Rendezvous with Josepha Zimmerer

Josepha, how did you end up in the world of languages?

This possibility already emerged for me when I was still at school. I noticed that languages open doors to new unknown worlds. When you learn a language, you always also learn something about the world and life. During my studies, I mainly dealt with French and also completed a semester abroad at the Université Paris-Sorbonne.

The Sorbonne in Paris is an institution with worldwide appeal – is it as elitist as one would imagine? You also studied at the time-honoured Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.

 I did not perceive it as elitist in either Munich or Paris. But, of course, I was thrilled when I held the document which stated that the Sorbonne had approved my semester abroad in my hands. There are now many modern buildings at the Sorbonne. Some of my courses, however, took place in the historic main building – I have pictures of them etched in my mind. I was really amazed at the University Ball in Munich when the doors of the great hall opened. That is another moment I will never forget.

Besides French and your mother tongue German, what other languages do you speak?

During my studies, I studied classical languages such as Latin or Old French. I learned Chinese as a minor subject, and I speak English and can speak a bit of Italian. I also learned the basic principles of the minority language Occitan.

Occitan? Please enlighten us: who speaks that language except for Asterix and Obelix?

 Even though, unfortunately, fewer and fewer people speak Occitan – a few more than just the two Gallic heroes do! For my master’s degree, I took courses on minority Romance languages. In the South of France, these languages are taught at private schools called Calandretas.

You are a qualified dance teacher, a linguistic genius and now work at Apostroph as a project manager – how did it happen?

In 2018, during my master’s degree, I completed an eight-month placement at Apostroph Zurich. It was a really good experience. The work made me very happy. So after my studies, I wanted to return to Apostroph. And, as luck would have it, they were looking for a project manager in Lucerne – and I was offered the job.

Now you are an expert in multilingual annual reports – how did you get involved in this field?

My start at Apostroph coincided with the annual report season. It was great that I was entrusted with this task. I jumped in at the deep end and immediately enjoyed the subject. I remember well when, after three weeks at Apostroph, a client called me who was interested in having his annual report translated. During the consultation, I demonstrated all my knowledge acquired up to then and was able to convince him of our capabilities. Somehow everything just clicked into place from the very beginning. By the way, to this day I am still really happy when we receive a request from this client to translate his annual report.

What is the challenge associated with translating annual reports?

Mainly the timing. The translation is quite far towards the end of the process, so it is time-critical. Even with very careful planning, it is not uncommon for our companies to announce delays or short-term changes. This is in the nature of the beast because many teams in the companies are involved in the content. For us, this means we need to be work flexibly and at the same time highly accurately. From January to March, our teams specialising in annual reports are run off their feet. We know that given our capacities during this period, it is a bit like playing Tetris – but we always get there in the end (laughs).

How do you proceed with the translation of an annual report?

First, we create alignments of the previous year’s annual report and load the contents into the database. The wording can be adopted directly thanks to the alignment. As a rule, there is not so much new text to translate in the financial sector, so the translation process usually progresses quickly. So our companies benefit from time and therefore budget savings.

Unfortunately, new customers do not have this advantage, do they? 

Oh yes they do! New customers can submit their translated annual report from the previous year, provided that the translation quality is satisfactory. We can also carry out an alignment of it in our database and the use the text segments as a reference for the corporate wording. An important reference for the financial section is the company’s accounting standard: IFRS, SWISS GAP FER, etc. We have specialist translation teams for all standards. This means that our technology also helps to increase efficiency for new customers. If the new company was not satisfied with a previous translation, we have test translations performed by different language teams after consultation with the customer. Then the customer looks at the versions and decides which translation style best suits the company. This also determines the team of regular translators. In this way, we are also optimally prepared to start working for new companies.

Can you explain in one sentence why Apostroph is the first choice for multilingual annual reports?

No problem. We have state-of-the-art technology with intelligent interfaces to standardise and efficiently handle the entire process, and we have the specialist annual report knowledge and experience, as well as highly educated language professionals, in order to ensure that every company has a customised solution which makes it possible to guarantee a smooth process and the highest quality of translation.

Thank you for the conversation and this pretty long sentence.

You’re welcome (laughs).