TRADUguide - Your Guide to Translators and Translation Agencies

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Microsoft Office

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SATI

Career/Experience

BIRGITT LEDERER CURRICULUM VITAE

A self-published author to help you take your first step to getting published!

www.birgittlederer.com

As a native speaker of both German and English anyone using my services will have the distinct advantage of a translator with an implicit feel for the nuances that a source language will invariably present to ensure the best possible and most accurate translated rendition.

As a published co-author of my own book you will get publish quality from me (see below for Publications authored by Birgitt Lederer). For my repertoire of translations of novels, short stories and travel guides that have been published by renowned publishing houses go to Publication translated by Birgitt Lederer below.

MY MISSION STATEMENT
Excellence is my pledge! Publish-quality translations my benchmark! Competitive prices guaranteed!

TRANSLATOR FROM GERMAN INTO ENGLISH SINCE 2008
I have been self-employed as a full-time freelance translator from German into English running my own successful translation business since the beginning of 2008. A repeat client base and ongoing new enquiries speak for themselves. My forte is the creative use of the English language especially in the context of press, news and feature articles, as well as in tourism related-articles and short stories, novels, fiction, biographies and autobiographies. A number of German authors’ books that were translated by me have already been published in English while others are awaiting publication with publishers and cannot be mentioned here due to confidentiality. I was also part of the dedicated team for the translation and re-launch from 2012 to 2013 of the popular Marco Polo travel guide series for Stuttgart publishers MairDumont. See below for Publications Translated by Birgitt Lederer. Aside from an affinity with fiction, books of a non-technical nature in general, autobiographies and tourism & travel, in the course of my translation career from German into English, the translations that I have accomplished for a range of industries in consulting, entertainment, manufacture, marketing, media and production, not to mention for private individuals, are too many to keep count of.

In a nutshell, among the diversity of subjects dealt with are:

• Short stories / Novels / Fiction
• Biographies / Autobiographies
• Marketing / Advertising
• Flyers / Brochures
• Websites / Internet articles
• Tourism & Travel
• Press / News / Feature articles
• Culinary industry
• Job applications / Job postings / CVs

LANGUAGES
Fully conversant in English and German – being German-born with German as my mother tongue and also having lived in Germany during periods of my adult life as well as English (UK) having become my native and first language from early on in life from residing in South Africa and the UK – this gives me the distinct advantage of an innate familiarity with the intricacies of both languages. Added to this is good background knowledge of French and Italian and excellent command of the Afrikaans language.

PUBLICATIONS AUTHORED BY BIRGITT LEDERER
• I am the co-author of the ‘The Hidden Records’ published in 2003, which still receives high rankings internationally more than a decade later – my role was to re-conceptualise the researcher’s complex innovative new theories on the history of our origins into a palatable style that would be easily digestible for a wide English-speaking readership.

PUBLICATIONS TRANSLATED BY BIRGITT LEDERER
• TRAVEL GUIDES: I was part of the dedicated team for the translation into English and re-launch from 2012 to 2013 of the popular Marco Polo travel guide series for Stuttgart publishers MairDumont. The volumes that I translated and that have since been published are: Algarve, French Riviera, New York, South Africa, Cape Town, Madrid, Scotland and Egypt’s Red Sea Resorts (see Credits near the back when you LOOKINSIDE on www.amazon.co.uk).
• NOVELS & FICTION BOOKS: Mori-Joe - exploring magical paths: A light-hearted quirky fictional reading companion serving as a psychology and sociology university textbook (author Claude-Hélène Mayer). See Amazon.
• SHORT STORIES: Purple Jacaranda: Narrations on trans-cultural identity development (editors Professors Claude-Hélène Mayer and Stephan Wolting). I translated several in this compendium of short stories intended for study material.
See Amazon and LOOKINSIDE and go to the footnote on Page 9 of the short story titled "Purple Jacaranda - Food for thought on a city stroll" by Claude-Hélène Mayer where Birgitt Lederer is acknowledged as the translator.

EDUCATION
Bachelor of Arts Languages – Honours graduate in English and in French – German Major: University of Johannesburg (formerly RAU) South Africa (1979 to 1984) with additional language subjects Italian and Afrikaans.

WORK HISTORY
• I have been self-employed as a full-time freelance translator from German into English running my own successful translation business since the beginning of 2008.
• Prior to this my experience in a personal assistant capacity in the UK, Germany and South Africa across a wide spectrum of industries and corporate companies since 1997 has not only allowed me to expand my knowledge base to develop areas of expertise for translating i.e. paper & pulp (SAPPI UK; the Finnish engineering consulting firm Jaakko Pöyry) and sugar industries (SASA Sugar Association of South Africa), consulting (Ernst & Young London), telecommunications (BT UK), legal transcription (Her Majesty’s Custom and Excise UK), but has also allowed me to polish my command of the German language to the business level (Towers Perrin Frankfurt) that a first class translation into English would require.
• Subsequent to aforesaid corporate positions was the commitment to the co-writing of the complex and controversial non-fictional book ‘The Hidden Records’ (published in 2003); also exploring some of the ancient sites covered in the research. I was tasked with finely tuning every aspect of the research into palatable and exciting language for everyman that still has the book highly ranked internationally more than a decade later. During this period was also doing promotional work for the book/research project.
• Was editorial assistant to the Editor of Martin Creamer Media in Johannesburg, the publisher of the consistently award-winning commercial and industrial weekly English language publications ‘Engineering News’ and ‘Mining Weekly’ in a copyrighting, editing and proofreading capacity (1996/7).
• Role as sub-editor for publishers ‘Info Africa’, which provided comprehensive information and accreditation support for the South African tourism industry at the time (1995/6).
• Eleven years’ experience in broadcasting newsroom environments (South African Broadcasting Corporation 1984 to 1994) taking on positions of increasing seniority in newscast copy-writing, editing and editorial capacity in English, in a fast-paced current affairs environment across a broad spectrum of topical subjects, as well as translating from Afrikaans to English.
• Some 30 years of cumulative knowledge in a variety of fields has given me the confidence to adapt my experience base to any given piece of translation.

PROFESSIONAL ORGANISATIONS
Member of SATI (South African Translators’ Institute) the translation regulator in South Africa. Its chief executive has held the position of President of the International Federation of Translators (FIT) to which SATI is affiliated on several occasions.

LOCALE
My time zone:
= CET Central Europe Time during the European summer
= CET Central Europe Time plus 1 hour during the European winter

Remember, a good translation is the definitive marketing tool. I believe I have what it takes to help you get there!

Contact

Native language/Country

English / South Africa

Language combinations

Afrikaans > English
  - Translating
German > English
  - Translating