelt mit den üblichen Outsourcing-Praktiken ist es umso wahrscheinlicher, dass solch eine Störung bei Ihnen passiert. [XX] schützt Ihre Designdaten darum durch klare Zugriffs- und Versionskontrollen. Ein einfach nachzuverfolgender Freigabeprozess verhindert, dass Dateien überschrieben werden. Und falls nötig, können Sie den Zugriff im Nu für andere Abteilungen, Partner und Zulieferer freigeben.
“The German translation was the best example of a transcreation I have seen so far. The translator did exactly what we would like to see. The formulations were sufficiently detached from the English and conveyed the exact right tone.”
– Reviewer at a US data infrastructure company, San Jose (CA), USA
Translation sample: creative writing
This second sample shows the opening paragraphs of The Coffee Break Screenwriter, a how-to book on screenwriting by script consultant Pilar Alessandra that guides newbie writers with tight schedules from an initial idea to a finished draft. When the first edition came out in 2010, I briefly got in touch with the author and publisher to discuss a potential German edition. This is how the translation sample came about.
Sadly, there’s still no German edition. But if you have a script idea yourself that you’d love to get onto the page, I recommend getting this book. You can order the current second edition from Michael Wiese Productions or your favorite bookstore (I hope you’re lucky enough to still have one where you live).
Introduction:
You’ve got ten minutes. No, really, that’s all you’ve got. After all, you had to use your lunch hour to feed yourself. You had to get to that meeting. You had to make that phone call. You had to get the kids in the bath. There were things to do, and no time to do it!
But now you’ve crammed your lunch in, sat through the meeting you don’t know why you took in the first place and cleaned up the kids. You’ve managed to take a deep breath and sit down for a second and focus … perhaps for ten whole minutes. Perhaps, even on your screenplay.
Remember your screenplay? That wonderful, visual story that you’ve been dying to finish … or just start. The one you keep nagging yourself to write every time you leave a movie theater and think, “I can do that!”
Einleitung:
Sie haben zehn Minuten. Im Ernst, mehr Zeit bekommen Sie nicht. Schließlich mussten Sie in Ihrer Mittagspause ja unbedingt essen gehen. Und dann war da noch dieses wichtige Meeting. Und dieser Anruf. Und Ihre Kinder wollten gebadet werden. Wie üblich hatten Sie viel zu tun – und viel zu wenig Zeit!
Nun haben Sie Ihr Mittag schnell hinuntergeschlungen, das gähnend langweilige Meeting ist überstanden und Ihre Kinder duften nach Badeperlen und Shampoo. Zeit zum Durchschnaufen, zumindest für einen Moment … oder gar für ganze zehn Minuten. Nutzen Sie diese Zeit doch für Ihr Drehbuch!
Wissen Sie noch? Ihr Drehbuch? Diese wunderbare, bildgewaltige Geschichte? Sie wollten sie doch unbedingt zu Ende schreiben … oder endlich mit dem Schreiben anfangen. Schließlich sind Sie nach jedem Kinobesuch von Neuem überzeugt: „Das kann ich doch auch!“