This week on MTTM we are joined by Ian Winick, a German (and sometimes French) to English translator who works primarily in the areas of general business, marketing, finance and legal, as well as specialising in art, music and creative translations.

Could you start by telling us about your language combinations?

As I’m based in Germany, 90-95 percent of my work is German to English. But I also translate from French to English whenever I get the chance. It’s always a pleasant change of pace to have the sentence in roughly the same order!

Oh goodness, I can imagine! German defeated me completely when I tried to apply myself to it. How did you learn your source languages?

I learnt French in school and went on to study International Marketing & Languages at Dublin City University, with French as my major language and German as my minor. That meant learning German in nine months in the first year of the course alongside the other language and business modules. Looking back, it was extremely intensive but at the same time it was a fantastic way to learn the language, having already learned French and Irish (Gaelic) at school and knowing what pitfalls to avoid this time around.

What are your specialisms, and why?

I moved into financial translation a couple of years after going freelance and still do quite a bit of translation and editing work in that area. I’m also a few customers’ go-to guy for advertising and creative translation – anything with slogans, puns and rhymes! – and have also built up a solid reputation as an art translator, which is slow but very satisfying work.

When did you decide to become a translator, and why?

I originally worked in automotive market research until I was headhunted (for want of a much more unassuming word) to run the English department of a translation agency here in Cologne. I soon realised that this kind of work was much, much more up my street – to be honest, all cars look the same to me – and a few years after that, I went freelance. That was 23 years ago.

At what stage did copywriting join your skill set, and how has that career developed?

Translation has always been my bread and butter and my policy has always been only to take on copywriting jobs that are completely in my wheelhouse. For example, I do a lot of SEO copywriting and have recently had a couple of very fun projects creating social media content for customers. I enjoy the discipline but it takes more of a back seat these days.

Can you talk us through the courses and qualifications you have taken over the years, and which have been most beneficial for both careers?

Especially when starting out, I don’t think there’s any substitute for working together with other translators, proofreading each other’s work and learning from each other’s ideas and mistakes. When I was just starting out in financial translation, I completed a Certificate In Accounting from the Open University to give me the extra background I needed in financial statements. Apart from that, most of the courses I do either relate to writing or to other skill sets like SEO, Google Analytics and other techie areas.

How do you find clients?

It’s always been word-of-mouth and recommendations from colleagues and customers. At the moment, I’m working on a large academic project for a new customer who had liked a similar translation I had done for one of its sister organisations a couple of years ago. I even managed to persuade them to give AI the heave-ho and insisted on translating it from scratch myself. Fighting the good fight!

Well done, you! I do hope the tide is turning with regards to AI. Nothing can beat human translation, for those who want a job doing well and not just cheaply. Which groups or organisations are you a member of, and which do you find most beneficial?

To be honest, I don’t really belong to any translator organisations but have always been very active in online translator communities on Twitter (before it was Elon-gated), Facebook and BlueSky. And having a wide network of colleagues that I know personally is one of the joys of being in an industry where, by and large, translators see each other as colleagues rather than rivals.

Do you find that you are more sought-after as a translator or as a copywriter?

Definitely as a translator – it’s what I’ve been doing for 23 years and what I’m known for (as well as making an arse of myself on Twitter). I think copywriters have been hit harder by generative AI and there is even less work to go around than there was before. So while I used to get regular copywriting gigs, they are very much the exception at the moment.

How would you like your career to develop over the next five years?

As I don’t need to tell you, the translation industry is going through a lot of changes at the moment, although the impression that I’m getting now is that many customers here in Germany have stopped “experimenting” with AI and DeepL and have decided to return to human translations instead. I am also working as part of an SEO team, which has allowed me to hone a whole new set of skills – so I see that as being one of my core areas in future.

Do you have any Dos or Don’t for new translators?

Specialisation is very important. It’s better to have one source language with an in-depth knowledge of a few specialist areas than having three or four source languages and never finding a niche.

You will be glad to know that I have taken this advice on board, and started doubling down on medical translation as my niche! What have you been working on recently?

At the moment, I’m working on the aforementioned academic project while also waiting on the next airdrop of press articles for an art exhibition that will be taking place next month. I also have quite a lot of editing work pencilled in and a few new SEO projects to get my teeth into next month. So after a worryingly quiet January, I’m a happy bunny again!

Thank you very much for volunteering for MTTM, Ian. This has been a very interesting read and I hope that the work continues to flow into your inbox for the rest of the year.

If anybody would like to showcase their talents on MTTM next week, please feel free to contact me.