Zingterview with a Translator: Jacquie Bridonneau
“I love the intellectual challenge of translating technical documents from French to English.”
Zingword’s interviews are back in 2023! ✨ Our Zingterview series is your chance to get to know some of the best translators on Zingword behind the scenes.
Jacquie Bridonneau was born, raised, and educated in the States where she has a Master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin. She moved to France in 1975 and has never really looked back since! She taught French when she graduated from UWM but had the bad surprise upon moving to France that she couldn’t teach in public schools because she was American, so she had to find another job. She worked with her husband managing two family-owned building material outlets for 18 years, thus learning a lot about construction, accounting, HR, etc. When they sold their outlets in 1999, she was much too young to retire and began working as a technical English trainer in companies, traveling all through Upper Normandy. This was where she caught the translation bug and why she founded her technical translation company: 2BTraduction. Let’s find out more about Jacquie!
Let’s begin at the beginning. How did you become multilingual?
Definitely the hard way! Being born in the Middle West of the United States, people I knew spoke only English. My grandparents’ parent came over from Germany, and spoke German but learned how to speak English, and my grandma never taught my mom one word of German, as for them the “melting pot” demanded that people speak English in the States. So I learned French at school. I never spoke French with a “real” French person before going to France in my sophomore year of college (and wow, they sure don’t teach you everything in school, that’s for sure!)
How and/or why did you become a translator? (And do you suck the life out of words for immortality purposes, or to pay the rent?)
After we sold our business, I changed careers and began teaching technical English in companies and was often required to translate documents for my students. I found that was something that I really liked doing. While still working as an English trainer, I founded my technical French to English translation company: 2BTraduction.
I am technically retired now, but I keep the company open as I mostly have direct clients and I also translate fiction books from French to English for royalties. That’s something I love to do, so I guess you could say that I translate because I love to, and not just to pay the rent.
How much of a coincidence is it that you ended up on this path? How much of a choice?
50/50! Had I not worked as an English trainer, I never would have worked as a translator, because back in the day when I was doing my Master’s degree in French, we often had homework translating from English to French (yes I know, that’s not logical!) and I hated this.
Is life everything you thought it would be, and more? What did you think it would be?
Let’s just say that every day of life is a gift of another day and just like when you open a box of chocolates, you never know what you’ll get!
What is it you love about your lifestyle as a translator?
Lots of things! I love the intellectual challenge of translating technical documents from French to English, looking up terms, understanding them, doing research. I also love to see the finished product: a book, a catalogue, a website, a PPTX presentation, etc.
I like the fact that I can work from the comfort of my own office, assisted by my snoring English bulldog, Coco, right behind me.
What was your darkest moment as a translator?
I think it was losing an agency client, through no fault of my own. This was my largest client as an agency, and I was the preferred French to English translator of one of the PMs. He unfortunately and perhaps naively recommended some clients to one of his friends who was setting up her own translation agency and was fired. After he left, I hardly received any work from that agency anymore, as I didn’t know the other PMs.
If you listen to music while working, what’s on your speakers lately? Spotify links or YouTube links are much appreciated 😉
Nope!
If you had a magic wand and a pointy hat that actually worked, what would you change about the translation industry or your working lifestyle?
Certainly the mentality of “cheap is better,” or “first-come, first-go” in assigning translations. I don’t think that being a translator is a job that most people respect or understand, so maybe a little client education might be nice.
What are you doing at home or in the office to be more productive?
I would say the only thing I’m actually doing to be more productive is to only work using memoQ, my CAT tool. I can’t imagine translating without this.
I am also a member of a private group of European language translators: Trans’Missions Europe. We communicate only in French and are there for each other, for translation related questions, computer related issues, and just to chat (needless to say, there are no males in our group!).
Tell us about the weirdest thing you ever translated.
Every translation is different and important, whether it is weird or not, and there’s nothing that has really shocked me, though in some of my books, I’ve toned down the erotica quite a bit.
What’s the best question that we didn’t think to ask?
Hmm. Maybe where would you say no? Or what would you wish you had known when you began?
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