Ahmed T al-Hamdi (Mr)

• Where do you live/work?

I live in North Manchester. My office is located in the vibrant and historic Deansgate area in Manchester City Centre, United Kingdom.

• Are you a translator or interpreter or both? Which languages do you work with?

I am a certified translator and consecutive interpreter. I provide translation and interpreting from English into Arabic and vice-versa. I work closely with an assistant, translating legal and technical texts, and taking on transcription and subtitling jobs.

• What are your specialist fields?

My specialist areas are legal, business and semi-technical. Please see more specialist areas on my website: https://www.arabictranslatoruk.com/services/translation

What’s the strangest/most interesting project you’ve ever worked on?

A translation of a 433 page book from old Arabic into English. It is a history book of Sudan in the 18^th Century.

• Tell us about a particularly proud moment in your translation/interpreting career so far:

I fondly remember being greeted by Major-General Michael Charlton-Weedy, CBE Chief Executive of Emergency Planning College, Cabinet in York. I had travelled from Manchester to the York countryside very early in the morning. When meeting me at reception he stated, “Thank you very much for the heroic arrival, Mr al-Hamdi.” Major-General Michael Charlton-Weedy was a pleasure to work with and treated me extremely well. Please see his testimonial on my website: https://www.arabictranslatoruk.com/testimonials

 Tell us two reasons why you like being a translator/interpreter:

I find joy in the mental acrobatics of translation, comprehending the source text and enjoying the flow of meaning into the target text. It is a heavenly miracle : “And one of His signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the diversity of your languages and colours. Surely in this are signs for those of ˹sound˺ knowledge.” Holy Qur’an- Ar-Rum Chapter 30: Verse 22. “Then by the Lord of heaven and earth! ˹All˺ this is certainly as true as ˹the fact that˺ you can speak!” Holy Qur’an –Adh-Dhariyat Chapter 55: Verse 23.

Translation: From initially receiving the job to sending the final translation back to my clients, it is a joyful journey. It involves studying the text, checking terminology, translating, proof-reading, discussing ambiguities, finalising the text and delivering the documents. It’s a great pleasure to see an initially stressed client relax once they’ve received their certified translation by Special Guaranteed Delivery post.

Interpreting: It is the pleasure of sharing communication from the mind of a presenter, my mind and the minds of those in the audience. The presenter’s speech, processed in my mind, is verbalised by me and comprehended by the audience. The contented looks on the faces in the audience is an assurance to me and to the presenter that the information is being conveyed.

• Where is the most interesting place where you have lived/visited?

Campus of Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh and Morocco.

In the 1990s I attended the enjoyable NWTN meetings held at the YHA in Castlefield,  Manchester. On approaching the building and enjoying the canal side location, I was full of hope and peace, knowing I’d be greeting many kind friends.

My visits to the British Council in al-Waziriyah, Baghdad during the 1970s  are very precious memories, as I thoroughly enjoyed the civil and cultural setting of the British Council Library, with its valuable language, linguistics, literature books, and research papers. The film screenings, theatre and musical performances held at the Hall of British Council in Baghdad were the happiest cultural events I ever attended, and they helped form the foundation of my competence of English and British culture. 

• What are your plans for professional development or a new field you’d like to work in?

I published translations of literary, history, psychology and children’s books, and am looking to focus on book translation in the future.

• Tell us something not many people know about you:

I look at life through the eyes of the Lord. I always ask myself if the deed I am about to do satisfies the Lord or not. I receive my heavenly guidance through the heavenly holy books; the Holy Qur’an, the Holy Bible and the Holy Torah.

I write, recite and translate Arabic and English poetry. On 17^th July, 1986, I performed a public poetry recital in English of translations of poems by modern Arab poets in Covent Garden in London. I was interviewed by Mrs Leila al-Tami of BBC Arabic Service at this event. Please see details of my translated poems “Songs of Life” on my website: https://www.arabictranslatoruk.com/publications

The post Member Monday presents: Ahmed T al-Hamdi appeared first on North West Translators' Network.

We publicise a member profile on Mondays here on our website, Facebook page, X @NWTN_UK and LinkedIn. If you want to join us in this opportunity to share a little about yourself with your fellow NWTN members, download the questionnaire from the Member Resources area and send it to our Comms Officer.

Where do you live/work?

I live in Manchester and work in the city centre – I have made use of various co-working opportunities in the city for a good ten years and currently work from a Grade-2 listed loft in an old mill in Ancoats.

Are you mainly a translator or interpreter or both? What languages do you work with?

I translate exclusively from German to English.

What are your specialist fields?

I spent the 2000s putting myself through law school as a part-time mature student. After qualifying as a solicitor, I combined that expertise with my language skills and set up shop as a specialist legal  translator. Adjacent to that I also naturally tackle commercially-related subject areas along with more generalist fields – for instance I somewhat incongruously translate a lot of stuff about German toilets!

What’s the strangest/most interesting project you’ve ever worked on?

I once had a job translating transcripts of German comedians’ stand-up routines. The ultimate client was Netflix, who wanted an idea of said comics’ material with a view to potentially commissioning content for the network. I was told the translations didn’t have to be funny (which was fortunate as much of the original material wasn’t!) and I ended up somewhat bemusedly delivering page upon page of varyingly ropey comedy in English, none of which I ever saw broadcast – though I’m assured this wasn’t my fault!

Tell us about a particularly proud moment in your translation career so far:

Just after I graduated a member of the public approached my university’s German department with a tape of an interview with a distant relative of his who was an Austrian composer. My task was to transcribe it, translate it, and faithfully recreate the interview in English complete with the incidental music and another student playing the interviewer. It took absolutely ages and I was paid peanuts, but the look on his face when he got to listen to his relative’s interview in English was heartwarming.

Tell us two reasons why you like being a translator:

Languages are in my bones and I’m very thankful that I can make a living from something I enjoy. Also, having spent a stint working in the rigid confines of a law firm, I enjoy many aspects of the freelancer lifestyle – albeit a regular wage would not go amiss some months!

What is the most interesting place where you have lived/visited?

I lived in Berlin for a number of years, which I enjoyed hugely. My daily cycle ride home from the office by Checkpoint Charlie to my apartment in the former East Berlin was a veritable voyage through German history. What a place!

What are your plans for professional development or a new field you’d like to work in?

With the various challenges posed to our industry by technological developments, my objective is to consolidate work in my specialist sector while naturally also keeping an eye out for new opportunities.

Tell us something not many people know about you:

I once fulfilled my life’s ambition of appearing on the BBC World Service when I was asked to take part in a radio programme about Manchester’s failed Mobike cycle-sharing scheme!

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We publicise a member profile on Mondays here on our website, Facebook page, X @NWTN_UK and LinkedIn. If you want to join us in this opportunity to share a little about yourself with your fellow NWTN members, download the questionnaire from the Member Resources area and send it to our Comms Officer.

Where do you live/work?

I live and work in Liverpool. I grew up on the Wirral, but after six cities and 12 houses in ten years, it was time to return and put down some roots!

Are you a translator or interpreter or both? Which languages do you work with?

I’m an audiovisual translator, working from French and German into English, but I also do text translations.

What are your specialist fields?

During my first freelancing stint in 2017, I mainly worked for one company as a remote linguist and they would give me everything under the sun—medical reports, boiler manuals, software strings. It was quite stressful, and I soon learned to only accept projects I love, nothing technical, legal or medical, in areas I am passionate about: entertainment, food and drink, the arts, sustainable beauty and fashion.

What’s the strangest/most interesting project you’ve ever worked on?

In audiovisual translation, any project is pretty cool, but once I transcribed an audio file where someone had left it recording while they were on the toilet, then sent it to me without realising. That was probably the strangest…

Tell us about a particularly proud moment in your translation/interpreting career so far:

I’m at the start of my career really as I only went freelance “for real” in 2020, but I think getting to the stage where I have been working with certain clients for several years now makes me feel proud that they keep coming back! I was also proud to be asked back to the University of Leeds in 2021 to teach German to English subtitling on the same Master’s in Audiovisual Translation course that I completed in 2017. It’s great to train future subtitlers and instil a passion for AV!

Tell us two reasons why you like being a translator/interpreter:

I love the variety—one day I’m subtitling a detective series, the next I’m translating voice-over for meditation sessions. I also like the sense of community, which I’m only just discovering this year after making an effort to join more networks like the NWTN and organisations like the ITI and CIOL.

Where is the most interesting place where you have lived/visited?

I lived in Berlin during my year abroad, which is such a unique and eclectic city. I’d love to live there again in the future if I can persuade my partner to learn German.

What are your plans for professional development or a new field you’d like to work in?

I’d like to take part in more networking events and conferences next year and get to know everyone in the NWTN through coworking. I translate wine menus regularly, so I’d also like to do the WSET Level 2 Wine course one day. Eventually, it would be great to narrow down my specialisms even more.

Tell us something not many people know about you:

I’m a keen roller skater! I got some beautiful skates for my birthday last year. I look a bit like a giant child with all my safety gear on, so I’m always looking for local people to skate with for moral support (Hey, NWTNers?)

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We publicise a member profile on Mondays here on our website, Facebook page, X @NWTN_UK and LinkedIn. If you want to join us in this opportunity to share a little about yourself with your fellow NWTN members, download the questionnaire from the Member Resources area and send it to our Comms Officer.

Where do you live/work?

I live and work in Liverpool, Merseyside.

Are you a translator or interpreter or both? Which languages do you work with?

I am mainly a translator from English and French into Spanish and Catalan, but I am also a DPSI-qualified interpreter.

What are your specialist fields?

Literary translation, linguistic services for businesses in the cosmetics, market research, marketing and B2B industries, and public service interpreting.

What’s the strangest/most interesting project you’ve ever worked on?

I once worked on a transcreation project for a Belgian brand selling luxury candles. Their whole image and copy had been so exquisitely curated that I had to really put myself in their headspace, surrounding myself with the different candle smells and their aesthetics, to carry their voice into the Spanish market.

Tell us about a particularly proud moment in your translation/interpreting career so far:

Probably I’d say when I interpreted for a person seeking asylum during an application interview. Being able to help someone going through hard circumstances with my skills made me proud of having trained for my profession.

Tell us two reasons why you like being a translator/interpreter:

I love translating because it is a constant exercise in creativity, which entices us to always keep growing as wordsmiths. Also, as cultural bridges we always live in the in-between area, and as much as physically travelling is fun, another of the most enjoyable aspects of our profession is the cognitive journeys we go through as we try to convey messages between the cultures where our target and source languages are spoken.

Where is the most interesting place where you have lived/visited?

I lived in Helsinki for a very short while, in Lauttasaari, which is an enchanting and peaceful island. It was very residential, so I got to have an authentic experience of how locals lived, and met the author of the Finnish Nightmares comic series.

What are your plans for professional development or a new field you’d like to work in?

I am aiming to translate more contemporary literature, and I’m also looking to add Finnish to my working languages. It’s starting to come along a bit, but it’s more of a long-term project.

Tell us something not many people know about you:

I have played guitar since I was young, and later trained as a luthier for a couple of years.

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We publicise a member profile on Mondays here on our website, Facebook page, X @NWTN_UK and LinkedIn. If you want to join us in this opportunity to share a little about yourself with your fellow NWTN members, download the questionnaire from the Member Resources area and send it to our Comms Officer.

Where do you live/work?

I live and work in the Greater Bordeaux Area

Are you a translator or interpreter or both? Which languages do you work with?

I’m a translator. English>French is my pair.

What are your specialist fields?

Environment (marine and water-related fields), Life Sciences, Nautical and Education.

What’s the strangest/most interesting project you’ve ever worked on?

Nothing of the sort yet, I’m too new in the business.

Tell us about a particularly proud moment in your translation/interpreting career so far:

To have been able to change career path and passing my translation degree after 50!

Tell us two reasons why you like being a translator/interpreter:

I love manipulating languages and helping people with my skills to bridge cultures.

Where is the most interesting place where you have lived/visited?

Probably Islay and Jura on equal footing with India (Karnataka).

What are your plans for professional development or a new field you’d like to work in?

I intend to live on my new freelance activity, mostly with direct clients but also through some agency clients.

Tell us something not many people know about you:

I’m good at rowing! My grand-father taught me on the Adour river that conveniently flowed past the bottom of our garden.

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We publicise a member profile on Mondays here on our website, Facebook page, X @NWTN_UK and LinkedIn. If you want to join us in this opportunity to share a little about yourself with your fellow NWTN members, download the questionnaire from the Member Resources area and send it to our Comms Officer.

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We publicise a member profile on Mondays here on our website, Facebook page, X @NWTN_UK and LinkedIn. If you want to join us in this opportunity to share a little about yourself with your fellow NWTN members, download the questionnaire from the Member Resources area and send it to our Comms Officer.

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We publicise a member profile on Mondays here on our website, on our Facebook page, on Twitter @NWTN_UK and on LinkedIn. If you want to join us in this opportunity to share a little about yourself with your fellow NWTN members, download the questionnaire from the Member Resources area and send it to our Comms Officers Kat and Marjolein.

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Where do you live/work?

I live in Monton, a leafy part of Salford. I combine working from home with organising NWTN Coworking sessions in locations including Ziferblat Edge Street, Manchester, Bruntwood office spaces at their “Free Workspace Wednesdays”, Colony Piccadilly and also Work.Life Brown Street.

Are you mainly a translator or interpreter or both? What languages?

I work as a translator, translating from Spanish and French into English.

What are your specialist fields?

Like many who start out, I didn’t know what I wanted to specialise in! I’ve focused on advertising and marketing texts, including transcreation as I love the creativity that’s involved, business/legal (contracts) and human rights/international development, given I used to work in a law enforcement department of the Home Office.

What’s the strangest/most interesting project you’ve ever worked on?

I’ve worked on such a wide variety of texts that it’s quite hard to remember! I was once given a slogan in Spanish for a doll that was being specifically targeted at 4-5-year olds yet needed to appeal to a broad English-speaking audience, including non-native speakers. The original phrase was only 4 words and I was asked to transcreate it, giving several alternatives and my explanation for each. As I don’t have children myself, I asked the opinions of friends who work as primary school teachers and/or who have children of their own, just to check I wasn’t way off the mark! It made me appreciate how much more you have to consider when marketing a product and how language can be so powerful.

Tell us about a particularly proud moment in your translation career:

I don’t believe I’ve ever worked as hard in my life as when I did an internship in a translation agency based in Barcelona! I applied for it through the ‘European Master’s in Translation Network’ and was there for 7 months in total. I worked long intensive hours but have that internship to thank for enabling me to learn how to use MemoQ while on the job. I’ve not looked back since as that agency is still one of my main clients today.

Tell us two reasons why you like being a translator/interpreter:

As a career changer, I’ve loved getting back to something I always enjoyed throughout my education – communicating in a foreign language. I remember picking up leaflets for the CIOL and ITI in high school many moons ago and first learning about what translators do, thinking “I want to do that!” and here I am now. Despite the many challenges with being self-employed, I also love being my own boss, deciding what hours I work and when I can take time off. My former job was very strict with shifts and holidays, so it’s been refreshing to feel like I have time for life away from work too.

What is the most interesting place where you have lived/visited?

I’ve been lucky to live in a range of places so it’s hard to answer that. I studied in Metz, France and Granada, Andalucía during my bachelor’s degree, so you’ll probably still find a piece of my heart in the Generalife gardens at the Alhambra palace. I once did voluntary work in Costa Rica for 6 months – a place where I realised (when catching eggs being laid by a Leatherback turtle while being bitten to death by sand-flies) that I’m more of an armchair conservationist than a full-on eco warrior. I was lucky enough to be posted to Mexico City, Guangzhou and Istanbul during my time at the Home Office, so you’ll probably find pieces of my heart in each of those places for different reasons too!

What are your plans for professional development or a new field you’d like to work in?

I’m a little ashamed to say that I’ve yet to join the ITI despite being in my fourth year of translation but I’m in the process of my application at the moment. I’ve been a CIOL member since my Master’s course. I’d also like to attend a conference in the translation field if I can this year, and also create my own website.

Tell us something not many people know about you:

I once appeared on the BBC’s Saturday Kitchen as one of the chef’s table guests and enjoyed sampling my beloved TV chef’s (James Martin) food first-hand, as well as meeting the Hairy Bikers! I still get teased by my friends for being one of his biggest fans, not least because I actually gave him a Christmas present to say thank you for being on the show, which included my phone number inside. I’m still waiting for my call from him…

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We will publicise a member profile every Monday here on our website, on our Facebook page, on Twitter @NWTN_UK and on LinkedIn. We are starting off with the committee members, but we hope you will all join us in this opportunity to share a little about yourself with your fellow NWTN members.

Where do you live/work?

I live in Old Trafford, Manchester, and work from home. I very much enjoy my setting as I have a dedicated room for my office, overlooking the garden, and I am able to take breaks walking the dog in the local park for that occasional, but much needed, bit of fresh air.

Are you mainly a translator or interpreter or both? What languages?

I am a translator, from English into French.

What are your specialist fields?

I translate mostly marketing texts, press releases, articles and websites, but also poetry and song lyrics.

What’s the strangest/most interesting project you’ve ever worked on?

As part of a collaborative project with the We Are Willow collective from Manchester, I translated 4 unreleased songs by them from English into French. My translations were then passed on to French language students, whose native language was English, who were given the task of translating my French lyrics back into English. The aim was to observe what had changed during the process and how much more personal and original translation can be when given the creative freedom it sometimes requires.

The project is still ongoing, with 4 French artists and bands recording the French versions of the songs (which is particularly exciting for me!), and 8 visual artists interpreting the French and English songs into visual art including painting, sculpture and performance.

Beyond the personal satisfaction of watching my translations become original works of art, it has been very exciting to be part of this enterprise due to the sheer number of participants and skills involved – quite a contrast to the usual loneliness of the freelance translator’s life!

Tell us about a particularly proud moment in your translation career:

In 2018 I had the great pleasure of translating two poems by Simon Armitage for a project commissioned by 14-18 NOW, the UK’s official arts programme for the First World War centenary, and La Mission du Centenaire. Entitled ‘Traces of the Great War’ (Traces de la grande guerre), this anthology contained the works of 42 comic art authors and writers and was led by the directors of the Lakes International Festival in Kendal, and the French On a Marché sur la Bulle festival, based in Amiens.

Translating poetry is a challenging task for obvious reasons, but one that I found immensely rewarding. It gave me a (much too rare) opportunity to reach into my inner poet, and to continue honing my skills as a literary translator.

Tell us 2 reasons why you like being a translator/interpreter:

First and foremost, I love research! Even when translating a well-known subject, there is still a chance you might learn something new.

Second, I love languages. I started learning English when I was 7, I studied Italian and Breton in high school and took up Spanish when I moved to Manchester. Although English is the only second language I speak well enough to translate from, I enjoy finding common points between our many languages and learning more about etymology and linguistics.

What is the most interesting place where you have lived/visited?

I am a keen traveller and in 2007, I used a Eurorail ticket to travel from Paris to Nuremberg, Copenhagen, Bucharest, Budapest and Berlin (in that order). I slept on the train and visited friends and family in these various places. I couldn’t pick out one as being more interesting than the other, but the train journey itself certainly was! I met people from all over Europe, discussed politics with Romanian conductors, discovered the Transylvanian landscape in the company of Irish and Australian backpackers, and, between Sweden and Germany, witnessed the technical prowess of a train boarding a ferry!

What are your plans for professional development or a new field you’d like to work in?

I am a fan of the outdoors and a keen gardener, and I am extremely concerned about the current climate crisis. I would like to further my knowledge of these fields using online training such as MOOC and those provided by the UN, for example.

Tell us something not many people know about you:

I can say “Loreal, because I’m worth it” in 6 different languages. Surprisingly, it has come handy on several occasions, mainly to break the ice while on holiday abroad!

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