French to English - Flo Démolis French to English translator

How much is your reputation worth?

I was in a beautiful hotel, in Lucerne, Switzerland, recently. They have great facilities, the rooms are spotless, the service is impeccable, but their English visitors have a great laugh when they read their hotel guide!

The minibar in your room contains refrigerated drinks and snacks! The drinks and snacks you consummated are put on your bill.

Turn your TV, by pressing button<1> at your remote control, on. Press button <TEXT>. The current time appears at the right top.

How much do you think this hotel spends daily on making their clients comfortable and satisfied? Hundreds of Swiss francs. Yet their total once-for-all translation investment must have been less than that. They made a very common mistake: they went for the ‘best offer’.

Does it matter? Probably not, once the client is safely in the hotel room, enjoying the free coffee machine, the comfortable, spotless beds, the warm, clean bathroom with its fresh, white towels and the beautiful view from the bedroom window. The translation howlers will just add to the enjoyment. But what about before they get to the hotel? What if a dreadful translation gives your potential client a bad impression from the outset? What if they don’t take you seriously, just because your translation budget was too tight?

Your website is often the first thing a potential client sees. If you target international clients at all, your translation budget must be on a par with your publicity and communication budget. If not, those clients may never come your way. Time and time again, I have seen businesses asking translators for their ‘best price’. Why do businesses often underestimate the impact of a bad translation on their reputation? Simply because they don’t understand the target language and know very little about the translation process.

The first thing you need to be aware of when you are looking for a translator is that it is a free market. There are no rules. You can become a translator tomorrow, if you wish. You don’t speak a foreign language? You only have high school French? Nobody will check!! There are thousands of translators advertising their services on the Internet. How do you choose?! If you don’t want your clients to have a good laugh at your expense, read on!

Looking for a translator?

You have an important document to translate and you need to know it will be handled in your best interests by a professional translator. How can you know if the translator you've chosen is qualified?

Three golden rules for choosing your translator

Does the translator translate into his/her mother tongue?

This is the one of the hallmarks of a professional translator. Language reflexes are picked up at a very early age, so only native speakers can guarantee faultless translations.

Has the translator had formal training in the source language (the language of the text to be translated)?

In order to translate a text, it must be understood. This requires a level of proficiency in the foreign language which cannot be acquired by simply spending a few years in a country where that language is spoken. Someone can have lived in a foreign country for decades and still not speak the language correctly.

Is the translator qualified?

It is possible to have a "gift" for translation. You may be able to find a very good translator, who has been translating for years without a degree in translation, and there may be a few second-rate translators who have managed to scrape through a translation course, but as a general rule it is wise to check if your translator has professional credentials.

My name is Flo Démolis. I speak and write excellent English (my mother tongue). I was born in the UK. I studied French Language and Literature (over a quarter of a century ago now!) at the University of Liverpool. I have been living in the French Alps for over twenty years, so I am very much at home with the French Language and culture. I am a qualified translator (see below). I work in English all day and speak French all the time, so switching from one language to another is second nature.

When I translate, I have three people in mind...

The author

I am constantly aware of my responsibility towards the person who wrote the original text. I want to be true to the style and the original intention of the writer and communicate the thoughts behind the words.

The reader

I aim to write in such a way that that the reader will be unaware that the document was originally written in another language. Obviously, the cultural references will sometimes betray the fact that the author is French, but I want my readers to be oblivious to the fact that they are reading a translation.

The translator

In other words, myself! I am my own most critical reader and very hard to satisfy! But I strive for perfection...

Rates

My rates are based on average rates practised in France. Special rates for longer documents or long-term collaboration. Contact me for a quote or if you have any queries. I'll get in touch within a few hours (or a little more if it's the middle of the night here...).

Rates for translations on a global scale can vary from 'dirt cheap' to extremely expensive, depending on where the translator lives and whether the field is extremely specialised or not. If you only need to translate a document in order to understand what is being said, a machine translation will do the trick. If it is for business purposes, but you don't need it to be perfect (a memorandum, for example), no point in paying someone who prides themselves on the quality of their translations - find a dirt cheap translator! But if your document is important and your reputation could be tarnished by a poor quality translation, choose your translator carefully.

Flo Démolis - Freelance translator

Certificate in French and English Translation (CFET, French to English and English to French), ULIP, France.

Diploma in Translation (Dip Trans IoL, French to English), Chartered Institute of Linguists, UK.