Notes from a Blue Chair: Giving Thanks for the Bilingual French-English App Now on its Way!

It’s been a brutal last few months for the Time Traveler Tours home team. (That would be me.) True, I managed to squeeze in quick trips to Athens and Amsterdam, both for work and a bit of pleasure. But other than that, I’ve been glued to my blue chair.

The reason: Final preparation of all the text and audio for the bilingual French-English version of...

Beware Mme la Guillotine!

A Revolutionary Tour of Paris

~~~

Gare a la guillotine !

Une visite revolutionaire de Paris.

So this Thanksgiving Day I am grateful that after more than two years of effort to translate Charlotte’s text -- and translate it well -- we are almost ready to make it available to you good people. Indeed, I am grateful to translators everywhere for translation is not an easy task! And for us, translating the text was only the beginning. We then had to interpret and record it in French.

• First vocal talent had to be auditioned and selected.
• Then studio time had to be booked.
• Then we had to record not once, as it turned out, but three times for Garage Band kept mysteriously gobbling up bits and pieces of recorded data – go figure!
• Finally, the recorded material had to be edited, then mastered.
• And after that, all 24 chapter files had also to be equalized in relation to their English counterparts.

We’re talking hours and weeks and months of continuous effort as I watched from the relative comfort of my blue chair, Beyerdynamic headphones now fused to my temples, the leaves on the trees of my Paris landscape turn from green to yellow to amber and then fall from their summer branches.

But I’m not complaining, because throughout my labors, lovely anonymous things were going on for the Time Traveler Tours. Sweet exotic treasures that brought more than a smile to this haggard face upon being found.

The first was this fabulous mention in a recent blog post by artist and children's author, Emily Smith Pearce. Thank you again Emily!

The second was this super review from a site called Quickly Download. They give Beware Mme la Guillotine a 20 out of 21. Their only complaint: the opening price of $7.99, which I’d already dropped to $5.99 before finding their write up.

Finally, who knew that CNET posted a review of Beware Mme la Guillotine and a good one too! And they invite you to do the same. So go ahead, make my Thanksgiving Day! Click here and positively post away. Please!

On this Thanksgiving Day may you, too, realize your dreams!

Blessings from the blue chair,

XO Sarah