[Please note] I recommend you to open two browser windows and minimise them so they are side by side or next to one another when looking at the translated text below. This way it is easier to read the translated text after the original and compare it, rather than scrolling down and up again.
As you may have noticed, not long ago I’ve added a translation section to the top toolbar of the site. Within it are translation samples I’ve done as test assignment for potential work opportunities here in Poland, where I currently reside. It was originally just a blog post on here, but I have added o it and made it a section of its own within the site. The translations are all Polish to English within this section or post, thus far.
However, I have been brushing up on my Polish and have some more samples here to add within it from videos of gaming intros I have been watching. Before I showcase this work of mine and showcase potential employers my skills in being able to translate from English to Polish, I have something else to talk about and showcase related to translations.
I went through the recruitment process of two of the most well-known gaming companies that are headquartered in Poland. The first company may be the most well known brand coming out of Poland and is responsible for Netflix shows as well as games across all major platforms. The second company is also pretty well known and this is the project I want to showcase here.
The reason being for only showcasing the second assignment is that the first company had me (or asked me to) do a one-day trail assignment, free of charge (not paying me anything), that literally took eight hours to complete – actually it took longer, but that was the time they allocated to the assignment on the clock too, free of charge. It was also done on an Excel sheet, (the text they gave me and my translations were to be inputted on cells that matched), which I do not feel like uploading and is hard to hire the company details this way, thus showing my skills off here anonymously and without using the company assets or its dialogues without permission.
Again, I do not really want to name company names or go into specifics as I am focusing this post on showcasing some of these skills and not letting these assignments go to waste. I also do not want to focus on the negative aspect of this first company and its assignment as it was pretty ridiculous to ask someone to do four different sections or four different games to translate, multiple genders, all within one day rather than see the person’s skills or how they translate. They basically wanted a workaholic or a cog in the machine to output translations as fast as possible rather than a creative person who will improve their dialogues and text within games. At least it seemed that way to me – and it was odd they used an excel sheet rather than, say a word doc with top to bottom instructions like the second company did for their assignment.
This is actually a big problem in Poland for me to get any work. I have been unemployed for a while. It seems that in Poland they do not respect writers at all, even those who are native speakers/writers within U.S.-based English. They just respect engineers or software developers and think that the whole company should revolve around them while everyone else is expendable or gets paid peanuts. They also seem obsessed with master’s degrees, because unlike in the U.S. where education is expensive, it is free in Europe so they expect it seems everyone to have master’s degrees. This is despite the fact you have Wired editors, editors of major publications in the U.S. all with bachelor’s degrees like I have. They just do not get it in Poland. They do not seem to value experience or actual skills in a candidate they hire.
Even the writing you just read here above it should show them tell them I am a native U.S. English writer and you cannot really train that in Poland with their degrees. You can have all the degrees in the world, but the small nuances are learned through time and through being immersed in a language and the culture. These include things like knowing where to put commas in thought processes of characters you are mentioning or talking about; not using run-on sentences to express multiple thoughts but using dashes and hyphens to separate long sentences for easier flow and readability, not starting paragraphs with an “and” and so on.
It is as if they do not value these things in Poland, which is very sad and my situation is very difficult having to be back here or back even in Europe as a whole. I either have to get one of their maser’s degrees, it seems, despite the fact it won’t add anything to my actual writing in English, just to get any work, set up some “dzialalnosc gospodarcza,” or a one-person company, in order to even do official invoices since they don’t seem to want to work with third-party companies here that specialize in them, or move out of this country I was born in.
If this first company cared about good translations and good dialogue they would have used fewer than one full eight-hour-day-long assignments for potential candidates and gave people time to actually think about how they re translating their dialogues. Thus, showcasing their actual language skills. Get this, it wasn’t een the length of the assignment that bothered me, but the fact they only gave you eight hours to do it. They limited the time you could spend on it. This shows again how in Poland they just do not care about quality and prefer quantity. It is a nightmare having to deal with these obtuse people here and their companies just to get work.
I won’t go into the reasons or why I have to be in Poland after living in the United States from the age of eight and having to come back here at the age of 32. You used to know me if you followed this blog as Mike Lata, but I officially changed my name to Duraj because I hated that last name and how stupid it sounded in the U.S. Plus, I never knew my father who gave me this name and ended up changing it to my mother’s family name.
I also want to add that AI is doing much of the work these days when it comes to creative fields. This includes both writing and graphic design/illustration, which are the two fields I love the most; the former, I have an actual degree in and professional skills, the latter I mostly learned by myself using Udemy and other such courses.
Before I tread off topic too much, and digress too much, I want to showcase some of these recent translations I have completed. Again, I am focusing on the second company that actually gave me seven days to complete their project and I did it within the deadline.
Instructions as well as the assignment in Polish:
Zadanie 1: Translate Below
Kyle był ranny. Krwawił. Ręce kleiły mu się do kierownicy, krople deszczu rozbijały się o dach samochodu, a dzień powoli witał się z nocą. “Dzisiaj chyba wtorek?” – pomyślał, przyciskając dłoń do nadgryzionego boku. Wtorek, środa, może nawet i niedziela. Co za różnica, gdy każdy twój dzień wygląda tak samo? Budzisz się, wychodzisz w świat pełen potworów, mordujesz, popełniasz błąd, dajesz się zranić, spotykasz ludzi, którzy też są potworami, idziesz spać, a potem znowu się budzisz, mordujesz, idziesz spać, budzisz się… Łatwo odpuścić. Kyle, wiedział, że to równia pochyła. We wtorek przestajesz się przejmować, jaki to dzień tygodnia, a w niedzielę mordujesz trzyosobową rodzinę, bo mają butelkę wody, a tobie wyjątkowo chce się pić.
“Nieee, to środa.” – przypomniał sobie Kyle i spojrzał na ranę. Nie było tak źle. Ten nadgniły blondynek nie wgryzł się zbyt głęboko. Kilka dni i zamiast 178 blizn, Kyle będzie miał ich 179.
Zaczął bandażować bok. Deszcz się nasilał, a zmierzch zbliżał się coraz szybciej. Kabina auta dawała chwilowe poczucie bezpieczeństwa – jak dziecięcy fort z krzeseł i poduszek. Było sucho, ciepło, może i śmierdziało stęchlizną, ale krople, rytmicznie uderzające o szybę kołysały do snu, a blacha oddzielała od mrocznego lasu. Grzechem byłoby nie skorzystać z takiego luksusu. Kyle przymknął oczy, lekko zasyczał, gdy poczuł ukłucie bólu w boku. Czy mógł uniknąć dzisiejszego błędu?
Jeszcze kilka godzin temu był w miejskim ratuszu. Budynek już dawno przestał pełnić swoją dawną funkcję. Obecnie był schronem, prawdziwą twierdzą dla ludzi, którzy przeżyli apokalipsę, a potem setki, czasem tysiące, mniejszych apokalips prywatnych. Tracili bliskich, zdrowie, jakikolwiek sens by wstawać rano, ale trwali. Poranieni przez życie, wegetowali za murami ratusza i czekali na coś, czego nawet nie potrafili nazwać. Mieli wodę, jakieś uprawy, a do tego kilka odważniejszych osób, które ryzykowały wszystko, by zdobyć jakieś drobinki przeszłości w walce o skrawki przyszłości. Wszystko mogło być walutą, za którą można było kupić kilka dni życia więcej.
Mike żył w ratuszu od roku. O tym, co było wcześniej nie chciał rozmawiać. Na pewno znał się jednak na radiostacjach i potrzebował tranzystorów, a Kyle nie dał się długo prosić.
Najpierw szukał ich w mieście. Po drodze zabił kilku gryzoni, sprawdził budynek dawnej radiostacji, ale wyglądało na to, że wszyscy szabrownicy z okolicy byli tam przed nim. Kyle nic nie znalazł, ale przynajmniej nie dał się też zranić.
Przy jednej z willi – pomniku dawnego dostatku – znalazł auto, które udało się odpalić. Ruszył nim do lasu otaczającego miasto. W lesie, jak to w lesie – było nieprzyjemnie. Wielu gryzoni, ale nie stanowiących zagrożenia dla rozpędzonego pick-upa.
W końcu znalazł dom leśniczego, a w nim – radiostację. Był ostrożny. Zanim ją rozkręcił, sprawdził każdy kąt leśniczówki. Wyglądało na to, że jest bezpiecznie, więc Kyle wziął się do pracy. To wtedy zaczął padać ten cholerny deszcz i to przez niego nie usłyszał, jak spod spleśniałych koców leżących w kącie wychodzi ten blondynek. Musiał mieć góra 9- 10 lat, gdy się przemienił. Sporo go w życiu ominęło, ale nie smak ludzkiego mięsa.
Blondynek podkradł się do Kyle’a, sięgał mu głową niewiele powyżej pasa. Bok Kyle’a zapłonął bólem. Zęby przebiły skórę.
— Kurwa!Kyle zareagował błyskawicznie. W ręku miał śrubokręt. Obrócił się i dźgnął. Blondynek bezwładnie upadł na ziemię. Jego oczy pokrywały bielmo, skóra była niebieska i mocno kontrastowała z powiększającą się pod nim plamą krwi. Dziecięce ciało – oceniając po liczbie i gęstości narośli – było zainfekowane od około dziesięciu lat. W sumie to, co leżało przed nim, miało około dwudziestu lat. Kyle wyjął śrubokręt z głowy blondynka i dokończył pracę. Już bez niespodzianek.
— Kyle? Kyle, jesteś tam?
Słońce wschodziło. Deszcz już od dawna nie padał.
— Kyle? Halo?
Kyle raptownie otworzył oczy, spojrzał na fotel pasażera, odsunął tranzystory i sięgnął po leżącą między nimi krótkofalówkę.
— Kto mówi?
— Żartujesz? Czekam na ciebie. Gdzie jesteś?
— Kto mówi? — powtórzył Kyle.
— Kyle, kurwa mać, Louis z tej strony. Czekam na ciebie.
— Jaki znowu Louis? Znamy się?
— Chłopie, wszystko z tobą w porządku?Kyle lekko gorączkował, a bok pulsował mu od ugryzienia. Spojrzał w lusterko. Oczy miał podkrążone, pocił się, a szyby w aucie były zaparowane. Bywało lepiej, ale jakim prawem ten gość z radia się czepia? Krew zaczęła się w nim burzyć. Poczuł ciepło wybijające się ponad gorączkę, ale szybko zdusił gniew i coś bardziej niepokojącego, co kryło się pod nim. — Kyle? — ponaglił głos przedstawiający się jako Louis.
— Czuję się wspaniale. Mów, o co chodzi, albo kończmy tę rozmowę.
— No dobra… umówiliśmy się, że podskoczysz do mnie, jak znajdziesz te tranzystory dla Mike’a. Czekam na ciebie koło pola campingowego, w jednym z domków letniskowych.
— Tak? I obiecałem ci, że tam przyjdę?
here is my Translation and work on this section above:
Kyle was injured. He was bleeding. His hands were tied to the wheel of the vehicle while droplets of rain were hitting the rooftop above. Meanwhile, day was creeping into night.
“Is it Tuesday today?” he thought to himself as he clutched his bitten side with the palm of his hand.
Tuesday, Wednesday or maybe even Sunday… What does it matter when your every day is the same? You wake up, then go into a world full of monsters. Within this world, you kill, make a mistake, get an injury, run into some humans – who end up also being monsters. Later, you go to sleep again, then wake up again. You end up killing some more creatures, go to sleep, and wake up again…
It is easy to let it all go. Kyle knew that it really is a slippery slope.
On Tuesday, you forget what’s the actual day of the week while on Sunday you kill a family of three just because they have a bottle of water that you really want to get your hands on in order to quench your thirst.
“No, it’s Wednesday,” Kyle remembered while looking at his wound. It wasn’t so bad. Luckily, that rotten blond culprit didn’t bite too deep. This means that in just a few days, instead of having 178 scars, Kyle will have 179 of them.
He started to bandage his side while it was starting to rain harder. Meanwhile, dusk was approaching.
The car cabin gave off a sense of security. It felt like a child fort made out of chairs and pillows.
It was dry, warm, and the air smelled of must. Despite this, rhythmic droplets of rain hitting the window made sleep easier.
The steel plate of the car gave off a sense of security away from the elements of the eerie forest outside.
It would be a shame not to take advantage of the cosy situation.
Kyle closed his eyes, hissing slightly as he felt a sharp pain hitting his side. He thought to himself whether he could have avoided today’s mistake.
Just a few hours earlier he was in the town hall. The building stopped being used for its intended purpose a long time ago. Now, it is not just a shelter, but a fortress for people who survived both the main apocalypse and the small ones following it, which possibly numbered into the thousands.
People lost those they held dear to them, their health, any sort of sense to even wake up in the morning. But they lived. Injured and hurt by the current situation they found themselves in, while simply vegetating behind the shelter walls.
They waited for something. Anything. They could not even name what this was.
They had water, some crops, and a few brave people amongst them who risked everything in order to find bits and pieces of what was left of the past. In this way, they could form the will to find a sense of the future.
Everything could become a commodity or currency that would buy a few more days of life.
Mike lived in this shelter for a year now. He would not talk about what had happened before this. He possessed a knowledge of radio communication and the equipment needed for this. Now, he needs transistors. It did not take him long to convince Kyle to find some.
He first looked for transistors in the city. He killed a few rodents along the way, checked the old radio communication station building, but it looked like every looter in the area had already ransacked the place. Kyle didn’t find anything, but at least he didn’t let himself get wounded along the way.
Near one of the villas having an impressive monument that showcased past prosperity there, he found a car that he actually managed to get started. Kyle then drove this car into the forest surrounding the city. The forest was not too pleasant, as is usually the case during these times. There were many rodents present, but they posed little threat to a speeding pickup truck driving past.
He finally found the ranger’s house, and inside was the radio communication station. He was careful though. Before he disassembled the radio communication station, he checked every corner of the dwelling to make sure it was safe.
It looked safe, so Kyle got to work.
That’s when the damn rain started. It caused him to not hear a small and blond-haired being emerge from under the moldy blankets laying in the corner. He must have been nine or ten years old at most when he transformed.
The small blond creature did not get to enjoy many aspects that life has to offer. However, the taste of human flesh was not among these things.
The blond creature crept up on Kyle reaching not much above his beltline in height.
Kyle’s side burned with pain. The creature’s teeth pierced his skin.
– “Fuck!” he yelled out.
Kyle reacted quickly to the situation he found himself in. He just happened to have a screwdriver in his hand.
He turned and stabbed instinctively while the blond and child-like creature fell to the ground.
His eyes were filled with cataracts and his skin had turned blue. This blue hue on his skin gave off a strong contrast to the oozing blood stain appearing from where he fell.
Judging by the number and density of the skin growths, the child had been infected for about 10 years. Kyle guessed that creature that it turned into now seemed to be about 20 overall.
Kyle took out the screwdriver from the creature’s head and continued his work. He finished the job this time with no surprises.
– “Kyle? Kyle, where are you?”
The sun was coming out and it had not rained for a while.
– “Kyle? Hello?”
Kyle opened his eyes abruptly, looked at the passenger seat, pushed aside the transistors, and reached for the walkie-talkie laying between the transistors.
– “Who is speaking?”
– “You must be joking. I was waiting for you. Where are you?”
– ”Who is speaking,” Kyle repeated.
– “Kyle, for fuck sake, it’s Louis. And I am waiting for you.”
– “What Louis? Do we know one another?”
– “Is everything alright with you?”
Kyle was running a slight fever, and his side was throbbing from the bite.
He glanced in the mirror and saw that he had rings under his sunken eyes. He was also sweating.
The windows in the car were foggy.
Things had been better, but what right does the guy on the radio have to bother him now? Kyle’s blood started boiling. He felt a sense of heat as his fever rose, but he quickly calmed down as he noticed something more disturbing was lurking beneath.
– “Kyle?” a voice was heard from someone introducing himself as Louis.
– “I feel just fine. Tell me what you want, otherwise the conversation ends.”
– “Alright… We discussed you coming over when you end up finding the transistors that Mike asked for. I had been waiting for you at the campground in one of the cottages.”
– “Really? And I told you that I will be there?”
There are two other sections or assignments within this project I also completed or translated from Polish to English. However, in order to to not make this post too long, I will not cut and paste of them just a small aprt of the second one here and my translation of it or my work on it:
Instructions as well as the assignment in Polish:
Zadanie 2
Przetłumacz krótkie rozmowy tła i dodaj do nich komentarze reżyserskie, które pomogą aktorom odegrać kwestie.
Krótka rozmowa tła 1
Dwóch mężczyzn sprząta miejsce, w którym członek ich grupy popełnił samobójstwo.
MAN 1
Tak, kurwa, najlepiej. Wyjść na środek, w łeb se pierdolnąć, a kto to potem posprząta?MAN 1
I teraz, kurwa, jebana jego mać, wyciągaj mózg spomiędzy fug.MAN 2 Proszę cię.
MAN 1
Zamiast kurwa wziąć sznur, jak człowiek, i wyjść na dwór…MAN 2
Spróbuj postawić się w jego sytuacji.
MAN 1
“W jego sytuacji”? Sytuacja jest taka, że stoję na jego pieprzonym mózgu!Krótka rozmowa tła 2
Dwóch mieszkańców bezpiecznej strefy rozmawia podczas warty z trzecim, młodszym.
MAN 1
Młody, pozbieraj łuski w holu.YOUNG MAN 1 Łuski? Ale po co?
MAN 1
Bo trzeba odnowić zapasy po strzelaniu się z baronowymi dziwkami.My Translation of the above into English:
Add director commentary to the dialogue below that will help actors reenact the scene:
Short background or backstory chatter 1
Two men are cleaning a place in which a member of their group committed suicide.
Man 1
“Yes, for fuck’s sake. That’s the best way to go out; just go to the center [of the dwelling] and shoot your brains out. But who will clean up the mess?”
Director commentary I am adding (regarding text above): Have one character, or Man 1, point with his finger to his temple and the other listening maybe while crouched down and looking at the corpse.
Man 1
“And now you get to take out the fucking brain matter from within the wall cracks for good measure.”
Man 2
“Please.”
Man 1
“Instead of taking a rope like a stand up individual, then go outside with it…”
Man 2
“Just try to put yourself in his shoes.”
Director commentary I am adding (regarding the text below): Have Man 2 step on the floor near the deceased individual, or his remains, while stomping to showcase his frustration
Man 2
“In his shoes? The situation is that I am standing on the remains of his brain.”
Short background or backstory chatter 2
Two citizens of a safe zone are talking during guard duty with a third and younger companion joining them in smalltalk.
Man 1
“Youngster, pick up the shells in the hall.”
Young Man 1
“The shells? But why?”
Man 1
“Because we need to renew supplies after exchanging gunfire with those moronic whores.”
Director commentary I am adding (regarding the text below): Have the Young Man pick up a bullet shell and hold it up while wondering.
I also have a sample, as mentioning earlier, showing my Polish language skills and showing my ability to translate game text from English to Polish. It is of the Homeworld games’ intro scenes or some of them that I was watching on YoutTube and wanted to translate for a Polish audience. I am not even sure how the games are translated into Polish as I’ve never played the Polish versions of them.
My translation from the beginning of the video above:
“Nasz gniew na was spadnie w takiej skal do której nie macie porównania.”
“Będzie sztorm ognia i śmierci. Gdzie jeden dzień ten los spadnie na duszę naszą.”
Jest rocznik 1216 w kids systemu notowania dat, czyli datowania poprzez ich cywilizacji. Lekko ponad sto lat poza sukcesu operacji kadim i znalezienie karatowa, czyli odnalezienie rozbitego statku kosmicznego, który służył łącznie jako pierwsze miasto ich ludzi co znają od początku i w dodatku udowodnił ze kusz an ludzie nie pochodzą z tej planety pustynnej.
W następny lata ekspedycji, które były prowadzone do tego miejsca znalezione dwie artefakty które zmieniły przyszłość tych ludzi na zawsze.
Pierwsza był rdzeńiem nadprzestrzennym który pozwolił na międzykosmiczny podróż w kosmosie. Wielkie dystanse można było pokonać w dramatycznie nie długim okresie czasowym. Technologiczna znaleźć jak to była to samo w siebie niesamowita, i dla każdego gatunku, czy cywilizacji, było by to bezprecedensow momentem w cywylizacji całej tej ludności.
Ale ten drugi obiekt, czy artefakt, miał największy nad tej ludzkości efekt. Była mapa gwiazd pokazując jeden napis i jedno słowo: Higara, nasz dom…
So I will leave the post with this said. I am looking for similar work maybe for a gaming company doing translations and will use these samples here to showcase my potential for such companies looking to hire. I am still open to work for the two companies that had me do the trail assignments, but one of them or the second did not even check on them or open the Google Doc, so I am assuming they already hired someone beforehand or were just testing the field to see what sort of potential candidates are available for such a position.
Lastly check out a few of my latest Medium articles:
- How Mobile Devices Are Leveraging the Power of AI
- 3 Free Streaming Services Available via Browser Worth Checking Out
- The Values of Traditional Desktop Computing
I use Medium to showcase my writing skills, but also my graphic design and multimedia content creation skills if anyone wants to use them, work with me, or hire me they can see my work on medium and how my content looksn without editing by anyone else.
Maciej Duraj 
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