I was born and raised in Montréal and my first language is French. I became a translator partly because of my circumstances and a lot because I love words.
A three-year stay in Cambridge, in England, allowed me to become familiar with the English language, but it is while settling in the Toronto region that I perfected my knowledge of that language.
Since I have always liked the written world, studying in translation was a natural choice for me. Thereafter, I practiced this art while working for some retail businesses such as Winners, Toys R Us and Staples. It may seem strange to find retail business and art of translation in the same sentence. Yet, to translate a benefit handbook, it requires some terminology research; to translate products description, short and clear writing; and to translate marketing ads, a load of creativity.
And then I decided to be a freelancer, which I did for many months. But while contacting a publisher to offer my services, I got not the dreamed contract, but the dreamed job: a position as editor/translator for a well-known children book publisher, les Éditions Scholastic.
I stayed in that position for ten years. I edited the translation of about a hundred books a year and translated many picture books. I was nearly always responsible of the first bilingual reading of the novels, a lengthy task! I would get into it with lots of concentration and enthusiasm. This kind of work gave me a satisfying feeling, although working on some picture books, where every word count, was often a delight. I also enjoyed working on non-fiction books, in which simple words are used to explain complex concepts. In fact, no matter what kind of books I had to tackle, the ultimate goal was always the same: presenting a high-quality French text as it addresses a French speaking child or a child who is learning French.
Nowadays, I have traded the city life for the country life, slowed down quite a bit and went back to freelancing.
Josée Leduc Traductrice/réviseure 