Ahmet Yalcinkaya | Tell Us

Our Community

Get to know our community

Join Translation Journal

Click on the Subscribe button below to receive regular updates.

Subscribe

Ahmet Yalcinkaya

Question and Answer

  • What is your name?
    • Ahmet Yalcinkaya
  • Where do you live?
    • Turkey
  • How long have you been an interpreter or translator?
    • 28 years
  • What made you decide to become a translator or interpreter?
    • From my childhood in Germany on, I enjoy to learn new languages, and to use them. I discovered that one of the best way to improve language skills is to translate a lot. The other important way is to teach. After having thought about it many times, I decided to be a professional translator, and to practice it at least as freelancer.
  • List one strength that you think sets you apart from your colleagues.
    • Being also an engineer, I am analytic, and use this skill in my translation projects as well.
  • Name the one thing that you most enjoy in your translating or interpreting career.
    • After I deliver my translations, the project manager of the translation company, the senior translation coordinator, or directly the client thanks for the completed job. This is what I enjoy most.
  • We all have worked on those not-so-perfect assignments. Write about one such assignment that was not ideal and what you learned from it.
    • Once, I had to translate an advertising and launching project prepared for a brand of wine. I do not like alcoholic drinks, but as the coordinator requested a lot, I accepted the job. After I started, I felt myself uncomfortable, and got worse from day to day. At the end, I asked a colleague working for the same office to complete the job. I learned from this experience that one should not do any job he or she would not like even if their managers or potential clients insist on it.
  • If you could go back in time to when you were just starting out as a translator or interpreter, what advice would you give to your younger self?
    • I would advice to be more selective for the sake of optimum use of time and for future in depth expertise in intended fields of specialties.
  • Name one resource – such as a phone app, CAT tool, website, and so forth – that you find especially helpful in your translating or interpreting work.
    • Trados was very useful when I was young. Temporarily, I cannot use Trados. Across is now very helpful for me, and as it is free of charge, my assistants can also use it when necessary.
  • What’s the best book you’ve read this year?
    • A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

 portrait

The first, shortest, and most approachable of James Joyce's novels, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man portrays the Dublin upbringing of Stephen Dedalus, from his youthful days at Clongowes Wood College to his radical questioning of all convention. In doing so, it provides an oblique self-portrait of the young Joyce himself. At its center lie questions of origin and source, authority and authorship, and the relationship of an artist to his family, culture, and race. Exuberantly inventive in style, the novel subtly and beautifully orchestrates the patterns of quotation and repetition instrumental in its hero's quest to create his own character, his own language, life, and art: "to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race."

This Penguin Classics edition is the definitive text, authorized by the Joyce estate and collated from all known proofs, manuscripts, and impressions to reflect the author's original wishes.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Search for Articles

Log in

Log in