Translator

Gabby Tjiroze
Translation requires the individual to accurately convey the meaning of the written words from one language to another. Translators predominantly work with business, technical, legal and scientific written materials including letters, reports, articles, books and many more.

Jose Coelho is an English to Portuguese translator in Windhoek. As an interpreter he converts information from one spoken language into another.

Coelho was inspired to become a translator as when he came into Namibia in 1960 the Angolans used to commit deans and they had no translators or interpreters. While he was in school they would call him to come and help translate hence that generated an interest in him to translate from English to Portuguese.

“Then came the lawyers, books, movies and many more which I had to translate and that sort of pushed an interest in me,” he said.

He had a test done in Cape Town, South Africa and he became a sworn translator in a court and when he came back to Namibia he had to do another apply to become a sworn translator in Namibia.



Coelho said some of the best highlights throughout his career journey are when he was approached to do a sworn translating a movie which is South Africa based. Where he had to do subtitles for them from English to Portuguese and the movie was composed of 92 chapters.