YES, FOLKS, I am very-geekily-excited to have discovered that Mikhail Lermontov — the Russian Romantic poet who wrote A Hero of Our Time — composed a free translation of J. W. von Goethe‘s famous short poem “Wandrers Nachtlied II” (aka “Über allen Gipfeln…”)! (Anyone who has taken formal German classes should recognize that!) Goethe’s poem has left … Read more
OK, so, not long ago, I finished my first paid translation project. (Hoorah!) It was a collaborative Russian-to-English project, in which I and two others translated a menu for a Mexican restaurant in our city. (Yes. A Mexican restaurant in Siberia. I recommend it!) Technically, I was the native-speaking “proofreader” rather than the translator. But I put that … Read more
Foreign language? … Say what? Trust me, it’s not as crazy as it sounds, nor as far out of reach as you may think. Let me make one thing clear, right from the beginning: you don’t need to speak like a native, or even have advanced foreign language skills. You simply need to know enough to string together coherent … Read more