A Spanish-English translator from Prague

Hello,

I am going by the name of "Robert MacGregor". Actually, since I am a relative of the famous "Rob Roy...", this should be entirely appropriate:D. For the last seven years I have big working in the Czech Republic as a translator, chiefly from German to English, and mainly in the IT and banking fields. Previous to that, however, I was a court interpreter between Spanish and English in the state of Arizona, and I have been trained in the techniques of simultaneous, consecutive, and conference interpretation.

As it is, since I have been in the Czech Republic I have lost contact with virtually all of my Spanish speaking clients, particularly because I have more than enough work just dealing with Czech, Slovak, German, and English (I speak twelve languages reasonably well, and can read in about 50 languages, though most of these would really only qualify as "minor dialects" of each other). Just within the last two weeks, however, I received an urgent SKYPE call from a sister who lives in San Diego, telling me about a blog that deals with the ongoing **** violence in Mexico. When I looked at the blog I found a reference to an individual who was looking for people to translate articles published in major Mexican newspapers concerning the **** war. I have now done a few translations on a "pro bono" basis so far, largely because there seems to be a virtual news blackout about what is going on south of the border (owing to concerns about the "tourist industry", it seems!), and few people who do not have the ability to read Spanish are aware of just how bad the situation is.

Owing the sensitivity of the situation, even though I am living outside of Prague and am only translating from sources that are readily available to the public, i.e. regular newspapers, I am posting here under an assumed name, and I must be careful not to reveal the names of any clients, particularly from the area of Michoacan where most of the fighting seems to be occurring at this point.

Though I was quite fluent in Spanish at one time, I am not familiar with a number of idiomatic expressions coming out of today's Mexican newspapers, and that is the reason I decided to look for a Spanish-English translator's forum on the internet, particularly since Google translate and the other online dictionary resources were not sufficient to answer all my questions. I have often used the German-English translator's forum at dic.leo.org, and have almost always received prompt and helpful replies from them, so I am hoping that I will have similar luck at this site!