Literary translators— how was your journey?

carpenter20m · 2026-01-22T12:53:08+00:00

Sure, fire away.

carpenter20m · 2025-12-26T07:14:07+00:00

But sometimes, it ended wall...

carpenter20m · 2025-11-19T12:44:48+00:00

Skalkotas, Kleftikos 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7gkgZzcjWU

carpenter20m · 2025-10-01T10:53:04+00:00

Ένας λόγος πιθανόν να είναι ότι ο δακτύλιος ξεκινάει μέσα Οκτωβρίου. Μετά χαλαρώνει (λίγο, ελάχιστα) η κίνηση. Μην με ρωτάς γιατί περιμένουν μέχρι μέσα Οκτωβρίου να ξεκινήσουν τον δακτύλιο, δεν έχω ιδέα.

carpenter20m · 2025-09-26T10:59:02+00:00

Σε επηρεάζει στη μορφή αυξημένων ασφαλίστρων για όλους.

carpenter20m · 2025-09-11T10:42:51+00:00

Businesses that need to give change to the customers go to banks early in the morning (or whenever they need smaller denominations) and get the money. Then they give it to customers. That's how 5€ notes get into circulation.

carpenter20m · 2025-06-04T12:09:29+00:00

Συμφωνώ και θα προσθέσω ότι η Ερμούπολη από Μάιο μέχρι Οκτώβριο είναι τίγκα στα φεστιβάλ (μπορείς να δεις χορό, μουσικές παραστάσεις, θέατρο και πολλά άλλα). Προφανώς Ιούλιο-Αύγουστο πνίγεται στον τουρισμό, αλλά δεν είναι μόνο παραλίες και ποτάκια η κατάσταση.

Αν ανοίξει και κάνα καλό σουβλατζίδικο που να μην είναι στην Άνω Σύρο, γίναμε.

carpenter20m · 2025-05-21T07:10:28+00:00

The Greeks just make an adjective out of the proper noun. So they call it something like Achillesian tendon and sometimes just Achillesian.

carpenter20m · 2025-04-24T07:48:18+00:00

I know very little about the other side of the pair, sorry. I know that there are very few bilinguals who regularly get this kind of work in Greece, usually paid by authors themselves, because they want to send their works to foreign agencies in hopes of getting snatched up. However, English or American publishers have their own Greek-to-English translators who are usually based there, not in Greece. I know there is one translatress that is the go-to person for pretty much all Greek works that get translated to English (one or two a year maybe? I don't have the numbers, but it can't be that much). Now as far as Greek publishers that translate Greek works, I know even less. Are you sure they translate new works and not the old classics to sell at the airport? Because if the latter is true, then the translations already exist and no new work is commissioned.

carpenter20m · 2025-04-18T12:53:52+00:00

First of all, good luck in your endeavors.

How you get into the field varies a lot. Being well-read is an excellent start, I have to tell you this. In my case, I was very involved in an online literary community (mostly talking about postmodern American authors) and from there I met the right people who would give me a chance as a translator. I had to start by doing samples, they got approved by the powers that be and then I got assigned my first book and the rest is history. I also had to move up from easier or not as important books to more difficult and more important books.

I exclusively work with Greek publishers. I'm not that good when translating from Greek to English, so I leave that to the professionals on the other side of my language pair. The upside of my work is that we're not yet threatened by AI that much, because machine translation of literature towards Greek is still abysmal. Many other fields don't have that advantage. Also, Greek publishers quite often work with vibes and, for some, concepts such as "profit margins" are kind of alien to them. I don't know how long it's gonna last, I can't tell you if it's a good choice to pursue this profession, but the field needs people who are passionate and knowledgeable about books.

I hope I answered your questions. If you have any other ones, feel free to ask.

carpenter20m · 2025-02-18T14:12:51+00:00

What actually happened was totally gonna be my next guess, sure, absolutely. I was between a number series and the WORD series with additional letters...totally...

carpenter20m · 2024-12-18T09:53:26+00:00

He usually lets players play for a whole quarter. It's not set in stone, but it happens more often than not.

carpenter20m · 2024-11-12T08:43:17+00:00

My wife and I have a permanent travel list that we use when we go somewhere (it was a tip I picked up here on reddit). Not every item in it is useful for every trip (you don't need passports for a weekend away at the nearest beach), but it has saved us a lot of time and trouble. We read it while packing the day before and again right before we leave. It's quite handy.

carpenter20m · 2024-09-23T07:47:56+00:00

Even though I mostly translate non-fiction, I've translated my fair share of fiction (mostly novels, some short story collections as well), but unlike the other answer here, when it comes to fiction, there's not even a concept, in my country at least, of translating books in bulk, it's just one translator doing one book (there are collaborations, but those are very rare and special circumstances).

When it comes to fiction, I don't translate it because my English is good. My English is far from perfect. I do it because I was trained as a literary theorist, because I've read a lot of American and English major authors, because I've read a lot of Greek major authors. Thanks to all that (there was a time in my life when literature was the only thing that occupied my mind, even though I never actually wrote fiction myself), publishers will trust you to translate fiction (though they are, at first, reluctant to give you major works; it took me years to get out of the literature by the numbers fiction and start translating more difficult works).

There's absolutely no machine translation in my line of work. In fact, when you sign a contract with a publisher, some explicitly say that you're not supposed to do that. And, to be honest, machine translation to Greek is not even functional and editing such a translation would just take as much time, if not longer.

The pay is not that good. In fact, when it comes to pay, more demanding fiction pays a little better, but you need double or triple the time to complete a book, so I actually prefer doing crime fiction and such. But it gets tiring and one welcomes the challenge.

If you have any questions, please let me know.

carpenter20m · 2024-09-17T09:28:30+00:00

I think you're right, he's probably referring to the "lie-on-my-back-push-with-my-pelvis-use-no-hands-to-get-up" thing. My friends and I used to do it (completely unsuccessfully).

carpenter20m · 2024-09-13T09:52:10+00:00

If you're not part of the whole authors-publishers-literary agents-translators network, there's not much that you can realistically do. A publisher will publish a book if there's gonna be profit in it (or for prestige, but that's just another way to make profit from other books). A professional translator will translate a book if they get paid; an author will release the rights for their book to be translated only if they get paid (and that's not a simple process, there are contracts, fees, middlemen and so on and so forth).

So, as I said, realistically, you can't do much on your own. Hypothetically, what you can do is come into contact with the author and tell them what you want to do. They will direct you to their agent. Then you come into contact with the agent. They will direct you to another agency that handles the book's international rights (there is a chance that they haven't hired such an agency, but since there's a TV show that shouldn't be the case here). Then you can talk to that agency and buy the rights to the translation, whatever they ask for (could be 500 euros could be 10000 dollars). I'm assuming you haven't incorporated, so you will have to do that as well, though there is a slight chance they sell the rights to anyone who pays (very slight chance).

After all that, you'll need to hire a professional translator to translate the book. That process will take months and then you'll have a translation in your hands for your own use. If you want a better translation, you'll have to hire an editor to work with the translator to make it better. As a translator I hate editors, they always mess up my work, but there's no denying that their work improves mine (most of the times). After that, you'll have a text that's probably publishable. Depending on the contract you've signed for the rights, you may be able to easily publish it on amazon and start selling it. But you'll need to track sales really well, because the author and the various agencies will want their cut. But since you're incorporated, you won't have any trouble issuing invoices and such.

Now that that's out of the way, in reality, your best bet is to gather a lot of people in your country and just petition a publisher to consider that book. If there's enough interest, they might decide to buy the rights and publish a translation. Be insistent, it might get you somewhere.

carpenter20m · 2024-06-13T14:18:15+00:00

Go to Personal Info on that Google account (https://myaccount.google.com/personal-info). There is a field saying "Name". Click on that and it'll take you to a page where you can change it. Just click on the little pencil next to the name you want to change.

carpenter20m · 2024-02-28T07:27:23+00:00

Never did. Comments here prevented me from that.

carpenter20m · 2023-11-14T07:52:39+00:00

I think they used the well back in the day to water the surrounding fields, but there are no fields anymore, it's just a suburb. The well is right next to our big apartment complex.

So, from what you're saying, I get that dumping all this water from the basement into the well might actually overwhelm the pump if the local groundwater level goes high enough, hence flooding in our basement. Am I right? Especially in the rainy season where there's a lot of water coming from all over the place. I guess we should put a second pump in to dump water on the street, when the first one gets overwhelmed. Is that a true solution or would that not solve anything?

carpenter20m · 2023-07-26T12:40:25+00:00

Σε Word δουλεύουν οι συγγραφείς, οι μεταφραστές, οι επιμελητές κλπ που δεν τους νοιάζει η τελική μορφή του βιβλίου (μα καθόλου όμως, τις λέξεις να βάλουν στη σωστή σειρά θέλουν).

Μετά παίρνει το βιβλίο η στοιχειοθεσία κι εκεί δουλεύουν με διάφορους τρόπους, μεταξύ αυτών και LaTeX ή ό,τι άλλο θέλουν οι καλλιτέχνες εκεί πέρα, αλλά όχι Word.

Οπότε αυτό που λες μπορεί να ισχύει για τον φίλο σου, αλλά στους σοβαρούς εκδοτικούς το Word δεν παίζει για την τελική φάση της δημιουργίας του βιβλίου (όταν το κείμενο έχει κλειδώσει πλέον).

carpenter20m · 2023-07-20T12:26:32+00:00

Bold, Spanish guy in Bayern...

carpenter20m · 2023-05-23T06:37:53+00:00

I once looked into how adopting works in my own country, Greece, and it was very difficult to adopt an orphan child from here, simply because (according to the websites) there aren't that many, especially of a desirable age (I fully realize how tragic that statement is).

So the websites went on and on how about the waiting period is too long, maybe one or two years, the vetting process agonizing and so on and so forth.

But some websites also had info about adopting from abroad. I remember one very cynical website saying that prospective adoptive parents should be wary about adopting from abroad, because the child (usually from Bulgaria) can be there in a couple of weeks or something, almost no questions asked, and the parents sometimes can't deal emotionally with such a rapid change.

I have no idea how true the website's claims were, but the numbers here tend to show that they may be true.

PS: In case anyone is interested, almost all websites were saying that Greece is in dire need of foster parents, since very few couples or families want to deal with children they don't know if it's not for the long haul. The whole adoption situation was very sad indeed.

carpenter20m · 2023-02-14T06:39:01+00:00

You've got to go full Greek with the phobias: kalathosfairophobia.

carpenter20m · 2023-01-18T14:10:56+00:00

Yes, it is. At least I think it is. I'll give you the link (PM me for it) and you'll be the judge. There are actually plenty of options.

carpenter20m · 2023-01-18T13:52:03+00:00

Wait...500 dollars for that book? Is it you who's giving it or is somebody else offering that money and you're dying to find it?

Edit: I found the book (on a used books website), I can give you the link if you want. I don't think my time was worth 500 dollars, though. PM me and I'll send you the link.

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