A Tuesday update from one of our brilliant graduates… Last time we posted an update from Ruth, she was working for an international technology firm in Canberra. Fast forward a few years and Ruth is now based in Berlin with languages at the heart of what she’s doing:
“It’s been 10 years now since I graduated from Stirling University with a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in French and Spanish. I studied French and Spanish at a Scottish university, I was born in Germany – quite a wild mix. After graduating, I applied for two Master Programmes, one in Translation and Interpreting at Queen’s University in Belfast, and, the programme I ended up choosing, Comparative Literature in Amsterdam. I loved having a big variety of post-graduate programmes available and that it wasn’t limited to solely translating, teaching or whatever else pops in mind first when you think about studying languages.
This also proved to be true for my career going forward as I started working for a global tech giant in Australia (a country I’d lived and grown up in for 10 years as a teenager) in 2015. My language skills were what made me stand out from other applicants. Not only because the languages came in handy for communication with clients, but I believe because it also shows an open-mindedness towards other cultures and an interest to learn and understand others, aiming for an empathetic society.
Though languages (at least not languages that aren’t for programming) weren’t the foundation for working in tech for me, I never lost interest in them and tried to keep on top of my skills as well as I could – until five years ago, when I decided I wanted to work with language again and make it more of my daily business. I ended up applying for a job in Berlin, Germany, with a big localisation company. The localisation business (i.e. dubbing films, series, video games etc. and translate them and record them, in our case, in German) is huge in Germany and has a big standing in the world of being one of the best, having a very long history of quite outstanding voice talents and dubbing directors. Before English became the Lingua Franca and before most Germans knew enough English to be able to watch something in the original language (which is mostly English), it was and still is very important that a film or series gets translated into German and then recorded by local voice talents so a product can also reach our local audience.
Our company dubs film, series and more for all streaming services, the cinema as well as for local television. I worked on some very cool projects with my team, for example Sex Education, You, Black Mirror and hundreds of others. Besides English, we get projects with other source languages as well: Korean, Japanese, Spanish, French to name but a few.
To make sure that the German translation doesn’t look awkward on screen and the lips are indeed in synch with what’s being said can be very challenging but also a lot of fun, playing with language, finding a world play that works in your language etc. Though I work on the production side of things and I don’t adapt whole scripts (there’s an actual degree you can get for localising and adapting scripts, so it’s not a plain translation), I still get to use my own love for language, translate synopsis, subtitle certain content and other tasks that let me be creative.
I am glad I decided to get back into languages and follow this path as it’s always been my passion. I can combine languages, a bit of writing, planning schedules and organising source material (which oddly enough I really enjoy) and by the end of it, there is a cool product hopefully many others will enjoy, too.”
Many, many thanks to Ruth for the great update. We’re really pleased things are going well in Berlin and we look forward to hearing more about life in the world of localisation over the months and years ahead!
French at Stirling 