December 16, 2014 by Alison Tunley
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In his book The Signal and the Noise, Nate Silver talks about the proliferation of information following the invention and history of the printing press and the potential for misinformation and errors. One example he picks out is a… Read More
Believe it or not this is from an application for a job…
We receive between 40 and 60 unsolicited translator applications every day. A lot are professionally presented and to the point. Quite a few are not, though. Here are some of the most entertaining from genuine email applications received this week. Names have been removed to protect the innocent (or clueless). In a follow-up post, I will be dealing with some of the issues that may be slightly less obvious.
The quote in the title is a subject line of an email. These subject lines are particularly crucial. A good one can encourage an agency to think of you as a truly professional translator. A bad one lands you straight in the bin. Or here. Which is worse.
Here are a few more:
Naïve indeed. Professionally so. But then, what do I know about professional tanslators? Cut the guy some slack: he tanslates 24/7.
I know, I know: not everybody is a native English speaker. On the other hand, this one also proposes to translate INTO English.
Hmmm….. I waited to open this one until I was sure nobody could see my screen. Imagine my relief (disappointment?) when I realised the woman was only selling translation services after all, just very, very special ones.
And talking about special:
Yes dear, that’s really nice. Is it time for your meds yet?
Yes, great, I have such a set of parents, too. Now, why exactly did you email me?
And then there are the plain cryptic ones, like:
Limitless gifts? I’m in!
And sometimes one wonders if it’s a case of near total ignorance of the English language, or great comic genius:
Yes sir, as long as it’s not translation services, I might even believe you.
And along the same line, one that I receive most weeks, one way or another:
Along with its even more confused sibling:
I am often told I should be kinder. So here is my attempt: well done for including all the right letters. The next stage is to try and assemble them into what we call ‘words’!
And, yes, sometimes, quite occasionally, I actually make it past a – well-written- subject line, open the email, and then something like this happens:
“Hello,
Sorry, I am not a native speaker of Spanish, but, nevertheless, I can provide quality translations from English to Spanish.”
And a bit further down:
“I have not obtained an official translator / linguist degree, but I still provide high-quality language services.”
By which time I obviously wish the title had been as wrong as the above. I will never get those five minutes back that I spent reading that email.
For help on what to do and what not do when applying for freelance translator positions check out our next articles!
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