Hi, I am Ben! With Digging for Words, I offer high-quality translation services from English, Italian, Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish to Dutch & Flemish. I also carry out proofreading, subtitling, and machine translation post-editing (MTPE).
Don’t hesitate to keep digging on this page and get in touch for a quote to get started with your next translation project :-).
services
Translation
I started my job as a freelancer in 2012 and translation is the core of my trade. From tourism to scale models, from agricultural machines and heavy duty vehicles to home appliances and garden equipment, from furniture and baby care to sports and fitness, I will work on almost any topic, as long as I feel comfortable guaranteeing a 100% accurate translation.
Proofreading
Nothing more annoying than discovering a typo in your content after you have published it… As a professional proofreader, I will make sure that annoying extra spaces are eliminated and that any word left out by mistake finds its way back into the final draft.
MTPE
Machine Translation has made stellar progress but would you bet the reputation of your business on it? MT can give you a cheap translation, but one misinterpretation can seriously affect the quality of the entire text, witlessly stating something unclear or completely inappropriate. That is why you need a linguist to go through it. Human translation will always be better, but if you are on a tight budget, MTPE might be a good compromise.
work
Dedication
DedicationEntering “the mine”, in other words getting fully immersed in any given translation or proofreading job, is my main trademark. From this immersion stems a translation practice that is deeply mindful of the future reader, focused on respecting clients and building relationships.
Coherence
Owning the content I am about to translate, knowing it inside and out to guarantee the complete coherence of my translations, this is what I am bringing to the table. Going beyond the line of duty, I might even suggest edits to the syntax or the structure of the text if I detect any hiccups.
Honesty
As immersed as I am, I will still be in touch throughout the whole process. I do not know everything, and I am a firm believer that every new undertaking (be it professional or personal) is a learning opportunity, so I will never be afraid to ask you as many questions as needed to ensure the best quality.
for words? The little story behind the name
It all started when I was ten, on a field trip to the castle of Neuschwanstein, in Germany. At the car park, I picked up a map and walked all the way up the hill. There, an English-speaking tourist asked me “Where did you find the map?”. “All the way back!”, I replied pointing at the car park. At this moment I was beaming, feeling so proud and happy: for the first time, I had helped someone using my (admittedly limited) knowledge of a foreign language. And thus, a vocation was born.
Fast forward to my student years as an apprentice translator. Whenever time came to practice, I would always go into this deep concentration mode. At times, it really felt as if I was entering a translation “mine”, digging deep to collect only the best words, treating them as precious gems. Deep down in that cave, there were no distractions, just the pure, crystalline echo of the most accurate translations.
I pondered many times why that metaphor stuck with me, when one day after emerging from the mine, it hit me: my hometown of Nijlen in Flanders, the place where I had spent all my life, had a history with the diamond industry dating back to the 19th century. For most of the 20th century, diamonds were cut there before being sent to Antwerp. And I, in turn, was now digging my own diamonds and cutting them to shape.
I like to believe that this little story sums up my work philosophy: revel in the hard, dirty work to deliver a high-value product.
Me
Ben Van Brandt
