What do you like about languages and translation?
I find languages absolutely fascinating. They are living things that grow and evolve. Just think about the fact that it would have been unheard of to address the target audience of a marketing text with the informal second person pronoun in German not that long ago. But you see it all the time now.
Which part of your job do you most look forward to when you wake up in the morning?
Unfortunately, we don’t often know what the day ahead is going to bring in this job. But I love hearing from grateful clients who we’ve managed to help out by turning around an urgent translation or spotting an error in the source text. How rewarding!
Do you have any funny stories from your time at Apostroph?
An agency once translated the text in the body of the email into Polish and Czech instead of the sentence in the attached Word file. So the client ended up with “Best wishes from rainy Lucerne” in their Christmas card instead of “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year”. You can imagine how confused the recipients were when they read that! Luckily, the client found the whole thing funny.
You know what they say about all work and no play. What do you like doing in your free time?
I love hiking on Mount Rigi, going out for nice meals in fancy restaurants and playing cards with my co-workers.
What book is on your bedside table and what’s your favourite listening on a relaxing Sunday morning?
Right now, I’m reading Nicht Anfang und nicht Ende, a novel by Swiss author Plinio Martini. And you’ll find me listening to Peter Gabriel on a Sunday morning. I haven’t missed one of his live concerts in Switzerland over the past 30 years.
