As part of our Guide to translation project management, today we’ll meet one of our translation project managers at EVS Translations who’ll tell us a bit about their role.
1. What do you enjoy most about your role as a project manager?
I love working in the language and translation industry. I have an MA in English language and American culture and a diploma in interpreting between Polish and English. I’m really glad I can use my linguistic knowledge and skills for my job – and it’s a job which never gets boring. It’s diverse and challenges me on a daily basis. Within the course of a day I can be working on a voiceover project, discussing a project with a Japanese client, liaising with our IT department to solve a formatting problem, or coordinating a 10,000 word project from French into English to be completed in 3 days. The list goes on and on…
2. What kind of projects have you been working on recently?
I recently managed a subtitling project for a series of deodorant commercials translated from Thai and Indonesian into English. There were so many stages to the project: communicating with our Thai and Indonesian teams to do a time coded transcription of the audio, coordinating translation and proofreading of this content into English, and then finally liaising with the IT Department to subtitle the video. It was great fun and I enjoyed the project’s complexity.
3. For people thinking about using a translations service provider for the first time, what would you say are the benefits of EVS Translations in terms of its project management?
EVS Translations has ISO processes in place, so every project manager within the EVS group follows the same steps to ensure that every project is handled smoothly and efficiently for delivery of a high-quality translation. Project management teams are available at each of the company’s offices across Europe and the US which is an advantage for clients who want a quick turnaround on a large project because of the time difference between countries.
4. Do you have any advice for clients when they are preparing documents for translation?
A client should be very clear about their translation requirements. Any reference material, terminology lists and style guides are always appreciated as these are great tools in understanding a text and in fulfilling a client’s needs better. When ordering a project, a client should try to send the content in the editable format, if possible such as Word for example. When there is uneditable text or image content, a client should specify if this needs to be translated or left untranslated. Also, it’s always good to know in advance if there are any phrases, slogans or terms which the client prefers to leave untranslated.
5. How do you cope with the stress of constant deadlines, everyday?
In my opinion, being a project manager is about minimising any damage that may cause a project to fail. Whenever I plan a project, I think about what may go wrong and I think of the steps to prevent this. Thinking this through really helps me to meet the clients’ requirements and deliver to deadlines.
6. What languages do you speak and how did you come to learn them?
Polish is my mother tongue and English is my passion! I studied it at a university but I started learning it at a primary school from the age of 12. I speak English at work, have a British boyfriend, and every book I read is in English. This is a passion that became my life. I also speak the French a little bit but I have never been as excited about this as English so it’s very basic.
