Translation

If you rely upon machine translations, you are getting only about 40% of the accuracy and power of the American English language which I can give you. You require a person who can understand both the literal and cultural meaning of the text in the foreign language and translate the metaphors and idioms of the foreign culture into American English cultural equivalents. Since I am a writer, editor, proofreader, and publisher myself, I can offer you the highest quality American English translations from German, Spanish, French, or Russian originals.

Here is an example of a cultural problem in translation:

The original German:

Ich gönne ihm diese neue Wohnung aber von ganzem Herzen.

Literally, that would be "But with all my heart, I don't begrudge him the new apartment." The problem is that no American would ever say that. We would look at it from the positive side. It's not that enviousness does not exist in America, but it's just not a very prominent emotion. We might say something like, "Good for him; he got a new apartment." Some cases are really hard to translate, because there is a completely different outlook in the two societies with respect to some situations.

Here are a couple of client reactions to my work:

"It was a pleasure to work with Michael! Very professional and every task was delivered very fast. Incredible experience! 5 stars!" —Daria

"Michael is an excellent translator. The translation was done to my complete satisfaction. Even the smallest subtleties and puns were excellently translated into English. You can immediately tell that Michael is a language lover and a professional translator. Delivery was extremely fast. I will definitely work with Michael again. If you are looking for an extremely qualified translator, I and my proofreader can only highly recommend Michael." —Christian

Examples:

I translated from German, the very important book which led the successful campaign to cause Otto von Bismarck to give up the prevailing British free trade policies which had left Germany economically weak, and to replace those policies with American-style tariff protections for German industry. Despite the passage of more than 140 years, this important book had never before appeared in English.

Here is my translation of a beautiful poem by Goethe which I published as part of the dedication to another book:

So wirkt mit Macht der edle Mann

Jahrhunderte auf seines Gleichen:

Denn was ein guter Mensch erreichen kann,

Ist nicht im engen Raum des Lebens zu erreichen.

Drum lebt er auch nach seinem Tode fort,

Und ist so wirksam als er lebte;

Die gute Tat, das schöne Wort,

Es strebt unsterblich, wie er sterblich strebte.

***

The power of a noble person

Stretches across the centuries:

Because what a good mortal can accomplish

Cannot be completed within the short span of life.

So he lives yet beyond death—

As effective as in flesh.

The good deed, the beautiful word

Work just as well in eternity as in life.

—translated by Michael James Carr

German, Spanish, French, Russian

Language Background

German: My initial studies of German were begun at George Washington University, continued later in private lessons, then greatly developed to fluency during a period of about 2 years of residency in Germany. With my translation and publication of an important book by Wilhelm von Kardorff, my knowledge and confidence really grew. Since then, I have performed many translations from German: poems, legal documents, emails, YouTube scripts, YouTube caption files.

Spanish: As one set of my grandparents had come from Spain, I picked up quite a lot of Spanish via family life. I furthered my knowledge by study at GWU, but since my early 1990s move to Texas, I have used Spanish constantly, as it is a second language here.

French: Between grade school and high school, I studied French for 6 years. Two more years at GWU included one year of the study of French literature—conducted in the French language.

Russian: My study of Russian began at GWU, continued with private study later, and expanded when a Latvian UpWork client sought me out to translate 70 or so documents, slide shows, emails, and educational materials for a course which was being translated into English from Russian. Despite having listed no Russian proficiency in my profile, she had sought me out because of her appreciation of the power of my English writings.

Rates for Translations into American English

$0.12 a word

$3.00 a page

$30.00 an hour