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  • If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn't brood. I'd type a little faster. (Isaac Asimov)     
  • I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again. (Oscar Wilde)    
  • Western Europe owes its civilization to translators. (Kelly Louis)    
  • The skill of writing is to create a context in which other people can think. (Edwin Schlossberg)     
  • Good communication is as stimulating as black coffee and just as hard to sleep after. (Anne Morrow Lindbergh)     
  • No passion in the world is equal to the passion to alter someone else's draft. (H. G. Wells)    
  • We tend to look through language and not realize how much power language has. (Deborah Tannen)    
  • Why do writers write? Because it isn't there. (Thomas Berger)    
  • The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place. (George Bernard Shaw)     
  • Writing well means never having to say, 'I guess you had to be there.' (Jef Mallett)    
  • The best way to become acquainted with a subject is to write a book about it. (Benjamin Disraeli)    
  • Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards. (Robert Heinlein)     
  • Arguments over grammar and style are often as fierce as those over IBM versus Mac, and as fruitless as Coke versus Pepsi and boxers versus briefs. (Jack Lynch)    
  • Writers will happen in the best of families. (Rita Mae Brown)     
  • Language is an art, like brewing or baking. (Charles Darwin)    
  • The process of translating comprises in its essence the whole secret of human understanding of the world and of social communication. (Hans Georg Gadamer)    

first book translation

There was one thing left on my work bucket list: A book translation (I have already written a book, which is still available online) . I work on such great things that I had no other entries. And yesterday my work bucket list was cleared, because my first book translation arrived by mail.

'Build your confidence with CBT' is a self help book written by Manja de Neef (the original is called 'Negatief Zelfbeeld'). I had a great time translating and enjoyed the intensie process. I am used to translations which take a few days. The book took up most of November 2014! It was followed by a big rewrite, because my client, Open University Press / McGraw Hill Education, wanted to change a certain figure of speech which was used all over the text. After the rewrite, the publisher was more than satisfied and started the design and print.

I am going to reread the book soon. I has been more than a year and, to be honest, I have forgotten what it was exactly about, but I do remember that I was interested in the whole cognitive behavioural therapy approach. And after that I am going to have to do something about that bucket list. Time for new goals.

More about my translations