Translating with TJ: April 2014

On April 23rd, World Book Day, through the Translating with TJ Blog, where I write _ one thing I’ve been improving also through reading, among other things _ I congratulate this priceless companion, the book. The time we can dedicate to read a book is totally enjoyable. We can’t forget, though, that millions of people in the world don’t have access even to printed books much less to ebooks. We can never consider libraries or used books stores outdated. We have to divulge projects and initiatives such as itinerant libraries, book sales on bookstores and the books donation campaigns, also donating books when we can. Happy World Book Day!

Books are some of our best friends and

companions for a lifetime. They are

always there for us, no matter what. tj*¬

Hello, I created this blog on 03/30/2014, as a record of my work as a translator and also to post about general subjects on it. The “Translating with TJ Blog” is destined to visitors who want to entertain themselves with its contents and extract something that might be useful in professional and personal terms.

I’m going to comment here about the books I’ve been translating through the years; I’ll post translation and version tips and texts about the area and other subjects as well, such as peoples and cultures in general, curious things, nature, sense of humor, etc.

We all have to translate things here and there, whether is something for a school term paper, homework, an email or work report, that kids’ toy instructions manual, some lyrics… So, the tips I’ll post here are destined to everyone. As a professional translator, I work with English and Portuguese and, for this reason, these are the languages I mention here, but the comprehensive translation method applies to any idiom.

I’m a translator graduated from the Brazilian Anhembi-Morumbi University, and I've been working for more than 20 years in the area, specially with Literary translation, translating more than 190 books among novels, business books, biographies, self-help, guides, and working as a freelancer for renowned publishers. I’ve enjoyed the books I’ve translated not only as a translator, but also as a reader. They’re all very interesting books, and I recommend them (according to each reader’s literary preferences). When publishers select books for translation, there’s a criteria that takes the original books quality into consideration.

On this version of the blog in English, I recommend these books in the original form in English, because I’ve translated them to Portuguese. (And recommend the translations to those who know this idiom too.) Anyway, the comments about the translations themselves apply to any language. I don’t earn with book selling. I’m just paid by the publisher once for the translation itself. This is a free, non-profit blog, and its objective is just to share a bit of that work, among other subjects.

I’ve got other blogs (in English/Portuguese) about several themes, including writing and reading, and where I write varied texts, besides a bilingual facebook page, called Escrita_Writing, and another similar one in Twitter. If you wish to know them all, after your visit here, their names and links are on the left side of the blog layout. This blog also has a version in Portuguese, called “Traduzindo com TJ”. The link is on the left with the other ones.

I added the Google translator here because, even thought I don’t use it professionally as a translator, since translations are too literal and usually they don’t “fit”, I think it’s a very useful resource for any language reader to understand at least the contents of a foreign text.

Be welcomed! I hope this is a blog as enjoyable to visit as I think it is to post on it. I reiterate here a phrase that I put in all my blogs because it’s truthful.

Wherever you are, feel at home here! tj*¬