What they said

 

Rebecca Harms, President of the Greens/EFA in the European Parliament:

Mrs Balkan has provided excellent Turkish-English interpretation for one of my conferences and a delegation meeting. Beyond her language competences I have appreciated her interpersonal skills which have meaningfully facilitated the communication with Turkish guests and partners.

 

Dr. Renate Sommer, Member of the European Parliament:

As Member of the European Parliament I worked with Ms. Balkan two times as an interpreter from English to Turkish and vice versa. I was impressed that Ms Balkan made an excellent job even with the translation of difficult terms. Therefore I can only recommend her as excellent interpreter.

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Ece Göztepe Çelebi, Bilkent Ünversitesi Hukuk Fakültesi Dekanı

Başak Balkan, Friedrich Ebert Vakfı'nın Brüksel ve Berlin'de Avrupa Birliği ve Avrupa Konseyi organları, sivil toplum kuruluşları ile Federal Alman Parlamentosu nezdinde düzenlediği, 13-19 Kasım 2022 tarihlerinde gerçekleştirilen heyet gezisinde Türkçe-İngilizce ve İngilizce-Türkçe tercümanlık yapmıştır.

Üst başlığı "Türkiye'deki kadın hareketi ve İstanbul Sözleşmesi" olan heyet ziyaretinde heyet üyelerinin mesleki çeşitliğine (hukukçu, siyasetçi, sosyal hizmet uzmanı, yerel yönetim sorumlusu vb.) ve konuların genişliğine rağmen kavramları ve konunun asli unsurlarını çok büyük bir yetkinlikle aktarmış, herhangi bir soru işareti oluşmadan gerçek bir dilsel ve içeriksel köprü görevi görmüştür. 

Bunun yanı sıra heyet üyeleriyle kurduğu dostça ilişkilerde, görüşülen kurumlarla ilgili olarak önemli bilgiler aktarmış, süreçlerin daha iyi anlaşılmasına katkıda bulunmuştur. 

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Helen Osman, President of Signis (World Catholic Association of Communicators)

Ms. Balkan's sensitivity to the nuances of personal relationships in the work environment was a great asset to our international organization during an important time of transition and growth. I appreciated her understanding that the best way to serve her client was not only to interpret, but also to encourage dialogue and interaction.

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Hugh Jefferson Turner, Lecturer, İstanbul Şehir University

Working with Ms. Balkan was a true pleasure. She was our translator for a special issue of a journal dedicated to Ottoman print culture, translating scholarly articles on the subject into English for a Western readership. Translating material on such an esoteric subject is no easy task, and I've been on a number of similar projects that have been hampered by translators who produce garbled work or even disappear without word midway through a project. But she was competent, quick to respond to our emails, and conscientious about her deadlines. She coordinated closely with the other team members, producing accurate, lucid translations that adhered to our house style, thereby greatly lightening her editors' workload and speeding the project along. I would happily work with her again, and I can confidently recommend her to anyone in need of a Turkish-English translator.

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Kemal Ege Gürkan, Associate Project Officer at International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD) ​

We worked together with Başak Balkan for ICMPD's study visit to Belgian Migration Institutions (May 2018) where she acted as trilingual interpreter (tr-fr-en) for the group of Turkish Migration Experts. We were extremely satisfied with her interpretation skills as well as her familiarity with the migration context. Unlike other experiences, we were quite lucky with our interpreter choice for an abroad mission this time!

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Joann PHELPS, CEO & Language Consultant at Luxe-Translations

I have had the pleasure of working with Basak Balkan for the past ten years. Not only is she professional, accurate and always on time, she is also very kind and ready to help out in an instant. Our final clients have only words of praise for her! She truly captures the very essence of the texts she translates/adapts. I highly recommend her!

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Lore Dequidt, Project manager at No Problem!:

It's a mere pleasure to work with Başak. She is a reliable interpreter with an eye for detail and who will always give her all to help you the best way she can with every Turkish/French/English interpreting project. She is a true professional.

 

Theo Byl, Magistrate, FOD Justitie, Belgium:

I worked together with Başak Balkan during a study visit of three Turkish colleagues in Brussels. It was a 3-day study visit organised by Taiex in March 2015 on cybercrime and the freedom of expression on the internet. During several presentations about specific legal topics Başak did an excellent job. Her translations between English and Turkish were efficient and very professional. She fulfilled her ‘tasks’ with high quality and contributed without any doubt to a very successful study visit for the Turkish colleagues.

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Sneha Francis, Project Lead at Arbolus

Ms. Balkan worked with us as one of the accomplished Turkish Simultaneous Interpreters and was extremely good at her work and her contribution helped us make the event for Castrol a big success!

 

Maria Blagojevic, Conference Interpreter:

I have worked with Başak on several occasions where I depended on her retour into English. Both her professionalism and a very good debit were present throughout each conference we worked at. She a friendly, client and results oriented interpreter and it was a pleasure to be part of the same team.

 

Ana Pérez Ramírez, Project Manager - Sémantis

Başak a collaboré avec nous dans des traductions techniques, du secteur automobile et cosmétique. Elle est très reactive, elle respecte les délais et nous n'avons jamais eu un mauvais retour de ses traductions de la part des clients.

 

Laurent van der Straten, Publisher

Une traductrice de talent que je recommande. Efficacité et rapidité 

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Zeynep Karapars, PhD, User Experience Design, Markafoni

For our company, Başak translated a research report on e-commerce from Turkish to English. She asked questions regarding the writing style and logic of arguments and offered better alternatives in the original language. In the end, we got a very good translation AND an improved version of the original report! On top of everything, she did this work in a very short time. Thank you Başak.

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Prof. Dr. İhsan Şerif Kaymaz Gazi Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi Tarih Bölümü:

Ben İngilizceyi iyi bildiğimi düşünürüm. Fakat bir dili iyi bilmek, bilimsel bir makaleyi o dilde yayınlanan uluslararası bir yayın organında yayınlatmak ya da bir kitabı o dili ana dilleri olarak konuşan uzmanların ilgisine sunmak için yeterli değildir. Mutlaka her iki dile de hakim olan iyi bir uzmandan destek almak gerekmektedir. Epeyce araştırdıktan ve birkaç kez geri çevrildikten sonra şansıma Başak Balkan'ı buldum. Sayesinde 5-6 adet bilimsel makalemi önemli bazı uluslararası dergilerde yayınlattım. Kendisi hiç kuşkusuz bu konunun en iyilerindendir.

 

Agnes Meilhac, Founder of Beautyterm - Beautélogie LLC

​Basak is a great translator with a lot of energy and verve. She has extensive resources and skills to take care of all types of projects. Always on time, she is an absolute pleasure to work with and her translations are carefully crafted and always in harmony with the spirt of the source material.

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