And we’re back with our guest post series. First of all, I’d like to wish you all an amazing International Translation Day! May St. Jerome bless you with lots of great projects with reasonable deadlines and rates.

Now let’s welcome our guest today, the interpreter Gala Gil Amat.

Welcome, Gala!

A new platform for translators and interpreters: video blogs

First of all, thank you Caroline for inviting me to write on your blog, it’s such a pleasure!

In this post, I would like to talk about why I decided to create a video blog and the incredible opportunities this fact has brought me.

Well, the idea of creating a conventional blog was recommended by almost all our university professors since they told us that we had to contribute to enrich the industry and also to make us visible within our community. However, I decided to wait to create this blog because I wanted to have enough time to write a few entries so as to not to leave it abandoned.

Finally, I felt it was time to give it a go. When I looked around, I realized there were already thousands of interesting blogs on translation and interpreting and that I could do something a bit different. Moreover, I am a really talkative person and I enjoy letting people know me better, so I thought I could do something more interactive. The final and definitive reason was the possibility to show colleagues and maybe future clients (who knows!) my language skills (since the videos are in English and not in my mother tongue) and that I was not afraid of speaking publicly either on a screen or on real life since I would like to become a professional interpreter in a near future.

These three reasons were the main ones for creating my video blog, Transgalator.

My first idea was simply to upload videos of me talking about some topic related to this profession I had come across due to some particular reason, like for example, the one I did about volunteering as a translator or about the creative CVs. However, one day, one interpreter I know told me it could be a magnificent idea if I interviewed him in order to show, above all, students how the world of conference interpreting worked.

Due to the huge success of this video, I thought I could do some other interviews like that one and from then on, I had had the honour to interview a wide range of professional translators, interpreters and terminologists who have shared their knowledge and some valuable tips with all my followers and of course, with me.

Having this video blog has provided me with unforgettable experiences, for example, the opportunity to do a study visit at the European Parliament in Luxembourg or to get to know how the UEFA interpreters work, so through this blog I have learned some things which you can’t study and that’s why I will keep on with my video blog throughout my career so as to help other professionals with useful and valuable knowledge.

Thank you, Gala, for accepting my invitation and writing for our blog about such an amazing idea. A special Happy Translation Day to you! 🙂

Well, you know, comments are always welcome. 😉

About the author
Gala Gil Amat is a translator working from English and French into Spanish, who combines freelancing with the studies in Translation and Interpreting in the University of Alicante (Spain). The fields she usually deals with are business, human resources, journalism, and marketing. She has worked for several companies such as Procter and Gamble and for international institutions like the UN.