This is the first post of my new blog, covering the translation industry, freelancing, language and the subjects I specialise in when I translate.

Welcome to my new blog, entitled Only Human Translators. Here, I hope, you will find things to interest you, to make you laugh and perhaps even to make you angry. There will be blog entries in the different languages of this website – English, Catalan, Spanish and French – although for practical reasons I can’t promise to translate everything into all the languages. I promise not to moan endlessly about the state of the translation industry, although you might find the occasional grumpy entry at the end of a long day. Nor will there be mindless sloganising and cheerleading; I much prefer passing on useful, practical advice. I’m not interested in becoming a guru or impressing anyone with my knowledge, but I am quite happy to have a chat if you’d like to leave a comment or to give some advice if I can help you. You are also welcome to contact me either using the form here or write to simonberrill@sjbtranslations.com.

What is written here is meant for human translators as opposed to machines, however much we need them to help us. It’s also meant to reflect the fact that however professional we like to think ourselves, we are, after all, only human. We make mistakes, we don’t always do everything we should and we can’t always do everything we’d like. In fact, sometimes, that isn’t a bad thing.

Fortunately, we often have other professionals, family and friends to help us out, and in the case of this website I’d like to thank four very important people: Eduardo García for his technical expertise, patience and advice; Martine Fernández for translations into French and assorted corrections; Quim Puig for inventing photos out of next to nothing, and my wife Marta Membrives for all sorts of things, not least writing texts in Catalan and Spanish and stopping me going mad.

Until the next time!

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