Our background

Judy in Las Vegas, 2009. Photo by Ulf Buchholz.

Judy, the older twin, has lived in Las Vegas, where she moved to pursue her higher education, since she was a teenager. Judy received her M.B.A. (summa cum laude) in Marketing from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, in 2001. She  is the Vice President of the Nevada Interpreters and Translators Association.

A veteran of Spanish-language online media and localization, Judy spearheaded the launch of the nation’s first fully localized Spanish travel website, www.espanol.vegas.com (not responsible for current content!).  As Content Manager, she managed the site’s operations, including translation, localization and content strategy. Judy also works as a Spanish and German health care and community interpreter.

She writes the monthly Entrepreneuial Linguist column for the American Translators Association’s Chronicle, frequently contributes to the Institute of Translation & Interpreting’s Bulletin and is a popular speaker at conferences and workshops, where she speaks about the business of translation. She lives in Las Vegas, NV and is a dual Austrian/American citizen. As opposed to her twin sister, Judy speaks no French and never loses sight of her French interpreter when they travel to Paris.

Dagmar received the equivalent of a master’s degree in French and Communications from the University of Salzburg in 2000.

Dagmar in Las Vegas, 2009. Photo by Ulf Buchholz.

She lived and studied in Tours, France, where she perfected her French language skills, and frequently returns to France to hone her French accent. Since 2003, Dagmar has successfully run the European side of Twin Translations out of Vienna, Austria. She pioneered many of the strategies Twin Translations uses today, including the five-step quality assurance process.

Dagmar was the driving force behind establishing the company and winning its first clients, which include Sony Net Services, Siemens, IDpendant, Generali, Alcan, Red Bull, Austrian Post, etc. Dagmar is the assistant secretary general of UNIVERSITAS Austria, the Austrian Interpreters’ and Translators’ Association and the editor of its print newsletter.  She’s an expert on the new German orthography reform and frequently gives workshops (links to German page) on this complex subject.

In her spare time, Dagmar is getting a master’s degree in conference interpreting in French and Spanish and is getting her Ph.D. in Romance languages. Her dissertation focuses on feminism in Isabel Allende’s work. Dagmar lives in Vienna, Austria, and spends her summers (you guessed it!) in Vegas, enjoying her twin’s company and the desert sun.

In April 2010, Judy and Dagmar published the highly anticipated “The Entrepreneurial Linguist: The Business-School Approach to Freelance Translation” book, which has been receiving great reviews around the world.