Front & Center: Spokane couple translates language into opportunity
He was raised in rural Texas.
She moved wherever her father’s Air Force career took the family.
He grew up in a Christian commune.
Her father’s mother was a full-blood Blackfeet.
So, which one stalked wildlife and sold homemade “spirit stones”?
That would be Casey Charlton.
Jenny Jones – now Charlton-Jones – preferred riding her bike and selling Girl Scout cookies.
What they shared was a passion for languages, which eventually brought them together in Germany and led them to launch River Linguistics in Spokane.
Just 3 years old, the company already has a stable of several hundred freelance translators and more than $350,000 in annual revenue, earned at a rate of 15 to 24 cents a word.
During a recent interview, the couple discussed which languages are most difficult to translate, and why what they like most about their job is also what they like least.
S-R: Jenny, you trace part of your ancestry to the Blackfeet tribe. Did tribal traditions play a role in your upbringing?
Jenny: No. My father grew up on a farm in west Texas and then joined the Air Force. It wasn’t until after he retired and went into Indian health administration that we started getting back to our roots.
S-R: How did you two get together?
Casey: Our first conversation was in a German computer lab in 2003 when we were part of the same exchange program. The “y” and the “z” were transposed (on the German keyboards), so we joked about how our names were distorted as “Casez” and “Jennz.”
S-R: How did you get from a rural Texas commune to a German exchange program?
Casey: I was a rambunctious teenager, and at 15 faced the prospect of being sent to a boarding school. As an alternative, I applied to a program called Congress-Bundestag, and got a scholarship to attend a year of high school in a town about 70 kilometers southwest of Cologne. That pretty well changed the course of my life.
S-R: Did you already speak German?
Casey: I’d had a semester. When I met my host family, they said, “This is the only time you will hear us speak English. Do you have any questions?” After that, it was 100 percent immersion, which was difficult. So I asked to be put in fourth- and fifth-grade German classes for the first three months. By six months I was reasonably fluent.
S-R: Jenny, what started you down the path to linguistics?
Jenny: My sophomore year at Cornell I signed up for Linguistics 101, and the first day of class I knew that was what my brain had always been thinking about. I’d already taken German in high school, and later studied Swahili and Spanish.
S-R: Did you have other careers before you got into linguistics professionally?
Casey: Other than manual labor, no. After graduating from the (University of Texas at Austin) McCombs School of Business, I moved to Spokane and worked at another language service provider, starting out at entry level and ending up eight years later owning part of the company.
Jenny: My parents were living in Medical Lake, so right out of college I took a job as a youth coordinator for the Spokane Tribe and got into language services on a freelance basis.
S-R: How has the internet impacted the ability to have a Spokane-based linguistics business?
Casey: It would be impossible without it. There isn’t a very deep pool of linguists here, so we’re almost a 100 percent virtual company.
S-R: How do you find linguists to translate various languages?
Jenny: In addition to soliciting applicants on our website, we seek out small companies like ours in other countries, and there are websites where you can search for freelancers.
S-R: But how do you know whether someone who says they can translate Maori or whatever really can?
Casey: There are various certifications and degrees in translation. We also ask vendors to provide references and samples of their work.
S-R: After all that screening, do you ever end up with bad translations?
Casey: Ooh, yeah! (laugh) Sometimes people market themselves really well and deliver a horrible product. But after you’ve been doing this awhile, you have a gut feeling based on how well the contractor communicates with you prior to taking on a project.
S-R: What’s a good rule of thumb?
Casey: Only translate into your native language. I’ve done a lot of freelance translating from German to English, but I would never translate into German. In other countries it’s not uncommon for non-native English speakers to translate their language into English, and that’s how you get those strange instructions.
S-R: Which direction do most of your company’s translations go?
Casey: From English to other languages.
S-R: What experience gained before starting your own company has proved useful?
Jenny: Being a stay-at-home mom. When Casey was working more than full time, I was raising kids, coordinating schedules, overseeing the household budget and keeping everything running. It’s amazing how many of those responsibilities parallel what I do as company president.
S-R: Is there a busiest time of year?
Jenny: Always.
Casey: “Can you have that by tomorrow?”
S-R: What’s a typical workday?
Casey: Staggered.
Jenny: One person gets the early shift while the other takes our two kids to school. Then the early shift goes home first to relieve the nanny and start dinner.
S-R: What do you like most about your job?
Casey: The same thing we like least – the combination of complete freedom and complete responsibility. There’s no one else to point a finger at when something goes wrong.
S-R: What’s been the biggest surprise?
Jenny: For me it’s been the public-sector side. Nothing can prepare you for what it takes to understand and fulfill government requirements and timelines. With a private-sector client, we can submit a quote and get approval the next day. With the federal government, it takes months if not years.
S-R: Do you need to speak foreign languages to run a linguistics business?
Jenny: No, but experience working between different languages and cultures is extremely helpful.
S-R: Which are the most difficult languages to get translated?
Casey: The ones we haven’t heard of yet, and those with very few speakers, such as First Nation languages.
S-R: What distinguishes you from your local competition?
Jenny: We founded the company with the goal of going after federal contracts, and as a Native American woman-owned business in a HUB (Historically Underutilized Business) Zone, we’re in a better position to do that.
S-R: What questions do you get when someone finds out what you do?
Casey: “How many languages do you speak?” In America, you can get away with claiming to speak more languages than you’re fluent in. I only claim to be fluent in German and English, because I’m educated at the college level in both. But I can watch movies and read books in any Romance, Germanic or Scandinavian language other than Finnish.
S-R: Any common misperceptions about your business?
Jenny: That we sit here translating documents all day. We function more as brokers of all the different pieces of the translation process.
S-R: What sort of person is best suited for this career?
Jenny: It depends on what function they’re serving. Translators tend to be very focused. But project management is also a huge part of this $40 billion industry, and that takes people who thrive on multitasking.
S-R: Will computers eventually replace translators?
Casey: I don’t think that will ever happen in marketing.
Jenny: Machine translation is already being integrated into the industry, but it usually includes a human edit, and the success has varied. A lot of times it’s cheaper and easier to have humans do it from the beginning.
S-R: What advice would you offer someone who’s interested in translating professionally?
Casey: Get used to sitting in front of a computer and working odd hours.
Jenny: Go abroad. You have to understand a culture to truly understand its language.
S-R: What about you might surprise people who think they know you?
Casey: I defy labeling. I’m fiscally conservative and flamingly liberal socially. I love guns and human rights. And I skateboard 2 miles to work.
Jenny: I love audiobooks. When my headphones aren’t playing punk rock or classical music, they’re playing me a story – usually suspense or science fiction.
This interview has been condensed. If you’d like to suggest a business or community leader to be profiled, contact Michael Guilfoil at mguilfoil@comcast.net.