Categories: Mozilla L10n team

Get to know a L10n driver: Jeff Beatty

I’m from a demographically small state in the United States called Wyoming, but I’m based in Provo, Utah, USA. Like most Americans, I grew up only speaking English. Now I am fluent in Spanish, English and am conversational in Brazilian Portuguese. I’d like to eventually add Swedish and Mandarin Chinese to my list of languages.

Unlike most people on the L10n team, my mozilla experience doesn’t start as a contributor. I spent 3 -4 years as a freelance translator, translating everything from educational documents to corporate websites. I was even a court inpterpreter for a little while. I then became the unofficial L10n Manager at a library software company in the area, as well as a Scrum Master and Technical Writer. My true passion has always been for languages, translation, and L10n, so I sought out opportunities that would get me more involved in the community aspects of L10n and (tah dah!) joined the mozilla L10n team.

My official title is L10n Program Manager but I spend most of my time documenting the L10n process, improving communication between mozilla and the L10n teams (hence the creation of this blog), and providing outsider advice on how to improve the L10n process and tools we use. I hope to also serve as liaison between mozilla and the L10n industry at future L10n events to help highlight to the world the amazing work all of the mozilla L10n communities do.

You can follow me on twitter at @gueroJeff. I’m working on creating an industry-specific blog, so if you follow me on twitter, you’ll be able to follow that blog too once it’s ready.

5 things you may not know about me:

* My university degree is in Spanish Translation & Linguistic Computing from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, USA.
* I love Indian food. Seriously. If that was the only food I could eat for the rest of my life, I would die a happy man.
* When I was about 9 years old, I was adopted into a tribe of the Native American Sioux nation. My Sioux name is White Crow Boy.
* I have an inexplicable fascination with learning about countries in colder climates (like Iceland, Sweden, and Greenland). I say inexplicable because I really hate the cold, especially snow.
* My favorite band of all time is The White Stripes but my wife hates them 🙁

2 comments on “Get to know a L10n driver: Jeff Beatty”

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  1. Ping from Empowerment and localization | Beyond the Code on

    […] Mozilla Localization blog has a fantastic post, authored by Jeff Beatty: Why we localize Firefox. Jeff has asked Mozillians why they contribute to Firefox localization. […]

    Reply

  2. Quinn the HSK Guy wrote on

    If you’re a translator, you should get into Mandarin Chinese. I’ve been doing Chinese-to-English translation for the past few years now. My business is growing and I can charge much more than most translators do.

    If you’ve got a natural talent for languages, I’d say Mandarin’s next for you (in terms of benefit).

    Reply

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