Well, not exactly…my Samba skills are what you’d expect from a midwesterner who lived in Brazil for a year, passable at best. In between e-mails, setting up some awesome sales, working with our localization team, and discussing current projects with my favorite co-workers ever, I’ve been slowly doing some localization work.
Without giving an exact date, as this would violate my “no aging policy”, several years ago I was an exchange student in Brazil. How long ago? Picture the other students wearing “No Fear!” shirts and listening to the Macarena on the radio.
When I left Minnesota, I knew how to say, “Hello,” “Goodbye” and “I’m thirsty.” in Portuguese. After a year in Gloria de Dourados, through the help of my brilliant host mom and several other friends, I had achieved a fairly high level of fluency while completing all my coursework, learning to dance, and eating some delicious rice and bean concoctions.
Translating Audiobook Builder into Portuguese has proven to be an interesting challenge, exposing me to Interface Builder (which I had never even opened prior to this project) as well as bringing to light the intricacies of Portuguese that I have yet to master. I finished the localization (to the best of my ability) last week. Keith is helping me with the formatting, as that is a whole other learning experience that I am not yet prepared to embark upon (Thanks, Keith!!).
The Portuguese version of Audiobook Builder will be released with the next update of Audiobook Builder 🙂